2006 at a glance

Hi all

We saw a lot of IT trends and products in 2006. Google obvioiusly lead the game with apple following with their iPod music success.

2006 saw the release of much delayed vista operating system and office 2007 from microsoft. Microsoft launched the live services pack with some good features, but I am not whether they were able to keep up with innovation sparkled by google.

I expect a very good competition ahead for the 2007 and I wish all my users a happy new 2007.

Sijith

GATES VS. GOOGLE Search and Destroy

The fight between google and microsoft continues. Recently I read an interesting article on this, and I thought I would share them with you all. There has been talks that google be the next microsoft. The way google is moving forward gives the audience the same sign. That they are going to take on microsoft.

Last week I was watching a video of steve balmer being interviewed by ZDNet team. When he said his microsoft team is "innovating", the audience gave a big laugh. They know that when microsoft releases a product in 4 year, google does it each month.

Here is the article I read.

http://pipi68.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!7D93A15A5B18BFA!561.entry

Microsoft says it knows how to compete with Google

At the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Fla., Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer explains to Gartner analysts Dave Cearley and Tom Pittman that the software giant plans to compete with Google in the search market by delivering more value and relevance to users.

http://www.zdnetasia.com/itlibrary/webcasts/0,39044504,39283307,00.htm

The Best Ajax-Based Apps

Hi all

Today I was reading an article on top AJAX applications and I found it very interested.

Check the below link to browse the article

http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=196603519

Sijith

Mozilla puts up alpha version of Firefox 3.0

Mozilla fans still starry-eyed from the recent release of Firefox 2.0 can already get a glimpse at what the next version of the browser will look like, as an alpha version of Firefox 3.0 has recently been uploaded to Mozilla's public FTP server.

According to the Mozilla Wiki entry about Firefox 3, several enhancements are in developmentfor the successor to Firefox, which was released less than two months ago. One new feature planned to be in the new browser is called "places", which takes a new approach to bookmarks and page history. Reportedly, these items will be transitioned to the left side of the browser, sort of like Internet Explorer 7.

Microsoft Betas Book Search ready by tomorrow

The Redmond, Wash.-based company announced that it will release the beta version of its Live Search Books application tomorrow.

This is an important part of the company's strategy to turn its Windows Live platform, which it just took out of beta in the last few days, into a hub of experiences that create customer loyalty, thereby driving incremental advertising revenue gains.

Currently, Live Book Search returns queries on books that are no longer protected by copyright.

Next year, it will include books that are currently under copyright protection as well.

That, Microsoft hopes, will make its users come back more often.

Leopard OS from Apple

Apple is working on to release MAC OS X leopard operating system.

To know more on this OS, please visit the below web link

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html

I am sure you all will enjoy the snapshots of this OS.

Google to end fee service for answering questions

Hi all

Google is shutting down Google Answers, a service that lets users pose questions to a panel of researchers and pay for useful answers.

The service, about four years old, failed to gain much traction with users, especially when compared with a rival service offered by Yahoo, which is free.

Google Answers never generated much traffic or revenue for Google, said Danny Sullivan, editor of the online publication Search Engine Watch.

"Yahoo has an answers product that works," he said. Because Google Answers required users to pay, he said, it "could not have been that product." Sullivan noted that unlike Yahoo, Google had not promoted its service very much.