A Chinese court has ordered the software giant to stop producing and selling versions of its Windows OS that include Chinese fonts developed by a local software company. Microsoft’s (MSFT) use of two Chinese fonts developed by Zhongyi Electronic, a Beijing-based software company, was not covered by the licensing agreement between the two, the court found, and therefore infringed on Zhongyi’s rights. And so Microsoft must pull from the shelves Chinese language editions of Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

“By winning this case against an internationally well-known company like Microsoft, it shows that China, although still a developing country, is taking positive steps to protect intellectual property rights,” an attorney for Zhongyi Electronic told Reuters.

Microsoft, for its part, insists its agreement with Zhongyi covered its use of the fonts at issue and plans to appeal the decision. “Microsoft respects intellectual property rights,” the company said in a statement. “We use third party IPs only when we have a legitimate right to do so.”

And if Microsoft should fail in its appeal? Well, piracy is so rampant in China, a court order preventing the company from selling certain versions of Windows isn’t exactly going to hamstring Microsoft’s business. “The majority of operating systems in the market today are illegal copies, and the ones that are Zhongyi-related have an even smaller share of the market,” Analysys International analyst Edward Yu explains. “So I don’t think it will have much impact on Microsoft’s business.”

“If (the Eee PC from) Asus starts to do well, we are all in trouble. That’s just a race to the bottom.”

– Mike Abary, senior vice president of Sony’s IT product division, February, 2008

If the netbook market is a race to the bottom, then Sony is bringing up the rear. Not a year after Sony execs disparaged netbooks as undeserving of its premium brand attention, the company announced its token entry into the market: the Vaio W.

Outfitted with a 10-inch screen, an Intel (INTC) Atom processor, 1GB of memory, a 160GB hard disk drive and Windows XP, the machine prices out at $630 in Japan, $499 in the U.S. That’s quite a bit more expensive than rival netbooks. Which is odd since the market for these machines is fairly price-sensitive. Still, Sony (SNE) feels the W is good value for the money, given its design, cheery color palette (white, brown, pink!) and screen resolution–at 1366 by 768 pixels, the W’s display is clearly better than that of its rivals.

Said Vaio chief Nicolas Barendson, “We believe that this screen resolution and design offers our customers a better experience, and that it will be popular with both newcomers to the netbook market looking for a quality portable PC at a netbook price point, and customers wanting to improve their existing netbook experience to date by upgrading their screens.”

Sony’s announcement leaves Apple (AAPL) as the lone major computer manufacturer without a netbook offering, a designation it’s likely to keep for the foreseeable future, according to company execs. “When I look at netbooks, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens,” COO Tim Cook said back in April, noting that it’s “a stretch” to call a netbook a personal computer. “It’s just not a good consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on…it’s not a space as it exists today that we are interested in, nor do we believe that customers in the long term would be interested in. It’s a segment we would choose not to play in.”

Said Microsoft: “Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate customers will have the option to downgrade to Windows XP Professional from PCs that ship within 18 months following the general availability of Windows 7 or until the release of a Windows 7 service pack, whichever is sooner, and if a service pack is developed.”

This means OEMs could still be selling XP-equipped PCs as late as April 2011. Which is astonishing when you recall that the company originally planned to cut off sales of XP on Jan. 30, 2008, one year after Windows Vista debuted. But the poor reception given Vista and the unwavering loyalty of XP users caused the company to extend that deadline to June 30, 2008. A few months later, Microsoft (MSFT) pushed the deadline out further, to Jan. 31, 2009. Then, amid reports that more than a third of all new Vista PCs were being downgraded to XP, Redmond extended the XP deadline to May 30, 2009. The company subsequently pushed that extension out to April 22, 2010.

And now we’re into mid-2011.

Now that the marketplace has abandoned Vista, is Microsoft making preparations to abandon it as well? Earlier today, a Microsoft executive suggested that might be the case, hinting that the company could be planning to ditch Vista soon after Windows 7 ships. “We are still not sure if [computer makers] will be able to ship Vista once Windows 7 is made available,” Richard Francis, general manager and Windows Client Business Group lead at Microsoft Asia-Pacific, told IDG, adding that support for all versions of Vista will end in April of 2012.

An interesting disclosure given that Microsoft (MSFT) hasn’t yet detailed official plans for Vista, post-Windows 7. With the poor reception the OS has received in the market and Microsoft’s efforts to redeem itself with Windows 7, it certainly wouldn’t be surprising if the company wanted to remove Vista from the shelves as soon as Windows 7 arrives. Then again, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if Microsoft left the Vista packages there for a while–tucked away behind some copies of Windows XP, of course.

UPDATE: Responding to my request for comment, Microsoft said that there is no hard and fast date end-of-sale date for Vista. The company noted, however, that OEMs will have the option to pre-install and retailers will be able to sell whatever versions of Windows they choose until that date is reached. Microsoft’s statement in full, below:

We have not made any final end of sale decisions for Windows Vista.

Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy provides a minimum of 10 years of support for Business and Developer products. Mainstream support for these business and enterprise versions of Windows Vista will be provided for five years, or for two years after the successor product is released, whichever is longer. Currently, Mainstream Support for these products is scheduled to end on April 10, 2012.

For Consumer products, including consumer versions of Windows Vista Ultimate, Home Basic and Home Premium, Microsoft will offer Mainstream Support for either a minimum of five years from the date of a product’s general availability, or for two years after the successor product is released, whichever is longer. Extended Support is not available for Consumer, Hardware, and Multimedia products. Most of these products will also receive at least eight years of online self-help support.

During Mainstream Support, customers have access to no charge and paid support, security updates and non-security hotfixes. Extended Support for business and developer products will be available until April 11, 2017. During Extended Support at a supported service pack level, customers can access paid support, security updates and online self-help. Non-security hotfixes are available to customers who enroll in the Extended Hotfix Support program within 90 days of the product entering Extended Support.

XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter, but right now we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments.”

–Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, April 24, 2008

Looks like Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer woke up smarter again.

Microsoft had planned to cut off sales of its Windows XP operating system through the retail and original equipment manufacturer channels on Jan. 30, 2008–one year after the Windows Vista debut. But the poor reception given Vista and the unwavering loyalty of XP users caused the company to extend that deadline to June 30, 2008. A few months later, Microsoft extended the deadline further, to Jan. 31, 2009. And now, amid reports that more than a third of all new Vista PCs are being downgraded to XP, it extended the XP deadline again.

Microsoft (MSFT) will now stop distributing Windows XP to PC makers on May 30, 2009. ChannelWeb reports that while distributors must place their final orders for XP OEM licenses by Jan. 31, 2009, they can take delivery against those orders through May 30. And the company will continue to support the OS with security and other critical updates until April 2014 (that’s 13 years after XP was first released).

Which means it’s now not only possible to hang on to Windows XP long enough to upgrade directly to Windows 7 in 2010, but entirely realistic.

“[Microsoft is] the biggest hacker in China with its intrusion into users’ computer systems without their agreement or any judicial authority,” said attorney Dong Zhengwei, who filed a complaint against the company with the Ministry of Public Security. “Microsoft’s measure will cause serious functional damage to users’ computers and, according to China’s Criminal Law, the company can stand accused of breaching and hacking into computer systems of Chinese. I respect the right of Microsoft to protect its intellectual property, but it is taking on the wrong target with wrong measures.”

So what are the “right” measures, then? Offering Microsoft (MSFT) software for free in China? Sounds like it. According to a survey of 574,923 PC users on Chinese portal QQ.com, 73.33 percent of respondents said they were using pirated versions of Windows XP, and 51.58 percent said they intend to continue using pirated versions. Just 15.55 percent said they plan to buy a licensed copy of the software.

An interesting data point to consider in light of Microsoft (MSFT) chairman Bill Gates’s claim earlier this year that sales of Windows Vista had reached 140 million copies worldwide. If Devil Mountain’s figures are accurate, Vista’s installed base is likely quite a bit less than that. That revelation is a humbling blow for Microsoft, which has been doing its damnedest to convince consumers that Vista is an OS worth running.

Perhaps this is all part of that new Vista ad campaign, the “Mojave Experiment” …

[Image credit: PowerApple.com]

So why is it we need one of these things again?

No one seems to be sure, really — not even the PC vendors making them.

“At this point, you can expect all the major players to get into this market,” IDC analyst Richard Shim told eWeek. “The question is what is there level of commitment and what is their target audience and how much do they expect it to grow. A lot of the companies I talk to say, ‘We’re doing this as a defensive measure and we’re concerned about the success of some of the more aggressive players that have entered this market.’”