San Francisco  - Microsoft has long been accused of copying the computer innovations of its smaller competitor Apple. Now it is also copying parts of Apple's retail model.

The software giant plans to start its own chain of retail stores highlighting its products, following the success of Apple's 251 stores in engaging customers and boosting Apple's profile.

The Microsoft announcement on Friday did not include details of the retail rollout but it will not be the company's first attempt to open up a retail shop. The company opened a Microsoft store in Sony's Metreon centre in San Francisco in 1999, in which it showcased technology from Microsoft and its partners, but the store closed in 2002.

With the aim to find who is behind the Downadup/Conficker virus, Microsoft has announced a reward of $250,000 (£172,000) to who so ever will come up with the answer.

The Conficker worm that started circulating in October 2008 has been successful in infecting millions of computers worldwide.

The reward is being offered by the software giant, since it sees the Conficker worm as a criminal attack.

On Sunday a well known paper put forward the latest piece of news that Microsoft Corp is mulling to provide new programs and services for mobile phones, including an "online bazaar" for software.

The report published in the paper said that the online bazaar would be for phones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system.

It said, "Microsoft will also soon offer its latest version of Windows Mobile, which the report said would have a more sophisticated interface."

Microsoft made first public beta of MED-V available for download by anyone interested in trying it on January 15.

The basic aim behind the premier release of MED-V is to allow Windows XP and Windows 2000 apps to run on Vista machines and this is done by the product by running the older Windows versions virtually (using Virtual PC) on a Vista machine.

San Francisco  - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Wednesday ruled out a new takeover bid for troubled web portal Yahoo, but stressed that the software giant was still interested in partnering with Yahoo on search-related products.

London, August 5: Microsoft has started a new research project, Midori, to develop a software program that will help uncouple Windows from a single PC.

The company has revealed that a decision to develop Midori was taken because Windows is unlikely to be able to cope with the pace of change in future technology, and the way people use it.

"If you think about how an operating system is loaded, it's loaded onto a hard disk physically located on that machine. The operating system is tied very tightly to that hardware," the BBC quoted Dave Austin, European director of products at Citrix, as saying.