I am not really a fanboy of any company (other than Sega), but I do appreciate when a company does something well. For Microsoft, there have been a few bright spots over the last few years (even if they haven’t all been commercially profitable). Among those, I’d include the Zune as the best portable media player (note, I didn’t say “handheld entertainment device”, as the Zune and the ZuneHD were basically designed to do one thing, and do it extremely well); the Xbox 360 as quite possibly the best modern gaming console (though I do love my Wii, the Kinect kind of tipped the playing field slightly in Microsoft’s favor – or so I’ve been told; I don’t own a 360, yet); and Windows Phone 7 has, as much as Android and Apple fanboys would hate to admit, somewhat revolutionized the mobile touch interface.

Do I expect to see whole-hog clones of the WP7 Metro UI, the way we did with iOS? Absolutely not; but I do suspect that we’ll see subtle changes to touch interfaces over the next year or so as a result of the way the Windows Phone OS works.

All of that said, I can’t help but wonder what the Xbox team was thinking when it came up with the pricing structure for Microsoft Points or when they integrated Netflix into the Xbox ecosystem.

Xbox and Netflix

Since I don’t actually own an Xbox 360, I never really knew this; but @the_0ne_ne0 pointed out on Twitter this evening that Microsoft requires an Xbox Gold (premium) subscription in order to use Netflix on the console. So, in addition to the $8/month you pay to Netflix, you apparently also have to pay $5/month to Microsoft if you want to stream videos from Netflix to your Xbox.

This wouldn’t be such a bad deal if the Xbox was the only device that worked with Netflix. However, the Wii allows you to watch Netflix Instant for free (you still have to pay Netflix, but you don’t have to pay anything to Nintendo); and, from what I’ve heard, you can do the same thing on the Playstation 3 (which, unlike the Wii, does offer HD output).

Microsoft Points

This one’s a real headscratcher. For some reason, instead of Microsoft Points costing a flat rate per point, or even getting a small discount for purchasing larger quantities of points at a time, Microsoft actually charges you more for buying more points.

When you buy 400 points (the lowest amount of Microsoft Points available), you pay a rate of $0.012475 per point. However, when you buy 6000 points (the largest quantity available), you pay a rate of $0.0124983 per point. That might seem like a negligible difference (and, honestly, it is), but it really means that you would save $.14 per 6000 points if you were to buy 15 batches of 400 points instead of buying 6000 points at once.

Does Microsoft just assume that all of their customers suck at math, or do they figure that each additional click we’d have to make is worth $0.01? They’re probably right, but that’s still no reason that they should be ripping us off.

For that matter, why are they still dealing in points instead of real money, anyways? At least Wii points are easily translatable into currency (each Wii point equals $0.01, so 2000 points is $20). To make matters worse, at this time, the items available in the Zune Marketplace are segmented. Music, movies and TV shows can only be purchased with Microsoft Points, while Windows Phone 7 applications are can only be purchased with money.

Find more stories about: Curtiss Grymala, Microsoft

I’ve had a little bit of an opportunity to play around with Internet Explorer 9, and I’m still not sure if I like it or hate it. I am excited about the possibility of natively using some CSS3 and HTML5 in Internet Explorer, but I’m also disappointed by the lack of specific CSS3 elements.

On the plus side, IE9 does support almost all of the new CSS3 pseudo-classes (nth-child(), nth-of-type(), etc.), 2D transforms, almost the entire background module (multiple background images, background-clip, background-size, etc.), border-radius (rounded corners), box-shadow and RGBA colors.

Two CSS3 properties I’ve started using fairly regularly are generated gradients and border images. Unfortunately, IE9 doesn’t support either of those. Therefore, in order to produce the same effect, I still have to use a conditional stylesheet.

However, since IE9 does support so many other elements I regularly use, I can’t really just carry over my IE7 or IE8 stylesheet(s). I need to create an entirely new stylesheet just for IE9.

From a user-interface standpoint, I like the new look and functionality of IE9 much better than previous versions, and better than current versions of Firefox, Opera and Safari. However, I still don’t like it quite as much as Chrome’s interface.

Have you tried IE9, yet? If so, what do you think of it? You can read a comprehensive list of Internet Explorer’s CSS compatibility on Microsoft’s website.

Find more stories about: browser, IE9, Microsoft

It seems all the big names want to get into the group buying craze before it dies. Today’s entrants into the group buying fun are Skype and Microsoft.

Microsoft is offering Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Windows Download for $99 via 1SaleADay. The overview says the Professional Plus version includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, OneNote, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace, and Lync. A number of people on some of the deal sites are questioning if this is a legit deal so you may want to read the forum posts before you buy. Amazon lists this version of Office at $410.

Skype is offering three-months (affiliate link) of their Premium service for $10 via Groupon. It appears the deal is located in the Chicago section of Groupon so just navigate there when you arrive at Groupon. It looks like the main benefit of Skype premium is group video chat – you can also video chat with customer service. Skype is promoting the Groupon deal on the skype.com homepage. It appears the Skype-Groupon deal begins later today.

It’s interesting to me to see the big brands promoting their group buying deals on their websites while the small businesses are not promoting their deals. I guess maybe the difference is quick revenue bump vs. lead-gen?

Find more stories about: group buying, Groupon, Microsoft, Skype

We are just a month away from the big SXSW weekend of parties. If you will be arriving into Austin early, or live in Austin, you might want to check out the Web Camp that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) will host just days before SXSW begins. I have not attended a Microsoft Web Camp in the past so I can’t provide any reviews but the sessions look interesting and you will be fed.

You can register for the two-day event here – you must use a Windows Live ID (why I don’t know) and you must register for each day individually. From the course overview, “Microsoft’s 2 day Web Camps are events designed to teach you all about building websites using ASP.NET MVC, WebMatrix, OData and more. This event is a unique opportunity, partnering classroom learning on day one with hands-on-labs on day two, and leveraging experts to help you build new and exciting websites.”

The sessions include MVC basics, jQuery Globalization, data access and modeling, validation and testing processes. I don’t see any specific sessions around the Windows Phone but I have to image the topic will come up throughout both days. The event is free to attend and will be held at the AT&T conference center at the University of Texas in midtown.

Find more stories about: Austin, Conferences, Microsoft, sxsw, web, Web 2.0

I’ve covered a couple of calculators here at CN – eCalc (review) and Encalc (review). Today Microsoft released Mathematics 4.0 – a, “a graphing calculator that plots in 2D and 3D, step-by-step equation solving, and useful tools to help students with math and science studies.” This calculator looks like it would be perfect for students. It would be even better if the equations and graphs could be shared through the “Microsoft Cloud” that they are pimping on tv lately.

Here’s a feature list for the new Microsoft Mathematics 4.0:

• Computing standard mathematical functions such as roots and logarithms
• Solving equations and inequalities.
• Solving triangles.
• Converting measurements from one unit to another
• Computing trigonometric functions, such as sine and cosine
• Performing matrix and vector operations, such as inverses and cross-products.
• Computing basic statistics, such as mean and standard deviation.
• Performing operations on complex numbers
• Plotting 2D and 3D graphs in Cartesian, polar, cylindrical, and spherical coordinates.
• Finding derivatives and integrals, limits and sums and products of series
• Finding, plotting, and solving common formulas and equations.

I wonder if students today still run out and buy the latest HP scientific calculator like they did when I was a youngster.

The calculator can be downloaded from Microsoft and is available for most Windows systems in both 32- and 64-bit versions. Sorry, no Mac version is available although this does look like it would be great on an iPad/Android Tablet.

Find more stories about: eCalc, Encalc, Microsoft

After a short delay in transit, I’ve arrived in San Francisco for the Salesforce Dreamforce conference. As I noted last week, I am here to meet potential partners and current customers of CloudContacts. I will also be working on event coverage so stay tuned!

Salesforce says 20,000 people will attend the conference this week and from the look of the crowd inside the Moscone Center – the 20,000 have already arrived!

As I walked from building to building to figure out where to get my pass (everyone sent me in the wrong direction), I noticed a number of Segway vehicles around the Moscone Center. The Segways are all promoting Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The promotion reads, “I didn’t get Forced! I got a cloud-based CRM solution that works the way I do.”

I am not sure if the people on the Segways were just supposed to drive the vehicles or if they are supposed to engage people on the street but I didn’t see any engagement. Some of the people walking down the street (which was very crowded) said that the vehicles were just in the way.

The sides of the moving billboard feature a Microsoft Tag which you can snap with your mobile to get news on Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Find more stories about: CRM, Dreamforce, Microsoft, SalesForce, San Francisco

One of the huge downsides of being an early adopter is the lack of features you generally get in the early days of a device. For me, the massive difference between the number of iPhone apps currently available and the number of Windows Phone 7 apps available isn’t that big of a problem, but there are a few apps I really miss. Following is a brief list of those apps. Please feel free to add more in the comments if you have any apps that need to be ported straight away.

• Google Maps and MapQuest – While the native “Maps” app in Windows Phone 7 is nice and functional, it’s just not as full-featured as the Google Maps and MapQuest apps on the iPhone. While the spoken directions built into the iPhone MapQuest app could get annoying at times, I do miss that feature on my WP7 device. I also miss being able to utilize the be-all, end-all database that Google seems to have built into their Google Maps implementation.
• TweetDeck - I don’t know if TweetDeck has any plans to build an app for WP7 or not, but I sincerely hope they do. While the official Twitter app for Windows Phone 7 is leaps and bounds ahead of the official iPhone Twitter app, it would still be nice to use the familiar interface found in TweetDeck. In fact, the Windows Phone 7 Twitter app is really nice, and very similar to TweetDeck, but it doesn’t include all of the features generally included in TD. For starters, it only works with Twitter, no other social networks. Also, while you can stay logged into multiple Twitter accounts, it only allows you to display one at a time. You have to go into the settings for the app and turn off the active account in order to turn another one on.
• Safari – As mentioned in my previous post, the Internet Explorer implementation on Windows Phone 7 isn’t dreadful, but it certainly doesn’t stand up to Mobile Safari.
• PayPal – I loved having the ability to check my PayPal balance quickly and easily with the iPhone PayPal app. What makes it even more disappointing is that PayPal doesn’t automatically redirect to its mobile interface. Once you do find the mobile interface (m.paypal.com), you also find that it lacks a lot of the functionality found on the full site and within the iPhone app.
• Square - Although I hadn’t yet had the chance to use Square very much, I really liked the concept and was happy to have the ability to easily accept credit cards with my mobile phone. I will be holding onto my Square reader just in case they do get around to releasing a Windows Phone 7 version of the app.
• Paymo – While you may not be aware of Paymo, I had really come to rely on their iPhone app to help keep track of time I was spending on various freelance projects. It was especially helpful for tracking time spent in client meetings; easily adding that time to my account to be included in project invoices at a later date.
• WordPress – I didn’t use it much, but I did really like the WordPress app for the iPhone. I sincerely hope someone is working on a Windows Phone implementation so that I have the ability to blog from my phone again.
• Facebook – The Facebook app on Windows Phone 7 is really nice, but it lacks some of the functionality found in the iPhone version.
• What the Font? – I used this app quite a bit to try to identify various fonts.

Other Notable Apps Missing

While I didn’t really use the apps listed below, I know that a lot of people do, and many of them will not even consider switching until they’re supported.

• Skype
• Pandora
• Dropbox

There are also a lot of games I played regularly on my iPhone that are sadly missing from the Windows Phone right now. However, there are some really good-looking games already available; but I’ll need to build up my bank account before I start shelling out for the paid versions. The nice thing about Windows Phone 7, though, is the fact that you can download a free trial of any paid app in the Marketplace; so you have the ability to test out an app before you buy it.

Find more stories about: Apple, iphone, Microsoft, mobile, Windows Phone

After using an iPhone 3G for about 2 years, I gave it up last week. This week I picked up one of the new Windows Phone 7 devices (the HTC Surround). Following is a brief comparison of the two from my perspective.

Table of Contents:

• Buying Apps
• Interface
• Media
• Buttons
• Web Browser
• Camera
• Email, Contacts
• Other
• Conclusion

Buying Apps

The iPhone has the famous App Store, Windows Phone has the Marketplace. While the iPhone obviously has exponentially more apps available than Windows Phone does, a lot of the major apps were available for Windows Phone from day-one. I can’t, in good conscience, say that the Windows Phone Marketplace even compares to the iPhone app store in terms of apps, yet, but things do look good for such a new system.

Both systems allow you to buy/download apps through your computer or through your device, so they are basically equal in that regard. I do think that the Windows Phone will need to find a better way to arrange and organize the apps and games once the marketplace starts to really take off, though.

One place the iPhone has the Windows Phone beat, hands-down, right now is the fact that you can’t view what apps you currently have on your Windows Phone when using your PC. You can only view and manage your apps through the phone.

Interface

The iPhone interface was revolutionary when it came out, but it’s become old after a while, and a lot of flaws have become apparent. It’s difficult to arrange the icons on your iPhone; there’s no real method of organization and it’s actually somewhat clumsy.

On the Windows Phone, it’s a little more simple (in my humble opinion; I am well aware of the fact that people will disagree with me vehmently). You have one home screen and can pin as few or as many apps to that home screen as you choose. Almost anything can be pinned to the home screen. If you need something that’s not pinned to your home screen, you tap an arrow and get to view the full list of apps on your phone. One minor complaint I have about this is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a way to search for the apps you have installed (clicking the search icon while viewing your app list takes you to Bing to search the Web).

Media

I realize this is probably an argument similar to the old VHS vs. BetaMax (if you’re old enough to remember that) or, a little closer to my heart, the Sega Dreamcast vs. Sony Playstation 2 argument; but the Zune media player interface is superior to the iPod/iPhone interface. Everyone I know that’s tried a ZuneHD and an iPhone/iPod has said they think so. The iPhone/iPod is so ingrained in the world culture, though, that it will probably forever beat the Zune/Windows Phone simply because of that fact.

That said, the Windows Phone does everything the ZuneHD does, and it does it just as well. The interface is extremely simple to use and works beautifully.

One more thing the Windows Phone has, because it is integrated with the Zune interface, that the iPhone does not is the Zune Pass. If my kids are any indication of the way trends are moving in the world, people are buying less and less music to actually keep. They want to download new songs right now (note I said “songs” not “albums”; apparently nobody buys albums anymore), but in another few weeks they won’t even remember why they liked it in the first place. The Zune Pass is perfect for users like that. You pay one flat rate ($14.99/month or $149.99/year) and you can listen to as much music as you want for a month. When that month is over, you can download 10 songs to keep forever, and the rest basically get thrown in the trash.

If I were to add up all of the money my step-daughter has spent needlessly on iTunes buying songs that she listened to for only a few days; I guarantee the Zune Pass would have ended up being a better deal.

Buttons

I realize this is a radical concept, but the Windows Phone actually has buttons (at least 3 of them, a few other auxiliary buttons on different handsets). There is a “Windows” button that always takes you back to your home screen, a “back” button that takes you back one screen (sometimes it takes you back a step within an application; other times it takes you back to the application you were previously using) and a “search” button.

The search button is kind of cool in the fact that it is completely context-based. If you are on your home screen, the search button takes you directly to Bing to search the Internet. However, if you are in an app, the search button allows you to search within that app. For instance, if you are in the Zune app, the search button lets you search your collection and the Zune marketplace together. If you are in the Marketplace app, the search button lets you search for music, videos or apps within the marketplace. Clicking the search button twice, though, will take you to Bing.

The Windows Phone also has a camera button that acts as the “take picture” button when you’re in the camera app. The other neat thing about the camera button is, even if your phone is locked, if you hold the camera button down for 5 seconds, it will unlock the phone and go directly to the camera app so you can take a picture quickly.

Another feature related to the buttons on the Windows Phone is voice command. When you’re using your Windows Phone, if you hold down the Home button for 5 seconds, a voice-recognition app will open. You can then speak a command such as “call Home” or “find restaurant” or something like that and the phone will attempt to interpret your command and take action on it. It’s not as cool as the speech-to-text features found on some Android phones, but it is still pretty handy.

The iPhone basically has one button (it also has volume up/down and the on/off button on top, but the Windows Phones have those same buttons). Everything else is handled through the touch screen. The one button/switch that the iPhone does have that the Windows Phone (at least the Surround) lacks is the switch that puts the phone on vibrate. Within Windows Phone, you have to press the volume button and then touch the ring/vibrate icon that appears on the touch screen.

Web Browser

While the mobile implementation of Internet Explorer is nice, it still lacks some fundamental features that are standard in all other mobile browsers. It does not support HTML5 or CSS3 at all, unfortunately. This means that, when viewing a mobile version of a website, you get the bland, standard mobile website instead of the nice, polished version of the site that you would see on the iPhone or an Android handset. This also means that all of the mobile Google apps work completely differently than they do on the iPhone.

Camera

Unfortunately, since I never had an iPhone 4, I can’t comment on its camera. However, the 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash that’s included in the HTC Surround takes really nice pictures even in low light. The iPhone 3G took decent pictures in ideal conditions, but really stunk otherwise.

The photo shown on the right was taken in near complete darkness with the camera zoomed in about 50% (which, by itself, would have resulted in a terribly pixelated and blurry photo on the iPhone 3G).

On Windows Phone 7, after you take a picture, you can share the photo through MMS, e-mail (any of your accounts), Facebook or your Windows Live Skydrive (which appears to be like Dropbox on steroids – 25 gigabytes of storage space for free) account. If you have any photo-related apps installed on your Windows Phone, you can access them directly from the camera, as well. Simply touch the “extras” menu and it brings up a list of the photo apps (for instance, on my phone, I have the “flickr manager” app installed) and lets you use the photo in the app you select.

E-mail, Contacts and Calendars

As you would probably expect by now, the Windows Phone beats the heck out of the iPhone in this category. You can add as many accounts as you want and you can choose to sync any or all of the following for each account:

• Mail
• Contacts
• Calendar

If you choose to sync more than one calendar (for instance, I am currently syncing two different Google calendars and my unused Windows Live calendar), they will all be shown together (in different colors) within the native calendar app. Add an event or appointment to your calendar, select the appropriate account with which to sync and your appointment will be automatically added to that account’s calendar.

In addition to syncing the contacts from your various e-mail accounts, Windows Phone also allows you to import contacts from your old phone’s SIM card and to automatically import all of your Facebook friends as contacts.

If you end up with multiple entries for the same person, that’s not a problem; simply click the little link icon on one of those contacts and the Windows Phone will show you a list of the other entries in your contact list that might match up. If the other entry you want to link is not shown in the list, you can search your contact list for the entry. Then, you just tell Windows Phone to link the two (or three or four or however many related entries you have) together, and they all then get merged into a single entry.

Also, since Facebook is integrated as a feature of your contact list, you can easily choose to write on someone’s Facebook wall simply by searching for that person in your contact list. You also have the option to e-mail that person, visit his or her website(s), call them, message them or post to their MSN Live account. You can even view that contact’s recent activity on Facebook and MSN Live from directly within your contact list.

Other Perks

This is a feature that’s specific to the HTC Surround handset, but the speakers on that particular device blow the iPhone’s speaker(s) out of the water. The volume is really strong and the sound is crystal clear. Even with the volume turned all the way up, the sound does not distort; though it does get really loud.

Also, the HTC Surround (and, as far as I know, all other WP7 devices) uses a standard micro-USB plug to charge and sync the phone. With this device, you don’t have to worry about searching for the specific, proprietary cord (that can cost upwards of $30 each). My kids’ Samsung phones, my Virgin Mobile MiFi and my wife’s Blackberry all use the same micro-USB plug, so we can all share cords when necessary.

Another nice thing about Windows Phone 7 is the fact that you have a choice in which device you buy. You’re not stuck with only one choice (well, if you count the vaporware “white” iPhone, I guess you have two choices). If you don’t like the features found on the HTC Surround, you can go with the LG Quantum or the Samsung Focus and still stick with AT&T if you want. If you don’t want to stick with AT&T (another choice you don’t currently have with the iPhone), you can switch over to T-Mobile and buy the HTC HD7 or the Dell Venue.

Also, since the Windows Phone has the Zune HD interface integrated, you can set it up to sync your media over WiFi rather than physically hooking it up to your computer. Once you hook it up to your computer and configure the wireless sync feature (I am currently experiencing an issue getting this to work; but I think that’s related to my firewall settings), you never have to hook your phone into your computer again. You can easily drag and drop music, videos and photos to your phone within the Zune software; and it will automatically sync those items the next time you charge your Windows Phone (assuming it’s connected to the same WiFi network as your computer when you charge the device).

Finally, Windows Phone 7 has native MS Office integration (along with direct integration with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 if that matters to you). It’s not living up to its full potential yet (you can open Office documents that are attached to e-mail messages, but you can’t download or upload documents from/to SkyDrive, yet), but it does do a nice job of rendering the Office documents on a mobile screen, allows you modify and send/share them and doesn’t destroy the formatting in the process.

Conclusion

Is Windows Phone 7 better than the iPhone? That’s not really a question that I can answer. It really comes down to what you want out of your mobile experience. If having over a million different apps from which to choose, using apps like Facetime or the Google Mobile interfaces, using copy and paste, syncing with a Mac or using iTunes is really important to you, then you should definitely stick with the iPhone. Likewise, the plethora of 3rd-party accessories for the iPhone currently puts the Windows Phone to shame and most likely will continue to do so unless the Windows Phone gains a lot of traction.

If the ability to sync multiple calendars at once, open, edit and share Office documents, keep up with your friends on Facebook, integrate your gaming experience with your Xbox Live account and use the Zune Pass sound like things that might be important to you, it might be time to pick up a Windows Phone 7 device.

I will be the first to admit that there are a lot of things I miss about my iPhone (I’ll be writing a post soon about the various iPhone apps I really wish were available for Windows Phone 7), but I really like my new phone and am extremely impressed with the implementation of its features.

Find more stories about: Apple, Curtiss Grymala, iphone, Microsoft, mobile, Windows Phone

Over the next couple of months, Microsoft will be hosting full-day training sessions for developers looking to build apps for the new Windows Phone 7 platform. It looks like the sessions are in a variety of cities around the country including Houston, Austin, several in Michigan and several in Ohio. There are also multiple dates for each city. Some cities (Atlanta is one) are hosting evening hackathon sessions as well. The events are free to attend and it looks like they will be held at the Microsoft office in each city.

From the event overview, “Join us for a day of Windows Phone 7 hands-on training. You’ll learn how to build Silverlight-based applications that take advantage of the many Windows Phone 7 platform features. We’ll introduce all the basic concepts required to get started building Silverlight applications including the Windows Phone 7 platform and frameworks as well as the designer and developer tools. We’ll also cover the process for submitting your application or game to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. Bring your laptop! Topics covered will be reinforced with an opportunity to explore hands-on-labs using your own laptop. Windows Phone 7 experts will be on hand to help you explore Windows Phone 7 development.”

The only requirement is that you bring your own laptop with the Windows Phone 7 tools already installed.

I couldn’t find a comprehensive list on the Microsoft training site but this search query gets you pretty close (let the page fully load). I will be attending the session here and perhaps if there’s interest, we could all meet for drinks after the training sessions have completed.

Find more stories about: Microsoft, mobile, Phone

Microsoft briefly posted an Office 2010 technical preview site but quickly removed it as it appeared to be posted early in error. There’s still a Google cache of the site which you can review.

Here’s the overview of the Office 2010 Web Applications version:

Office Web Applications, the online companion to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote applications, allow you to access documents from anywhere. You can even simultaneously share and work on documents with others online. View documents across PCs, mobile phones, and the Web without compromising document fidelity. Create new documents and do basic editing using the familiar Office interface. By offering more ways to access files from almost anywhere, Office Web Applications enable you to get things done according to your schedule.

The Microsoft employee in the video, Monica Mendoza, is very lucky it seems – first she was able to go work in Europe then take a trip to Las Vegas. If the video doesn’t work below – click here to view it.

After talking to a few of my friends who use Google Docs heavily, they say the demo video and images make Office 2010 look much more powerful. We’ve covered online office provider Zoho many times on CN – it will be interesting to get their take on the Office 2010 release.

I can only guess this is what Robert Scoble was very excited about on Friendfeed last week but said he was embargoed until today.

Find more stories about: Microsoft, Office, online video, realtime, Robert Scoble, Video, videos

Last night while winding down and watching Ask This Old House, I was alerted to an important post by MG Siegler (MG writes for Techcrunch). The post noted that Microsoft Corporation is now tweeting (that means they are posting up to 140 character messages on the Twitter service). This is huge news! Microsoft’s competitors like Google and Sun and Oracle and Zappos are already tweeting so it’s huge news that Redmond is now on their game too.

MG then went all Columbo on us by explaining the stats on the Microsoft official twitter account.  He notes that only 1,000 people were following the account but as of this morning it’s up to nearly 5,000! MG also found out who is behind the account. He notes, “The account is being run by its corporate communications team, consisting of four people.”

The big news here is that since the post, Microsoft’s 4-person twitter communications team has added a third tweet. That’s right…a company with two tweets makes big headlines (the story got a lead from Techmeme ) so I figured I’d watch the account as best I could and I setup a SMS alert when content is added. So I present now, the third tweet message from Microsoft Corporation:

USA Today on Bing v Google “For a search that sings you may want to Bing it” ^JR

CenterNetworks will continue to monitor the account and will report back of any further important developments.

Update: Microsoft has since added tweets 4 and 5 to their account. We can confirm they are now closing in on Oprah’s count.

Find more stories about: Microsoft, TechCrunch, TechMeme, Twitter

Earlier today, Allen posted a story about Microsoft releasing a chart comparing IE8, Firefox 3 and Chrome (who knows which version). Following is my response to that chart. I would say that I’m disappointed not to see Safari included in this comparison, but since much of the comparison is spin and misinformation, there wouldn’t be much point.

1. Security – it may very well be that IE8 has some security tools built in, but that doesn’t mean that those tools work the way you would expect. Some people would call this “bloat.” Besides, it cuts down on the amount of choice the users have. What if I want to install AVG with its toolbar? I’ve used Firefox with the AVG toolbar, and find it much better and easier to use than the “filters” built into IE8.
2. Privacy – Really? The don’t even give a nod to Chrome? Chrome was the first major browser to offer private (or “incognito”) browsing.
3. Ease of use – Who judges this? As far as I’m concerned, Chrome is much easier to use than IE8. The “most visited” feature in Chrome (similar to Opera’s speed dial, but it automatically populates the list with your most often visited sites) gives Chrome a huge advantage in my opinion. The autocomplete function in Chrome’s address bar and the automatic Google search give it a few steps up, too.
4. Web standards – I like the spin they apply to this category. I also find it curious the way they define “standards.” Granted, IE8 does account for many of the CSS 2.x standards available now, but it also still includes a great deal of IE-only “features” that make it difficult to utilize the standards. It’s also interesting that they didn’t include Safari in any of these comparisons, as, from what I’ve heard, the latest Safari would beat all of the browsers hands-down. Still, IE8 is much, much, much better than IE7 or IE6, so I will give props to Microsoft for that.
5. Developer tools – Really? Microsoft is trying to say that IE includes better developer tools? Firefox’s built-in javascript console still beats the heck out of the IE javascript console. Add on top of that the add-ons that are available for Firefox, and IE falls flat. The IETester “MyDebug” toolbar does offer a few great tools, but that has nothing to do with Microsoft; that’s a completely independent product.
6. Reliability – I haven’t had IE8 crash on me, yet (though I very rarely use it, so that’s not saying much), so I can’t comment on it’s crash recovery. Still, Chrome has only crashed a handful of times for me, so I certainly wouldn’t knock its reliability.
7. Customizability – are they serious? They’re spinning “we’ve bloated the heck out of our browser by giving our users no choice as to what features they want” into “we win!” There’s no browser out there that beats Firefox in terms of customizability. There most likely never will be (which is unfortunate, because I would really like to be able to download an extremely barebones browser, then customize it with my desired features).
8. Compatibility – If we’re talking about the browser’s compatibility with specific Web sites, I do have to give this one to IE8, but that’s sheerly because there are still so many sites out there that were developed specifically for IE6, using proprietary Microsoft technology. Of course IE8 is going to work with those sites; and of course the other browsers won’t. Even if we only take into consideration the Exchange Webmail applications out there, that still makes IE8 more compatible than Firefox or Chrome, unfortunately. Sloppy, lazy programming is the only reason IE8 is more compatible. However, if we’re talking about the browser’s compatibility with operating systems (which I’m sure never even crossed their minds), Firefox wins with Chrome coming in second (having just released a pretty nice – though it doesn’t support Flash, yet – beta version for Linux and Mac). In fact, I’d guess that the number of users with an operating system other than Windows is probably equal to or larger than the number of users visiting Web sites that are only compatible with IE.
9. Manageability – I’m not sure what this even means, so I can’t really comment on it. Still, I’d almost be willing to bet that there are Firefox add-ons available that do these things, if they’re even necessary with Firefox.
10. Performance – A tie? Really? There’s no way Firefox is as fast as IE8, and there’s no way IE8 is as fast as Chrome. I’d be very curious to see the actual test data used for this comparison.

Curtiss Grymala is the full-time Webmaster for a community college in Virginia. In his spare time, he runs a freelance Web development company called Ten-321 Enterprises, is an active participant in the HTMLCenter Forums and offers small snippets of code and bug reports to the developers and modders of the YaBB Forum system. He has been developing Web sites and applications for nearly 15 years.

Find more stories about: browser, Curtiss Grymala, Firefox, Google Chrome, ie8, Microsoft

I nearly lost my lunch when I saw the chart below. It’s a comparison chart between Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), Firefox and Chrome. I should note that I am an IE user – I run different things in IE and Firefox.

Microsoft took an internal comparison look at the following categories: security, privacy, ease of use, web standards, developer tools, reliability, customizability, compatibility, manageability and performance.

I am using IE7 so I can’t comment on how good or bad IE8 is but it’s a bit odd that a company would show a chart that makes their browser look amazingly better than the competition. IE8 wins or ties in every category and some of the comments seem like an agency was involved. Here are a couple of examples, “Of course Internet Explorer 8 wins this one”  and “Neither Firefox nor Chrome provide guidance or enterprise tools. That’s just not nice.” Is there really not one area that Firefox or Chrome is better than IE8? (I have no idea so someone educate me plz)

My advice to Microsoft is to just sell us on why IE8 is great – don’t worry about comparisons – we will take care of those as users.

It looks like Microsoft is trying to come across as cutsie but it just didn’t work for me. Did it work for you? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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Yesterday Microsoft sent an email to advertisers on their adCenter product. The email, copied below, explains what Bing is and how advertisers can benefit from using Bing. They call it a “search experience” and there’s no mention of the term “decision engine”. From what I can tell, the advertising options are the same as any other search engine — text ads above and to the side of search results.

Here’s the email:

So what does Bing do?
Plain and simple, it provides consumers with easy access to relevant information. With new features and more organized results, consumers can spend less time searching and more time finding what’s most relevant to them—like travel, health, cars, and shopping.

What can that mean to you as an advertiser?
Quality leads – Bing helps provide the relevant search results and ads your consumers are interested in. This means you can engage with consumers when they’re ready to research, influence or make a purchase decision.

Find more stories about: Bing, Microsoft, online advertising

Last week was all about Bing and Wave – both products the respective companies believe will change something about what we do online. Master search engine journalist Danny Sullivan has an indepth review of Bing which is worth reading (along with his partners comparison review).

In the ”coming soon” video, Microsoft classifies Bing as a “decision engine”. The video makes it seem like a search engine.

Whether you classify Bing as a decision engine or a search engine, whether you compare Bing to Google or any other engine, I have one question for Microsoft….

WHY NOT USE LIVE.COM?

Something tells me that Microsoft hired an expensive agency which eventually (after large payments) came up with the name Bing. I’ve sat through hundreds of these type of presentations over my career and have found it funny how many times the agency misses what’s right in front of them. Now maybe the Bing name was developed in-house. Frankly it really doesn’t matter where Bing came from (note, when I hear bing, I think of the bing-bong chime on the subway when the doors close).

Live is nearly a perfect name. All of the social media techies are in love with “real-time” and Google and other engines have talked about wanting to add more real-time activities into their results. Microsoft could have worked towards branding Live as THE real-time results/decision/search engine. Real-time = Live. Everything inside of Bing could have been included along with the real-time results.

Will Bing be the next Google or the next Cuil? Who knows at this point but what I do know is that had they used the Live name for the brand, they would have been further down the better path.

Perhaps in future ads and videos we will learn what the Bing name actually means and why it was chosen for this new brand.

Find more stories about: Bing, Microsoft, search, search engine strategies, windows live