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One step closer to open source this week is none other than Microsoft Corporation. Yesterday, Microsoft and Linux platform provider Xandros Inc. have announced a broad collaboration agreement.

The agreement calls for technical, business, marketing and intellectual property commitments. Joint solutions promise to “extend a bridge between open source and commercial software…”

Xandros officials called the agreement “a major milestone” in its vision to deliver end-to-end Linux desktop and server solutions; Windows and Linux cross-platform management; and interoperability tools.

Primary efforts between Microsoft and Xandros promise to focus on systems management interoperability; server interoperability, with Xandros enhancing Xandros Server, seeking to allow smoother interoperation with Windows Server in a network setting; office document compatibility, to foster interoperability between Open XML and Open Document Format documents; intellectual property assurance; and Microsoft sales and marketing support.

Microsoft has, as of late, made a number of agreements with Linux platform and open source software providers., including Novell Inc., JBoss, XenSource Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Zend Technologies Inc.

As though the Portland Trail Blazers hadn’t struck enough gold last month by winning the top pick in the National Basketball Association draft lottery in securing a franchise player in either Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, they’ve also possed up with the baddest ever, Microsoft, to provide CRM for the legions of new fans this championship-competing team will draw.

The Blazers will be deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 to more effectively serve an increasingly wide range of customers and probably Oden to more effectively prevent opponents from driving the lane. The Portland Trail Blazers’ IT team “expects the new system to play a critical role as the organization shifts to serving a more demographically diverse range of customers due to the recent repurchasing of the team’s home facility, the Portland Rose Garden,” and the front office will no doubt demand results from the roundball quartet in 2007-2008.

The franchise chose to replace its existing Onyx CRM system. Said Chris Dill, Blazers chief information officer, “With the valuable data that Microsoft CRM makes available to our sales teams, we can offer special promotions to fans based on their taste, from specific players to specific teams to specific musical artists and special events.”

Said Jerry West, Memphis Grizzlies GM, “There are two superstars in the draft. I think for the teams fortunate enough to get them, the fortunes of their franchises have changed forever.”

Microsoft partner Ascentium Corp., a technology and marketing consulting firm specializing in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, is working with the Trail Blazers to develop and implement the system.

As for the five on the floor, well, they probably won’t need too much help in implementing a winning team.

The folks at Customer Effective, a Microsoft Gold certified partner and provider of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, announced the company’s recently implementation of CRM at Formetco. Founded in 1968, Formetco is a full-service supplier for the outdoor advertising industry.

Working with a Formetco team, Customer Effective implemented CRM and interfaced the system with Microsoft Great Plains. Customer Effective assumed project management responsibility for the deployment, activity which involved schedule adherence, resource allocation, progress reviews and budget management.

EMS-Cortex, a New Zealand-based solutions provider for telecommunications and service providers, yesterday released Cortex 7.0 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.

Cortex is the flagship of the company and 7.0 promises “a number of” enhancements designed to work with Microsoft Exchange 2007, SharePoint services 3.0 and the provisioning pack for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.

Cortex 7.0 configures multiple CRM instances and servers to be managed and allows customers to be allocated to a CRM front-end server.

CRM solutions provider Business IT Professionals (a.k.a. Biz IT Pro) has announced its new partnership with PYA Wise Software Solutions, a provider of Microsoft-based management solutions. By partnering, the two firms will focus on developing customizable technology solutions to churches nationwide.

Now here’s a gauntlet thrown religiously: “The applications we have developed have the potential to revolutionize the way churches are organized,” said PYA co-managing director Bill Walker.

PYA Wise Software Solutions is a Florida-headquartered provider of Microsoft-based financial, customer relationship and supply-chain management solutions for small- and mid-market companies.

Representatives of Houston, Texas-based The Rand Group today announced the official launch of a Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management practice. Rand Group is solutions provider specializing in integration and deployment of Microsoft product.

In the practice, the Rand Group will be employing its expertise in Microsoft platform technologies including data warehousing, business intelligence and business process automation technologies.

The Rand Group recently achieved a Microsoft CRM 3.0 certification, which allows the group claim to the title of “premier Microsoft CRM 3.0 Partner in Houston and the entire Southeast Texas region.” Insert your own line about Texas here.

Go ahead, Google it.

You did, didn’t you?

No wonder one story dominated any remotely connected industry media today.

In the spirit of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” the breathtaking whispers say that Google is currently in discussions with Salesforce.com to design some sort of alliance against mutual foe, the biggest of them all, Microsoft.

The story appears to have been broken by the Wall Street Journal under the headline “Google, Salesforce.com Weigh Alliance to Battle Microsoft.” Reported in the piece was that some results from the discussions will be revealed “within the next few weeks.” (Tentative, ain’t it?)

The WSJ article went on to hint at what “could be a Web-based offering that integrates some of Google’s online services such as email and instant-messaging with those of Salesforce.com, whose customer-relationship management tools help salespeople track their accounts.”

Salesforce’s share prices rose by 5 percent, or $2.14, to $47.94 following the breaking of the story.

Citing “demand for a hands-on experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM,” Microsoft certified partner Altico Advisors has launched a monthly “test drive” series for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Held the second Friday of every month, Altico’s series offers potential users an opportunity to walk through the basic sales, marketing, and service components of Dynamics CRM.

At Altico’s offices in Marlborough, Massachusetts, prospective users are promised a chance to “get under the hood of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.” The test drive has each user provided with a fully loaded version of Dynamics CRM 3.0 on a laptop computer, guided by a seasoned instructor who will help participants navigate through the application.

Test drives are available from 9:30-11am.

The newswires and the public imagination is already full of this story, so here’s CRMchump’s take on the story brought to you by this blogger’s day job, a little news outlet we like to call Budapest Business Journal. Kudos and thanks to the online editor, the lovely Nora Szale.

The story: Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker is paying $6 billion to buy Seattle-based digital marketing firm aQuantive in its biggest-ever acquisition.

The all-cash takeover will allow Microsoft Corp. to expand into the highly lucrative internet advertising market that Google and Yahoo have targeted. AQuantive advises agencies and website publishers on putting adverts online, connecting buyers and sellers.

Google announced last month it would buy DoubleClick Inc., which competes with aQuantive in creating internet ads and measuring whether they reach their targeted audience.

Microsoft beat out other bidders for aQuantive, CFO Chris Liddell said on a conference call today. The $66.50 per share offer is 85 percent higher than Seattle-based aQuantive’s Thursday closing share price.

The big news for court watchers, Microsoft followers, and fans of open source this week appeared on newsstands on Friday and online on Monday.

Underline the appropriate headline “Microsoft takes on the free world,” Roger Parloff describes a scary “tinderbox” of a situation seemingly inevitable and destined to fatten Microsoft further.

What has captured the public imagination is the future legal barrage about to be unleashed by Microsoft: “The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason that free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft’s patents,” writes Parloff. “And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google, Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won’t be free anymore.”

For the numbers junkies, the “more than 200” Microsoft patents ostensibly violated in patent referred to above translates as exactly 235. That would be 65 illegal uses of Linux GUI, 45 of Open Office suite, 42 of the Linux kernel, 15 of email, and the final 68 classified under the ever-popular “other.”

Parloff writes a good tale, spinning a yarn featuring the corporate tag team of “dogged” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and “strawberry-blond Princeton graduate” Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith.

In the opposite corner is “computer visionary with the look and the intransigence of an Old Testament prophet” Richard Matthew Stallman (o boy, did a photo editor at CNN.com do an excellent job in selecting the accompanying picture) and open source’s master legal strategist Eben Moglen, “longtime counsel to the Free Software Foundation,” head of legal counselors the Software Freedom Law Center, Columbia Law School professor and general badass.

Indeed, it is Moglen who seems to come off best in Parloff’s piece; this dude would be one unflappable MF in the courtroom. Writes Parloff: “Moglen contends that software is a mathematical algorithm and, as such, not patentable” and “the fact that Microsoft might possess many relevant patents doesn’t impress him.” Further, “Patents can be invalidated in court on numerous grounds, [Moglen] observes.”

Meanwhile, Ballmer is quoted with the audaciousness and blessed assurance of a no. 1 holding enough power to threaten 235 lawsuits. Ballmer states that “We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property” and that FOSS patrons must “play by the same rules as the rest of the business” and finally "What’s fair is fair.” (Giggle.)

Check out “Microsoft takes on the free world” by Roger Parloff. It’s a good one.