Microsoft flogs off family silver

THE SOFTWARE giant which earns millions of dollars a second is having a garage sale of some of its spare technology.

Spinsters from the Lair of the Vole say the outfit is offering entrepreneurs and venture capitalists licences for the rights to some of its inventions, such as tamperproof ID cards and sound enhancement toys.

The list includes Conference XP, which uses high-performance audio, video and network technologies for distance conferencing. There is also some face-detection and tracking software and natural language-processing technology up for grabs. No news on Microsoft Bob.

David Harnett, senior director of Microsoft's Intellectual Property Ventures told Associated Press that if Vole can attract the right partners, it could create new companies and new jobs (we assume he didn't mean another Steve Jobs).

It is a bit of a change of tack for Vole, which rarely allows something it has developed to leave its paws, just in case.

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