The Excel Viewer, Microsoft’s free application for viewing the contents of Excel files when you don’t have Excel installed, has been updated. Besides the XLS file format, used by older versions of Excel including Excel 2003, which it already supported, the new version will also allow users to view, print and copy data from .XLSX files, used by Excel 2007. Owners of Office 2000, 2003 or XP also have the option of downloading the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack.
(via Amit)
January 31st, 2008
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Office, Applications |
no comments
With Super Bowl Sunday just three days away, preparations are in full swing. My job for today: Get a new, better HDTV antenna. Whatever you’re doing, if you’re rooting for the Giants and would like to look back at their road to the playoffs, the Virtual Earth blog presents a 3D tour in Windows Live Maps that takes you through the Giants eleven previous road games, plus their upcoming road game in Arizona against the Patriots.
I’d recommend checking out the collection, even if you don’t care about the game. I had no idea Live Maps produced such cool animations in its 3D tours, and the 3D models of the football stadiums are pretty sweet looking, too. Live Maps predicts a 38-31 victory for the Giants. I’ll predict a Giants victory, too, 18-16.
Check out the collection here.
January 31st, 2008
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Maps, Live, Virtual Earth, Windows |
no comments
Last week, Microsoft joined the Data Portability Working Group, a group that aim to get companies to use standards for moving information between different websites and social networks. Earlier this month, Google and Facebook joined, and many major social sites have also pledged to make it easier for users to switch networks or combine their data from multiple places. Hopefully, this will mean Live Spaces users will gain the ability to output their data, as well as import data from other websites.
January 31st, 2008
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Live, Spaces, Windows |
2 comments
LiveSide has done a complete chart showing the search engine market share ratings from Nielsen, Hitwise and Compete over the last 13 months, and the trends are confusing, but may be moving in Microsoft’s favor. While Hitwise shows Microsoft’s Live Search down over 20% in 2007, and Compete shows it barely up (from 8.8% to 9.1%, after a brief flirtation with 10%), Nielsen/Netratings has Live Search on a tear, going from 8.4% in December 2006 to 10.1% in March, 13.3% in June, and 13.8% in December.
Meanwhile, no one is disputing the failure of Yahoo. Hitwise again shows little change (which makes me question their accuracy), with Yahoo falling from 21.6% to 20.88%, but Nielsen and Compete have nearly identical numbers, with Yahoo starting at 23.6% and 23.2%, respectively, and plummeting to 17.7% and 17%.
If you only go with Nielsen’s numbers, Yahoo and Microsoft are seperated by just 3.2%, and that’s after a year where Yahoo fell 5.9% and Microsoft gained 5.4%. Things are a little less spectacular (for Microsoft) at Compete, where Yahoo still fell 6.2%, but Microsoft gained a meager 0.3%.
Considering that Yahoo’s fall as a company is just getting started (barring some brilliant save from Jerry Yang or Sue Decker), I’d only expect their search share to fall even faster in 2008. In theory, by this time next year, Windows Live Search could be the number two player in the search industry. Even without catching Google, making number two would make Microsoft’s Live effort and unqualified success, and would push a lot of advertisers from Yahoo’s search ads over to Microsoft’s.
Could this actually happen? Weren’t people calling Live Search a failure? Better go back and re-think that. Microsoft appears poised to take the number two spot from Yahoo in the next twelve months, possibly in the next six, and when it does, the landscape of this industry will shift significantly.
January 31st, 2008
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Live, Yahoo, Windows, Search |
3 comments
