Web search a prioity at tech's top players

It looks like Google's world domination plan is still full steam ahead. According to comScore, Google's search share checked in at 61.6% in March with Yahoo finishing a distant second at 20.4% and Microsoft posting 9.1%. These staggering figures demonstrate Google's massive superiority in the industry and provide a lot of insight into the recent tech merger talks.

ZDnet.com's Larry Dignan commented about this topic stating "These search market share figures put a lot of recent events in context. For starters, Google’s search gains are a big reason why Microsoft has been hot for Yahoo in either a full acquisition or some sort of search purchase."

Microsoft and its quest for Yahoo has been a hot topic in both the technology and financial worlds lately. With the proliferation of web based services and the move toward cloud computing, Microsoft can see the writing on the wall and is trying desperately to position itself in the web search world. On Monday, Microsoft inked a deal with HP to make Live Search the default search engine for all consumer PC's shipped in 2009. Microsoft is calling the deal "the most significant distribution deal for Live Search that Microsoft has ever done.”

It will be very interesting to see how far the tech giants go to leverage the web into their product lines. We probably aren't far from a fully web based OS with a PC that opens to a web browser and doesn't rely on dedicated applications.

Windows 7 & Multi-Touch Technology Demo

Here's the latest buzz on the tech front today, the sneak peek of Windows 7 and Microsoft's Multi-touch technology. Check out the video below and be aware that you may encounter difficulties trying to view it in a browser other that IE.

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

ShoreTel upgrades its call manager and adds new voice switches

Network World has posted an article about the ShoreTel 8 release that was reported here back in April. The article gives an overview of the new ShoreGear switches and Personal Call Manager software. You can find some of it below and the remainder here.

Credit: NetworkWorld.com

ShoreTel earlier this week announced several software and hardware upgrades and two new voice switches. Included in the announcement are enhancements to the ShoreWare Call Manager product line, more open interfaces for integration, and adds two new voice switches: the ShoreGear 24A and the ShoreGear 30.

The ShoreWare Personal Call Manager has been upgraded to provide more intuitive interfaces. Added features include an integrated client user interface with a main display for calling features and tabs for messages and history; simplified access to features designed to be easier to use and find; quick and easy dialing with exchange and phone directory along with just in time telephony presence; and a simplified, single-level user interface with personal and advanced merged options.

The ShoreWare Professional Call Manager has added improvements to its basic voice communications and it now provides automatic and on-demand video communications. The Instant Messaging interface upgrades include easy sidebar conversations; on the phone communications; and interfaces for a third party presence server. The unified communications suite has added improved call control, video calling and IM access and a rich presence integration; the suite now also supports a softphone.

Gates emphasizes PC-phone connectivity in Windows 7

Credit: Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet.com

Improved collaboration and connectivity between Windows PCs and cell phones is going to get a major shot in the arm with Windows 7, according to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

During a speech for members of the Windows Digital Lifestyle Consortium in Tokyo last week, Gates referred a few times to Windows 7, the next version of Windows which Microsoft has said will ship in 2010. Gates highlighted improvements to Windows 7’s lower power and memory requirements that are in the works. But he also played up extensively during his speech the new connectivity between mobile phones and Windows which will be introduced as part of the release.

From a transcript of Gates’ remarks:

“We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.”

The file synchronization capability to which Gates refers is the Live Mesh collaboration/synchronization platform/service which Microsoft recently unveiled. But Gates made it sound like there’s something beyond Mesh that could be in the works for Windows 7. Again, from the transcript:

“We’re also a participant in building software for the mobile phones, and our proposition is to build a great mobile operating system, but also to have it be the one that connects best to the Windows PCs. So we’re working hard on both of those things….

“For a customer there are going to be phones with larger screens, and PCs with smaller screens. In fact, there will be even an overlap, but I think the key for us is to drive all the applications, and let the user move easily back and forth. Our best customers are going to have a great mobile phone, and they’re going to have a great personal computer. And if we don’t make those scenarios work well together, that will hold back both of those markets.”

Gates also told the audience that Microsoft is going to deliver a “major new version of Windows” every two to three years. (A caveat: Gates also said not too long ago that Microsoft would deliver a new version of Internet Explorer every 9 to 12 months. IE 7 shipped in October 2006; we’re still only at Beta 1 for IE 8.)

What’s your take? What kinds of new features in Windows 7 — and Windows Mobile 7, allegedly due out in 2009 — might improve PC-to-mobile connectivity and what kinds of applications/services would benefit?

IBM, Google stirring up a cloud environment

Credit: NetworkWorld.com

Google and IBM are testing a cloud computing infrastructure that could become an important avenue for them to deliver software and services to consumer and business users.

Google's Eric Schmidt and IBM's Sam Palmisano addressed a gathering of IBM business partners in Los Angeles on Thursday and revealed the two companies have developed a cloud computing environment that runs on Linux and includes Xen virtualization and an Apache implementation of the Google File System called Hadoop.

Last year, the two companies teamed up on a parallel-computing initiative.

The IBM/Google cloud environment is being tested at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University.

The pair isn't the first to test the cloud concept.

Amazon is offering a cloud environment called EC2, which has companies or developers paying only for the capacity they need to run their applications or services that they in turn are offering to users or business partners.

While the two CEOs did not announce any future plans, they said the IBM/Google cloud would eventually be used to support an array of services and applications tailored for consumers and businesses.

Google already has a number of online services for consumers including calendars, photos and Google Docs word processing tools. Google also is positioning Google Docs as a suite of applications for corporate users, including offline capabilities.

IBM recently released IBM Symphony, a set of similar office productivity tools that users can download and run locally and can be tied into other services. It also has a set of social-networking tools that could be offered as a service.

The IBM/Google cloud initiative would compete with Microsoft's software-plus-services strategy and the recently announced Live Mesh, a storage and synchronization framework. Microsoft is attempting to tie the cloud to desktop and devices, and its on-premise business and server applications. In April, the company announced it had begun a beta to test a combination of Office and online services under the codename Albany.

Schmidt was quoted by the Dow Jones news service as saying Google's relationship with IBM is a "key plank" in its strategy "otherwise we can't reach the customers."

Microsoft Pulls XP Update After 1 Day

Here's an update to yesterday's post, it looks like Microsoft jumped the gun a little on SP3 for Windows XP.

Wired.com is reporting that the update encountered some issues with Microsoft's Dynamic Retail Application System and had to be pulled off the website. The report also states

"ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that the temporary solution is going to involve a filter so that PCs running RMS won’t automatically update. Once that’s in place the general public release will be re-posted. Obviously Microsoft plans to fix the issue ASAP, but in the mean time, those of us who would have never known there was an issue can still get our hands on a copy of the update."

Microsoft seems to be in the business of rushing software to market as of late (Vista). One would think they would have learned from their mistakes of the past.

Windows XP SP3 released

The third service pack update for Windows XP has arrived today and is available for download on Microsoft's website. Many corporations are still very much behind Windows XP as Vista has proven to be a big disappointment for the business user. This newest service pack provides those users (and admins) with performance updates, security updates and hotfixes that have been released since the Service Pack 2 in August 2004.

Some noteworthy features added from Vista have been included in this release as well. Including NAP, a policy enforcement platform for limiting network access to secure machines, “Black Hole” Router Detection, a cryptographic module for the kernel and a new Product Activation module allows you to install XP without a product key. Microsoft reports that over 1,000 fixes have been packed into in SP3 along with some performance improvements as well.

Microsoft is still holding firm to a support EOL for XP of June 30th which is quite a shame. Vista doesn't seem to provide a call to action for businesses to spend the time and money to migrate their workstations to Vista from XP. A new version of Windows beyond Vista is already being discussed around the web and could see development and deployment considerably quicker than Vista came to market.