Get IE8 Activities In Firefox
One of the new features in Internet Explorer 8 is Activities, which lets you contextually use the information on a page with other services, and because it uses some generally open formats, someone’s already adapted it for other browsers. This Firefox extension lets you practically seamlessly use Activities in Firefox, so check it out.
Microsoft’s Extreme Server Makeover Check out this video, spoofing Extreme Home Makeover for the IT world. It’s weird in places, but just watch it, k?
How To Tell If Your PC Supports Hibernation Milo explains how to use POWERCFG.exe to tell if your Windows Vista PC supports hibernation mode, as well as what other power modes your PC supports. It’s an extremely useful tip if you’re running into some power troubleshooting issues.
Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack Now Free
If you’re getting bored of playing Halo online, you’ll be pleased to know that one of its map packs is now free. The price has been dropped 100% on the “Heroic” map pack, giving you three new multiplayer maps for the sweet price of nothing. Enjoy.
Microsoft Releases Popfly Game Creator
Microsoft released a game creator that lets you use Popfly, their free mashup creation tool, to create Silverlight-based games that can run on webpages, Facebook, the Vista Sidebar, pretty much anywhere.
GTA IV Breaks UK Sales Record
Grand Theft Auto 4 sold 631,000 copies on launch day in the UK alone, beating San Andreas’ record from four years ago by over 100 thousand units. The Xbox 360 version beat the PS3 version by 101,000 copies sold, and 360 console sales were up 125%.
Vista Feature Pack Released Microsoft has released the first “Feature Pack” for Windows Vista, adding some wireless features that, while nothing huge, could represent a growing series of feature packs that improve the operating system over the coming months and years. Feature Pack 1 adds support for Bluetooth 2.1 to Vista, as well as a Unified Pairing user interface and updates to Windows Connect Now. Get it here.
Download Windows Live for Windows Mobile
Microsoft has released a free download of the Windows Live for Windows Mobile 6 software that comes pre-loaded on some (but not all) Windows Mobile 6 phones. Pick up the download and get Push Hotmail, synchronized Live Contacts, a Live Search bar for the Home screen and one-click photo uploading to Live Spaces.
Microsoft Fastest To Deploy Patches
A Symantec report on malware discovered in the second half of last year shows that Microsoft was the fastest to respond to discovered software vulnerabilities. On average, Microsoft deployed patches within six days, compared to Apple, which took an average of 79 days, as well as faster than HP, Red Hat or Sun. There’s a lot detail in the article about the type of security vulnerabilities (most are caused by ActiveX), and let’s see how fast you can spot the Rent reference.
Turn Webslices into Vista Sidebar Gadgets
Webslices is a new feature in Internet Explorer 8, which allows you to add specifically selected portions of webpages to the menubar of IE, and have them automatically push updates to you. Sean Lyndersay has taken the Webslice out of the browser, and has designed a Vista Sidebar Gadget that lets you add any Webslice to your desktop. It works well, and Webslices as Gadgets are actually more useful than they are in the browser.
By the by, I learned that the reason the Facebook Webslice doesn’t work is that it needs to be installed while you are running IE as an administrator. That’s really a broken feature, and needs to be fixed for final IE8 release, or developers need to design their Webslices to not work that way.
Free Ford Sync and April Fools Xbox Live Downloads
Two Ford Sync picture packs and a Ford Sync-related dashboard theme have been released free on Xbox Live in the U.S. These are kid-themed, so get ‘em for your kid (or yourself, if you’re cute enough). There are also some April Fools-related pics, available for a limited time.
Secret Confessions Vista Sidebar Gadget This Gadget lets you leave confessions anonymously for random others to read and to read confessions from other users. It has the annoying “feature” of reading the confession out loud with Vista’s text-to-speech system, and no way to turn it off, and the confessions thus far are mostly homophobic or racist, but it’s a great idea that could become something.
Microsoft Sends “Put Up or Shut Up” Message To Yahoo
Microsoft is sick of Yahoo dragging its feet on MS’s proposed acquisition of the internet company, and has published a stern letter from CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo’s board. The letter basically says that Yahoo has had plenty of time to make a decision, and Microsoft wants them to either make a deal or face a hostile takeover. Considering the dragging its feet caused Yahoo to be in this weak position, it should surprise no one that they can’t even lose gracefully.
Data Corruption Bug Fixed in Next Home Server Update The Home Server blog has announced that they have come up with a fix for the data corruption bug that has plagued Home Server users in certain circumstances. Since they are working on Power Pack 1 for Home Server, due for public beta testing next month, they are including the fix with the Power Pack in order to ensure everyone gets it.
Open XML Becomes International Standard
The members of the ISO voted 75% to 14% to approve Microsoft Office 2007’s Open XML file formats as an international standard, removing the barrier erected when the IBM-backed ODF format did the same thing two years ago. The two file formats are now on a level playing field, ensuring that government agencies will choose the better (and more cost-effective) office suite, not the one with ISO certification. ISO controls Open XML now, not Microsoft, and can change any part of the spec, with Microsoft forced to change Office to comply.
Another 11-Cent Dividend Coming To Microsoft Shareholders Microsoft has announced yet another dividend for shareholders, another 11 cents for those invested in the company. Shareholders as of May 15, 2008 will get their dividend on June 12. This will make $4.72 returned to shareholders over the last five years, just over 16% of the stock price.
Silverlight-powered MLB Site Has Disastrous First Week
Baseball season started last week, and the launch of Major League Baseball’s new Silverlight-powered MLB.tv site, where you can pay to watch live games on your computer, had a terrible opening day. With fans paying $20 a month or $120 a year to watch games only on their computer (almost as much as you’d pay to watch a higher quality version on cable or satellite), they were understandably peeved at not getting what they paid for. Now word on whether the problems were on Microsoft’s side or MLB’s, but having such a high-profile launch go bad isn’t a good thing for Microsoft’s important Silverlight technology.
Ribbon Joining Windows 7 User Interface
The Office Ribbon, one of Microsoft biggest software design innovations of recent years, is getting promoted to Windows. The Office UI element will be built into the Windows 7 platform, available for all software developers to access and use in their applications. Quite the vote of confidence, but when you’ve got something good, you should spread it around. Read more about it at Long’s blog.
Xbox Does April Fools Joke Microsoft’s Xbox division sent out an email to all users, informing them of new products from Xbox. They included a wireless helmet, Xbox: The Board Game, a wood-paneled Xbox, and a weather-proof portable Xbox. Also for April Fools Day, Long Zheng “revealed” the lost Windows Vista sounds, uploaded as a collection of Windows 98 sound packs.
Windows Mobile 6.1 Official Launched
At CTIA, Microsoft officially showed off the long talked about Windows Mobile 6.1 update. It includes a new version of the mobile Internet Explorer browser, complete with support for Adobe Flash, Silverlight, H.264. There’s also a new Getting Started Center, the ability to handle more things from the home screen, better touch screen and small screen UI features and other updates.
Microsoft Videos Launching Microsoft has launched a beta preview of Microsoft Videos, a new Silverlight-powered video site that collects the many videos Microsoft creates. Whether you’re an IT pro or developers looking for technical videos, or a gamer looking for video game videos, or a consumer looking for videos about the latest software and Media Center stuff, it’s all there are running in glorious Silverlight.
40% Of Vista Crashes By Major Graphics Chips Proof is out that it is the graphics processor industry that is ruining computing. Data from Microsoft shows that 40% of crashes in Windows Vista were caused by graphics drivers from ATI and NVidia, with 75% of those NVidia’s fault. Since Vista was released, those two companies have been the most negligient in serving their customers with decent drivers, and everyone is suffering as a result. I wish Intel got serious about graphics, because ATI and NVidia have lost any goodwill they had with me an many other users.
Free Portal Song “Still Alive” for Rock Band
Tomorrow, Harmonix will begin giving away “Still Alive”, the end credits song from Valve’s hit game Portal. While tomorrow is April Fools’ day, the song isn’t worth buying for most gamers, and we already know it’s been formatted for the game, so the announcement should likely be legit. Xboxers, download your free song tomorrow (PS3 gamers have to wait a few weeks due to system upgrades) and thank the Rock Gaming Gods.
Here’s a video of the guy who wrote “Still Alive” playing the song in the game last month:
Clippy On The Simpsons
Clippy, the Microsoft Office paperclip, isn’t dead! He was on this recent episode of the Simpsons:
Microsoft May Counter Justin Long With Johnny Knoxville Rumors are that Microsoft is preparing an advertising campaign designed to combat Apple’s smarmy Get A Mac ads starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. In the ads, Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame would dos something incredibly stupid with his computer, like dropping and destroying his PC while performing a stunt, but is saved by Windows and automatic backups. If done smartly, the ads could work, especially by not being as condescending as Apple’s ads.
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Live Contacts Sharing With Facebook, Bebo, Others
One scary part about signing up for a new social networking site is when it asks for your Hotmail/Gmail/AIM password in order to import your contacts. You can never be sure if you can trust that site with such valuable info, which is why it’s great that Microsoft is working to take the scary out.
They’ve signed partnerships with Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged and LinkedIn, letting you securely invite Live contacts to be your friends, and invite your friends on those services to chat with you on Live Messenger. The only place you enter your Live ID password is a Live.com website, keeping your valuable info out of everyone else’s grubby hands.
Make Your Own PhotoZoom Collections with Silverlight Microsoft has launched a website that lets you take advantage of their hosting and technology, creating big photo collections that users can zoom in and out of as easily as a Google Map. Called PhotoZoom, it utilizes technology based on SeaDragon/Deep Zoom and PhotoSynth, runs in Silverlight and is hosted on Microsoft’s servers. You can try out a sample album here, or enjoy it embedded below:
Microsoft Produces Limited Edition GTA IV Xbox 360 Microsoft has released a very limited stock of Grand Theft Auto IV Xbox 360 Elite consoles, 500 to be exact, complete with a GTA IV design on the side panel and a briefcase full of peripherals. The consoles are individually numbered, so you know how limited of an edition it is, and the briefcase has wireless controller, ChatPad, headset, camera, remote, and charge kit.
Vista Service Pack 1 Released Microsoft has finalized the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, putting the major update to Vista in the hands of users. Some users are getting it pushed to them via Windows Update, and if you don’t have it yet, just go here to download the standalone 434 megabyte installer for 32-bit versions of Vista. This link will get you the 64-bit version.
If you aren’t getting Vista SP1 through Automatic Updates, and are not even getting it offered as an option, it is likely because your computer is failing a number of prerequisites. One of them is driver compatibility, and since Sigmatel audio drivers aren’t worth crap on Vista, practically anyone with one of those chips in their systems won’t get SP1 without installing it manually. Read more here.
Microsoft Launches AdCenter Community Microsoft has launched AdCenterCommunity.com, a website for its growing AdCenter advertiser base to to learn about ways to run better ad campaigns, with niche-specific blogs, user forums, and other community features. The community offers advice on the AdCenter API, Analytics, and represents an effort by Microsoft to distinguish itself from Google AdWords, which has notoriously poor communication with with its advertisers.
Mac Office 2008 Gets Updated Microsoft released a patch for Office 2008, fixing problems that could cause Office programs to crash or otherwise stop responding. It also improves security, keeps restricted users from having unauthorized access to Office program files, fixes a blank page printing problem, fixes font substitution issues, adds support for secondary displays, and many other fixes and improvements.
Microsoft’s List of Potential Yahoo Board Members
If Microsoft winds up completing its effort to buy Yahoo through a hostile takeover, they’ll need to nominate a full new board of directors. A part of that list has leaked out, naming four of the ten executives Microsoft may place on the board. They are:
Edward H. Meyer - former CEO, Grey Advertising
John Chapple - CEO, Nextel Partners
Tom Freston - former President, Viacom
Jaynie Studenmund - Former CEO of eHarmony
Yahoo is reportedly finally holding talks with Microsoft, having a meeting to let Microsoft explain its offer and put some of its vision forward. Even if Yahoo doesn’t want to give in and except Microsoft’s offer, the offer may be impossible to ignore, especially if Microsoft raises the amount it is willing to pay. With other potential buyers dropping out, it’s certainly something they should consider.
Virtual Earth Implemented in Flash
Like Windows Live Maps? Like the compatibility and ease of Flash applications? Then you’ll like that AFC Components has added the Virtual Earth API to its UMAP control. You can see Virtual Earth embedded right here:
Sony PS3 for $100 Off
If you are looking to go with a Sony PlayStation 3, you might be glad to know that the SonyStyle store is offering $100 off the purchase of a 40gb PS3 with a new Sony card, making it just $300. That’s a good enough deal even if you find Sony as evil as many do, just to get a good Blu-Ray player and a small number of decent exclusive games.
Novell Free To Sue Over Long-Dead WordPerfect The Supreme Court has ruled to allow Novell to go ahead and sue Microsoft for alleged antitrust infractions involving WordPerfect, which Novell sold 12 years ago. Novell is complaining that Microsoft used its Windows monopoly to depress sales of WordPerfect, resulting in the product dropiing in value from $1.2 billion in 1994 to $170 million in 1996. Novell only owned WordPerfect for two years, and much of the failures of WordPerfect that allowed Microsoft Word to trounce it in the marketplace occured before they bought the product, but the case is apparently strong enough to go trial. We’ll see if it’s strong enough to actually win.
OneCare Gets Marketing Campaign
Microsoft has a new marketing slogan for Windows Live OneCare, its all-in-one security suite. The tagline is, “Don’t Worry, We Took OneCare Of It” and the ads typically featuring some nasty virus it “took OneCare” of. You have to read it a few times before the sentence makes sense, but the ads are cute. I’m pretty sure I saw one of these ads in the Post yesterday.
Flash Coming To Windows Mobile Microsoft has licensed Adobe Flash for Windows Mobile. Specifically, Adobe Flash Lite will be built into Internet Explorer Mobile in future versions of WinMobile as a plugin, so webpages with Flash should, for the most part, work as intended. That means full YouTube for Windows Mobile users, even as Apple complains that Flash doesn’t work on its devices. Boo hoo. I’d look forward to seeing Flash in Windows Mobile 7, but that’s pure speculation.
Become a Windows Mobile Fan on Facebook
Facebook has a feature that lets you become a fan of entertainers, celebrities or politicians, but apparently you can be a fan of a product as well. You can now become a fan of Windows Mobile and show your love for the platform. I’m in. Just head here while signed in to Facebook and click “Become a Fan”.
Live Spaces Loses 15% Of Visitors
Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft’s once high-flying social network/blogging platform, slipped badly in the last year. It’s still technically the biggest blogging platform around, but it failed to keep up with MySpace and Facebook, its real competitors, losing 15% of its unique visitors in the U.S. in the last 12 months. Live Spaces lost 1.4 million unique visitors, coming half a million of LinkedIn, which rose 271% last year. Guess the buzz on Live Spaces is over, and Microsoft has some work to do to keep the rest from leaving.
Bill Gates on Running A Good Startup
A student at the University of Waterloo stood up and asked a question of Bill Gates during a roundtable breakfast at the University (no, it was not a Q&A session, she just really wanted to ask), wondering how he had the courage to start Microsoft at 17. Gates answer says a lot about how he values his employees, and could be a good lesson for startups.
At 17 I didn’t have much to lose. I promised my parents that I would go back to university if things didn’t pan out. But I did worry about all those people who had spouses and children. They depended on the business succeeding. That’s what worried me at night. So I made sure that I had enough money in the bank to pay everyone’s salary for a year if none of my customers came through. That’s how I got through it. Eventually there came a time, though, when we needed to hire 30 people, and that was a real crisis. I really didn’t want to expand without a financial safety net in place. Ultimately, I compromised and said yes, go ahead and hire. But I want to know immediately when the increased revenues offset the costs of paying everyone a year’s salary … that way I could sleep again.
This blog has a screenshot and commentary collection, looking at Microsoft Word over the last twenty years. It’s more amazing how many things were in place already in 1989, including the familiar toolbar layout, and how long it took some things to change. You can see Microsoft made the right move with Office 2007, given how the only major changes in the previous several versions all focused on that stupid Clippy character.
Microsoft launched the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 today at MIX. IE8 comes with a lot of web standards improvements and some good efforts to make sure pages look the same in IE as they do in other browsers. IE8 has a new mode that adheres closely to web standards, and if a site refuses to load because it expects IE7, you can click a button to make the site think you are running that browser.
There are some new features in IE8. “Activities” are data providers that you can use to get information related to the page you are currently reading. They’re sort of like a combination of RSS feeds and toolbars. You can use them to submit sites to Digg and StumbleUpon, blog about the current page, share on Facebook, send an email, translate a web page and more, all without installing a bunch of browser add-ins. Anyone can develop Activities, and if the page you are currently on offers one, an auto-discovery button will light up.
Another new feature is WebSlices. With this feature, users can choose a part of any webpage and subscribe to it, sort of like an RSS feed, and view that part of the page with automatic regular updating. You can add a Slice of the weather, friend status updates on Facebook, headlines from a news site, or anything you choose or a web developer offers to you.
IE8 has some improvements, like the three layout modes, CSS 2.1 compliance, fixed cross-browser inconsistencies, improved namespace support, performance improvements, and built-in developer tools.
IE7 will not install on pre-release versions of Vista Service Pack 1 and debug versions of Vista, Vista SP1 and Server 2008.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 will add a new page to the home page set. This page will be automatically removed from the home page set two weeks after you install Internet Explorer Beta 1. You can remove this additional home page from your home page set at any time. Uninstalling Internet Explorer Beta 1 earlier than its automatic removal will not remove the additional home page. In that case, you can remove the home page manually.
This is hilarious: The new Activities for Hotmail and Spaces won’t run on IE8 in IE8 mode. You must click the button to have IE8 pretend to be IE7, even though the feature the Activities are for is IE8 only. That’s weird coding. Apparently there are a lot of problems with Activities in IE8 mode.
Pages will always print in IE7 mode, even after being viewed in IE8 mode.
Links to portions of a webpage (using # anchors) may not work in IE8 mode.
IE8 is not compatible with a lot of accessibility software.
Some add-ons don’t work with IE8, or even crash the browser, including Skype, the Google and Yahoo Toolbars, RealPlayer 11 and QuickTime Player.
The maximum number of simultaneous connections has been increased, and will be automatically increased if you are on a broadband connection.
As noted above, users who installed Vista Service Pack 1 can’t install IE8. You’ll need to uninstall SP1, or install the final release version of SP1, to get IE8. If someone wants to show me how to get SP1 so I can uninstall the pre-release and get IE8, I’d love the help.
Microsoft has caved to pressure, and in the long run, the entire internet will be better for it. MS has announced that Internet Explorer 8, the next version of its popular web browser, will make its IE8 standards mode the default.
IE8 will have three web page rendering modes: Quirks Mode, which contains all the old IE weirdness and bugs deliberately included to avoid breaking web pages; Standards Mode, which debuted in IE7 and more closely conforms to some web standards, but not nearly enough; and an IE8 so-called “super Standards” Mode, which conformed so well to web standards that it passed the notoriously difficult Acid2 rendering test.
Originally, Microsoft planned to make IE7, previously an opt-in mode for web developers, the new default, and make IE8 mode an opt-in, but developers and users complained. Even though Microsoft’s plan of taking things slowly and giving the web time to adjust was sound, the web community wanted to move faster and get the hell out of this era of inconsistent browser support, and as a result, IE8 mode will be the default mode when IE8 ships.
Lazy web developers can still opt backwards to IE7 or Quirks Modes, but they might be too lazy to do that, too. When IE8 and Firefox 3 start gobbling up the last generation’s market share, we’ll start to see a web that works the way it is supposed to, whether it wants to or not. Expect more websites to start running properly in Opera, Safari and other alternative browsers, as developers become more predictable and consistent.
TechCrunch reports that Microsoft is in discussions with email startup Xobni about a possible purchase of the company. Xobni makes a really useful plugin for Microsoft’s Outlook, which creates a profile for every person you interact with and displays statistics and history based on whatever you are looking at. Xobni shows all past conversations with a contact, threaded conversations, past attachments, people in common, and email usage statistics, all using only information gleaned from analyzing your inbox.
Essentially, Xobni creates a social network around Outlook, and could be built to support more platforms. Xobni’s has a lot of buzz since it launched five months ago, and it’s easy to see why Microsoft might buy it. TechCrunch said Microsoft first offered $20 million and was rejected, but they’re back at the table, presumably with a larger offer.
Zaheda Bhorat, Google’s manager of open source programs, is urging international delegates to vote to reject Microsoft Office 2007’s Open XML as an international standard when the ISO votes this week. Google is firmly behind ODF, the document format backed by Microsoft’s enemies at Sun and IBM, who hope to use it as a wedge against Microsoft Office’s market domination.
Google’s open-source programs manager, Zaheda Bhorat, posted a blog on Monday urging those delegates to vote against Open XML because Google believes that it is an “insufficient and unnecessary standard, designed purely around the needs of Microsoft Office.”
Bhorat said Open XML should be subsumed into the existing standard–OpenDocument Format, or ODF–which is backed by Microsoft rivals, including Google.
…
In a document more thoroughly laying out its position on Open XML, Google says the core problem with the specification is that it’s redundant with ODF. The company also says it’s too specific to Microsoft Office and that it’s of insufficient quality.
“Submitting such a proposal makes a mockery of the standards process,” according to the Google assessment.
LiveSide is reporting that a new version of the Outlook Connector, which allows Hotmail accounts to be used in Microsoft Outlook, will add the ability to sync with Windows Live Calendar, for free (this was previously a Premium feature). Users will be able to access and presumably edit their Live Calendars in Outlook, which is a great convenience.
I’m really excited with the work Microsoft’s put into Live Calendar, but as an Outlook user, I can’t messily go back and forth. When this new version comes out, I will finally get the best of both worlds, great desktop calendaring and great web-based calendaring. If I can sync my regular Outlook calendar to Live Calendar, I’ll be a really happy boy.
The IEblog is talking about how websites can prepare for Internet Explorer 8, early betas of which should be becoming more common as this year goes by. They laid out the User-Agent string for the new browser, which will be a simple:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)
Unlike the IE7 beta, the IE8 beta versions will not have a special beta tag (the letter “b”) in the User-Agent, so that beta versions will work with websites the same as the final release. Also, the beta will ship with a new ability to “pretend” they are IE7, returning the IE7 User-Agent string just by clicking an option in the menu.
Microsoft’s Miel announced that Microsoft Research is planning on releasing to the public next week an internal prototype, called InkSeine, that allows for some amazing inking on Tablet PCs. InkSeine can be installed on Tablets running Windows XP or Windows Vista (Premium, Business or better) and allows access to many features just by inking. For example, you can run a search just by circling some words.
Microsofties, many of whom use Tablet PCs, have been enjoying InkSeing internally for a long time, but now regular users can enjoy the program. On February 15, InkSeine will be released to the wild. Until then, enjoy these videos and screenshots:
The first video is from the InkSeine website (there’s a higher quality version there):
The second video is also from there, but I had to upload it to YouTube:
And some various screenshots (clickk to view full-size on Flickr):
One great feature in Gmail is that if someone mentions a date and time in an email, you get a link to create a Google Calendar appointment based on that email. Outlook doesn’t have anything as smart as that, but it does have a quick way to create appointments from emails, one I wish I had known before. Just drag the email from your inbox to the sidebar calendar, dropping it on the date for your appointment.
The new appointment will be created, with the subject of the email becoming the subject of the appointment, and the full text of the email going in the comment area. You have the email for reference when creating the rest of the details for your appointment. It’s convenient and quick, and the best way to get it done.
If there’s a plugin for Outlook that gives it Gmail’s auto-calendar functionality, let me know in the comments.
Office Online tackled the Super Bowl this week, running this comic on Friday:
Obviously, all expectations where a little off, so this comic ran Monday:
What an amazing game. Even if you were rooting for New England, you have to admit we saw some great football and great drama. That was one for the ages, and every time someone attempts a perfect season, we’ll be talking about Super Bowl 42, every bit as much as we talk about the ‘72 Dolphins.
Anyway, here in New York, we’ve got a parade starting in 40 minutes. Gotta go!
UPDATE: David posted another followup Super Bowl comic, explaining why the Giants were able to pull off the upset victory.
Do you really have any idea how big Yahoo is, or hell, how big MSN is? There’s a lot of overlap between the two, and Long Zheng & Josh Philips have been kind enough to generate a nice chart to show the two. The chart is reproduced below, with some notes added by me regarding what I think about which service will be rolled into the other.
Both sides have some great, well-developed portal sites. There’s no need for both, so the only way sites like Yahoo Autos and MSN Autos survive is if the companies waffle and keep both Yahoo and MSN alive, competing with each other.
Here’s part of the beauty of the acquisition. Yahoo and MSN have many international portals. In some countries, Yahoo is king, in others, MSN. Together, they combine to have #1 market share in almost every single market.
Account Management
Yahoo ID
Live ID
Yahoo’s ID system, while good, is nowhere near as powerful or versatile as Microsoft’s. Microsoft’s multi-account switching and Windows Live Sign-In assistant would win anyday. Either way, Microsoft sticks with its own technology, so Yahoo IDs are dead.
MyYahoo is bigger and has more users, and a big history. The technology developed for Live.com will likely be rolled into MyYahoo, or exist as a more advanced option for MyYahoo users, but MyYahoo is king here.
Both are big dogs, and both are struggling to catch Google. Both will survive, at least for a while, with Microsoft trying to find a way to combine the market share of the two eventually. Most likely, the search engine will fall under the Yahoo brand, but itcould go either way.
Not even a question. Microsoft loves Live Maps, and has invested heavily in it. Yahoo Maps is dead, but its engineers and some of its code may work for Live in the future.
Yahoo Messenger and Live Messenger already work together, making the path for the future easier. Live Messenger is more popular, and will almost definitely be the only client in the future, with added support for the Yahoo services and features it can take over from the Yahoo client.
Live Hotmail is one of Microsoft’s most important, strongest projects. Microsoft will avoid killing Yahoo at first, but development on Yahoo Mail will cease. Microsoft will offer Yahoo users the option to migrate their accounts to the ever-improving Hotmail, and eventually Yahoo Mail will phase out and die.
Yahoo Answers is the amazing success story of 2007, while Live QnA never got enough traction. Live QnA is dead, and there’s even a chance Microsoft will not bother to integrate.
Flickr will become tied to Live Spaces, with the millions of Live Spaces photos becoming part of Flickr. The two will thrive on each other and grow exponentially more successful. This will be the immediate crown jewel of the acquisition.
Yahoo Widgets is strong and has a nice library of Gadgets. The first post-acquisition release of Sidebar will add support for Yahoo Widgets, which will live side-by-side in Windows Vista.
The hardest part of the acquisition. It took Yahoo years to integrate Overture into its own ad systems, and if that happens to Microsoft, this entire acquisition will have been a waste. Luckily, Microsoft is very talented at integrating, at least when compared to Yahoo. Expect hundreds of employees to work on combining the two products, with a deadline of under 12 months, maybe even six months.
Live Mobile isn’t fully developed, but an important part of Microsoft’s mobile strategy. Yahoo Go for Mobile is a great piece of software. There will be a fight inside Microsoft, but if the company is smart, it will continue to develop Yahoo Go as the iPhone-killer content browser.
Yahoo’s offering is dead. Office Live is much better, and important to Microsoft’s Office division. Yahoo’s customers will hopefully like Microsoft’s technology, which has been well invested in and is cheaper (or free).
Tough call. Live Events is really knew, and we don’t know how important it is to Microsoft. If they aren’t desperately attached to it, Upcoming could win.
Microsoft killed MSN Music for Zune, and it will kill Yahoo Music, too. Microsoft will integrate or transition, and kill it off. Hopefully, Launchcast will survive, but don’t count on it.
