Microsoft dumps Comcast shares

In what could be viewed as more cost cutting (or maybe just a throwing in of the towel), Microsoft has divested itself of more -- if not all of its shares of Comcast.

Microsoft acknowledged the Comcast stock sale in a January 16 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. According to the report, Microsoft (as of some unspecified date) no longer own(s) more than 5 percent of Comcast's stock. At the end of 2007, Microsoft owned 7.26 percent of Comcast's Class A common shares.

A report in the Philadelphia Business Journal notes there's been no love lost between Comcast and Microsoft in the interactive TV space. Microsoft invested $1 billion in Comcast back in 1997.

Update: Microsoft's official statement on the move, from a corporate spokesman:

"This (sale of Comcast) was a routine part of Microsoft's portfolio management and was unrelated to the cost-cutting moves since reported."