Not very long ago, technology giant Microsoft challenged the might of Google, with the launch of a new search engine, Bing.  Not stopping at that, it went ahead and announced Office 10, which will include free online versions of its four popular software programs – a shot at Google’s web-based office applications.  Google, not one to be left behind, surprised everyone with a talk about its new operating system, clearly hoping to overturn the dominance of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows.

This announcement by Google threw the tech world into a tizzy; some going to the extent of saying that Google’s new offering would finally mark the end of Windows’ rule and others shaking their heads at what they perceive to be a great mistake by Google.

It is certainly going to be quite a ride!  Microsoft powers almost 90 percent of the world’s computers and this gives Microsoft an inherent advantage, where operating systems are concerned.

Google’s new operating system, called the Google Chrome Operating System, is initially expected to target net books. It may be released to the world in the second half of 2010.

Why is Google even trying to get into Microsoft’s domain?  Google sees a huge opportunity here, as it believes that Windows is an archaic system from the pre-internet era, and outdated in the current day, where all our activities are moving online.

According to Google, the point of access should now shift from the desktop to the browser, and it has invested a lot of money and time, in what it sees as the future of computing – the cloud.  Cloud computing is a global network of huge data centers, that puts all the data and applications on the internet, which can be accessed by users with a network connection anywhere and at anytime.

The new operating system is expected to work perfectly with its other software applications, such as Google Maps, Google Calendar and Gmail.  It would be fast and light weight, and users will be able to access the web within a few seconds.  It is based on open-source Linux code.

It is not going to be easy to take away Microsoft’s market share, say experts.  There have been other alternatives in the past, but nothing could dent Windows.  But they do agree that things may be different this time around, because Google has deep pockets and plenty of resources unlike the other challengers.

Pertaining one of the key areas of competition for the two, Browsers, Internet Explorer dominates 70 percent of the market and Google’s Chrome browser has a hold on only 2 percent of the browser market.

In the online search area, Google is synonymous with the term “search”, and nothing else even comes into the picture. Google delivered about 80% of search results in June for U.S. web users.  Microsoft hopes its innovative search engine would fare better than Google, but as of now it only dominates 8.2 percent of the searches.

Coming to operating systems, Microsoft has been in the business of operating systems for 28 long years.  It continued to lead 90% of this market all these years, even dominating the business world, catering to millions of users from around the world.  In contrast, Google made its entry into the OS market just a couple of years ago with its Android operating system for small devices.  Google is now working on its new operating system to compete with Windows.  It hopes to convince developers to write software that is browser based.

Microsoft and Google have locked horns over the years in several markets, from mobile software to internet search.

From the looks of it, they are in the midst of a full-blown battle, and surprisingly, the fight is over who will be considered the most important tech company in the world.

The key to success for Google in this area would be to lock-in partnerships with top PC makers, such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, which currently use Windows on most of their products.  For Microsoft, the stakes are high because Windows OS attributed to 45% of its profits last year.  If this war between the two giants results in better products and more options for us, the consumers, all this excitement would be worth it.

This move will benefit both corporate and smaller customers.  While corporate customers will be able to get in on the paid subscriptions and tap into the online services, others can sign up for a service, where their online files will be stored and get help with data backup and security.

The best thing about this is that, everyone will be allowed to use the online versions of different applications, such as Word and PowerPoint without it being necessary to buy the desktop versions.  All they need to do is sign up for the free Windows Live account.

The technical preview engineering milestone for Office 2010 has been announced, and this allows thousands of people, mostly software engineering partners, to test drive the software by downloading it.  The beta version of the software is expected to be released by the year-end and the final version may be shipped in the first half of 2010.

Results of several technical previews reveal that improvements have been made to the office suite, such as the Ribbon being the default interface OneNote, Outlook and all other Office applications.  Not only is Ribbon made default but it has also been tweaked a bit.

The new features added include better mail handling in Outlook and video editing in PowerPoint.  Among the other changes that enhance productivity are the photo-editing tools and an improved paste operation.

Let’s take a look at the most important Outlook.  The new version adds a wide variety of new features that solve the major issue of e-mail overload. With the use of a full-blown Ribbon, most functions are within easy reach.  Quick Steps is a new feature that is said to speed up mail handling.   As we all know, one of the main problems of Outlook has always been the confusion with following threads of messages.  This version eradicates this problem and is sure to increase productivity.  Now, a conversation can be “cleaned up” by deleting all the unwanted previous mail text and quoted text, which brings down the clutter by keeping only the unduplicated versions.

For all of you social networking fans, this version of Outlook may prove to be a disappointment as it does not have integration with Facebook and other social networking sites.

According to Microsoft, an estimated 400 million people have a Windows Live account with using services like Messenger and Hotmail, and 90 million corporate customers already have Office subscriptions.

There have been comments floating around that Microsoft is a bit too late to enter this arena and it may be difficult to catch up with the competition.  In response, Microsoft says, “Lots of competitors are doing nothing beyond copying what we have done in our product for years.  They have weekly releases to add things like bold and italics and more than four fonts.  We have to redefine what productivity means to 500 million people.”

Redefining productivity means offering tools that allow people to work simultaneously on presentations, documents and other things on the internet.  Applications such as PowerPoint have also been pepped up, making it easier to add high-definition video into their projects.

There is not much of a change in Word; although, “search” now comes with some new features that allows users to search tables and charts as well as some other things too.  Documents can be prettied up with the use of special effects to text, such as reflect, shadow and glow.  Document sharing has been given new life and allows more than one person to work simultaneously on a document online.  Overall, you may find that this version of Word is not much different from Word 2007.

Although, there are no major changes in Excel, there is the addition of “Sparklines,” which is the option to embed small charts into a worksheet next to data.  Another feature that could prove to be useful is the improvement in “Conditional formatting,” which allows the formatting to change based on the formula or value of the cell.  For corporate users, Microsoft is planning on shipping with the final version, “Project Gemini” add-on for Excel 2010, with the capacity to handle data in large amounts, and worksheets containing millions of rows.

PowerPoint’s video features are one of the most used and this version sees many new features, such as a set of basic video editing tools that are now built into PowerPoint.  They may not be as powerful as a high-end video editing software but they do their job efficiently.  There is also a great improvement in animations in PowerPoint, with a wide choice of animations that can be easily edited using the custom animation feature.

While the above are the most known features of Microsoft Office, there are other important ones too, such as Microsoft Publisher and OneNote, which have been improved.

The new Office is available in 64-bit version too.  The most important change to Office 2010 is the Web-based access and access for mobile phones and other mobile clients is expected to be introduced in the final version.  There will also be mobile versions that allow viewing of documents on a smartphone or other mobile devices, as well as copy and paste between applications.  Outlook is said to work even on mobile devices.

Although, it may not be completely different from the 2007 version, there are many solid improvements in Office 2010, which certainly makes it worth checking it out.

Credit: Nicholaschan (via Flickr)

We’ve been talking about Windows Mobile 6.5 for months and finally you can get your hands on one.  It has been launched on Oct 6, 2009. WM6.5 is being backed by most major players.  In Europe, mobile operators Orange, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom AG (T-Mobile); and Samsung, Acer, Sony Ericsson, LG Electronics, HTC and Toshiba.

AT&T has announced two phones based on Windows Mobile 6.5: The HTC Tilt 2 and the Pure.  Microsoft expects to have a huge variety of phones running the OS by the end of the year, which includes touch screen phones with slide-out keyboards, compact flip phones as well as sleek full-keyboard smartphones.

With this version, Microsoft seems to get its mobile platform in order.  Here are some improvements in 6.5 compared to the previous version.

New Today screen – Although, the classic Today screen is still there, 6.5 comes in a new version that gives this mobile a fresh look.  Unfortunately, the users may not be able to experience this screen as some manufacturers replace it with their customization, such as HTC.

Honeycomb Start screen – The old screen with all those boring old icons is gone and in its place is a beautifully themed list of modern images for default apps.  The Start menu does not exist and users can go to the new Start screen by pressing the Windows icon in the upper left of the screen.

Credit: Techfever (via Flickr)

New lock screen – This one needs to be appreciated.  Instead of just having one way to get back into the mobile, the lock screen in 6.5 gives users various points of entry depending on the status. For example, if there is a new text message, users can go directly to that through a separate unlock route.

MSN Widget – Allows users to get real-time information on stocks, sport scores, weather and others.

Gesture support – This new feature allows users to scroll through web pages, contacts and other screens using just simple drags, clicks and taps.

Windows Marketplace – The Windows Marketplace takes WM6.5 into the world of managed mobile app stores.  Users will be able to download the latest apps for the phone.  It will be made available to 6 and 6.1 versions also.  Answer to the iPhone?

Windows Media Player Mobile – Users can view the video on full-screen and the song or video can be paused to receive a call.

Designer themes – Microsoft entered into deals with many international well-known fashion designers and artists to provide exclusive themes that are shipped free of charge.  Users are given the option to create their own themes on a PC and transfer them to the phone.

Restyled Internet Explorer – Finally, we come to the most important feature of Windows Mobile 6.5, which is the Internet Explorer Mobile 6.  It enriches web viewing by bringing the desktop browsing experience to the mobile.  It is easy to use with just a swipe of the finger and uses the latest technologies to make viewing all sorts of pages extremely easy.  The company has also added a good looking UI, better HTML support, new JavaScript engine and a zoom slider.  Overall, this feature is something users are going to enjoy immensely.

Apart from the above mentioned changes, everything else remains almost the same.  Microsoft wants this 6.5 version to concentrate on touch, by replacing the old stylus with the finger-friendly menu.  Another major thing with this mobile is the on-list scrolling with which users can avoid touching the thin scrollbar.  This is great for users who spend their time messaging and emailing.

Another good service to note is “Find My Phone” which is a service used to locate a missing phone, make it ring even if it is set to vibrate or even lock or wipe the device remotely.  This service costs $5 per use only, unlike Apple’s iPhone-finding service that requires a yearly subscription of $99/year.

We have to see if all these changes and improvements in Windows Mobile 6.5 will see Microsoft coming back into the smartphone market, what with the rising competition from free alternatives like the Android.  While 6.5 is said to be released as a placeholder to Windows Mobile, a larger overhaul is expected in Windows Mobile 7 (codename “Photon”), which will debut sometime next year.

Windows Vista was released worldwide, five years after Windows XP has been introduced, which is the longest gap between Microsoft releases. It was launched with much aplomb with several new and better features and huge promises of a better computing experience. A lot was expected of it, especially due to the long wait.

Windows Vista has the visual sophistication not seen in the previous operating systems and the ease of use is remarkable. The Windows Start menu has been made much faster than the previous versions, with the integration of the Instant Search feature that helps find almost anything on the PC instantly. Windows Aero, which is the first of its kind in a Windows operating system has translucent window borders and icons. Taskbar tabs show graphical preview of the window’s contents. Windows layout has changed for the better.

However, Microsoft’s primary objective with Vista was to increase the security in the Windows operating system, which was a cause for complaints in their previous operating system, Windows XP. Vista is certainly the most secure version of Windows yet. It is aimed at protecting the PC from worms, spyware, viruses and other unwanted software and is a huge step forward from Windows XP security. The User Account Control (UAC) feature which is one of the significant changes, is felt to be annoying and obtrusive. Accessing files over a network is slower in Vista that the other operating systems. Although, there is a whole lot more security in Vista, unnecessary extra features bog down network sharing. Windows Vista is slower than XP.

Although, Windows Vista was found favorable when it was launched, this sentiment has not been shared by too many Windows users. Surprisingly, Microsoft faced competition for its Windows Vista from none other than its very own Windows XP.

Windows Vista faced severe post-launch pains and all of Microsoft’s efforts at creating magic with their news desktop OS in five years, fell flat. Microsoft tried its best to reiterate why Vista is a great successor to XP, in a market where users do not appreciate change. However, they failed to do this convincingly, in part due to a technological mishap.

In the past year, there have been many bugs that have been discovered and Microsoft was busy bringing out patches for all those quirks. Before the first service pack was out, Microsoft has released various patches as well as the reliability and compatibility packs, which seemed to have solved many of the earlier complaints about Vista.

As it is well known, most businesses will not touch a Microsoft product until the release of the first service pack. They wait until the product is used widely and the problems identified and solved. This in turn puts a lot of pressure on Microsoft, whose products, as good as they may be, will not find too many customers until the first service pack. This makes the first service pack almost as important as the product launch itself, if not more.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 contains all those changes that are focused on addressing the performance and reliability issues, supporting new hardware as well as adding support for many new standards. However, in April 2008, there was a compatibility issue found between Microsoft Dynamics’ Retail Management System and SP1 and RMS users were advised to stop installing the service pack till the new tweaked version was made available again.

Microsoft aims at showing their customers and businesses that Vista is now ready for them and also that a reliable and secure server can be built out of it. Experts say that on the one hand, Windows Vista is the slickest version of Windows with lots of nice touches. On the other hand, it is slow and has a lot of features that do not work as well as expected.

Amidst all this dissatisfaction over Windows Vista, credit has to be given where it is due and there is a whole segment of users who find Vista advantageous and that is the PC gamers, who consider DirectX 10 as providing better gaming experience with realistic graphics.

However, usage of Windows Vista has been low and it had to face harsh criticism from all sectors, in spite of the fact that more than 20 million Vista copies were sold initially in the first month, which is double the amount of Windows XP sales when it was first released. This shows the high expectations that were garnered during the long wait. But that figure has not sustained, with a large percentage of the buyers still using XP. The percentage of corporate customers who are totally satisfied with Windows Vista is estimated to be much lower than that of Windows XP.

Due to the continued demand for Windows XP, in an attempt to please the distraught Vista customers, Microsoft has decided to extend sales of XP, even allowing them to go back to XP by giving downgrade rights. Enterprise customers, Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Business customers can downgrade to Windows XP Professional if they wish to. The company also said that it will continue the sales of Windows XP for the ultra-low-cost PCs until mid-2010.

Microsoft also said that due to Vista’s incompatibility issues, they have decided to come out with Windows 7 that will have the core architecture of Windows Vista. Many businesses that were waiting for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to be released before deciding to migrate, seem to have now decided to wait for the new Windows operating system, and this calls for a wait until late 2009. Hope begins all over again and this time it is hoped that Microsoft will leave no stone unturned.

But the same cannot be said about their service packs. Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been recently released to manufacturers on April 21, 2008 and to the web on May 6, 2008, after a long delay. It the latest and last entry of XP service packs, and is a much awaited product that comes with all the updates for the operating system, that have been released earlier, as well as some new functionalities. Since the release of the XP, Microsoft has brought out several fixes for the operating system and according to Microsoft, a total of 1174 fixes are packaged in Windows XP Service Pack 3.

This service pack supports many operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Professional N, Windows XP Starter Edition, any version of Windows XP Media Center Edition and any version of Tablet PC Edition, but cannot be used with x64 version of Windows XP.

The new functionalities that Microsoft talks about are nothing major and are features that improve the security and reliability of the system.

Microsoft has added the network access protection compatibility which it had promised long back. This feature permits Windows XP machines to interact with the Windows Server 2008 NAP feature. Another feature that adds value to the operating system is that it is not necessary to enter a product key during setup. This feature already exists in Windows Vista. There is also a new kernel module, which according to Microsoft “encapsulates several different cryptographic algorithms.” The black hole router detection algorithm has also been backported from Windows Vista.

While these are the features that have been included, the taskbar based address bar option has been removed.

Service Pack 3 can be installed on any system with Internet Explorer 6 or 7 and Windows Media Player 9 and above. Microsoft says that users will have to install at least SP1 on XP before installing the new Windows XP Service Pack 3. They also recommend installing SP2 too, but then this is not a must.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 was supposed to be released to the web in April but was delayed due to a bug discovery related to software for businesses.

Since these service packs are not automatically updated, they can be downloaded from the Windows Update website or even the Microsoft Download Center. Microsoft suggests using the Windows Update which should also offer SP3, if only one system is being updated, as the download is smaller from there.

According to reports, Microsoft has been underplaying Windows XP SP3 and praised Windows Vista, telling users that “Vista provides the most advanced security and management capabilities of any Windows operating system. Windows XP SP3 does not bring significant portions of Windows Vista functionality to Windows XP.”

Despite all efforts from Microsoft to show Vista as superior, even going to the extent of belittling their own SP3, users are smarter and are taking to SP3 as they did to XP. Whether this is just loyalty to another XP product or SP3 really proves to be better remains to be seen.

Microsoft is not exempt from offering toys of their own through various websites. The goodies offered by Microsoft vary in function and features, but some are truly enjoyable.

Microsoft XP PowerToys
The Microsoft XP website offers more than tutorials and frequently asked questions about the operating system. It also gives XP users some freebies. Programs are available to download through the site which include very functional features that are hard to live without – at least they are once you download and experience them.

Power Calculator
The puny calculator that comes standard with all Microsoft operating systems is easily deleted and even more easily replaced. But don’t settle for a basic calculator when you can have the Power Calculator. Anyone with an engineering or math background can appreciate the Power Calculator. It’s essentially a graphing calculator for the computer. Of course it still does basic arithmetic, but is also plots integers and performs complex functions. Even if you don’t have complex quadratic functions on a daily basis, it still feels good to have the capabilities – just in case.

ClearType Tuner
If you occasionally find yourself squinting at sites online, but feel fine with others, you can download ClearType Tuner and be able to manually adjust the resolution of your screen to fit your needs per website page. Rather than constantly switching your resolution though Properties, you can make simple adjustments with the Tuner that can make sites easier to see.

If you have eye trouble, this is not necessarily the answer you need, but it can make the text clearer on many sites that are not optimized for higher resolutions. It combined with other features including magnification might just be all you need to read your screen clearly without getting a headache.

Alt-Tab Replacement
If you want a quick peek at what’s running on your computer, you can hold down Alt and hit Tab. You can hit Tab again to move between applications, but you won’t be able to drill down into the various pages of each. But with Alt-Tab Replacement, the little icons for each application are replaced with screenshots of what you are actually working with on each page. This means that each Word file will have a separate screen shot and you can see the difference between Document 1 and Document 2 quickly and easily.

HMTL Slideshow
If you like to share your pictures or have a website that includes various pictures, the HTML Slideshow, or its cousin the Webcam Timer Show can be fun. With the HTML Slideshow, you create a very basic HTML page with pictures. When you upload it to your website, it will show up as a slideshow. The Webcam Timer Show takes pictures on a set interval with your webcam can then you can set up a show from those as well.