Stuart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) predicts that Microsoft will succumb to the Linux popularity soon and even come out with a Linux flavoured Microsoft Office version. Well, don’t put you money on it….

Even though Microsoft does have some mighty big Linux brains in their company, coming out with a Linux powered software may seem a bit too trifling for them at the moment. Lets just hope Vista does not make them bankrupt.

Gizmodo UK guys are giving us some thoughts on the new Microsoft Zune. Is it worth to put your cents and time into this MP3 player as it could be just a ripoff from a Toshiba Gigabeat player. Hm,,,you would think that Microsoft could at least afford some designers with their fat wallets.

Is the Zune just the Toshiba player with some re-arranged buttons? An insider at Microsoft gives us some food for thought. Stay with us on this. First, Microsoft spun off a good portion of the Xbox 360 team to work on the Zune, including J Allard. They formed a new team called “Pyxis”, which is working on the Zune. Since they only had about a year, from the launch of the Xbox 360 to this upcoming Thanksgiving, they were on a very tight, very aggressive schedule. No real time to design a completely new product from scratch.

Some short Microsoft Links today :

1. Women at Microsoft, by the numbers - While reporting today’s story on Microsoft’s DigiGirlz, an annual camp designed to interest high-school girls in technology careers, I spent some time looking into some of the statistics on women employees at the company.

2. Microsoft’s Live Vision camera for Xbox to debut next month - Microsoft is launching its Live Vision camera for the Xbox 360 some time in September, the company announced at the Seattle Gamefest.

3. Motion-sensitive controller for the Xbox 360 - FiringSquad has an interesting report from a Microsoft GameFest panel on controllers and accessories for the Xbox 360.

Sit and pay attention. Microsoft wants to make a blogger’s life easier with their new Windows Live Writer. Its supposed to work with blogging software like Wordpress and makes uploading images easier. Well, another good feature is that it can add Windows Live Local maps so that authors can easily add geographical data to their entries. I have not downloaded it yet but from the screenshot, it can save drafts as that’s one function I’m waiting for,…..I just hope it does not store my username and password and passes it on to Bill Gates…

Windows Live Writer works with Microsoft’s Windows Live Spaces, which launched earlier this month, and third-party blogging software such as Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad and WordPress.

Windows Live Writer for Bloggers site