Microsoft Corp.

News updates all day from Fast Company. Microsoft is holding an event in Los Angeles on Monday, June 18. Microsoft has made no mention of what the event will be about, but a few outlets have insider tips that a tablet of some kind — a Microsoft-manufactured iPad challenger or a Kindle Fire competitor (remember that deal Microsoft made with Barnes & Noble earlier this year?) — is on the way. It's not just the iPad and Kindle Fire that Microsoft will be joining, as there have also been rumors that an Android flavored Google tablet made by ASUS

Over the decades that I have been going to BEA and its predecessor, “The ABA Show,” a full regime of floor walking was at the base of the experience. This was followed by a full box or two of books that went out the expo door with the freight forwarder of the year. It became the ballast that found its way to my garage and shelves.

This year I came away with a USB stick in my pocket and 10 new titles on it in e-Book format. A few choice paperbacks in my carry-all.  No cartons of books—too much work. But I also noticed that something more important had changed aside from my take-aways:

In book publishing, there is no element of fundamental practice and best practice that is not simultaneously under siege by opportunistic practice.

Today, Skype has announced that it’s joining forces with Penguin Group, New York Philharmonic, Science Museum London, Peace One Day, and Save the Children with a view towards giving teachers educational content and access to expert speakers via video calling.

This collaboration represents Skype’s latest attempt to reach its goal of connecting one million classrooms globally. Skype in the classroom will now feature each organization’s content, projects and available guest-speakers, with Penguin Young Readers Group connecting authors with students for discussions about books, reading and writing

When we put on conferences, we sometimes book speakers because of who they are, or who their company is, but we also do our best to make sure the content of their presentation will be useful to our audience. So I had booked Matteo Berlucchi, the CEO of the British ebook startup Anobii, to speak at last January’s Digital Book World 2012 some months before the event for two reasons. For one, I had met Matteo at our Pub Launch London conference last June and he impressed me.

The Justice Department's antitrust suit over eBook price fixing is as deeply befuddling as it is important to the future of publishing.  Reuters A lengthy Wall Street Journal analysis of the Department of Justice price-fixing case against five publishers and Apple features a photo of Picholine, the swanky restaurant (Zagat calls it "one of the best restaurants in town") where, according to the government, the alleged conspiracy took shape. The lawsuit asserts that "meetings took place in private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants and were used to discuss confidential business and competitive matters, including Amazon's e-book retailing practices.

Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced the formation of a strategic partnership in a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary, which will build upon the history of strong innovation in digital reading technologies from both companies. The partnership will accelerate the transition to e-reading, which is revolutionizing the way people consume, create, share and enjoy digital content.

This post contains a batch of observations from this year’s London Book Fair. Some of it recalled an experience from about 20 years ago. We’ll begin there.

In the early 1990s, Microsoft was on a mission to get computer hardware manufacturers to install CD-Rom drives in new machines. Microsoft had a very simple motivation. Software then was sold as hard goods. One CD-Rom could hold the data that required many, many diskettes. So if the storage and transfer medium were changed, the cost of goods for Microsoft would drop sharply.

For a while there were two accepted methods of producing, conferting and delivering content across multiple devices—"XML First" and "Print First."

However, over the past year, a number of cross-platform publishing success stories have emerged that indicate a third practical approach. It is, in some ways, a cross between the first two. This third approach, which might be named "Manuscript First," involves the creation of a manuscript that conforms to specific conventions or standards as defined by the publisher. This is most often implemented in Microsoft Word by the use of standard Word style names to create a "well-formed" manuscript.

Apple has built its iBooks platform on the back of an open standard. With last week’s introduction of iBooks 2.0 and the free iBooks Author software for Mac OS X, Apple is deliberately locking out that popular open standard.

Apple’s behavior is a modern, sophisticated version of the “embrace, extend, and extinguish” behavior that got Microsoft in so much trouble in the 1990s: Enter a product category supporting a widely used standard, extend that standard with proprietary capabilities, and then use those differences to disadvantage competitors.

Steve Wozniak may have co-founded Apple along with Steve Jobs, but the serial tech entrepreneur apparently isn’t letting that cloud his judgment when it comes to evaluating new smartphone technologies.

In a candid interview sure to ruffle Apple fanboys, "Woz"said Google’s Android OS in many ways outperforms the iPhone's iOS operating system.