The companies, which will unveil the venture today, didn´t provide details, except to say Xerox chief executive Rick Thoman and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will hold a news conference at 9:30 a.m. PT at Xerox´s research center in Palo Alto, Calif.

Analysts speculated that Xerox will join with the giant software company to offer software that protects intellectual content downloaded from the Internet.

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