Silicon Gulf

Microsoft’s tech support team is mobile. hahahhahaha

Probably the hottest news abuzz this year is the looming merger — some say hostile takeover — between Microsoft and Yahoo. Earlier, it was about the resistance on the part of Yahoo to capitulate to the software giant. Lately, the focus has shifted to Redmond and the perceived motive behind their bid to acquire the second largest search engine.

Very recently, two analysts from Gartner, a research services firm, asserted that Microsoft is now on shaky ground due to the state of Windows Vista, which they described as “collapsing”. The analysts, Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald, practically assessed the latest version of the Windows OS as a failure due to disappointingly low market acceptance. According to a rival firm, Forrester Research, by the end of 2007, only a little more than 6% of enterprise-level PC users had migrated to Vista.

The main reason cited for the poor sales performance is the lack of understanding among general users of what makes Vista so much better than Windows XP. And for those who do know, many of them are turned off by the resource-hungriness of Vista. Also, it’s reported that most of those who have adopted the latest OS were users of the nearly-extinct Windows 2000; apparently, Windows XP users (like me) are staying put.

Gartner is now widely quoted as saying that Microsoft is in an “untenable” situation. It predicts that Microsoft Corp. could be in financial straits by 2011 due to a presumed thinning of the latter’s market base. The firm further forecasts that a large number of technology users will be shifting to “OS-agnostic applications” (computer programs not dependent on what operating system is installed), thereby adversely affecting another area that has been dominated by Microsoft: office productivity suites. A prime analogy would be Google Apps, which competes with Microsoft Office.

The Google Apps suite — documents, spreadsheets, presentations, calendar, email, and even more to come — is deployed over the Web, and so is made available to anyone for free, regardless of what’s making his or her computer run. Increased acceptance of such systems could very well erode Microsoft’s revenues from MS Office, reportedly $16 billion in 2007 (including Exchange Server, which allows Office applications to be deployed across the Internet, among other things).

Gartner then proceeded to explore the notion that this is what’s inducing Microsoft to get its hands on Yahoo: to finally capture, and capitalize on, the Internet-ads history (and potential) of the first search engine to gain worldwide attention.

True, virtually every Web venture is targeting Internet advertising as a source of huge revenue. Even Google is in the bandwagon (if it’s not, in fact, the horse). Microsoft, however, has remained staunchly a software publisher and provider, and has ruled over this landscape for a couple of generations. Therefore, isn’t it rather a stretch to assume that this particular Goliath will just keel over and die?

The points made by Gartner are worth looking over. But, in my opinion, MS Office and Windows (perhaps not Vista but the keenly-anticipated Windows 7) are here to stay for longer than anyone might care to imagine.

So, why does Microsoft want to have Yahoo!? At this point, it’s still anybody’s best guess. My take on this is: isn’t it but natural for a business to proceed into further territory?

Its gonna pop up the headlines of many tech blogs. Yahoo is set to reject Microsofts Bid! News reports says that they got the news from inside Yahoo. The source said that the company thinks that Microsoft has undervalued Yahoo. Yahoo’s management believes the Microsoft offer, which would bring together two top names in online computing, massively undervalues [...]

Is it a deal… or no deal?? As of February 1, Yahoo board of directors are deliberating on the matter: FAQ: Unsolicited Proposal From Microsoft Q1. How is Yahoo! responding to Microsoft’s proposal? The Yahoo! Board is undertaking a deliberate review process. They’re going to take time to thoroughly evaluate the proposal in the context of Yahoo!’s strategic plans. [...]

Inquirer.net reported yesterday that a college in Pasay City, the Southeastern College (SEC), is bringing a lawsuit against software giant, Microsoft Corp., and its in-country subsidiary, Microsoft Philippines. The case is that MS Phils. has allegedly infringed on copyright laws, in that the college’s intellectual property rights were allegedly encroached upon.

The news article elaborated that the complaint was based on SEC’s belief that MS Phils. distributed electronic copies (in the form of .pdf files and email) of the document, The SEC Microsoft Office XP Manual. This document was apparently licensed to MS Phils. for a limited number of reprints (10,000 copies, according to the report), but SEC is taking legal action to prove that MS Phils. has gone beyond the letter of their copyright license. (more…)

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Inquirer.net reported yesterday that a college in Pasay City, the Southeastern College (SEC), is bringing a lawsuit against software giant, Microsoft Corp., and its in-country subsidiary, Microsoft Philippines. The case is that MS Phils. has allegedly infringed on copyright laws, in that the college’s intellectual property rights were allegedly encroached upon.

The news article elaborated that the complaint was based on SEC’s belief that MS Phils. distributed electronic copies (in the form of .pdf files and email) of the document, The SEC Microsoft Office XP Manual. This document was apparently licensed to MS Phils. for a limited number of reprints (10,000 copies, according to the report), but SEC is taking legal action to prove that MS Phils. has gone beyond the letter of their copyright license. (more…)

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A link that discusses and showcased the new MS SilverLight.


via Zoom-In.com

Bio/Description

Sean Alexander of Microsoft delivered the keynote at Streaming Media East, introducing his company’s new interactive video plugin for the web, Silverlight. Zoom In was there to capture the keynote and Silverlight presentations from Metaliq, Skinkers, and Major League Baseball.

Read more here.