GOOGLE VS MICROSOFT

A renewed wish for open document standards

2008-02-25T22:17:00.000-08:00

The subject of open document standards grows in importance not only for the technically- minded, but for anyone who uses a computer to work on editable documents. Across the board, standards are crucial. They ensure that the devices and technology you use today will continue to work tomorrow, that your DVDs will play in your player, that your calls will go through to any network, and that your documents will be accessible from whichever system you choose today and in the future.Google supports open document standards and the Open Document Format - ODF, the recognized international standard (ISO 26300). ODF is supported and implemented across the globe, and its communal creation and iteration has helped ensure the transparency, consistency and interoperability necessary in a workable standard.Currently, the technology industry is evaluating a proposed ISO standard for document formats. Given the importance of a workable standard, Microsoft's submission of Office Open XML (OOXML ) as an additional international standard has caught the attention of many. In September 2007, the original request to ISO was defeated. After further technical analysis of the specification along with all the additional data available on OOXML, Google believes OOXML would be an insufficient and unnecessary standard, designed purely around the needs of Microsoft Office.We join the ODF Alliance and many other experts in our belief that OOXML doesn't meet the criteria required for a globally-accepted standard. (An overview of our findings and sample technical issues unresolved are posted here.)As ISO Member bodies around the world work on possible revisions of their vote previously submitted, the deadline of March 30th approaches fast. I invite you to pay close attention, and heed the call of many for unification of OOXML into ODF. A document standards decision may not matter to you today, but as someone who relies on constant access to editable documents, spreadsheets and presentations, it may matter immensely in the near future

Microsoft readies Yahoo proxy battle

2008-02-19T21:25:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Corp. is getting ready to take its bid for Yahoo right to the Web portal's shareholders, even as analysts wait for a higher offer.

Separately, Yahoo Inc. adopted new severance packages that protect employees in the event of a Microsoft takeover.

Microsoft has hired proxy solicitation group Innisfree M&A Inc. to help oust Yahoo's 10-member board, all of whom are up for re-election this year.

A source close to the deal who is not authorized to speak publicly about it said Tuesday that Microsoft could spend $20 million to $30 million on that effort.
That's much less than the $1.4 billion each $1 uptick in Microsoft's bid would cost. Microsoft's offer two weeks ago was originally worth about $44.6 billion, or $31 a share. Based on Microsoft's closing share price Tuesday, the offer is now worth about $40 billion.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker's board plans to authorize a proxy battle this week, according to The New York Times DealBook blog. It has until March 14 to nominate a slate of directors for Yahoo. Microsoft and its advisers declined to comment.

Election results would be announced at Yahoo's annual meeting. Last year's was held in June.
Microsoft also may simultaneously circumvent Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo's management and ask shareholders to sell their stock to Microsoft directly.

So far, Microsoft has given no signs it will raise its bid, even though a person familiar with earlier talks between the two companies said Microsoft was willing to pay at least $40 per share for Yahoo a year ago. That person spoke on condition of anonymity because the offer was never made public.

In an interview with The Associated Press Monday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the software maker was not talking to Yahoo about raising its bid.

Analysts, however, still believe there's wiggle room.
"I don't think what they're saying now precludes" a higher offer, said Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Charles DiBona.
DiBona also said he thinks Microsoft would prefer not to go hostile but will if no progress has been made by the March deadline.

Yahoo reiterated Tuesday that its board is "carefully and thoroughly evaluating all of the company's strategic alternatives."
The Web portal and search company's new severance plans — to take effect if Microsoft succeeds in its takeover bid — cover Yahoo's top executives and all full-time employees. The plans are designed to keep workers on board even if the company changes hands. They also could make it harder for Microsoft to move Yahoo staff to Redmond and raise the overall cost of integrating the two companies.

In an e-mail to employees last Friday, Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang wrote that the severance plans "shouldn't be construed as any indication that a change in control might or might not take place."

The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday that workers who lose their jobs without "cause" or quit "for good reason," as Yahoo defines it, would continue to receive their salary and medical benefits for four to 24 months, plus reimbursement for "outplacement services" for two years.

A Yahoo spokeswoman would not say what might constitute good reason.
Departing employees' stock options would also vest faster than scheduled under the new plans.
Microsoft has said it will offer significant retention packages to Yahoo engineers and other key employees, including some executives. The software maker has not said how many jobs could be cut if the companies combined.

Yahoo's board spurned Microsoft's bid last week, saying it "substantially undervalues" Yahoo's assets.

Microsoft fired back that its offer was "full and fair," and that it would "pursue all necessary steps" to get the deal done.

Shares of Microsoft slipped 14 cents to close at $28.17, while Yahoo's stock fell 65 cents, or 2.2 percent, to close at $29.01.

Microsoft giving away developer software

2008-02-19T21:24:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Corp. is giving students free access to its most sophisticated tools for writing software and making media-rich Web sites, a move that intensifies its competition with Adobe Systems Inc. and could challenge open source software's popularity.

The Redmond-based software maker said late Monday it will let students download Visual Studio Professional Edition, a software development environment; Expression Studio, which includes graphic design and Web site and hybrid Web-desktop programming tools; and XNA Game Studio 2.0, a video game development program.
The company will also give away SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows Server Standard Edition.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the company's past efforts to arrange educational discounts for these programs limited the number of students who ultimately could use them. DreamSpark, as Microsoft is calling the free software offering, opens up access to many more students.
It's also good for Microsoft's business, Gates added.

"We give up some revenue, but we gain the fact that we'll get the feedback of these students, get more courses to incorporate our tools into the programs and get more startups where kids are familiar with Visual Studio, Expression Studio and SQL Server," Gates said in a phone interview.
The program, which Microsoft says will put its software and Web development tools in the hands of 1 billion students, gives momentum to an attack Microsoft launched on Adobe Systems Inc. last year with the release of Expression Studio and Silverlight, its answer to Adobe's market-leading Photoshop and Illustrator design programs and Flash, the technology behind much of the video and animation on Web pages.

"It's a brilliant strategic move on the part of Microsoft," said Chris Swenson, a software industry analyst with NPD Group. "This is one of the core audiences you have to hit if you really want to make a difference in the rich Internet application market going forward."
Handing out free copies of Expression Studio to students today increases the chance that the next big Web 2.0 craze will be designed with Microsoft's tools and accessed using the Silverlight plug-in, rather than with open source and Adobe technology.

DreamSpark could also win a generation of programmers away from open source software, which companies from small startups to Google Inc. use as an affordable, flexible alternative to software from the likes of Microsoft and database maker Oracle Inc.

Gates said students will want to try Microsoft's tools because they're more powerful than the open-source combination of Linux-based operating systems, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the PHP scripting language used to make complex Web sites.
But Gates said giving away Microsoft software isn't intended to turn students against open source software entirely. Rather, he hopes it will just add one more tool to their belt.
Giving away Visual Studio, meanwhile, will help ensure a steady stream of new desktop and desktop-Web hybrid applications Microsoft hopes will keep consumers hooked on Windows PCs, even as more programs migrate to the Web.

The programs are available now to more than 35 million college students in the U.S., Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K.
DreamSpark will open to high school students around the world starting in the fall and to college students in other countries in the next year.

Microsoft said it is working with individual schools, governments and student organizations in each country on systems that confirm students are currently enrolled.
___
On the Net:
Students can see if they're eligible to download the software at: http://channel8.msdn.com

Google Earth vs. Microsoft Sky…

2008-02-18T20:38:00.000-08:00

Microsoft To Announce WorldWide Telescope On February 27

A source close to Microsoft says the company will launch new desktop software called WorldWide Telescope on February 27 at the TED Conference in Monterey, California. Our guess is that this is what Robert Scoble was talking about last week when he said he saw a new Microsoft project that brought him to tears.

The service will be accessed through a downloadable application - Windows only for now is what we hear. Users will be able to pan around the nighttime sky and zoom as far in to any one area as the data will allow. Microsoft is said to be tapping the Hubble telescope as well as ten or so earth bound telescopes around the world for data. When you find an area you like, you can switch to a number of different views, such as infrared and non-visible light.

Dan Farber posted his own educated guess that the project might be WorldWide Telescope, based on the fact that Curtis Wong and Jonathan Fay were involved, and he’s right. Last year Fay gave a presentation called “”The WorldWide Telescope, bringing the Universe to a PC near you.” In 1993, Wong started a project called “John Dobson’s Universe,” a virtual sky tour on a CD-ROM, narrated by John Dobson. The two began working together at Microsoft in 2005.

From what we hear, WorldWide Telescope will be significantly better than Google Sky, which launched last August as part of Google Earth, and the open source Stellarium (which is hugely better than Google Sky already). The key is the user interface, which is seamless as you move around the sky and zoom in and out. Much of the Photosynth technology is said to have been used for the project. And the sheer amount of data Microsoft is accessing, said to be measured in the terabits, gives that great user interface something to show off.

Time to dump Windows?

2008-02-18T20:24:00.000-08:00

InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition asking Microsoft to keep Windows XP available indefinitely, not end most sales on June 30 as currently planned, has prompted many readers to suggest that maybe the best answer for those who don't like Vista is to switch to another operating system completely

"Don't be afraid. Just switch to Linux and become a member of a really free society," wrote Carlos Raul Gutierrez.

[ Find out the deployment secrets of early Vista adopters ]

"Windows Vista was the reason I bought a Mac mini. I didn't want my only choices to be an operating system that would soon be obsolete (XP) or one that was buggy and would break much existing hardware (Vista), and I'm not enough of a geek to use Linux (do things from the command line? Puhleeze...)," wrote "Jack."

How realistic is a switch to Linux or Apple's Mac OS X? For some users -- often technically savvy people such as engineers, consultants, designers and CTOs -- it is clearly an option that already works quite well. In the past year, running Mac OS X or Linux as your default OS has been made easier by the capability to run Windows in a virtual machine, giving you access to both Windows-only applications and Web sites that rely on Microsoft's Internet Explorer-only ActiveX technology. But in a business environment, switching to a Mac or Linux PC may not be quite as easy.

The Mac OS X optionOf the plausible alternatives to Windows, Apple's Mac OS X has the largest market share and history. InfoWorld chief technologist Tom Yager has written that the latest version of the Mac OS, Leopard (10.5), is simply the best operating system available. And Macs are indeed popping up more frequently even within IT circles -- I've seen more MacBook Pros in the hands of CTOs and IT execs at conferences in the past year more than I've seen Mac notebooks in such venues ever. Although there are no real numbers on just the business adoption of Macs, it's clear that Apple is in growth mode, gaining an increasing proportion of all new computer sales for more than a year now.

InfoWorld's Yager has chronicled the adventures of one PC user who switched to the Mac OS, showing that for an individual, the conversion was ultimately a rewarding one. The TechWeb site has also provided a good guide on how to make the switch to Mac OS X.
A key tool for any Mac OS X switcher is a virtual machine to run Windows for those apps and Web sites that require it. Both Parallels Desktop 3.0 and EMC VMware's Fusion software will do the trick, as InfoWorld's comparative review has shown.

Although Macs are compatible with most typical hardware, such as monitors and drives, fitting a Mac into an enterprise's management systems and ERP applications can be a different story. Yager's Mac Enterprise blog and the Mac Enterprise user group both provide advice on managing Macs in a traditional IT environment.

The Linux optionThe more technically inclined may be attracted to Linux, the most popular form of desktop Unix. Linux desktops typically are challenged by limited hardware compatibility (due to lack of drivers), limited application options, and user interfaces that require active participation to get work done, which tends to keep Linux away from the general user population. But those who work with a Linux server all day may find that using it on the desktop as well actually makes their lives easier.

Just as Mac users need occasional access to Windows, so do Linux users. Because Linux distributions run on Windows-compatible hardware, it's straightforward to use desktop virtualization software, such as Parallels Workstation, Sun's (formerly Innotek's) VirtualBox, and EMC VMware's Workstation software, to provide access to both environments.
Although some enterprises have committed to wide Linux deployment -- such as automaker Peugeot Citro??n's plans to install 20,000 Novell Suse Linux desktops -- most have left Linux to the engineering and development staff.

InfoWorld Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall Kennedy argues that desktop Linux is doomed to remain a tiny niche OS, given the Linux community's lack of interest in providing a UI that regular people could use. Kennedy tried to spend a week working on nothing but the Ubuntu distribution of Linux but gave up on the fifth day.

But Kennedy's take isn't the last word on desktop Linux. Frequent InfoWorld contributor Neil McAllister put together a special report on how to move from Windows to Linux, concluding that the effort was not as hard as you might think.

Who's right? As with any platform choice, they both may be. A one-size-fits-all approach may be unrealistic. And that likely explains why many businesses will have a mix, dominated by Windows XP today (and perhaps Vista in a few years) but not exclusively tied to Microsoft's OS.

Microsoft Denies Credit to Bug-Hunter with Racy Name

2008-02-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

When a hacker going by the name Chujwamwdupe published attack code that exploited a recently patched bug in Microsoft Office 2003 earlier this week, it looked almost as if he were publishing the software out of spite.

At the top of his submission, Chujwamwdupe wrote about an e-mail informing him that "Unfortunately, Microsoft has refused to credit you using the name you requested."
"What's wrong with 'chujwamwdupe', eh?" the hacker asked.
Well quite a lot, it turns out, if you live in Poland, where it refers explicitly to a form of sexual intercourse.

Concern About Credit

In the hacker world, where so much rides on reputation, Microsoft had been put into a tough position. The company generally goes out of its way to credit hackers who responsibly disclose software vulnerabilities, and by not crediting Chujwamwdupe, it may have put customers at risk by accelerating the release of attack code. After all, quickly releasing an exploit is the one way a hacker can back up his claim that he actually discovered the bug in question.

Even though the flaw, which lies in the Works File Converter, was patched the day before the exploit code was released, it will be months before all of Microsoft's customers install the updates. This means that Chujwamwdupe's code could be misused by criminals.

A member of Microsoft's security team flagged Chujwamwdupe's submission, a spokeswoman with Microsoft's public relations firm said in an e-mail message. "One of them happened to speak the right language and brought the issue to our attention," she said. "The finder's user name could have been perceived as offensive in another language, so we credited the vendor, VeriSign iDefense VCP, [Vulnerability Contributor Program] for reporting the issue to us responsibly."
VeriSign pays hackers like Chujwamwdupe for vulnerability information so that it can give its customers better information on the bugs when Microsoft finally patches them. And while the majority of contributors use their real names, some do use hacker pseudonyms.

Usually that's not a problem, said Matthew Richard, the director of iDefense's Rapid Response Team. "It really doesn't come across that often. There really aren't that many handles that are offensive," he said. Chujwamwdupe is "one of the very few that I've seen," he added.

3Com's TippingPoint division, which also pays hackers for vulnerability information, had to talk researcher Manuel Santamarina Suarez out of using a similarly offensive pseudonym, telling him, "we totally get your originality, but we're professionals here," said Terri Forslof, TippingPoint's manager of security research.

According to Forslof, who spent four years working for Microsoft's Security Response group, there are technical reasons why offensive terms cannot be included in the security bulletins. Such a word might cause the bulletin to be blocked by e-mail or Web-filtering software, she said, making it harder for Microsoft to communicate vital security information with its customers.
Still, things would have probably worked out better for all parties if Microsoft and VeriSign had worked out some way to credit the hacker, she said. "If Microsoft would have credited him, would he have felt the need to post that exploit code?"

"I believe that there was a communication breakdown here," she said.

Yahoo big investors may back Microsoft

2008-02-17T22:51:00.001-08:00

Most of Yahoo Inc's (YHOO.O) top institutional shareholders may be more interested in making sure Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) does not overpay for the Web pioneer, because they have more money invested in the bigger software maker, a research report said on Friday.
Financial risk management analysis company RiskMetrics Group found that close to 90 percent of Yahoo's institutional shareholders have a cross-holding in Microsoft, including most of the top 20 -- and generally have significantly more money invested in Microsoft.
The two companies are at a stand-off in Microsoft's $41.7 billion unsolicited bid to acquire Yahoo. Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo for $31 a share in cash and stock, a bid which Yahoo's board rejected, saying it undervalued the company.
Microsoft countered by saying that its offer was "full and fair," but did not say what it planned to do next. Analysts expect Microsoft to sweeten its bid, possibly to $35 a share, to clinch a deal.
Yahoo shares surged on news of the bid, but Microsoft shares have fallen. Shares of Microsoft were down 11 cents to $28.39 in Friday afternoon trading on Nasdaq, down 13 percent since the offer went public.
Yahoo's stock was down 40 cents to $29.58, representing about a 2 percent premium to Microsoft's half-cash and half-stock offer, which indicates investors are expecting a higher bid.
A shareholder that owns both the target and an acquirer will be more interested in the net benefit of a deal, RiskMetrics said. Shareholders with more money invested in Microsoft than Yahoo will most likely urge Yahoo not to push its case too hard.
"They may be more concerned with whether Microsoft will get caught up in a 'deal frenzy' and suffer the 'winner's curse' by overpaying for Yahoo," RiskMetrics analysts wrote in an M&A Edge Note.
"We can expect shareholders who own both companies to pressure Yahoo directors to extract a material sweetener from Microsoft (which will help Yahoo directors save face) that isn't seen to destroy the perceived benefits of the merger, prior to ... ultimately succumbing."
Earlier this week, Yahoo's second biggest shareholder, Legg Mason (LM.N), urged Microsoft to raise its offer. In a letter to investors, Bill Miller, the star stock-picker at the U.S. asset manager, estimated that fair value for Yahoo was around $40 per share.
RiskMetrics said this was not a big surprise since Legg Mason is one of three of Yahoo's top 20 institutional shareholders with significantly more money invested in Yahoo than Microsoft.
"Don't expect to see many of the other top Yahoo shareholders following Bill Miller's lead," the report said.

Global marketing challenge now underway

2008-02-17T22:46:00.000-08:00

It's well known that online advertising is becoming increasingly important to the marketing mix. Now we're giving 21,000 students the chance to experiment and gain hands on experience of this medium -- and to empower small local businesses to harness the power of the web to attract more customers. In a vast global academic competition, business students from 466 universities in 61 countries will participate in the Google Online Marketing Challenge.The competition offers student groups $200 vouchers to spend on Google AdWords™ advertising so that they can work with a local business they choose to devise effective online marketing campaigns. The teams will outline a strategy, run the campaign, assess their results, and recommend ideas to further develop the businesses' online marketing.Students will have three weeks to mastermind their strategy, and will pit their marketing minds against thousands of others worldwide. During this period, the various teams will submit two competition reports: one before they begin the Challenge, and one after the campaign has ended. An international panel of professors will judge the entries, and will choose winners based on the success of the campaigns and the quality of the reports.

MICROSOFT to buy DANGER INC

2008-02-13T21:04:00.000-08:00

News Brief. How many more companies is Microsoft going to buy? Next up: Danger

Microsoft announced the acquisition today.
Danger is best known for its mobile software and services for the T-Mobile Sidekick. What would Microsoft possibly want from Danger, which has a focus that is decidedly the consumer market?
On Feb. 8, Scott Rockfeld, the group product manager for Microsoft's Mobile Communications group, and I discussed the company's emerging cell phone strategy. After years catering primarily businesses, Microsoft is shifting its cell phone focus to consumers—and furthering the blurry line between personal and professional mobile usage.
As I explained last night, Microsoft recognizes that people increasingly commingle data and behavior around cell phones, perhaps more than any other device that they use. Rockfeld spoke about a strategy where there is "one phone for your entire life."
When I think QWERTY keyboards, slider phones and thumbs in action, I think HTC for business and Sidekick for consumers. Danger will fill a Windows Mobile niche between them, with early focus primarily on consumers.
But there is something more fundamental that too many mobile manufacturers, carriers or service providers have ignored: A phone is fundamentally about communication. And who do people communicate with? D'oh, other people. Danger's services are all about communications—socializing with people most important to you.
Danger's social networking focus resonates well with communication market trends and Microsoft's larger Windows Live objectives.

Google Android phones make debut

2008-02-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

The first mobile phones to be loaded with Google's Android software for mobile phones have gone on show.
About a dozen companies such as ARM, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm showed off prototype handsets at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The free software system was launched in November 2007 and is being developed by an alliance of more than 30 companies including Google. The first Android-enabled phone is expected to go on sale later this year.
One firm showing off a prototype phone was the UK processor designer ARM. "It's really a demonstration vehicle rather than a full phone," Ian Drew of ARM told BBC News.
However, he said the wireless phone did show off several applications. "What we are demonstrating on the Android platform is maps, browser, camera applications, multimedia, e-mail, and calendar - basically everything you'd expect on a mobile phone."
Open world
The Google Android platform is based on open source Linux software that allows developers access to the underlying code.

This allows programmers much greater flexibility to build applications and features tailored to individual phones. Other companies also showed off Android prototypes such as Marvell, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, NEC and ST Microelectronics. Korean handset manufacturer Samsung has also said it hopes to have a phone based on Android by early next year. Android was not the only Linux platform making waves in Barcelona. The Mobile Linux foundation said that 18 phones from seven different firms would be demonstrated at 3GSM using its Limo software.LG and Samsung were amongst handset manufacturers showing off Limo devices.

Microsoft agrees Danger purchase

2008-02-12T21:59:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has agreed to buy software firm Danger Inc, maker of T-Mobile's SideKick web phone.
The gadget, also known as the Hiptop, has been popularised by a number of American celebrities, including socialite Paris Hilton.
Danger was co-founded in 1999 by Andy Rubin, Joe Britt and Matt Hershenson. Mr Rubin has moved on to a new job running Google's mobile venture.
Microsoft did not disclose the purchase price as it made the announcement. Hilton is among stars who have given Danger a cool cachet
Swivel screen
A statement by Microsoft highlighted the fact that it saw Danger's customer base as "young and enthusiastic, internet-savvy and socially inclined".
The statement added: "The Danger team has a deep understanding of consumers and a hold on what people want from mobility, making it an ideal group to work with in delivering connected experiences."
It will be really interesting to see how Microsoft integrates the technology, business model, and overall device cachet to a culture more at home to selling to enterprise CIOs than it is to selling rock stars
Michael GartenbergJupiter Research analystSpeaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Robbie Bach, Microsoft's president of entertainment and devices, said: "It completes the picture for us in terms of making the transition from just being on the business side of things to being on the consumer side of things."
The SideKick allows users to instant message, talk on the phone, send e-mails and access the web, with a distinctive swivel screen that flips around 180 degrees to reveal a full keyboard.
Mr Rubin has said in interviews the company was called Danger because he had bought the danger.com domain name several years earlier. The name was a reference to a robot in the TV show Lost in Space, which continuously issued "Danger!" warnings to the cast.
Michael Gartenberg, analyst for Jupiter Research, said on his blog that news of Microsoft's acquisition was the "real excitement" of the first day of the Mobile World Congress.
He added: "The T-Mobile SideKick has had moderate success in the US markets appealing to celebrities, sports figures and of course all the demographics that look up to these folks.
"The SideKick had strong appeal as the anti-Blackberry for younger audiences and it will be really interesting to see how Microsoft integrates the technology, business model, and overall device cachet to a culture more at home to selling to enterprise CIOs than it is to selling rock stars."

orkut going more social

2008-02-12T21:57:00.002-08:00

Starting this month, we're enabling developers to make their social applications available to orkut users. We'll start ramping up to more than 50 million people over the next few weeks.To prepare for this growth, we're now accepting social applications. For a while now, developers have been able to write, test, and play with applications on orkut. Later this month, however, we're going to start rolling them out to orkut users. OpenSocial developers can submit their completed applications (deadline: Feb. 15).To help developers ready their applications, we're offering engineering support and training. We've scheduled orkut hackathons on Feb. 14-15 from 10 am-6 pm at the Googleplex in Mountain View and via videoconference in New York. For more information or to RSVP, please email hackathon.rsvp@gmail.com. If you can't attend, we hope to see you in the OpenSocial forums or on chat (irc://irc.freenode.net/opensocial).

Survey says: love at first ping

2008-02-12T21:57:00.001-08:00

In the spirit of Hallmark and chocolate roses, we recently took a special interest in Valentine's worthy tidbits about how Gmail has helped spur romance -- as it did for Jordan Burleson, who told us:
"Gmail is the new Cupid. Gmail's green chat light meant 'go' for love in my life. My girlfriend and I used ... it for projects and homework at first, but then for flirting, pinning down a location for a first date, emoticon hearts and more."In other cases, email has helped maintain long distance relationships, like that of long-time Gmail user Meagan Coleman:
"My husband and I met in 2004. He's from Macedonia and I'm from the USA...Since we met, Gmail has been archiving our long-distance relationship from the beginning! It's very sweet to be able to read those messages that we wrote to each other 3 years ago."Curious about how common emailing love letters really is -- and to learn more about how people use email to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers -- we recently worked with Nielsen Online to conduct a national survey examining how people think about and use webmail.* The survey affirmed that email is an increasingly important part of our most intimate and personal interactions, and that younger people are leading the charge: they are more likely to use email for everything from sending love letters to ending relationships.Love is in the inbox
1 in 3 survey respondents noted having emailed a love letter
Young people indicated they were less averse to showing their affections over email than older adults: only 14% of 18-24 year olds considered email love letters bad behavior, compared to 43% of respondents over the age of 55
Men were more likely than women to have asked someone out via email (26% versus 16%)
While 31% of 18-24 year olds thought asking someone out on a date via email was poor form, 42% of respondents aged 55+ felt the same wayBreaking up is hard to do; some get help from email
1 in 3 male respondents considered "break-up emails" neutral to good email etiquette, whereas only 1 in 7 female respondents agreed
8% of men and 6% of women said they had broken up with someone over email Whether you're sending hearts this year or breaking them, we hope you have a happy Valentine's Day.* The online survey, commissioned by Google, was conducted by Nielsen Online from September 24th to October 15th, 2007, with a sample of 1,713 webmail users over the age of 18. "Webmail user" was defined as someone who uses AOL Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail

Share the love with iGoogle

2008-02-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

From time to time, people share stories with us that are too good to keep to ourselves. Here's one that an iGoogle user named Heather recently shared about how Gadget Maker helps her connect with her boyfriend Christopher.

"My boyfriend lives in Memphis and I live in Manhattan. We've each created a custom gadget for each other that we update every morning. Generally it's a compliment, or song lyrics, or something related to an inside joke. It takes us 2 minutes to update every morning and helps us to stay connected in a small way every day. We also both have a countdown gadget on our homepage, which counts down the days until our next visit with each other. Thank you for helping 'keep the magic alive' with my boyfriend, even if he's not here in person!"
As Valentine's Day approaches, we wish Heather and Christopher the best. May their countdown go extra-fast this week. Heather shared one of her gadgets with us:

If you're part of our gadget developer community, perhaps hearing about interesting and unique ways people are using gadgets will help spark some creative ideas. But whether you are HTML-savvy or not, and you want to show your sweetie how much you care, it's very easy to be able to create gadgets. Just visit the Google Gadget Center or Gadget Maker and give it a try.

Google search on Nokia phones

2008-02-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, we announced a partnership with Nokia that will bring Google search to millions of Nokia phones. There's more detail on the Google Mobile Blog.

Profile: The Google founders

2008-02-10T23:02:00.000-08:00

The founders of the Google internet search engine - Larry Page and Sergey Brin - are the type of young men most parents would dream of their daughters bringing home.
And far from simply because they will both be billionaires following a stock market flotation of Google.
Instead, most mums and dads would also be drawn to the facts that both men are very clean cut in appearance, undeniably hard working and intelligent, and seem, well, just "nice".
They are your text book, well presented, quietly well behaved "boys next door" from a smart middle class American suburb.
Only a lot richer.

A hard day at the office for Google's staffYet far from living an extravagant lifestyle, complete with yachts and private jets like fellow software leader Oracle boss Larry Ellison, Mr Page, 31, and Mr Brin, 30, are both reported to continue to live modest, unassuming lifestyles.
They don't even have sports cars, and instead are said to each drive a Toyota Prius, a plain-looking but rather environmentally friendly saloon that is half electric-powered, and growing in popularity among green-minded Americans.
Mr Brin's father even claimed recently that his son still rents a modest two bedroom apartment.
Garage industry
Mr Page and Mr Brin just happen to be geniuses with computers and, by extension, the founders of the world's most popular internet search engine.

Google is the undisputed world number one internet search engine
Today both barely in their thirties, the two first met at Stanford University in the mid-1990s, where they were doing doctorates in computer sciences.
Apparently, they did not immediately hit it off, but they became friends while developing a new system of internet search engine from their college dormitory.
Initially called BackRub, they created a software system whereby the search engine would list results according to the popularity of the pages, after realising that more times than not the most popular result would also be the most useful.
So after changing its name to Google they dropped out of college (although Mr Brin is officially still on leave) and the rest, as they say, is history.
Pulling together $1m from family, friends and other investors, on 7 September 1998 Google was commercially launched from a friend's garage.
Growth was quick.
Initially, Google got 10,000 queries per day compared with 200 million today.
Family influences
Both Mr Page and Mr Brin come from an academic and computer science or mathematical background.

The Google founders both drive a Toyota Prius - a very "green" car
Larry - or Lawrence - Page was born and raised in Michigan, the son of Carl Page, a pioneer in computer science and artificial intelligence.
Page Senior earned a doctoral degree in computer science in 1965, back when the subject was still in its infancy, and went on to become a computer science professor at Michigan State University.
His wife, and Larry Page's mother, also worked in computers, teaching computer programming.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Larry Page says he fell in love with computers at the tender age of six.
Mr Brin is a Muscovite by birth, the son of a Soviet mathematician economist.
His family, who are Jewish, emigrated to the US in 1979 to escape persecution, and Mr Brin went on to get a degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland, before enrolling at Stanford University as a postgraduate.
Hippy mantra
Google today has its headquarters at Mountain View in the heart of California's famous Silicon Valley, where certain quirks are in place to keep staff happy.

A member of the Google team plays a tune
These include weekly games of roller-hockey in the car park, an on-site masseuse and a piano.
And each member of the team is given one day a week to spend on their own pet projects.
In a nod to the county's former hippy past, the company's head chef is said to have formerly worked for the rock band Grateful Dead.
There is also something very 1960s California about what Mr Page and Mr Brin say is their philosophy.
As Mr Page recently explained to ABC News: "We have a mantra: 'Don't be evil', which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone.
"So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing."
Nice boys, you see. Wealthy yes, and maybe a little quirky too, but still very nice.

Google's might drove the shock bid

2008-02-10T23:00:00.000-08:00

Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo in what analysts regard as a response to the seemingly unstoppable rise of Google.
The emergence of Google has been staggering for observers and threatening for established players in every market it has entered.
Microsoft's response could level the playing field.
"This consolidates the marketplace down to Google versus Microsoft," says Colin Gillis, analyst at stockbroker Canaccord Adams.
Broad growth

See Google's share price
Google's online mapping and internet-based phone calls to photo storage and news alerts - not to mention its unrelenting innovative streak - has enabled it to remain two steps ahead of its most bitter rivals Yahoo and Microsoft.
Consequently, Google is no longer a company taking pride in being simple and effective; rather it has ballooned and is now a multi-headed high tech beast eager and willing to not only get involved but increasingly take charge of every area online.
It is a strategy that could make Google vulnerable to attacks.
Some say the company is spreading itself thin by over-diversifying its product range.
Advert reliance

Larry Page and Sergey Brin - are the type of young men most parents would dream of their daughters bringing home.
Profile: The Google founders
More crucially, its source of income remains largely one-dimensional - and therefore potentially vulnerable.
During a Google search, "sponsored links", or adverts, appear on the rights. They have been placed by hundreds of thousands of companies, which have picked particular words as triggers for their ads to appear.
Every click on an advert brings revenue to Google; advertisers, in turn, know what they pay for, so everyone is happy.
Active founders
The Google model was initially hammered out by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, now both in their early 30s.
The two met at Stanford University in the mid-1990s, where they were doing doctorates in computer sciences, and became friends while developing a new system of internet search engine from their college dormitory.
Initially called BackRub, they created a software system whereby the search engine would list results according to the popularity of the pages, after realising that more times than not the most popular result would also be the most useful.
After changing its name to Google they dropped out of college and the rest, as they say, would by now be history - except the story continues.
Google now finds itself at the top of the tree, just as dinosaurs like IBM once did.
But Mr Page and Mr Brin know full well what the threats are, and they are ready to take on their opponents.

Google Apps Team Edition Released

2008-02-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

Google has released a new version of Google Apps called “Team Edition” that, on first blush, doesn’t offer much that’s new. The same document, spreadsheet, instant messaging, calendaring, and start page functionality that we’ve come to expect from Google Apps is here. But now it’s easier for groups within established organizations (businesses, universities, etc.) to collaborate using Google Apps without getting their entire organization to buy into Google Apps (quite literally) first.
As can be seen in the video below (and screencasts do help a lot to explain this announcement), Google Apps Team Edition has been designed to make it easier for you to use Google Apps with people who share the same email address extension (@whatever).
This edition should be useful for Google in recruiting members of organizations who will in turn exert pressure on those organizations to adopt a premium version of Google Apps.

Look Out Topix - Google Launches Localized News Service

2008-02-07T06:59:00.000-08:00

Topix has made a name by aggregating tens of thousands of local news sources and aggregating them online (they also like citizen journalists). It was only a matter of time before Google expanded their news product to compete more directly with Topix. That time has come - today Google added an option for customized local news to its Google News service.
The localization option is now available on news.google.com, but does not seem to have been rolled out to country specific news portals as yet. Using the service is as simple as entering your post/ zip code or location into the Local News option box that now appears automatically when you visit Google News.
The feature pulls news stories based on your location, and are presented as a sub-section on the main Google News page, and have a sidebar menu entry and dedicated page as well.
According to Google:
As always, results will be clustered with multiple sources on a story. The top stories for a given area will be at the top of your results. Our article rankings will also take into account a publication’s location so we can promote all the local sources for each story.
Google News attracts a far larger audience than Topix - 47 million/month v. just 6.2 million for Topix (Comscore, December 2007 worldwide audience), but until now they have not provided good local news coverage. Topix now has some serious competition.

OpenID Welcomes Microsoft, Google, Verisign and IBM

2008-02-07T06:52:00.001-08:00

As anticipated by TechCrunch UK in early January, OpenID is welcoming some big new partners to the club - Microsoft, Google, Verisign and IBM (TechCrunch UK anticipated all but Microsoft).
Google has been dabbling with OpenID for some time with its Blogger platform (and Brad Fitzpatrick, the creator of OpenID, is now a Google employee).
Yahoo also announced support for OpenID earlier this month, which more than tripled the number of OpenID accounts to 350 million. 10,000 websites now accept OpenID accounts for login.
All of the newcomers, along with Yahoo, have joined OpenID’s corporate board and, we assume, will be making their user accounts OpenID-compatible. But it’s not clear that any of them are in a hurry to become a “relying party” (allowing users with third party OpenIDs to log in to their sites). OpenID looks like it’s going to be a winner, so big companies making their user accounts OpenID compatible is a good hedge. Everyone, of course, wants to be an ID issuer, since they get to “own” the user. Less attractive is allowing users from other sites to log into your services, so don’t expect that functionality to come for some time.

Search, Ads, Yahoo and Microsoft

2008-02-07T06:28:00.000-08:00

While everyone comments about Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo, I think it's interesting to look back at the struggle to stop Google's domination in search and PPC ads.
Yahoo Inc. yesterday announced plans to buy Internet advertising firm Overture Services Inc. for $1.63 billion in stock and cash in a move designed to help the online giant exploit the growing market for sponsored search results. (...)Overture, formerly known as GoTo.com, pioneered the approach of letting advertisers bid for the right to place their links alongside search terms and paying only when users click through to their Web site. Overture, based in Pasadena, Calif., claims 88,000 advertisers and licenses its commercial results to Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN.com and other Web portals. Google has copied Overture's business model and claims 100,000 advertisers. (...)Overture sells sponsored search results to other portals besides Yahoo. Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com is one of Overture's top customers, and analysts consider it highly unlikely the Redmond, Wash., software giant will want to continue using Overture's ad network once rival Yahoo completes the takeover.
(Washington Post, July 15, 2003)
On Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he regretted not spending more on in-house search research and development in the past, but said the company has addressed the oversight and plans to unveil its own search product within the next 12 months."Not only do I think Microsoft is capable of building extraordinary search technology, I believe Microsoft is hell-bent on developing that technology in Redmond (Wash.) without a material acquisition," said Rohan. "That is the Microsoft way."
(CNet, March 26, 2004)
Rashtchy estimated that the search industry will reach nearly $7 billion in revenue by 2007, growing at a compounded rate of 35% each year. Those kinds of numbers attract a lot of attention. In 2003, Yahoo!, which was outsourcing its search to Google, wanted in on the action and paid $1.63 billion to buy Overture. Last month Yahoo! dumped Google and now exclusively uses Overture, officially declaring war. Sleeping giant Microsoft, meanwhile, was rumored to have made an unsuccessful stab at acquiring Google, and is now using its nearly infinite resources to improve it own search engine.
(Forbes, April 26, 2004)
Keyword search is the largest component of U.S. online advertising, and Google derives virtually all of its ad revenues from this category. The growth in that segment speaks for itself. Based on data from PricewaterhouseCoopers/IAB Internet Advertising Reports, the overall keyword search category generated $81 million in revenues in 2000, representing only 1% of overall online ad sales. Jump ahead to 2003, and keyword search accounted for $2.5 billion in revenues -- a hefty 35% of the total U.S. online ad-sales pie.
(BusinessWeek, June 11, 2004)
As previously reported, Microsoft's Internet group is developing a pay-per-click ad-bidding system that pairs search results with sponsored text messages from advertisers. Yahoo's Overture Services currently supplies MSN with sponsored search links, which complement MSN-sold "featured sites." (...) With the product, Microsoft will move into the mother lode of a multibillion-dollar ad business dominated by Google and Yahoo. Search-engine marketing is expected to be worth as much as $5 billion this year, and nearly $9 billion annually within four years, according to Jupiter Research. Microsoft's piece of the pie is smaller than the shares enjoyed by market leaders Yahoo and Google, and the software giant is hungry for more. Google fields 35.1 percent of the searches online, followed by Yahoo at 31.8 percent and MSN at 16 percent, according to ComScore QSearch.
(ZDNet, March 16, 2005)
Microsoft is taking on the great Google Money Machine with an inhouse answer to Google Adwords.Step forward Microsoft adCenter, launched yesterday to pump out all-paid search traffic on MSN and other Microsoft online properties in the US. Microsoft’s adCenter replaces Yahoo!'s Overture as the paid-for search engine on MSN. The only surprise is how long it took Microsoft to make the switcheroo – predicted ever since Yahoo! bought Overture in 2003 – and confirmed this time last year by Microsoft at its annual MSN Strategic Account Summit.
(The Register, May 4, 2006)
The Internet search-advertising wars are getting hotter: Vowing to catch up to industry leader Google, Yahoo Monday will demonstrate an overhauled advertising system that promises to generate higher revenue and enlist more clients.On May 4, Microsoft unveiled its own search advertising program and said it would invest up to $6 billion in a bid to catch up with Google.Yet Google still easily dominates paid search ads — those little text ads that appear near search queries. The Internet powerhouse has made several enhancements to its search program as well.Google says it hasn't heard anything from Yahoo or MSN to make it worry."There's been nothing that's announced that makes me want to change what we do," says Richard Holden, director of production management for Google's paid search programs.
(USA Today, May 14, 2006)
Struggling to make a dent in rival Google Inc.'s dominance over online search, Yahoo Inc. reported a quarterly decline in profit Tuesday but managed to match already lowered expectations. (...) During a Tuesday conference call with analysts, Susan Decker, who was promoted to president when Semel was replaced by Yang, acknowledged Yahoo's past failings.She said the company had been slow to recognize emerging trends in online advertising and that Yahoo's management structure was overly complex, opening the door for more nimble competitors. (...)Yahoo commanded an 18.3% share of paid-search marketing spending in June, up from May's 17.8%, Rohan said, but June's percentage is still the third lowest at Yahoo since January 2006."Google continues to dominate spending with over 75% market share," he wrote. "Panama stabilized Yahoo's market share slide, but has not reversed it."Rohan said that even with Panama, advertisers see a better return on investment with Google, which boasts higher click-through rates at lower prices. "Yahoo's Panama was modestly successful but only temporarily halted Google's gains in marketshare," he said.
(Hollywood Reporter, July 18, 2007)
Despite the hopes of many and rumors that Yahoo would post "strong" earnings, Q4 2007 results were mixed, and net income was down from a year ago. In addition, CEO Jerry Yang said the company faced "headwinds" in 2008 and offered weak guidance but promised a return to growth in 2009. Investors were unhappy, and stock was down at one point 10 percent in after-hours trading (this morning it has recovered).Total revenue in Q4 was $1.83 billion, which represented 8 percent growth of the same period a year ago ($1.7 billion). Full year 2007 revenues for Yahoo were $6.97 billion. Simultaneously, Yahoo announced it would be cutting 1,000 jobs.
(Search Engine Land, January 30, 2008)

What's India searching for online?

2008-02-07T06:26:00.000-08:00

In December 2007, for the first time in India, we released a list of most popular and fast rising searches, i.e. the Google Zeitgeist. But you don't need to wait till this December to know what was popular this year; we've just unveiled Google Trends and Google Hot Trends on Google India Labs, giving you a chance to find out what India is searching for on Google by the hour.What's on our collective mind as we search for information? What's interesting to people right now? Hot Trends will tell you. At a glance, you'll see the huge variety of topics capturing our attention, from current events to sports to political issues to the latest Bollywood gossip. Hot Trends aren't the search terms people look for most often; those are pretty predictable, like [weather] or [games]. Instead, the Hot Trends algorithm analyzes millions of searches to find those that show an unusual and fairly sudden increase in popularity. The outcome is the Hot Trends list. Hot Trends is updated throughout the day, so check back often.For example, the #1 Hot Trends result on January 9, 2008, was 'tata new car' because of the auto expo going on then. The associated web results and associated news search results give you more context and insight into why people were searching for 'tata new car'. You can see these results by changing the date range on the top left hand corner of the Hot Trends page. As you can see, 'tata new car' has a Hot Trend status of 'spicy' -- a measure of its popularity.Together with Hot Trends, we also launched Google Trends for India. You can view search patterns and interest in their favorite topics. You can compare the popularity of multiple queries (e.g. different Bollywood stars) and see which cities and states search for them the most.Looking ahead to what 'Valentines Day' might mean to us, keep checking out Hot Trends and Trends for insights into the mind of India

Google 'planning total storage'

2008-02-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

Web giant Google is planning a massive online storage facility to encompass all users' files, it is reported.
The plans were allegedly revealed accidentally after a blogger spotted notes in a slideshow presentation wrongly published on Google's site.
The GDrive, previously the subject of chatroom rumour, would offer a mirror of users' hard drives, Reuters said.
Google declined to comment on the reports but said the slide notes had now been deleted.
In the notes, chief executive Eric Schmidt reportedly said Google's aim was to "store 100%" of users' information.
The notes said: "With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including e-mails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc; and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)."
No announcement
"We deleted the slide notes because they were not intended for publication," Google spokeswoman Lynn Fox said.
"We are constantly working on new ways to enhance our products and services for users, but have nothing to announce at this time."
Under the alleged scheme, if users suffered a crash and lost files, Google's own computers would have kept a back-up.
The plan for total online storage could meet difficulties with bandwidth constraints for some users.
The search giant recently decided to offer an optional facility that stores a copy of the text-based sections of each user's data on Google's own computers.

Google to hit Ebay-the online auction legend

2008-02-04T06:44:00.000-08:00

Google is no longer just a search engine. The latest project in its portfolio of services is an online payments system which aims to compete with auction giant eBay.
The service, known as Google Checkout, is just one of a series of online products launched by the California based company.
However, none of the new ventures launched over the past four years have established themslves as a market leader, reported online magazine Business Week.

Google 'improves' mobile search

2008-02-04T06:43:00.000-08:00

Google has launched a new search service for mobile phones, promising "faster" and "more relevant results".
The facility gathers regular and mobile web results, news, images and local listings, meaning people no longer have to specify a type of search.
An improved "local search experience" is based on Google's belief that mobile search is more often used to find area information such as cinema listings.
The service is now available in the UK, France, Germany and Canada.
It has been available in the US since March last year.
Local view
Google believes mobile services have huge potential and have set up engineering groups in North America and the UK to develop new applications.
Last year, the firm launched an operating system for mobile phones called Android, which it hopes will challenge existing platforms such as Window's Mobile and Symbian.
The new search functions are part of that drive.
People using Google on mobiles previously had to specify a search type in advance, or afterwards choose between different indexes such as local results, images or websites.
Mobile search is more about seeking than browsing
Google spokesmanThe internet search giant now aims to provide the most relevant results from across the range of information sources.
"The big thing that people will notice is that they just get the results they want, without them having to think ahead of time what sort of information they are looking for," a spokesman said.
"You don't have to click through so many pages on that tiny little screen and on those tiny little buttons."
He added: "Mobile search is more about seeking than browsing.
"If you are looking to buy a digital camera then you are not going to do all the research for it on your mobile phone - it's not practical.
"But if you are looking for a restaurant and you are out and about, it's as easy to access the number and address on your phone as it is to call a directory service."
The new mobile search will also remember a user's recent search locations, so that subsequent searches for things like weather or restaurants will be geared to that area.
Google is also experimenting with new features for its online search engine, including offering results in the form of a timeline or map.

YouTube Users can also earn money with fun

2008-02-04T06:36:00.000-08:00

YouTuber earns cash YouTube users in the UK will be given the chance to make money from the videos they post on the site.
The project is already up and running in the US and is now being extended to other countries, starting in the UK.
In the US some contributors are already earning thousands of dollars each month from their films, according to the video-sharing site.
The amount that is earned will depend on the number and popularity of the videos, it said.
Creating stars
Those signing up to the YouTube Partner Programme, as it is called, will be offered a share of the revenue generated from advertisements that run next to their video.
YouTube is not disclosing the exact details of the scheme, but does say that those making "several thousand dollars a month" are regularly producing videos with over one million views.
"The more videos you have and the more popular your stuff is, the more money you are going to make," said a spokesman for the site.

One of singer Tay Zonday's videos had 14m hilts
The first wave of US partners - including singer/songwriter Tay Zonday, wordsmith hotforwords and comedians apauledtv and peteandbrian - have already become responsible for a significant percentage of YouTube's total traffic, according to the site.
Tay Zonday's song "Chocolate Rain" has enjoyed 14m clicks to date, spawned over 1,000 response videos and seen him flown to Canada and Germany to mark YouTube's local launches in those territories.
Drinks brand Dr Pepper have based a product around it and made Tay the star of a glossy ad to promote it.
In the UK, among those waiting to sign up is GiR2007, a computer scientist whose most popular video 'Pancakes' has generated 2.5m clicks to date.
While Nerimon is already a YouTube star on the back of his so-called 5-fact Vlog Tag game which swept YouTube late last year.
The game involves users sharing five facts about themselves in a video and alerting five other members to the post. Those five members then make a video and so on.
Nerimon now has a 10,000 strong gang of followers.
Growing business
British member Jimmy0010 has more modest fan base.
But the Midlands-based blogger takes it as a compliment that YouTube values his channel enough to have adverts.

Nerimon kick-started a popular YouTube game
"It's just an added incentive really for me to push myself and make videos to my best ability, he said.
"Obviously it's a fantastic hobby, but having people offer me money helps me make them a bit better."
Increasingly social networks and user-generated content sites are offering people a chance to make money for the content they create.
"As people are spending more time on such sites they are increasingly thinking about how to monetise it," said Alex Burmaster, analyst with research firm Nielsen Online.
"It is at a small level at the moment but if you are putting something on YouTube that is generating traffic for them perhaps it is only fair that you get a cut of it," he said.
However he suspects the first YouTube millionaire is still a long way off.
"It is very hard to generate a lot of income from it and it would have to something pretty amazing to make a lot of money," he said.
YouTube hopes to expand the Partner Programme to the rest of Europe soon.

Google troubled by Microsoft move

2008-02-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

Google has said it finds Microsoft's $44.6bn (£22.65bn) bid to buy rival Yahoo "troubling" and wants regulators to scrutinise the proposed deal.
In a blog, Google said the tie-up could unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email and instant messaging services.
It said Microsoft had previously sought "to establish proprietary monopolies".
Microsoft made an unsolicited offer for Yahoo on Friday, and Yahoo has said it is considering the proposal.
Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions
David Drummond, chief legal officer Google
Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said that the combination of the two companies would create more competition.
The takeover, if it goes through, would establish a "compelling number two competitor for internet search and online advertising", he said, insisting that "Microsoft is committed to openness, innovation, and the protection of privacy on the internet".
'Underlying principles'
But that view is not held by the top executives at Google.
"Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions," said David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer.
"This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the internet: openness and innovation," he said in a company blog.
This is clearly Google's opening move in a complex game of chess that will encompass ordinary users, politicians, regulators and businessmen
Mr Drummond suggested Microsoft may attempt to exert an "inappropriate... influence" over the internet.
"While the internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies - and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets," he said.
In 2004 the European Commission fined Microsoft 497m euros for abusing its market dominance, a ruling the US company finally lost on appeal in September last year.
The Commission has since launched two new competition inquiries against Microsoft.
Members of the US Congress Judiciary Committee will scrutinise the bid on 8 February.
Rebuff?
Reports said Yahoo would consider an alliance with Google as one way to fend off Microsoft's bid.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt called his counterpart at Yahoo, Jerry Yang, to offer his company's help in any efforts to rebuff Microsoft.
Google's efforts aside, analysts say a bidding war for Yahoo looks unlikely given Microsoft's deep pockets.
Microsoft's proposed bid, unveiled in a letter to Yahoo's board on Friday, is 62% above Yahoo's closing share price on Thursday.
Time Warner, News Corporation, AT&T and Comcast are some of the firms that are often named prospective suitors for Yahoo.
But, according to the New York Times, none of these companies have begun work on any rival bids.

Yahoo! and the future of the Internet

2008-02-04T06:29:00.000-08:00

The openness of the Internet is what made Google -- and Yahoo! -- possible. A good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It's what makes the Internet such an exciting place.So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions -- and consumers deserve satisfying answers.This hostile bid was announced on Friday, so there is plenty of time for these questions to be thoroughly addressed. We take Internet openness, choice and innovation seriously. They are the core of our culture. We believe that the interests of Internet users come first -- and should come first -- as the merits of this proposed acquisition are examined and alternatives explored.

Google adopts universal search in South Korea

2008-02-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

SEOUL, South Korea - Google Inc. said Wednesday it has overhauled its Korean-language search engine to broaden its appeal in South Korea, one of the world's most wired countries and one of the few where Google isn't dominant.
Local search engines such as NHN Corp.'s Naver Web site lead the sector in South Korea. Some users say local sites are better adapted to factors specific to the market, with more visually complex sites and reliance on human interaction instead of software to get results.
Google has adopted universal search — a results-blending concept that has caught on at other top search engines — for its Korean-language services, said Lee Won-jin, managing director of Google Korea.
Universal search combines search-engine results from a broader array of potential sources, such as videos or pages of books from online libraries, as well as data created by the search engine itself.
"The interface change will distinguish us from other search engines in Korea, where growth potential is huge given its broad base of Internet users," Lee said at a news conference. "We're not setting any domestic market share target, but we expect the new services will help."
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The Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet company adopted universal search for its English version last May as other Web-search engines also tried to integrate different types of information.
Rivals such as Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and IAC Interactive Corp.'s Ask.com search engine adopted the universal search concept late in 2007 with varying results.

Windows Seven: We're Hiring!

2008-02-01T06:20:00.001-08:00

The software giant is looking to hire a technical evangelist for Windows Seven. That sounds like a really good idea to me. But Microsoft had better hire someone who can be more thought leader than mouthpiece—a straight talker who can generate genuine enthusiasm while setting realistic expectations.
Longhorn really hurt Microsoft's credibility. In early 2004, Microsoft started breaking feature promises made in late 2003—and the broken promises continued through 2005, as Microsoft dumped more and more Longhorn (aka Windows Vista) features.
The Windows Seven evangelist needs to sell benefits while not overstating them. In fact, Microsoft needs someone who can sell aspiration around limited benefits so that people can get excited about the product and the company can deliver more than promised later on. People buy things because they want to be happy, to believe their lives will be better from the purchase. Apple sells aspiration so well, and Microsoft needs to, too.
The shoes are mighty big. Maybe Microsoft should call on the Friendly Giant. The job posting is dated Dec. 11, 2007, but Microsoft hasn't yet filled the position. It's a big, big job.
The requirements are daunting. Microsoft wants someone with five to seven years experience with .Net Framework, great communications skills and developer community leadership skills. That's for starters. The company also wants a diplomat, analyst and great public speaker. I'm surprised there's no call for a sociology degree.
In a blog post today, Microsoft evangelist Tim Sneath explains: "This isn't a 9 to 5 job: it's more of a vocation—you'll work hard not because you've got someone breathing down your neck but because you're passionate about making a difference and you see the impact of your work."
Really? Sneath describes the job as a "once-in-a-lifetime open position." The position is "the technical evangelist at this point in time. This is an extremely challenging, high-profile senior role, with tremendous reach and influence across the organization."
Sneath has got the "challenging" part right. I wouldn't envy anyone taking on this role, given Vista's reception, the state of mind IT organization and consumers have about operating systems or the rapid computing market shift to the services-plus-software rich Web 2.0 platform.
Stated differently: Microsoft needs someone who can make developers, enterprise customers, OEMs and technical enthusiasts feel good about Windows again. More importantly: The Windows Seven technical evangelist must sell something bigger than the operating system, something intangible: The Microsoft lifestyle.
All truly successful products—meaning those products that customers really love—imbue a lifestyle. There is an Apple lifestyle associated with Macs or a motorcycle lifestyle associated with Harley-Davidson.
The Microsoft lifestyle is a tough sell, because it is so potentially big. Microsoft products do so much and interconnect with one another in so many ways, their benefits aren't always obvious. They're tough to market. Perhaps the technical evangelist will have to sell many small lifestyles.
For the last month, I've been trying to live the Microsoft lifestyle, which, strange as it may sound, is helping me to better identify what it is. I'm using a Windows Mobile phone and Vista PC. I've got Windows Live Mail on the PC and phone. Then there is Office 2007 and Office Live Workspace... and so on. Different products connect together, creating nuances of different computing lifestyles. But that's for another post, on another day when my head isn't foggy from the flu.
Microsoft Watch readers, what would you want to hear from the Windows Seven technical evangelist? What message should he or she convey? What do you need to hear from him or her to regain confidence—for anyone that has lost it—in Windows?

Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion

2008-02-01T06:12:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, made an unsolicited $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! Inc. to challenge Google Inc.'s dominance in Internet search services and advertising.
The $31-a-share bid of cash or Microsoft stock is 62 percent more than Yahoo's closing price yesterday. Before today, Yahoo had dropped 18 percent this year in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, and this week posted a 23 percent profit decline for the fourth quarter.
Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer is attempting the biggest-ever technology takeover after failing to compete with Google in a market that may almost double to $80 billion by 2010. Google has grown faster than Microsoft in every quarter since Google's 2004 initial public offering as its search engine won more users.
``Microsoft is under massive pressure to expand its Internet business to fend off competition from rivals such as Google and this deal shows how desperate they are,'' said Thomas Radinger, a fund manager at Pioneer Investments in Munich, which oversees about $95 billion, including Microsoft shares. ``It's a huge gamble as the price is very steep and it will take years to successfully integrate such a massive acquisition.''
Yahoo rose 51 percent to $28.90 in early trading after closing at $19.18 yesterday. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, fell $1.30 to $31.30 after closing at $32.60 yesterday in Nasdaq trading. Google fell 6 percent to $530.51.
Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, said today that it plans to evaluate the proposal ``promptly.''
Yahoo's Stumble
Yahoo's inability to crack Google's dominance in search has led to eight straight quarters of declining profit and a stock that's lost half its value in the past two years.
``It shows how serious the threat is from Google,'' Jordan Rohan, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York, said in an interview. ``Yahoo is vulnerable. Investors are losing patience with the Yahoo management team.'' The New York-based analyst rates the stock ``outperform.''
Google yesterday reported a 52 percent increase in fourth- quarter sales growth, its 14th straight quarter exceeding 50 percent. Still, profit and revenue trailed analysts' estimates as it received less money than expected from ad deals with social- networking sites like News Corp.'s MySpace.
Google, based in Mountain View, California, captured 56 percent of U.S. Web queries in December, almost double the combined share for Yahoo and Microsoft, which attracted 18 percent and 13 percent, according to New York-based Nielsen Online. Searches will account for 37 percent of the $27.5 billion U.S. online advertising market in 2008, estimates research firm EMarketer Inc.
Yahoo's Investments
Yahoo has also lost sales in the market for graphical, or display, ads to social-networking sites like Facebook Inc. and MySpace. Co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as chief executive officer in June to reignite sales growth. Microsoft increased competition with Google by agreeing to buy a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook, the second-most visited social- networking site.
About half of Yahoo's market value comes from its investments in China's Alibaba Group and Alibaba.com, Yahoo Japan and South Korea's Gmarket Inc. The company said this week that the value of those investments was more than $10 a share in the latest quarter.
Yahoo Rejection
Microsoft and Yahoo explored ways to work together in late 2006 and early 2007, according to a letter Ballmer sent to the Yahoo board. Yahoo rejected the idea of being taken over by Microsoft a year ago, the letter said.
``This combination provides value to advertisers in the form of more scale and more inventory,'' Kevin Johnson, who runs Microsoft's Windows and Internet group, said in an interview. ``It provides value to publishers, in terms of integrating the ad platform.''
Yahoo was founded by Yang and David Filo while the two were graduate students at Stanford University in 1995. The co- founders, who own a combined 9.8 percent of Yahoo's stock, took the company public a year later. After a three-year jump in the stock price, they were each worth $4 billion, according to Forbes Magazine. Then the market crashed in 2000, wiping out 86 percent of Yahoo's market value.
The purchase would be the largest acquisition ever in the technology industry, surpassing Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.'s $26 billion acquisition of First Data Corp. last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Acquisition History
There have been bigger media and telecommunications deals. America Online Inc. in 2001 bought Time Warner Inc. for $124 billion to create the largest Internet and media company. In 2000, Vodafone Plc of the U.K. paid $175 billion for Mannesmann AG, Germany's biggest mobile-phone company.
Today's offer would dwarf Microsoft's previous largest acquisition, last year's $6 billion takeover of AQuantive Inc. Ballmer pursued the purchase after Google agreed to buy DoubleClick Inc., an AQuantive rival, for $3.1 billion.
Microsoft opposed the DoubleClick acquisition, claiming it will give Google too much control over the online ad market. The deal is under review by European regulators.
Microsoft's bid to challenge Google in online ads results from slowing growth in the computer software market. Microsoft also faces challenges in that business from Google, which now offers applications for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations over the Web.

Underground Software

2008-02-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

All your friends use Skype, but you've found an application much better than Skype. You ask you coworkers why they still use Windows Explorer to go to a specific folder. Nobody wants to listen when you say that the Start Menu is useless or that you spend most of your time using the command-line.If you use a software with little or no awareness and you're proud of that, tell the world about it. Don't forget to mention why you think it's special. It doesn't have to be a Windows software, but it would be nice if it were free.Some of my underground software:FreeRAM XP Pro - optimize your RAMSuper - convert multimedia filesTotal Commander - Windows Explorer is nothing

From Google to Facebook

2008-02-01T06:08:00.000-08:00

"On Friday July 13th, 2007 I resigned from Google in search of new challenges and risks. This was a hard decision to come to and I have been seriously thinking about it for the last few months. In the end I decided (with support from my wife) that I am at the point in my career where I can make risky decisions." [two months later...] "I'm now at facebook and love it! Well I've been here for 2 months now. I have the same kind of excitement about work that I had early on at Google. I can get lots and lots done and the only thing slowing me down is how quickly I can go. What we will do in the coming years is really exciting!" (Pedram Keyani, who left orkut for Facebook)"A couple of months ago, after three years as a Google product manager, I decided to leave for Facebook. I am writing this note to spread Good News to all the friends I haven't already overwhelmed with my enthusiasm: Facebook really is That company. Which company? That one. That company that shows up once in a very long while -- the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago. (...) That company that's on the cusp of Changing The World, that's still small enough where each employee has a huge impact on the organization, where you think about working now and again, and where you know you'll kick yourself in three years if you don't jump on the bandwagon now, even after someone had told you that it was rolling toward the promised land." (Justin Rosenstein, ex-Googler)Now the news is that Benjamin Ling, who worked on Google Checkout and Google SMS, left Google for Facebook. "Ling will be heading the Facebook platform, the software architecture upon which the popular social network is built."While Facebook's recent growth influenced Google's plans in the social space, it's hard to move fast when you're expanding in so many directions. Organizational inertia can begin to set in, making new product launches more difficult. "People will say, 'That doesn't live up to Google's standards,'" says Mayer. "But, ultimately, Google's reputation becomes a burden," explained Marissa Mayer in a Business Week article from 2005. And Facebook could be just the right place for recreating the initial excitement of working for a company with big goals and challenging projects.

YouTube Brings Google Earth to Life

2008-02-01T06:06:00.000-08:00

The latest version of Google Earth (namely 4.2) added support for Flash content in placemark balloons. Probably the most popular usage of Flash in the last 2 years is for displaying videos online, an idea that made YouTube a hit. Now that YouTube offers an option to enter the location of a video when you upload it, the connection between YouTube and Google Earth becomes clearer.Google Earth added a layer that displays YouTube videos related to the current location. Videos bring a place to life and capture the atmosphere that makes it unique. You'll also find many stories from people that live there.(Tip: The layer can be found in the layers sidebar, by expanding the featured content section.)A similar layer is available in Google Maps as a mapplet, but unfortunately these are the only two ways to view geotagged YouTube videos. YouTube doesn't provide an option for restricting search results to a certain area or for viewing the location of a video.Connecting content with geographical information is still a difficult problem because, in many cases, users have to manually enter the location. For its books index, Google automatically identified the places mentioned in the text and exposed this information in a Google Earth layer, but the data is imprecise. In Picasa Web Albums, you can enter the location or select it using Google Maps, but Google had to buy a community site centered on mapping photos to add high-quality photos to Google Earth.

Find the Number of Google Subscribers for Any Feed

2008-02-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

Google exposed the number of Google Reader / iGoogle subscribers to a feed in the crawler's user-agent and in the Webmaster Console, but that's only useful for your own feed. What if you want to see how many subscribers Google Operating System has?Now you can see the number of subscribers by searching for the feed in Google Reader: click on "Add subscription", enter the name of a blog or some parts of your feed's URL and you'll see the number of subscribers next to each (hopefully relevant) result. This number includes everyone who subscribed to a feed using Google, but the subscribers aren't necessarily active.It's not very clear whether Google Reader shows the subscribers from all Google properties (iGoogle, orkut) or only Google Reader subscribers. FeedBurner's stats show higher numbers of Google subscribers than Google Reader.

Update: Mihai Parparita confirms that "these numbers include subscribers across all Google services". There's a difference between FeedBurner's numbers and Google Reader's numbers because FeedBurner counts the subscribers to all of the feeds that redirect to the FeedBurner feed.

Counter for a Site's Google Subscribers

2008-02-01T05:58:00.000-08:00

Google Reader Subscribers Count is a discreet Greasemonkey script that shows the number of Google subscribers to a site's feeds. The number is overlayed at the bottom of each page that has feeds and it's one of the ways you can measure the popularity of a site. If you click on the number, you can subscribe to the feed.As usually, the script requires Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension, although it could also work in other browsers. A related script is Google Reader Subscribe Button, which shows if you've subscribed to a feed and lets you subscribe to it in Google Reader. It would be interesting to combine the two scripts.

Personalizing Search Results Using Social Information

2008-02-01T05:56:00.000-08:00

VentureBeat has an interview with Google's VP Marissa Mayer about social search. Marissa's definitions for social search is "any search aided by a social interaction or a social connection... Social search happens every day. When you ask a friend what movies are good to go see? or where should we go to dinner?, you are doing a verbal social search. You're trying to leverage that social connection to try and get a piece of information that would be better than what you'd come up with on your own."She explains that Google tried to add a social layer by allowing its users to annotate search results in Google Co-op, but that didn't work very well. "There have been a few topical areas that have had a lot of traction, but overall the annotation model needs to evolve."

Marissa Mayer suggests that Google could show you the results labeled by the people you trust, for example your Facebook friends. Google could also personalize your search results by promoting web pages bookmarked by your friends. "PageRank itself relies on the link structure of the web to try to find the most authoritative pages. For example, it's clear that people would attribute more authority to the pages that their friends have visited."Asked about the future of search, Marissa predicted that in ten years search engines will answer to queries like "what movies are good to see?", "where's the nearest sushi restaurant that's good?" by using information from the user's social context. Basically, the social data is just another way to personalize search results, along with your search history or your location.Once your social data becomes portable (and OpenSocial could play an important role here), Google could use aggregate information from your friends to modify the weights in a personalized PageRank model.

Microsoft hits back at EU threats

2008-01-31T01:50:00.002-08:00

Microsoft has hit back at European Commission accusations that it has not complied with demands to provide data relating to an anti-competition case.
It was given until Wednesday to prove it had provided rivals with computer codes that would let them develop products to work with Windows systems.
Microsoft said that Brussels ignored a 75-page report from the company explaining and addressing the concerns.
The company is facing daily fines of 2m euros (£1.4m; $2.4m).
"The Commission has ignored critical evidence in its haste to attack the company's compliance," Microsoft said in a nine-paragraph statement.
"Microsoft has complied fully with the technical documentation requirements," it added.
'Detailed documents'
It went on to accuse the Commission of helping create the problems.
"The Commission repeatedly refused to clearly define its requirements and concerns, despite repeated requests and accommodations by Microsoft," it said.
Microsoft's problems date back to March 2004, when Brussels hit it with a record 497m euro fine for abusing its dominant position.
As well as the fine, Microsoft was ordered to share technical data that would allow rivals to make their programs compatible with Microsoft's products.
The Commission complained in December that the company was dragging its feet and not living up to its requirements.
Microsoft complained on Wednesday that that was not the case
"Hundreds of Microsoft employees and contractors have worked for more than 30,000 hours to create over 12,000 pages of detailed technical documents," it said.
Microsoft has called for an oral hearing, that must be held before any fines can be imposed.

Google Finance UK open for business

2008-01-31T01:50:00.001-08:00

The newest localized version of Google Finance, geared to the UK and targeted specifically for British investors is now live. You can access stock prices, mutual funds, financial news, blogs, and charts, all through our easy-to-use and familiar interface. Here are some highlights:
Search with a preference for UK companies and mutual funds.
Google News integration – With a preference for news from British sources. The news is organized in groups by news topic, rather than listed by date, so you won't have to scroll through multiple headlines for the same news story.
Interactive Charts – Map market data with corresponding news stories in a single interactive chart, so you can track news to stock performance. You can also click and drag on the charts to see different time periods, and zoom in for more detailed information.
Front page market summary with FTSE indices and British pound exchange rates.
Blogs – Incorporates blog postings for related company information from Google Blog Search.
Discussion Groups – High quality discussion forums are part of the service. We have a team of folks dedicated to keeping the conversation experience free of spam and irrelevant posts.
Portfolios – A fast and easy way for you to create and track portfolios of stocks and mutual funds in the currency of your choice.

Microsoft unveils Vista editions

2008-01-31T01:48:00.002-08:00

Microsoft is planning six versions of the next incarnation of its Windows operating system.
Three versions of the software, called Vista, will be for home users, two will be for businesses and one will be for emerging markets.
One of the home versions of Vista will include features that let users store and play back TV shows.
No fixed date has been given for the release of Vista but it is expected to be launched by the end of 2006.
Launch line-up
Vista, which was known as Longhorn during its long development, is a major re-working of Windows that makes changes, among other things, to the way the operating system looks and how it handles networking and sound.
Microsoft said the six versions were designed to match the demands different users have for its software. No details have been given about the pricing of the separate versions.
VISTA VERSIONS
Vista Business
Vista Enterprise
Vista Home Basic
Vista Home Premium
Vista Ultimate
Vista StarterVista Business will be the basic version for companies of all sizes and includes tools that will help organisations manage their PCs.
The Enterprise version of Vista will have all of the features in the basic version and add to them improved encryption including a BitLocker system that will stop confidential data being viewed if a computer is lost or stolen.
The Home Basic version is intended for those who only want to use their PC to browse the net, use e-mail and create and edit basic documents. It will also include desktop search and security tools.
Vista Home Premium includes everything in the Basic version and adds the new graphical interface called Aero.
Microsoft said it will also have improved media handling abilities so it can help users organise and enjoy their digital images, music and movie collections. Also included will be tools to help people author and burn DVDs.
PCs running the Premium edition will also be able to connect their machine to an Xbox 360 gaming console.
Vista Ultimate has all the features of the business and home editions in one package.
The Starter edition is a streamlined version intended for low powered PCs found in many developing nations.
Also available will be versions made specifically for Europe that, in accordance with an EU mandate, remove the Windows media player.
Microsoft pointed out that the current version of Windows, XP, is available in six different versions though most of these are tuned for the different types of hardware, such as a Tablet PC, people are using.
By contrast Vista versions are organised by what people plan to do with their computer.
"We don't want customers to be forced into buying something that isn't going to meet all their needs," said Barry Goffe, Microsoft's director of Windows client product management.

Three more languages for Blogger

2008-01-31T01:48:00.001-08:00

Millions of people around the world already use Blogger to participate in the wider Internet community. Blogging is a powerful way for people to publish online, reach a large and varied audience, and communicate with others who share their interests. And today, Blogger is available in Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew. This brings the number of languages we offer to 40. We've been really excited about adding these languages and widening the world of bloggers.We're especially pleased that Blogger now supports composing text and displaying blogs right to left. This has long been an challenge for bloggers in Hebrew, Persian, and Arabic. We've added new features specifically for these users, and also made sure every page of the Blogger application displays right-to-left in these languages. This project has been very technically challenging, but among the most thrilling I've ever worked on. I hope that everyone enjoys using it as much as I've enjoyed developing it.

PM, Gates inaugurate Microsoft Centre

2008-01-28T05:45:00.002-08:00

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Microsoft Corporation founder and chairman Bill Gates, and economy and Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis on Monday inaugurated the Microsoft Innovation Centre in Athens.
Karamanlis noted that "a society develops and progresses to the degree that it gives its members the opportunity, the tools and the liberty to open up new roads of progress themselves, in accordance with their own dreams, abilities and ambitions", and stressed that "this principle of a people-centered economy of knowledge and innovation is embodied and served by Bill Gates, with his business, as well as his multi-faceted humanistic activity".
Karamanlis said that the building housing the Centre would serve as the operational hub of an important institutional cooperation aimed at strengthening innovation in Greece through full exploitation of the abilities of new technology, and concerns the public sector, business both small and large, education and youth.
"The goal is, one the one hand the application of all the already available software tools in the economy and society, and on the other hand the development and production of new software applications," Karamanlis said.
The aim, he continued, is to ensure better services, boost competitiveness, and encourage the creativity, talent and innovative thought of the Greeks, as well as to provide the youth with a significant opportunity to try out their ideas in their own country, without having to move abroad, and to encourage new entrepreneurship and strengthen the branches of IT, communications -- the entrepreneurship that is linked with the internet and its applications -- as a percentage of GDP.
Karamanlis explained that the collaboration with Microsoft was an organic part of the government's strategy for the digital age, "a strategy that is already producing positive results, having made up much of the lost ground of the past".
The growth rates alone of the broadband penetration index were proof of the country's new orientation, he said, adding that in just a short time, Greece had moved from "laggard" to a dynamic entry into the group of pioneer countries with respect to the use of new technology and, day by day, with determination, was acquiring the infrastructure to strengthen its role in the production of new applications as well.
He said investment in information technology and communications technology was a prerequisite for the wider reform break from the past that the country so needed.
It was a condition so that Greece may play a leading role in the new globalisation of knowledge, as the natural manager of the immense legacy of Hellenism's historical and cultural heritage, but also as a hub of creation of new knowledge and new invaluable tools for the past and the common future of humanity.
Karamanlis explained that there were two approaches in life, politics and the economy: the first approach was to remain at the stage of pinpointing the problems, of ascertaining the imperfections that hindered us from moving ahead, "it is the stage of conservatism and pettiness". The second approach, he continued, was that of moving beyond pinpointing and ascertaining, it was a life stance that dares to tackle the problems and which, instead of waiting to see what the future would bring, dares to prepare the future, with targets and specific actions.
"We need this second approach, and with initiatives such as this being inaugurated today with Microsoft's founder, Mr. Bill Gates, with initiatives for innovation and creativity, we are laying the foundations so that this life stance will take root and prevail, for the benefit of the country and our society," Karamanlis concluded.
Alogoskoufis, in turn, said the Innovation Centre was part of the Greek state's collaboration with Microsoft in the framework of the government's digital strategy.
He said the Centre would function as an "incubator" for new software applications which, if proved effective, could be disseminated throughout the world.
Referring to the digital strategy being followed by the government over the past four years, Alogoskoufis stressed that knowledge and technology, as well as utilisation of the human resources, was decisive factors for a country's prosperity.

Microsoft moves into VMware field

2008-01-28T05:45:00.001-08:00

Last week, the software giant announced its strategy, including the acquisition of virtualisation software vendor Calista Technologies, the expansion of partner relationships and several virtualisation technologies. Neil Sanderson, UK product manager for systems centre virtualisation at Microsoft, said: “The virtualisation market is in its early stages, so there is room for competition.“Microsoft’s virtualisation push is to ensure partners and end users are aware of the choices and where best to invest their infrastructure.”Microsoft also expanded its relationship with alliance partner Citrix by developing a tool to transfer virtual machines between Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper V for interoperability.“Resellers can offer their customers more choice through interoperable technologies. Microsoft has a virtualisation platform for its partners so take advantage of it and use it. It may also attract new partners that already specialise in virtualisation,” added Sanderson.Matt Piercy, channel director for northern EMEA at VMware, said: “The vision announced by Microsoft is encouraging for VMware’s customers, however, it is still not delivering the dynamic environment that VMware has offered since 2006.”Terry Walby, datacentre solutions manager at corporate VAR Computacenter, said: “We are a VMware and Microsoft partner. For us, it is about what is more appropriate for the customer environment.”Hamish MacArthur of analyst MacArthur Stroud, said: “It will be an interesting fight.”

Ten years on, how evil was Microsoft’s Evil Empire?

2008-01-28T05:44:00.001-08:00

Before he became Mother Teresa, Bill Gates was Darth Vader. As captain of the Evil Empire, he and his minions dominated PC operating systems, vanquishing all rivals. In May of 1998, the US Department of Justice struck back.
In the “antitrust case of the century,” the DoJ accused the Microsoft Corporation of monopolisation. The company was accused of destroying a rival in browserware – Netscape’s Navigator –- to suppress a competitive threat in operating systems – Sun’s Java. With Navigator’s browser becoming popular and ubiquitous, the Java script it embedded would, the DoJ predicted, provide an alternative platform for applications. This would deprive Microsoft’s Windows operating system of control over the computer; independent programmes could gain access simply by launching via Java. Soon Windows would be a trivial layer between valuable stacks of hardware and software applications. Fearing this, Microsoft sought to thwart Netscape and technological progress. So went the theory.
The government won its case and, after a divestiture order blowing the Empire to bits, was itself neutralised by an appellate court, imposed sanctions designed to make Windows play a far more gracious host to rival applications. Microsoft now releases more information about its interfaces, which are coded to accommodate more rivalry, depending on who is testifying and what jurisdiction you are hearing the latest antitrust case in.
Ten years of wild and crazy software sector history allow us to reflect. First, we note that the case struck a decisive blow against the Silicon Valley hubris that it was beyond the range of regulatory attack. Its Maginot Line breached, the tech industry flipped from defence to offence, equipping new armies to do battle in Washington and Brussels. The sleeping giant now roars public policy. From libertarian survivalists to shock troops for “network neutrality” in just one decade.
And we can now judge the government’s fundamental assertion in US v Microsoft. Did Microsoft’s tactics serve to protect a Windows monopoly that a targeted antitrust intervention could open to competition?
No. Whether one concludes that the court-imposed sanctions worked, or did not, the answer is the same. If the antitrust enforcers imposed precisely the right measures, Java has done nothing to dent the Windows franchise. If the sanctions were inept or poorly enforced, that is even more directly a failure of the theory that an anti-monopoly law can improve on the “but for” scenario.
But the decade has hardly been a bust for competition. It flourishes on margins unimagined by those who were professing to protect its path. Rivalry has come not from Java, but from a resurgent Apple and the open-source Linux. One is a vertically integrated firm with proprietary innovation; the other a geekdom of code-sharers seeking karma and human capital. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is coughing up market share to Mozilla, Netscape and Opera, browsers that ride comfortably on Windows.
But operating systems and browsers turned out to be a side show. The profits of the decade have been stolen by entrepreneurs who saw what was unfolding over a distant horizon. And then traversed that distance in a flash.
While the DoJ was filing against Microsoft, two youngsters at Stanford were crawling the web. With a search engine that could catalogue and rank the world’s web sites, matching key words while filtering out mish mash, their start-up quickly entered the language as a verb – a really popular verb. You can Google it.
Meanwhile, Apple has been making its own fortune under the shadow of the beast. It is crushing Microsoft in media players, finding its salvation in the holy i-trinity of Pod, Tunes and Phone. Domination of this digital consumer space was right there for the dreaming.
In 1998, operating systems and browsers looked to be the strategic high ground of cyberspace. He who dominated these tools would extract tolls, excluding rivals and squeezing customers. The reality was different. Incredible value was created in applications not then known and party occupying the old position of dominance proved ineffectual as a monopolist and an also-ran as a competitor.
Microsoft is valued at about $300bn, modestly above where it stood a decade ago. In just the past five years, however, Google and Apple have together generated a brand new $300bn in shareholder wealth. That a software giant proved helpless against competitive forces is an important lesson. We were not saved from the Evil Empire by police action. But Darth Vader proved not so scary, after all.

Microsoft delays SQL Server 2008 release again

2008-01-28T05:40:00.000-08:00

Redmond has scaled back its ambitious plans to get the server party started by sidelining its 2008 version of sequel server – which was originally supposed to hit manufacturing at the end of last year – to the third quarter.
SQL Server 2008 had been expected to join the biggest single day of launches in the software giant's history on 27 February, alongside 2008 versions of Windows Server and Visual Studio, but Microsoft admitted in a blog post on Friday that it has once again delayed its release.
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Microsoft SQL server product director Francois Ajenstat said, after a tremendous amount of waffle about how the team has been "gearing up" for next month's launch, that the firm now expects (but still doesn't promise) final release to manufacturing (RTM) of Q3 2008.
He said that while Redmond was still on schedule to deliver its latest SQL Server 2008 within the original rather loosely defined, anything-goes 24-36 month timeframe, it won't be pulling on its bow tie and drinking bubbly in Las Vegas next month afterall.
It's fair to say that Microsoft execs are flushed with uncertainty at the moment, as the firm's numerous apps jockey for position in its Windows roadmap.
Just last week tongues were set wagging about the possibility of Microsoft pushing forward its release of Windows 7, the successor to the operating system almost everyone loves to hate, Vista.
In August last year, Microsoft acknowledged that Windows Server 2008 wouldn't be ready to ship by the end of 2007 as planned.
This latest roadmap revision, which Ajenstat described as being vital to satisfy the "high quality" expected by the multinational tech firm's punters and partners, will undoubtedly add a layer of frustration among companies planning to upgrade their systems. ®

Dividing Lines in Google's Navigation Menu

2008-01-25T05:38:00.001-08:00

To separate the search and the non-search properties, Google added two dividing lines in the More menu. Another change is that the services are no longer sorted alphabetically, but probably by usage. The order for non-search services is: YouTube, Google Calendar, Picasa Web, Google Docs and Google Reader, while in the search area: Google Video, Google Groups, Book Search, Google Scholar, Google Finance, Blog Search.It's still difficult to understand why Google doesn't let you customize the navigation bar, the same way you can customize it in the new iPhone interface. This will probably encourage more people to use the menu and to go to their favorite services more often.

Microsoft partners get Vista successor

2008-01-25T05:25:00.000-08:00

Industry sources have confirmed the shipment to "key partners" of an early version of Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista. The new Microsoft operating system was previously code named Blackcomb Vienna and is likely to be introduced in the second half of 2009. The version will be a "Milestone 1" (M1) edition for validation purposes only; two more Milestone builds are expected before the public Beta release. Microsoft's roadmap for release had slated 2010 for the debut; that has now been moved up a few months to second-half 2009. The new Windows is likely to offer advanced touch screen capabilities, taking advantage of multiple graphics card setups now offered by hardware vendors. A new integrated Media Center

is also included supporting full home media and entertainment platforms. Another key feature is a reduced kernel size that takes up only 40MB of memory; the leaner operating core is called MinWin. It will become clearer when Windows 7 will be going into production when Microsoft announces its Windows Logo Program Changes for the software; at present there is little information available on Vista's replacement. A Microsoft spokesman said: "We're continuing to work with our customers and partners on the development of Windows 7, the next version of the client operating system. We're not sharing additional information at this time; instead, we're focused on helping customers today get the most value from their PCs using Windows Vista, and we're encouraged by the response and adoption so far." Still with Windows, we are asking ourselves if Microsoft can right the wrongs and increase the adoption of Vista with the release of Service Pack 1 (SP1). The Beta version of SP1 was made available to the public for testing earlier this month and there have been mixed reports about it. Improvements have been indicated in reliability, performance and security, with the update boasting faster file transfer and booting speeds. Microsoft claims the service pack reduces the time it takes to copy files from a remote non-Windows Vista system to a SP1 system by 45% and a 50% gain is seen when copying files from a remote SP1 system over a LAN to a local SP1 system. However, the biggest problems still lie in the fact that Vista performs so poorly on lower spec PCs that don't have the hardware to get the most out of it. This doesn't seem to have been addressed in the Beta SP1, and neither have the annoying authentication issues. We'll wait for the final release, which has been rumored for release on February 15 and a number of other dates, but we won't be holding our breath. InternetHackers managed to bypass security measures and target the website of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) last weekend. The attacks included a database overload which slowed the server down and the deletion of portions of the site leaving it in a blank state. High-profile lawsuits issued by RIAA against online file sharers, many of whom are children and low income earners, have made it a prime target for hackers. During the past five years the site has reportedly been defaced a number of times and has undergone several denial-of-service attacks. Job cuts are rumored to be on the cards for Yahoo! employees as the company prepares to announce its fourth-quarter results. With a steady drop in share prices and increased competition from Google and Microsoft the Internet giant is facing tough times. The layoffs were partially confirmed in an email statement to media outlets by Yahoo spokesperson Diana Wong, who said, "Yahoo has embarked on a multi-year transformation that includes making tough decisions about the business to help the company grow ... Yahoo plans to invest in some areas, reduce emphasis in others, and eliminate some areas of the business that don't support the company's priorities." Yahoo's total workforce is estimated at around 14,000. It was not disclosed how many jobs will be cut. Last week, the Chinese government reported the country's Internet population has reached 210 million, putting it on track to exceed the US online community and make it the world's largest. A report by the China Internet Network Information Center stated that the online population grew 53% from 137 million at the same time last year. Many of the new users, almost 30 million, are in rural areas. Unlike the US, many Internet users in China still rely on Internet cafes as they are unable to afford a home computer. However, this could be changing as according to a recent International Data Corporation report almost 37 million PCs were shipped to China last year, up from the 29 million units in 2006. Shipments were expected to increase to 69 million units by 2011 with a compound annual growth rate of 17.2%. Lenovo remains the largest vendor in China with a 28.8% market share. Reports also show that the number of broadband Internet users in China has reached 163 million as the technology spreads across the country and more people are able to get online. Although the government promotes Internet use for education and business it still remains heavily censored behind the great firewall of China. HardwareAMD has finally announced some good news following the trend of recent upsets by competitors Intel, which has maintained the lead in the processor race. The bug in AMD's Barcelona core has been ironed out and the production of 45 nanometer CPU's is likely to commence later this year. President Dirk Meyer said that the higher speed Phenoms will have to wait and AMD will roll out triple-core Phenoms and 65-watt (low power) quad-core CPUs during the first quarter. "Higher speeds will follow in Q2," he said. The 45 nm cores are likely to appear late this year meaning that Intel will still have a full year's lead in the production process. Apple made a record number of iPod sales in the last quarter of 2007, with numbers reaching 22 million in the period. The company also sold 2.3 million Mac computers, helping to drive up profit for the quarter to US$1.58 billion. An estimated 47% of Apple's revenue comes from Mac systems and $170 million was made from sales of the new operating system Leopard. The iPod however remains the foundation of Apple's business and the iPhone supplemented figures with 2.3 million sales during the quarter. Not all was rosy for Apple, as investors unloaded tech stocks last week resulting in an 18% loss, or $27.64, to $128.00 on Wednesday. Also setting revenue records was Microsoft, with $16.3 billion for the second quarter of its fiscal year. The increase over the earnings of $14 billion in the same period a year earlier was attributed by the tech giant to the adoption of Windows Vista, more international customers and a total sales figure of 17.7 million units for the Xbox 360.

Mobile YouTube Application

2008-01-25T05:20:00.000-08:00

YouTube updated its mobile site available at m.youtube.com to include all the videos from the desktop version and to provide access to your account, the option to rate videos and post meaningful comments. To use the mobile interface, you need a phone that is able to stream 3GP files over RTSP.

But there's a better way to play YouTube videos from your mobile phone: a Java midlet currently available for some phones from Sony Ericsson (K800, W880) and Nokia (S60 3rd Edition phones: N73, N95, E65, 6110, 6120). The JAR file for Nokia phones can be found here, in case you want to test it on unsupported phones. YouTube's mobile application also lets you upload videos from your phone. To install it, just go to m.youtube.com/app on your phone and follow the steps described in YouTube's help center.

"You may be wondering, Is YouTube for Mobile the same as what's available on the Helio Ocean or Apple iPhone? In a nutshell, yes -- YouTube for Mobile is all about bringing video to mobile phones. We believe in providing the best user experience possible for all users, which in some cases means different YouTube solutions for different phones," explains the YouTube blog.

Google India Women in Engineering Award 2008

2008-01-25T05:18:00.000-08:00

Diversity at Google means having a workforce that reflects the diversity of our customers' perspectives, ideas and cultures -- one that thinks and acts inclusively, and fundamentally values people's similarities and differences. As part of our ongoing commitment to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, the India team has taken our first steps: in December we launched the Google India "Women in Engineering Award" to recognize women in the field of computer science and engineering.

In its inception year, we have extended this award to recognized engineering schools across India; it is open to any woman student in computer science engineering who meets the application criteria. This initiative has been received positively, as has been indicated by the inundating queries and subsequent applications. The last date for applying is January 31st and we are looking forward to hearing from even more applicants.

After our panel reviews all applications, the winners will be announced in a little more than a month, on February 29th. The winners will be invited to visit the Google engineering office in Bangalore during first week of March for a conclave comprising of keynotes, panel discussions, tech talks, breakouts and an award ceremony.

We hope this award will encourage students to take up computer science engineering as their study, and perhaps inspire some of you to take this up as a career too.

Gmail in your words

2008-01-25T05:01:00.000-08:00

A Google OS by 2010?

2008-01-25T04:57:00.000-08:00

Wishful thinking? Yes, but let's consider the possibilities. The last couple years have seen significant advances in hardware production and design. One of the more interesting (and potentially revolutionary) developments to take place this past year is the announcement of a new CPU, the STI (Sony, Toshiba, IBM) Cell processor.
Acting like several CPUs in one, the Cell will be able to power multiple operating systems at once, as well as bear the heavy computing load that a single system can place on the CPU. These past couple years have also seen significant shifts in the direction that computers and their operating systems are to take. Phones, computers, gaming systems, and entertainment centers are becoming more complex, more integrated with each other, and the distinction between these devices are becoming more and more blurred. Modern operating systems are reflecting this shift as well, supporting VoiP, integrating audio and video with IM and email, etc. With the maturity of the cell processor, tech manufacturers have the opportunity to combine these functions completely on a single home machine, with dedicated processors or cores for each task, and perhaps dedicated operating systems--or environments--to enhance task performance and simplify the interface.
As hardware complexity increases, a simpler, more elegant and straightforward computing interface will likely emerge, separating media from computing, design and multimedia work from office work, with all tied to the Web. With multimedia and gaming relegated to their own places--all of which can operate simultaneously without interfering with one another (thanks to Cell)--there is no need for one beastly, complicated interface to control them all. Each environment can have its own simple, straightforward interface, and the Cell will ensure ease of mobility between environments without disturbing the workflow of any particular environment.
Enter Google
This is Google's specialty: a simple, easy to use interface, accessible to all levels of users. Though there is no indication that anything like this is in the works, one can easily imagine a streamlined Google OS on its own hard disk partition, separated from the entertainment, gaming, and media production environments. In addition to Google's signature services�a high-powered internet, media, and local disk search engine�it would likely consist of an office suite, a lean web browser, and various other applications and utilities. Consider the technology already at Google's disposal. Start with the world's best search engine with access to the largest body of searchable information and media. Add Gmail: a clean, javascript-based application, stored on a server, accessed via the internet, from which a user can not only compose, read, organize, and search their email, but also quickly access Google's search and other services. Now, look at Google News: a world of online news sources, which can be customized to an individual users preferences. Throw in Google's desktop search, the Picasa photo software, and Firefox (Mozilla and Google have significant overlap in their employed workforces) with live bookmarks, and cool research extensions such as dictionary and thesaurus lookup, linky, launchy, and the like. Extend all of this technology to typical desktop applications like office software, then combine them all into one interface and bundle the OS. Simple, powerful, and totally Google.
Let's take it one step further. Imagine that all of this software�like the Google search engine, Gmail, etc.�is stored on Google's notoriously well-backed-up servers and operates at relatively high speed with any internet connection, thanks to its simplicity and javascript code base. Supported by unobtrusive (sometimes even helpful) ads, and hosted on a distant server, this is free, convenient, and accessible from ANY computer, anywhere, anytime. Additionally, you have the world's best IT department working on your behalf to protect your software, its accessibility, and its security. No viruses, no worms, no corrupted disks.
Let's say they go even further: Google gives you, say, 1000GB on their servers, hosts all your data (with multiple levels of permissions), and provides everything mentioned above, and extends their video search (currently in beta) to provide access to a wealth of streaming audio (like iTunes radio) and video. All of it is free, all of it is easily accessible through a powerful, extensible web browser, and all of it simple and easy to use (it's still Google, remember). What are the implications of such a system? First, no more purchasing software (at least not the consumer grade applications hosted on the server); second, companies actually competing for your business (Google would surely be followed by the other major players); third, your work is finally mobile.