“In an expansion of their alliance, Microsoft and Toshiba said Monday they plan to develop high-definition DVD players together, cross-license technologies and cooperate in designing new models of mobile personal computers,” Yuri Kageyama reports for The Associated Press.

“The deal, announced by Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates and Toshiba Corp. president Atsutoshi Nishida, is a big win for the HD-DVD format in its competition against another technology called Blu-ray Disc, which is backed by Sony Corp. and Apple Computers [sic] Inc., to become the world standard for next-generation of DVD players,” Kageyama reports. “Blu-ray has more capacity, with 50 gigabytes, compared to 30 gigabytes for HD-DVD disks. But proponents of HD-DVD say their format is cheaper to make because the production method is similar to current DVDs.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple and Sony are on the side of the better technology while Microsoft goes with the cheap, second-rate “solution.” How typical is that?