 |
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave his maiden Consumer Electronic Show keynote yesterday and if it was just as soporific as Bill Gates’ past performances, it mercifully skipped the goofy "future tech" skits that Microsoft’s PR folks used to put Gates through. In a nutshell, the message was "Windows 7, Windows 7, Windows 7" plus the obligatory appearance by Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices chief Robbie Bach to once again whistle past the graveyard and say that everything on his patch was swell.
“I’m thrilled to announce the availability of the Windows 7 beta, which is on track to deliver simplicity and reliability,” Ballmer said. “Windows 7 and Windows Live are part of an incredible pipeline of consumer technology that is making it easier than ever for people to communicate, share and get more done.”
The beta version of Windows 7, Microsoft’s next-generation PC operating system, can be downloaded today by MSDN, TechBeta and TechNet customers. Consumers who want to test-drive the beta will be able to download it beginning Jan. 9 at http://www.microsoft.com/windows7.
Microsoft also announced the global availability of Windows Live, a free suite of communications and sharing applications.
Actually that’s not all the ten thousand different Windows Live applications, but just Windows Live Essentials, the bundle of Windows applications you will have to download to give Windows 7 the same functionality as Windows XP. In which respect there was good news for Dell customers:
In February, to offer a comprehensive experience for consumers to connect, share and personalize their content, Dell will offer preloaded Windows Live Essentials (a free suite of applications for instant messaging, e-mail and photos that complement Windows Live on the Web) and Live Search on a majority of its new consumer and small-business PCs globally.
No word on how much money changed hands, but bear in mind that Dell is paying to put Windows on their PCs so with this deal they are merely getting a discount for also preloading Live Essentials and Live Search. I am sure Microsoft’s lawyers are making sure it is a separate accounting entry however.
Also announced was the Verizon mobile search deal leaked yesterday:
Under a new five-year relationship that covers mobile search and advertising, Verizon subscribers in the U.S. will be able to use Live Search to search for local business and shopping information; access maps and directions; perform general Internet searches; and find ring tones, games, wallpaper and other online mobile products and services.
More succinctly, Microsoft’s Live Search will become the preferred Web search on Verizon mobiles.
Microsoft announced today that starting in 2009 all Hewlett-Packard consumer Windows PCs distributed in the USA and Canada will be preloaded with Live Search as the default Web search engine in Internet Explorer and with a custom Live Search enabled toolbar featuring their Silverlight technology. HP had previously been signed up with Yahoo.
Danny Sullivan has a nice table of PC OEMs, their US market share, and the search engine they have signed up with and adding HP clearly is a leg up for Microsoft since HP is a strong number 2 (24%) to Dell (31%) who signed with Google in 2006. Before this HP deal, Microsoft only had Lenovo whose US share was minimal.
The question, of course, is how many users actually stick with the OEM presets for IE or change them or switch to Firefox (which defaults to Google). All of the search engines track the sourcing from toolbars and preloads (use one of them for a search query and check the parameters on the URL) so they have a good idea on traffic and ROI at least after one of these deals is started, but Microsoft undoubtedly has more than ROI on their mind.
First Microsoft has to grow beyond their single digit Web search share if their advertising aspirations are to be realized and this is one way of doing that. Second, a Silverlight toolbar means a Silverlight preload which Microsoft had yet to ante up for with the OEMs and that’s critical if they expect to get their Adobe Flash killer off the ground. There’s been no insight into what sort of bidding went on for the HP eyeballs, but there are lots of reasons why Microsoft would not want to be outbid.
Back in March, Microsoft submitted a novel device to the FCC which would utilize the unused “white spaces” in the US TV spectrum (which vary from city to city) for portable personal digital communications. Last week, the FCC’s assessment came in and it wasn’t a pretty sight because the prototype failed to correctly detect when frequencies were in use and would thereby cause interference. This week, more details came out it and it was revealed that Microsoft’s prototype was defective:
As odd as it may seem for a company that just announced it would offer the Ubuntu Linux distribution on selected consumer PCs, the server side of the house at Dell has climbed on board with the controversial Microsoft-Novell Linux deal of last November. Here’s the press release:
Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. today announced that Dell Inc. is the first major systems provider to join the business collaboration that was formed by Microsoft and Novell in response to customer demand for greater interoperability and intellectual property (IP) assurance. As part of the agreement, Dell will purchase SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and establish a services and marketing program to migrate existing Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
No financial terms were announced. While interoperability is universally beloved like motherhood and apple pie, it’s the pesky “intellectual property (IP) assurance” that is the problem here. The implication that Linux infringes Microsoft patents drives the open source crowd wild and Dell has just thrown away all their open source good will for reasons not immediately clear. Novell needed the money badly, but what’s Dell’s excuse?
