Ford is done with a deal with Garmin to offer their new nuvi 680 device with entrenched MSN Direct content in Ford, Lincoln and Mercury dealerships in the country.

The Ford-branded nuvi further features a superb custom splash screen and database of Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealerships and Quick Lane service centers around US. The units would be sold in a particular Ford Official Licensed Product branded retail box. The moveable unit easily mounts to any vehicle, and could be used for pedestrian navigation as well.

The MSN Vietnam information gate is predicted to be launched in the beginning of the second quarter this year.

The e-information gate MSN Vietnam is actually a joint venture of VIP Wireless, VDC and Microsoft. The two Vietnamese partners had signed a contract with Microsoft in November last year.

MSN Vietnam, which would be in Vietnamese, would further enable users to use e-mail, Messenger and few other MSN services. It would also include a computer-cell phone messaging system, online charity programmer, and other relatives seeking support and security and code-protection services.

The MSN Vietnam information gate is predicted to be launched in the beginning of the second quarter this year.

The e-information gate MSN Vietnam is actually a joint venture of VIP Wireless, VDC and Microsoft. The two Vietnamese partners had signed a contract with Microsoft in November last year.

MSN Vietnam, which would be in Vietnamese, would further enable users to use e-mail, Messenger and few other MSN services. It would also include a computer-cell phone messaging system, online charity programmer, and other relatives seeking support and security and code-protection services.

Ford is done with a deal with Garmin to offer their new nuvi 680 device with entrenched MSN Direct content in Ford, Lincoln and Mercury dealerships in the country.

The Ford-branded nuvi further features a superb custom splash screen and database of Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealerships and Quick Lane service centers around US. The units would be sold in a particular Ford Official Licensed Product branded retail box. The moveable unit easily mounts to any vehicle, and could be used for pedestrian navigation as well.

Ctrip.com has recently signed a deal to become strategic partner with Microsoft’s MSN China Web site, offering the Chinese travel agent to tap over 20 million MSN Messenger users in country China.

Ctrip will assist MSN China to build its online travel channel where MSN users and visitors could book hotels, plane tickets and even holidays through Internet-based services, according to reports.

Software publishers R-Comp have recently rolled out an updates for number of their Internet-related packages by this month – including chat client Grapevine that reportedly locked punters out of chatter to friends electronically on MSN and ICQ, prior to last week’s update. This new version of GV, namely 2.12, is predicted to address problems with two instant messaging networks.

R-Comp told its users: “Due to a variety of changes to the MSN and ICQ protocols, we have come across a few difficulties with logins, so we have updated Grapevine accordingly to solve things. We have also tracked an assembly timeout problem with MSN.”

The Oakland Press is now launching a partnership with Yahoo! HotJobs – the online help-wanted site, it offers local employer’s an exposure to a national audience of job seekers.

The Oakland Press is providing the advertising service by its way of parent, the Journal Register Co. The Yardley, Pa.-based newspaper group has also joined with Belo Corp., MediaNews Group, Cox Newspapers Inc., Hearst Newspapers, Lee Enterprises Inc. and E.W. Scripps Co. to sort the online network.

Twenty-two JRC daily newspapers would take part in the network. More than 150 daily newspapers would be a part of the consortium.

Yahoo now pulls a discussion features from its news site in coming weeks. Before, readers were permitted to post comments on individual news stories. The message boards were actually suspended, according to a note from Yahoo’s general manager for news, Neil Budde, as they permitted “a small number of vocal users to rule the discussion.”

Commenter on Yahoo message boards are not really mild mannered bunch – they could range between thoughtful and eloquent to downright loony. Comments on any random Yahoo news story may even have included bizarre rants about the war in Iraq or may be in odd observations about Jon Stewart’s hair.

Yahoo says it is taking comments on news stories offline until it is completely rolls out discussion forums based on news topics that it hopes, would “foster a better discussion for all of our readers.”

Google is on the way to release the latest version of the Company’s enterprise search system by next week. It is planned for small and medium-size businesses. The Google Mini 2.2 would enable companies to perform searches on intranets with internal business applications, said Kevin Gough, enterprise product manager for Google.

The software that goes on sale immediately is well-matched with leading security standards and allows administrators to wall off responsive information from searches, such as financial records or legal documents.

Google launched an enterprise search business four years ago, and the Mini upgrade represents a step forward, said Gough.

The Coming challenge for Microsoft is to address the treat posed by advertising supported commercial business models such as Google’s, Steve Ballmer, chief executive, signaled last week as the software group launch Vista, its new operating system.

Mr. Ballmer stated to have focus on treat posed by open source software over the last few years, the company had been turned its concentration to advertising-funded business models, during an interview with Financial Times. Further the chief raised the prospect that Microsoft may also take a various approach to that of rival Google.