I guess Ricardo Carvalho is getting sick of scalping tickets for a living at sporting events and concerts, he wants to make it rich in a big way now!

Doesn't he play for Chelski?

Aren't there more...professional ways of auctioning off your company's name? This seems to have a lot of PR stuntness to it.

http://www.microsoft.com/pt/pt/default.aspx

No "MSFT" monicker there.

Seems to me that's rather the point. Also, won't Microsoft just bring a suit against the subsequent owners, one of those you-must-prove-you-have-a-legitimate-use-rather-than-merely-domain-squatting ones?

These guys are grandfathered before MSFT came to portugal, sure. But anyone else who bought the name would not necessarily be afforded the same protection, especially since at this point MSFT would have a very good case that they name was bought simply to cash in on the Microsoft name. So basically no one but "Microsoft of Redmond" would be able to place any value on the name.

An interesting conundrum as Portugal joined the EU in 1986 and must conform to all the assorted Euro rules and regulations so the new owner of the name must also do like wise from date of name registration transfer !

Oh I can see the suckers lining up now to be milked or how soon we forget about "Lindows" too !

I used build vast numbers of custom built machines for people all over Ireland (up till Dell dropped its prices so much that my market evaporated). My parents live in Portugal- so I could potentially have a place of permanent fixed abode there if I needed it. So- I could potentially bring my PC building business back to life under the Microsoft moniker. To be honest- I'd probably stick Ubuntu on any machines I built- its cheaper than the ridiculous prices MS charge. If anyone asks- hell, its just like Apple Mac software- only it has more components being developed for it the whole time, unlike Mac OS which is locked.

Hmmmm- brain cogs going into overdrive.......