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Find out what happened in the world of software in November 2008. The SoftwareMedia Tribune gives you all the latest software news, releases, innovations, tips, tricks and more. Sign up to keep up with the latest Software News and get exclusive discounts for SoftwareMedia.com in you inbox once a month!

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Briefly…

• Microsoft registers the domain name “kumo.com”, which means “cloud” in Japanese.
  
• QuickBooks announces geographic visualization tool for customer data & business activity.
• Adobe launched a new technology for Photoshop called Pixel Bender.
  
• VMware bought French mobile virtualization company Trango.
• SymantecCEO John Thompson set to retire after 10 years.

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Microsoft recently announced plans to offer free anti-virus software as a download with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and upcoming Windows 7. In mid-2009 Microsoft will replace Windows Live OneCare with this new software, code-named “Morro”. Microsoft wants to “help provide that core level of protection” for the 60% of consumers in developed markets – and even more in emerging markets – who are without up-to-date security protection of their PCs. A smaller footprint version will also be available, making Morro ideal, even for those with low-bandwidth or less-powerful PCs.

Shares of Symantec and McAfee dropped with concerns that Morro will compete with their products. But Microsoft says it will not rival Symantec or McAfee, and it’s “really focused on the 50 to 60 percent of PC users who don’t have, or won’t pay for, anti-virus protection”. Morro will only include anti-malware software, whereas security suites from Symantec & McAfee include encryption, firewalls, password protection, parental controls and data backup programs. Morro is named after Brazil’s Morro de Sao Paolo beach. Brazil is just one of the emerging markets where users generally cannot afford to buy anti-virus suites.

Two new pieces of malware aimed at Mac OS X were discovered this month. The one that presents real danger, a Trojan, is a downloader that contacts a remote server to download the files it installs. It is found on porn websites and poses as a codec needed to play video files. The user is tricked into downloading and installing it. It installs a DNSChanger, which routes the user’s internet traffic and leads them to phishing websites or pages displaying advertisements. The second piece of malware is not being considered a real threat.

After spending a year observing cybercriminals on the Internet, Symantec researchers were able to dig up detailed information on the exchange of highly prized financial information. According to the report, there is a well organized and lucrative group of people buying and selling tools for cybercrime. The selling price? Well, $23 for a keystroke logger; $225 to have a botnet at your fingertips; and $740 to $3,000 for a tool that exploits vulnerabilities on banking websites. Over the year’s time, if the sellers could sell everything they were offering, it would amount to over $275 million. Factoring in the worth of victims’ credit card information and bank credentials, the sales would reach $7 billion. Also in the study, pirated software was most likely to be found in desktop games, followed by utility applications and multimedia software.

Microsoft has ruled out any chance of another takeover bid for Yahoo. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, speaking at a shareholders meeting, said “We thought we had something that made sense. Didn’t make sense to them. We’ve moved on.” While discussions of acquisitions are clearly finished, Ballmer did say they would be open to a partnership on internet search. “There is no active discussion on that front, but we’d be very open to it.” Google accounts for over 70% of all US searches; Yahoo for 18%; MSN for 5%.