High Zune: MS loads up for the CES shootout

Radio Reg What better venue than Las Vegas, America's playground, for the annual multi-billion dollar gadgets and entertainment jamboree that is the Consumer Electronics Show?

Among this year's players Microsoft, entering the arena surrounded by a cloud of rumor over the potential for an iPhone-killing, Zune-based, Redmond mobile phone running Windows.

Yeah, that’s the way to fight Apple: marry Microsoft’s confused mobile Windows strategy with the embarrassment that is the Zune.

Join All about Microsoft blogger Mary-Jo Foley and The Register's software editor Gavin Clarke on MicroBite, as we find out what you can really expect from Microsoft. Hint: it won’t be small, fit in your hand, and you won’t be able to make any phone calls with it.

Also getting stripped down to its undies this episode: Microsoft’s open-source strategy. How can Microsoft reconcile its need to love open-source with its hostility to Linux?

You’ll be surprised. Microsoft’s HealthVault online patients record store might use Windows, but it's the first business service using Azure Services Platform and it's actually reaching out to open-source developers.

Senior director of platform strategy Robert Duffner explains how Microsoft hopes to engage with open-source developers using online services such Azure.

And with 2009 here, what can you expect from Internet Explorer 8? Finished product or more beta? Ordinary internet users can certainly expect more problems, as Microsoft tries to straddle IE's non-standards-compatible past with a standards-compatible future at the flip of a button.

Listen either using our player below, or download in Ogg Vorbis or MP3 format.

MicroBite 4

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