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Microsoft have been attempting to brand their online experience for months and years now and things appear to be getting worse. I am personally a fan of the Windows Live brand. I think it completely captures the one product Microsoft is best known for and conjures the image of Windows being online and available. So why not stick with it?

The fact is that they do not seem keen on sticking with this brand and there are many rumours about rebranding of Live Search. So what about simply going back to the best known online brand Microsoft have, MSN. I was on a call with Microsoft today and while I was on hold I was listening to an ad for spaces.msn.com. That sounds much better than anything Microsoft have managed to come up with lately and the portal that is currently in place is very well known and developed.

So my question to Microsoft and Softies everywhere is this, why not bring back and support MSN? Or if you don’t want it then give it to me.

Labels: Microsoft, msn, Windows, Windows Live

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After reading an article in PC Pro about Microsoft’s upcoming doom I had an interesting thought. You see the article talked about Linux being installed on netbooks from Asus and how this would leave Microsoft having to retreat to the corporate world as Linux becomes the major consumer OS. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Microsoft will, most likely, produce a version of Windows 7 that is trimmed down and perfectly suited to the netbook world. There is one company however that should be concerned with the tiny tiny tiny rise of Linux.

Apple have no competitor to the Asus netbooks. They have nothing to offer to Asus in the way Microsoft can offer up Windows XP and their cheapest notebook is $999. In the current economy are people going to choose to buy the Apple laptop that still has the difficulties of switching associated with it in the public consciousness or will they go the the cheaper notebooks offering old reliable, Windows XP. You see Vista may be perceived as unpopular but I’ve yet to hear anyone talk about the fact that these people, in choosing XP, are still handing money to the folks from Redmond. Microsoft will happily maintain their dominant market position even if everyone who buys a new laptop decides to downgrade to XP.

I don’t honestly believe that Linux is going to threaten either Windows or OSX but if it does then it’s the 8% Apple have in the American market that’s going to be under the most threat and when your share is that small any loss can do a lot of damage.

Is it time for Apple to license OSX? Or produce some sort of MultiTouch netbook? What do you think?

Labels: Apple, ASUS, Microsoft, Windows

digg this | Add to Del.icio.us Since I last posted a few things have happened in the world of tech that I think need to be covered. The most obvious is the Microhoogle. This deal turned into an absolute mess. Microsoft managed to get out of it with a few bumps and scrapes but they do now seem to be much more focused on what services will succeed and which ones they should simply drop, like book search. Book search has been done and done well. Microsoft is not going to benefit from trying to clone Google's version so there's really no point in wasting money on it.

What Microsoft do need to do online is actually quite simple. They need to bring the current services into a more logically connected structure. Microsoft's online offering, and part of Google's for that matter, feel like they're a bunch of independent services with the word Windows or Google in the title. They don't really work together particularly well and they certainly don't bring other devices together well. Now I'm using Live Mesh and I love it but I'm not sure why it has online storge when Sky Drive is offering storage too and neither connect together. Surely adding SD to Mesh would make sense.

Also the Redmond boys need to start deveoping applications for devices other than Windows based ones. Internet Explorer for Mac would be nice, I'm using Firefox on my Macbook but I'd like to see IE 8. I'd also like to see some live services for Nokia devices that I can just download and not have to go through that annoying download application only to discover that my mobile carrier doesn't support Live for some weird reason even though I can get Google off the mobile Google site with no issues. A connected environment that offers O2's Bluebook with Live Mesh, Sky Drive, Live Mail and the other services across multiple platforms would be great. In fact that sounds very similar to a certain Apple offering doesn't it? I really am looking forward to Mesh on mobile and Mac.

If Microsoft are serious about offering Software + Services then they need to embrace the multitude of environments that are now being used. By all means favour Windows but offer services on all. Oh and one more thing. Please fix Spaces. I really can't see a use for it. It's worse than Orkut. Give us blogging software we can use on our domains and this blog will be running off it. Give us ad's we can put on our sites and we'll do it. The future of the Cloud is not going to be the awful applications that you can develop for Facebook and Bebo, it's going to be the services users can place on their own domains and homepages and the simple way you can fulfil the simple needs of the end user. A blog, a few ads to make a few quid, a decent search engine, somewhere to put pictures and a gallery to display them. Mobile Me looks set to offer this Microsoft can too if it just takes a sip of the coolade and worries more about end users than end-user-developers.

Labels: Apple, Google, Mac, Microsoft, Mobile Me, Orkut, Windows, Windows Live, Windows Live Spaces

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Charlie Miller is walking away from the CanSecWest Security Conference $10,000 and a Macbook Air richer after managing to hack into OS X running on the same notebook. A Sony Vaio, Fujitsu U810 and Macbook Air were up for grabs to the first person who could access the file system of the OS running on the laptop. The Sony laptop was running Ubuntu while the Fujitsu was running Windows Vista.

All three laptops survived the first day of the conference which consisted of attempting to access the file system over the network directly. On the second day the competitors were allowed to direct the organisers to view web sites and open emails which contained exploit code. Since the OS's only contained software that's installed out of the box the exploit must be either in or be accessible from the Safari browser.

I can't see this result being highlighted by two many Apple fans but it is very interesting to note that the Vista and Linux both survived two days of the competition and what is supposed to be the most secure OS fell early and quickly. Perhaps it's time Mac users started taking security seriously.

Labels: Apple, Leopard, Linux, Mac OS X, MacBook Air, Vista, Windows

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Paul Thurrott responds to Steven Vaughan-Nichols claims that Windows is being eaten alive by Linux and Mac.

I guess it's all in how you look at it. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols provides the following bit of time killer over on Desktop Linux, which I'm guessing is one of the lonelier Web destinations these days:

For the first time in ages, the sale of new PCs with Windows as a percentage of the PC market is declining sharply. The new winner is the Mac, but, while no one does a good job of tracking the still-new, pre-installed Linux desktop market, it's also clear that Linux is finally making impressive inroads into Windows' once unchallenged market share.

I see two strong trends here. On the high end, people are buying Macs instead of Windows PC. On the low end, Linux is eating Windows alive.

Windows finds itself being confined to the middle ground.

As proof, he cites the US-only, retail-only NPD numbers that made the rounds this week on all the Mac fanatic sites, and "empirical evidence makes it clear that Linux desktops are moving into customers' hands at a quick pace." I feel that neither of these is particularly relevant from a wider trend perspective, but I do like the concept of Windows being "caught between Mac and Linux." So much, in fact, that I graphed it with Excel, using actual, real-world market share figures from calendar year 2007. And when you do this, here's what you get, ladies and gentlemen. I present: Windows, caught between Mac and Linux:

Chicken Little, your time has come.

Labels: Apple, Linux, Paul Thurrott, Windows

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Well another day and another fine for the software giant. The EU once again felt it was necessary to slap a fine on Microsoft for anti-competitive behavior, this time to the tune of $1.3 billion. I fully understand the necessity of keeping up monitoring of Microsoft and the necessity to investigate any and all attempts the company might make to unfairly use it's position however this really is starting to get ridiculous. The inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows is not a major hindrance to the other browsers, what is a major hindrance is the lack of quality shown by these browsers and the lack of real variety. I have Firefox, Safari and IE installed and I really don't need or want a forth unless that browser can offer something drastically different from what's already on offer. The only browser showing that possibility is Flock. These browsers all compete in the same market and yet Opera can complain about unfair competition when Firefox, who is in the same position, is gaining ground on IE. But maybe I'm wrong. Lets take a quick look at Firefox and Safari. They are both bundled browsers. Firefox is bundled in Linux and Safari comes with OS X. Are we saying that we want all those browsers removed from the OS's? Of course not but we do want IE unbundled because it's in a monopoly position? Well I've seen brand new Windows laptops with Firefox bundled so I don't see that as an issue anymore.

As far as operability is concerned the decision should've been delayed until we were able to judge how successful the latest announcement on interoperability is.

To Microsoft I say this.....pull out of Europe! Not completely obviously but give the EU exactly what they want. Remove IE, Windows Media and all other additional software from XP now, after all it's only going to be supported for a few more months anyway. Then let the people who have just bought their shiny new OS try to use the damn thing without the bundled applications and ensure that the OEM's do not bundle software to make up for it. It's time to make the EU suffer. Microsoft must also make sure that every single complaint is forwarded to the EU commission and let them see just how much they are helping their citizens. On the plus side Vista sales should improve because XP will be worthless.

Labels: EU Commission, Firefox, Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft, Opera, Safari, Windows

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Mark Russinovich, a man regarded as a genius by many after the Sysinternals tools he developed, has outlined the improvements to the File Copy mechanism in Vista SP1. Many people will agree that this is great news because the speed that Vista copied files was appalling in many scenarios. For anyone interested in the technical details his post can be found at: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/02/04/2826167.aspx

Labels: Russinovich, Vista SP1, Windows

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Yet more anti-competitive cases opened by the EU. I wonder how many chairs Steve threw through the Redmond Windows, glass versions, when he heard about these newest ones.

European regulation continues to be a thorn in Microsoft’s side. After years of investigations over alleged anti-competitive practices, the European Commission now has a large body of experienced prosecutors only too ready and willing to take up the cudgels on behalf of European entities, and others. And organisations like Opera Software, the Norway-based web browser company, are only too willing to pick up the Bat-phone to the Commissioner in Brussels. It must be on speed-dial by now.

The latest twist is the launch of two new Microsoft antitrust investigations by the Commission, one of which involves products and technologies for which Microsoft allegedly is withholding interoperability information, including its .Net framework, Office Open XML (OOXML) document format and various server products. The European Commission also has officially started its antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to Windows, lodged by - guess who? - Opera Software in mid-December. Not only this, but US firms are happy to lodge complaints with the Commission, including Google, helping the slow down the progress of the Redmond giant.

Microsoft says it will “cooperate fully with the Commission’s investigation”. You can see the guys in Redmond now - just sitting back in their chairs with yet another sigh of resignation…

http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/01/14/european-regulation-is-the-one-bug-microsoft-just-cant-nuke/

Just a little point to remember, Linux is bundled with Firefox and Leopard is bundled with Safari. What's the difference?

Labels: Anti-Competitive, EU Commission, IE, Microsoft, Windows