London - A new war of the books broke out yesterday as the US software giant Micro soft joined in a take-over bid for the world's burgeoning speakers and writers of English.
It is behind a new £5 million sterling ($8 million) "global English" Encarta dictionary, which has amassed international orders of 400,000. The dictionary was developed in seven years after the British publisher, Mr Nigel Newton, chief executive of Bloomsbury, and the book's editor, Ms Kathy Rooney, put the idea to Microsoft. Its version of the English language - attacked by critics yesterday as being heavily Americanised - is likely to be incorporated in word processing spell-checkers, a market in which Microsoft is also strong. If these combined new moves succeed, they would give the corporation a powerful chance to influence the language.