Microsoft plans to spin off Bungie Studios, developer of the successful Halo trilogy of video games for its Xbox 360 gaming console, into a separate company but retain a stake in it.

Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000 as part of its efforts to beef up its gaming efforts.

However, the Bungie folks may not have been comfortable within the Microsoft corporate culture, according to a Wall Street Journal (subscription required) report:

Bungie’s game creators bristled while under Microsoft’s control, say people familiar with the matter. Microsoft has pushed into the new areas such as digital music and videogames over the past 10 years but has had trouble adjusting its culture and compensation to the entertainment industry.

Microsoft Game Studios Corporate VP Shane Kim said Friday:

While we are supporting Bungie’s desire to return to its independent roots, we will continue to invest in our ‘Halo’ entertainment property with Bungie and other partners, such as Peter Jackson, on a new interactive series set in the ‘Halo’ universe.

Reports say Bungie will develop games for non-Microsoft gaming platforms as well although its primary focus will be on the Xbox 360.

Microsoft is tooting its horn that first week sales of its new Halo 3 video game has crossed $300 million making it the fastest selling game ever.

Released on September 25, Halo 3 is the final version of a popular trilogy developed exclusively for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console.

In the first 24 hours of its launch, Halo 3 sales in the U.S. reportedly reached $170 million.

Microsoft executives say over 20 million copies of the games in the Halo trilogy have been sold worldwide.

Xbox 360 sales are also supposedly seeing a surge since the release of Halo 3, with Microsoft claiming a doubling in the weekly average sales of the consoles.

Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeons - you know the kind who tinker around with nature’s creations to make them more bountiful and beautiful - are up in arms against their city ’s move to collect higher taxes from them.

Apparently, the Beverly Hills city authorities are coming down heavily on surgery centers after finding that the surgery centers are more like hospitals without overnight stays than like the old doctors offices. The doctors were paying taxes under a “Professional Office” system based on the number and type of employees in the office.

After being asked to fork out a percentage of gross revenues, the cosmetic and plastic surgeons are venting their spleen at the city.

Today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has an interesting piece on the fracas:

Beverly Hills is squabbling with doctors who practice within the city’s 5.7 square miles. After decades of collecting lower taxes from doctors than from other businesses, Beverly Hills is trying to take a bigger cut of the revenue generated from so-called surgery centers, many of which specialize in cosmetic surgery. The city contends the centers become a drain on resources relative to the taxes they pay.

Hard times indeed for these purveyors of gravity-defying orbs and mind blowing lips .

After several years of tormenting consumers and businesses alike with shoddy Internet Explorer, Office and Windows software rife with massive security holes, Microsoft is now peddling an Internet-based healthcare network.

On Thursday, Microsoft rolled out a web site called HealthVault to let individuals store and share personal health information online.

The company also rolled out a specialized health search engine called HealthVault Search on the HealthVault web site to provide online health content.

When Microsoft’s main search engine is floundering even after sucking in hundreds of millions of dollars in development costs, it’s hard to believe that this new health search engine will be worth anything.

Microsoft hopes that HealthVault will bring the health and technology industries together to develop new applications, services and connected devices. It has released a HealthVault software development kit for independent software vendors looking to build products and services on the HealthVault platform.

In an op-ed piece in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Microsoft’s top honcho Bill Gates writes:

We envision a comprehensive, Internet-based system that enables health-care providers to automatically deliver personal health data to each patient in a form they can understand and use. We also believe that people should have control over who they share this information with. This will help ensure that their privacy is protected and their care providers have everything they need to make fully-informed diagnoses and treatment decisions.

Wow, what noble ideals!

But given Microsoft’s past track record of repeatedly delivering software with huge security holes in them, only the most gullible would entrust their precious health care information to this software company.