WinInfo Short Takes: Week of December 19

Heres todays weekly look at Paul Thurrotts view of the world as he knows it. I left out the Microsoft finally patches IE snippet due to some problems that have since arisen from those patches released last tuesday (see a couple of posts down about Microsoft Patch Jams up IE7 on XP. For the rest of his weekly take follow the link below, here are 2 to start you off.

Creative Takes Patent Battle to Apple

As one might expect, electronics giant Creative isn't going to let its recently acquired MP3 player patent go to waste. No, Creative is going to do what any respectful second-tier company would do in the face of an adversary that they can't beat in the open market. They're going to sue. In this case, the intended victim is Apple Computer, which took Creative's MP3 UI and ran with it in the hyper-successful iPod. Now, Creative wants payback, literally, and it intends to ask Apple for royalties on each iPod Apple has sold. If (or, ahem, when) Apple refuses, Creative will sue. "Hopefully this will be friendly, but people have to respect intellectual property," Creative CEO Sim Wong Ho said this week. Heads up, Sim. It won't be friendly.

Firefox Continues to Gain on IE

Thanks to the November launch of Firefox 1.5, the first major version of Mozilla's Web browser since the 2004 release of the initial version, market share for Mozilla jumped to 8.84 last month, according to Net Applications. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer (IE) usage dropped by half a point to 86.08. At this rate, Firefox usage will outpace IE by 2077. Or something.