-->Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) continues to improve the capabilities of its Bing Maps, a part of the Bing search engine site that’s been attracting more attention lately – even applause – in its competition with Google (NSDQ:GOOG).Microsoft has been rolling out a number of new features for Bing Maps this week, most notably the ability to help users calculate cab fares between two addresses.
Some of the new features, including the taxi fare calculator, were submitted by users as part of Microsoft’s “King of Bing Maps” competition. The winner of that competition will be announced Aug. 20 and will win a $1,000 travel gift card.
The contest appears to be helping Bing gain some ground in respectability against Google. Google does not offer a taxi fare calculator, for example.
Other entrants in the contest can be seen at the Bing community blog. Another entrant overlays a map that displays sales taxes around the country, for example, while another simply generates a random set of map coordinates and takes the user there on Bing Maps – the modern-day equivalent of throwing a dart at a map on the wall.
Outside of the contest, Microsoft this week said that Bing Maps is now tied into the OpenStreetMap (OSM) community, the online map with free geographic data that’s edited by volunteers Wikipedia-style. OSM community members contribute data to the OSM central database – everything from street names to GPS readings – to create maps.
In a posted blog, Chris Pendleton, Microsoft’s “Bing Maps evangelist,” said Microsoft Bing has linked the OSM database to its Windows Azure Content Delivery Network. Through a new application in the Bing Map App gallery, Bing users can load OSM maps as a new map style option.
While Google remains far and away the online search engine leader, it’s share of the overall search market has been slipping in recent months, according to recent numbers compiled by digital marketing intelligence firm comScore. Competitors, meanwhile, have gained some ground, including Bing, which improved its market share to 12.7 percent in June.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2010
New Capabilities Help Microsoft's Bing Maps Gain Respectability
Microsoft Partners Dance On Google Wave's Grave
-->Google (NSDQ:GOOG)'s decision to kill off Google Wave is being hailed by Microsoft partners as proof that the communication and collaboration market is tougher to break into than it may seem.Google Wave, a melange of e-mail, instant messaging and social networking, was seen as a dipping of toes into a space dominated by products like Microsoft Exchange and Sharepoint and IBM Lotus Notes. After launching it last May, Google this week halted development of Google Wave as a standalone product, due to weak adoption.
Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) partners believe the collaboration parallels between Google Wave and Sharepoint were overblown, but they're nonetheless feeling a frisson of schadenfreude at the demise of the product.
"Google Wave was an interesting lesson," said Ken Winell, CEO of ExpertCollab, a Microsoft solution provider in Florham Park, N.J. "I think Google had hoped that a basic platform like Google Wave would attract people at the consumer level, but they basically built a shared inbox."
Ric Opal, vice president of Peters & Associates, an Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based solution provider, says some of his customers are looking at Google Docs and Gmail but none has asked about Google Wave. He cites the ubiquity of Sharepoint as the big reason why. "It would have been hard for Wave to penetrate the collaboration space given the strength of SharePoint," he said.
Winell agrees: "Sharepoint offers much more than Google Wave, including workflow, security and audience management and Web parts to customize."
Google often highlights the cost advantages companies can reap by switching from Microsoft Office to Google Apps. Had Google Wave caught on, we probably would have been hearing similar claims about Sharepoint.
But Office and Sharepoint are very different animals, and Microsoft has the advantage of a user base that's accustomed to the features and functionality it offers. Companies often discover that the time involved in learning a new platform outweighs the cost advantages Google offers, notes Kevin Baylor, managing partner at Suncoast Business Technologies, a solution provider in Bradenton, Fla.
"We know companies that have moved their corporate collaboration and communication to Google and are enjoying the cost savings, but many still miss the Microsoft feature set. It's not always about the bottom line," Baylor said.
Google says it's making inroads in the enterprise, but Microsoft often points out its rival's lack of experience in this market. The demise of Google Wave is, in the opinion of some Microsoft partners, a telling example of Google underestimating the rigorous nature of the challenges companies face in the enterprise.
"Enterprise software means 36 language versions and thousands of people involved in the marketing, sales, and support of these application ecosystems," said Tim Huckaby, CEO at InterKnowlogy, a Microsoft Gold partner in Carlsbad, Calif.
"Right or wrong, throwing a product up on a Website in English only, and assuming that the viral effect will grow the business just isn’t going to cut it when you're going up against the Microsofts of the world," Huckaby added.
Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for twentysix New York, a Microsoft partner in New York City, describe Google's product success ratio as "incredibly low" given how much praise and how little scrutiny the company often gets.
"I don't blame Google for taking risks and losing. In fact, I would praise them for it. But their failures need to be covered fairly so that they can be compared accurately with other tech companies' successes," said Brust.
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1 message - Last message on Aug 9, 2010 at 5:01:39 PM by MIRMatt
When first announced in May, 2009 at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, many technology analysts saw Wave as a potential competitor to SharePoint and its web-based sibling, SharePoint Online. But unlike SharePoint (which is the fastest selling product in Microsoft�s history), Wave has had a hard time gaining acceptance from both personal users and the business community.
It will be interesting to see what impact the loss of this offering has on Google's ability to drive their other business productivity tools into the corporate market.
Further insight: www.contentmanagement.typepad.com
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Can't win 'em all I guess...
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
New Microsoft Web Site Seeks Support For Windows Phone 7 Mobile Apps - Software - IT Channel News by CRN
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-->--> --> -->Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) has launched an online showroom called Mobile App Match in an effort to spur development of third-party applications for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system.The site also offers a discussion venue where mobile phone users can suggest ideas for Windows Phone 7 applications and provide feedback on application prototypes.
The site is separate from the online marketplace where Microsoft sells applications for its mobile operating system.
Microsoft debuted the public beta of Windows Phone 7 at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference last month and plans to make the mobile software generally available in about two months. The company’s stated goal is to have smartphones running the operating system hit the market in time for the holiday shopping season. And having lots of third-party applications when the new product ships will go a long way toward giving it a competitive boost in the market.
But Microsoft has a long way to go to catch up with rivals Apple and Google. Apple’s App Store has more than 225,000 applications for its popular iPhone while Google’s Android mobile operating system, which runs on smartphones from Motorola, HTC and other manufacturers, is estimated to have some 65,000 third-party applications.
The new Microsoft Mobile App Match site allows developers to post their Windows Phone 7 application prototypes or videos demonstrating how they would work. Users can comment and vote on the applications, post their own application ideas, and start conversations on Windows Phone 7 topics.
The site also provides Windows Phone news and blog posts, links to developer tools, development tips and Windows Phone 7 commercials.
Microsoft, which has struggled to gain a significant foothold in the mobile computing market, is pulling out all the stops to make Windows Phone 7 a winner. At the partner conference Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner said mobile computing was one of the few key technology areas where Microsoft is not a market-share leader – a situation he vowed to change.
And Microsoft has been beating the drums to get ISVs to develop applications for Windows Phone 7. At Microsoft’s MIX10 developers’ conference in Las Vegas in March the company gave developers an in-depth look at the tools they’ll be using to build Windows Phone 7 applications.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Death of Windows XP SP2 Support a Security Risk - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
CIO — If your business is still running Service Pack 2 of Windows XP, security problems are lurking around the corner, according to new research from IT services vendor Softchoice stating that almost 80 percent of organizations surveyed risk a security breach if the do not upgrade to SP3.
Why should SP2 users fear the reaper? Because Microsoft is ending support for SP2 on July 13, a date that was established when Windows XP SP3 was released on April 21, 2008. Paid support and security updates for SP2 will no longer be available, although Microsoft has stated that Windows XP SP2 users will still be allowed to access Microsoft online Knowledge Base articles, FAQs and troubleshooting tools.
All free technical support, warranty claims and design changes for Windows XP ended in April 2009 when the OS moved from Mainstream Support to the Extended Support phase. Extended Support includes paid support (charged on an hourly basis or per incident), security update support at no additional cost, and paid hotfix support.
Similar to this ArticleCompanies who choose not to update their SP2 systems to SP3 could, "create unnecessary security risks as hackers continue to look for vulnerabilities knowing that software updates will no longer be forthcoming from Microsoft," according to a release about the research report.
Windows XP SP2 users can download the SP3 software package from Microsoft's support site if they want to continue receiving security updates. Microsoft will also terminate support for Windows Vista RTM and Windows Server 2000 on July 13.
The Softchoice report is based on an analysis of 278,498 corporate and public sector PCs across 117 organizations from industries such as financial, healthcare, manufacturing and education.
Softchoice's data shows that 46 percent of these PCs are still running Microsoft Windows XP SP2. In addition, it is estimated that 77 percent of these organizations have enough SP2 in their environments to warrant immediate updates.
What happens for companies that don't update? Well, an unsupported service pack means no security updates, hotfixes or assisted support from Microsoft customer service. Essentially, you will no longer receive software updates from Windows Update to protect PCs from viruses, spyware and other malware, or that improve Windows reliability, including new drives for hardware.
Slideshow: Windows 7 Hardware in Pictures: The Latest and Greatest Laptops
Slideshow: In Pictures: Pro Sports Teeming with Tech Partnerships
Slideshow: Fighting the Dark Side: Tech's Heroes and VillainsWhile Windows XP SP2, released in 2004, was a major overhaul and therefore was delayed by many businesses, SP3 is more of an incremental upgrade, says Dean Williams, Services Development Manager for Softchoice.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
How to Enable Windows 7 GodMode
Here’s a neat Windows 7 trick that’s been doing the rounds on the Internet. It enables “GodMode,” a term devised by the Microsoft development team, which provides a single place to access all Windows settings without needing to browse options and folders in the Control Panel.
To use it:
- Create a new folder.
Rename the folder to
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
(note that you can change the “GodMode” text, but the following period and code number are essential).
- The folder icon will change — double click it to show the GodMode window:
The window shows nearly 50 sections with quick links to configuration options. Strictly speaking, it’s not a God Mode since all the options are available elsewhere. It’s more akin to an “all tasks” list — but you may find it easier than stumbling through Windows numerous screens and panels.
Big Red Warning!
The trick appears to work on both the 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 7. Vista 32-bit and Windows Server 2008 32-bit should also work. However, it is known to crash 64-bit versions of Vista — and you may need to boot in safe mode or to the command line to delete the folder.
New Year, New Windows
Since it’s the new year, you may be considering an upgrade to Windows 7. I’ve been watching the prices closely since Microsoft’s Windows “E” fiasco and they should have risen on January 1, 2010. However, that does not appear to have occurred just yet … perhaps it won’t be long? movie downloads
US Amazon.com:
- Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade — $110
- Windows 7 Home Premium (full version) — $180
- Windows 7 Professional Upgrade — $175
- Windows 7 Professional (full version) — $255 (down $5)
- Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade — $200
- Windows 7 Ultimate (full version) — $292
UK Amazon.co.uk:
- Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade — £65
- Windows 7 Home Premium (full version) — £90 (down £20)
- Windows 7 Professional Upgrade — £133 (down £6)
- Windows 7 Professional (full version) — £160 (up £10)
- Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade — £150
- Windows 7 Ultimate (full version) — £170 (up £4)
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Posted on January 5, 2010 in News & Trends. The views and opinions in this blog post are those of its author.
Simplifying your control panel! Found this to be quite useful. Nothing new from a functionality standpoint, just ease of access to the features.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Seven Features in Windows 7 You Probably Don't Know About - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
Seven Features in Windows 7 You Probably Don't Know About
From streaming Netflix movies in Windows Media Center to eye candy desktop Themes to a calculator that does a lot more than arithmetic, here's a slideshow of cool but unappreciated Windows 7 features.
By this point if you're using Windows 7 you've Aero Snapped, Peeked and Shaken, you've jumped to Jump Lists and taskbar thumbnails, and shared photos and music using HomeGroup. But there's a plethora of hidden gems in Windows 7 that don't get nearly enough attention.
Here's our photo collection of seven underrated Windows 7 features and instructions on how to use them.
-->Sticky Notes
If yellow notes stuck to desks and computer monitors rule your life, it's time to go digital with Sticky Notes in Windows 7. The Sticky Notes app can be found by clicking the start button in Windows 7, typing in "sticky" and pressing enter. A new note appears on the desktop. Let the digital "to do" lists begin. With Sticky Notes in Windows 7, you can format a note's text, change colors, collapse, resize and flip through notes. Sticky Notes is available in Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate.
[ For complete coverage on Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system -- including hands-on reviews, video tutorials and advice on enterprise rollouts-- see CIO.com's Windows 7 Bible. ]
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Some interesting findings...
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
