Sometime in the next 12 months, Google Chrome will become the world’s most popular browser, knocking Microsoft’s Internet Explorer off the mountain it has ruled for more than a decade.
This fact should scare the pants off of Facebook.
In July 2008, IE controlled 68.5 percent of the market, according to Statcounter, while Chrome wasn’t even on the market. Now Microsoft’s browser is down to 34.8 percent market share while Chrome controls 30.9 percent of total browser usage. Chrome has grown by a percentage point the last few months, while IE has dropped by around the same amount.
It’s only a matter of time until Google dominates the browser market.
Now you may be asking yourselves: why should Facebook care about the fate of the browser market? Facebook’s a social network, not a desktop software company — why do the browser wars matter?
The answer lies in Google’s ambitious plans for Google+, the company’s “social spine.” It’s no secret that Facebook and Google are at war, and that Google would love to take the wind out of Facebook’s sails. Nothing less than control of the Web (and billions in ad dollars) is at stake.
Google+ as a standalone product hasn’t made a dent in Facebook’s growth, though. Google+ may have 170+ million users, but Facebook is still on track for the IPO of the decade.
I give Microsoft a lot of grief about stuff, partly because the company is responsive, partly because I know the company can do better, and partly because I know Ill be spending a lot of time using whatever new package of bits that the company puts forth.
But sometimes Microsoft gets something dead on accurate, and when that happens it deserves a shout out. One example of how Microsoft has used the telemetry is gets from users to improve something dramatically is the new Task Manager in Windows 8.
Microsoft plans to release before the end of the year the third and likely final service pack (SP) for Office 2007 before the product exists mainstream support in April 2012.
(Given Microsoft is referring to SP3 as the October 2011 release, Im thinking it probably will be out this month.)
Service Pack 3 contains a roll-up of all 2007 Cumulative and Public Updates since Service Pack 2 for both Office client suites and applications as well as SharePoint Servers, in addition to some new fixes for issues discovered during the lifecycle of SP2, according to an October 6 post on the Microsoft Office Updates blog. Users who are up-to-date with Automatic Updates for Office 2007 already have installed most of whats coming in SP3, Microsoft officials said.
SP3 is much smaller than 2007 SP1, SP2 or the recently released 2010 SP1. We will provide documentation detailing the changes and the affected packages on TechNet, company officials said. And unlike the case with Office 2010 SP1, customers wont be asked to deploy the accompanying Cumulative Update at the same time as the coming SP3.
UPDATE: Mozilla has just pushed out version 7.0.1, which takes care of that pesky missing add-on bug. All is well now, though, so update with confidence!
Does it feel just like yesterday that you updated to Firefox 6? And the day before it Firefox 5? Well, today it’s time for Firefox 7.
Today Mozilla released released Firefox 7 across all major platforms. According to Mozilla, Firefox 7 manages memory more efficiently to deliver quicker browsing experience. Promised performance improvements in Firefox 7 include: faster at opening new tabs, clicking on menu items and buttons on websites. Heavy Internet users will also supposedly enjoy “enhanced performance when lots of tabs are open and during long web browsing sessions that last hours or even days.”
Google’s email market share, at 1%, will rise to 10% in a few years, says analyst firm
Computerworld - Google’s share of the enterprise email market currently “hovers” at around 1%, but it will reach 10% within a few years, research firm Gartner predicts.
Google is gaining ground with enterprises that have 5,000 or more seats, Gartner said, naming several public- and private-sector users with more than 10,000 Gmail seats.
Big organizations that use Gmail include Motorola Mobility, with 22,000 users; the U.S. General Services Administration, with 17,000; the Los Angeles city government, with 17,000; automaker Jaguar Land Rover, with 15,000; the InterContinental hotel chain, with 25,000; and the Wyoming state government, with 10,000.
“We are at the start of a major escalation in the war of the email clouds,” wrote Gartner analyst Matthew Cain, in a report on Google’s enterprise progress that was released Friday.
Cloud-based email systems account for about 4% of the overall enterprise email market, according to the research firm.
Microsoft released a cloud-based Exchange service in 2010, and a more expansive cloud offering, Office 365, this year.
Google, meanwhile, has been making improvements to its platform “at a blistering pace,” said Cain in his report, counting more than two dozen “substantial changes” to the platform in the past 12 months.
First released on September 2, 2008, Chrome is credited with fueling the browser speed race to accelerate JavaScript as well as a trend that removed the focus on complex menus and shifted it to more space for web content.
Chrome has not been an instant hit. It took Google over half a year to collect more than 2 percent market share as users took time to adjust to the radically different look of the minimalist interface. However, since the second quarter of 2009 Chrome has been adding market share from its rivals IE and Firefox aggressively and has recently broke the 23 percent mark, according to StatCounter. At the current pace, Google will surpass Firefox in November at the 26 percent mark and could exceed IE’s share by mid-2012 at about 32 percent.
Computerworld - Microsoft has released an updated version of Communicator for the Mac that works with Apple’s new Lion operating system.
Communicator for Mac 2011 version 13.1.2 was released Thursday to Microsoft’s download site, and will be pushed to users via the company’s update service shortly, a Microsoft product director promised.
The new version of Communicator resolves the crash bug that afflicted the program when users tried to run it on Mac OS X 10.7, the new operating system Apple launched July 20.
Communicator is the corporate version of Microsoft’s consumer-grade Messenger chat client for the Mac, and is available only to business and academic volume licensing customers. It is also the software that connects Mac users to Microsoft’s enterprise communications server software, Lync 2010.
Last week, Microsoft’s Office for Mac development team reported several problems with the 2011 and 2008 editions of the suite when run on Lion.
At the time, the Communicator crash bug and a glitch that prevents users from importing messages from Apple’s Mail email client into Outlook 2011 or Entourage 2008 were the top two issues spelled out then by Pat Fox, a senior director of product development.
In a blog published Thursday, Fox announced the availability of Communicator 13.1.2 and reiterated that Office for Mac 2004 does not work, nor never will, on Lion because the suite was written for the PowerPC CPU.
In any given week, I get dozens of requests for help. The #1 question of 2011? Its no contest:
How do I protect myself online?
These days Im getting that question in equal numbers from PC and Mac owners who are concerned about the best way to avoid being sucker-punched by social engineering attacks.
Many people think that security begins and ends with antivirus software. I disagree. Should you run antivirus software? As Ive said before, if you dont know the answer to that question, then the answer is yes.
So lets stipulate that youre running a well-supported, up-to-date security programwhether you use a PC or a Mac. What else do you need to do? In this post, I share the five steps I teach to friends, family members, and clients who want to avoid malware, scareware, phishing sites, and other online scams.
If youve been paying attention to the current threat landscape, much of the advice in this post will be familiar, even obvious. A lot of it is just common sense, but some is unconventional wisdom. Yes, of course you should expect to be attacked if you download p**n or pirated software. But just staying out of bad online neighborhoods isnt sufficient anymore.
These days, threats can come from unexpected places: Google (and Bing) search results, compromised websites, deceptive ads, seemingly innocent downloads. You dont have to be doing anything out of the ordinary to inadvertently stumble across one of these potential threats.
If I had to summarize my guidance in a single sound bite, it would go something like this: Pay attention to your surroundings, and dont be stupid.
Computerworld - Microsoft today warned that scammers have taken to the phone lines to dupe Windows users into putting malware on their machines or paying for worthless help.
The ploy isn’t new — security experts have seen it in circulation for at least a year — but Microsoft was the first to quantify the problem.
According to Microsoft, which sponsored surveys in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland and Canada, 15% of the people polled said they had received unsolicited calls from fraudsters posing as computer support technicians who claimed they were offering PC security checks.
The scammers try to trick users into believing that their computer is infected — often by having them look at a Windows log that typically shows scores of harmless or low-level errors — then convince them to download software or let the “technician” remotely access the PC.
The con artists charge for their “help” and often get people to pay for worthless software. In actuality, the software is malware that steals online account information and passwords.
IDG News Service - Moves by Seagate and Western Digital to acquire hard-drive companies are being probed by European regulators because of “competition concerns,” the European Commission said Monday.
The proposed acquisitions will “further reduce competition,” the EC said in a statement citing concerns about a significant consolidation in the hard-drive market.
“Hard drives are the backbone of the digital economy,” Joaquin Almunia, vice president of competition policy at the European Commission, said in the statement. “The Commission will carefully examine if effective competition is preserved and innovation encouraged.”
Western Digital said in March it would acquire Hitachi’s hard drive business for $4.3 billion. Competitor Seagate said a month later it would acquire Samsung’s hard drive business for $1.38 billion.
Seagate and Western Digital are the top two hard-drive vendors in the market, according to market research firm IHS iSuppli.
Western Digital’s acquisition of Hitachi’s hard-drive business could make it the largest hard-drive vendor with about 50% of the worldwide market, according to iSuppli. Seagate’s acquisition of Samsung’s hard-drive operations could give the combined company a 40% market share, said Fang Zhang, an iSuppli analyst, in a blog entry in early May.
The remaining market share would belong to Toshiba, which in 2009 acquired Fujitsu’s hard drive business.
The Commission has until Oct. 10 to determine whether the transactions impede competition and are detrimental to business customers and consumers. The investigation of the proposed transactions will include a look at whether the deals could affect pricing and supply of hard drives. The merger deals with be assessed separately, the EC said.
10 years ago, when I started my IT career, Dell was the only computer brand I trust, until now. Who can blame me? Here are my reasons.
1. Availability. I do not know any particular country that you cannot buy dell products. Locally, it is very easy to get dell items, I simply give them service tag number or model number of my unit and my order will be there the next day and if youre lucky, you may have the item before you leave the office.
2. Durability. I remember my first dell latitude 610 laptop which came from my senior manager after 2 years of use, after my 2 years of use, I handed it over to my junior. The unit is still kicking after 5 years of extensive use.
3. Support. After the specifications, after sales support or warranty is the next most important. If I am not mistaken Dell also offers extended warranty of your choice. I seldom send my hardware for repair, its mostly driver support I need from them specially when computer Operating System gets updated or in any case there is software issue that drivers are need to reinstalled or updated.
Dell support page:http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&cs=RC956904&l=en&s=hied
There are 3 options to get driver support on their site, by Service tag number, model number or by your list
* Service Tag Number which is a unique five- to seven- digit alphanumeric (letter and number) code, which is found on a white bar-coded label affixed to your Dell computer or peripheral. This is what Dell recommends. So for easy reference make it ready before logging in to Dell support site or making a call for them.
* Model number, this is OK, however you have to browse all Dell products to get what you need.
* List, this is especially good of Dell users with site account that your product is registered as a list.
If youre like me that hate searching, downloading and installing these drivers by myself, then driver tool is an option for you. Here is what I use. Dell Drivers.
I know its risky posting anything and especially something like a new Microsoft codename (or several) on April Fools Day, but its that time.
The March edition of my free Microsoft Codetracker is done and ready for download. This months update includes Broadway, the Microsoft codename for the Microsoft-Nokia partnership, according to my tipsters. Yes, even partnerships have their own Redmondian codenames now.
The Codename Tracker PDF is the same chart I use myself to keep up with the codenames of products and technologies coming from Microsoft.
If youve already registered on ZDNet, you can just grab the latest version. If you havent, registration info will be requested before you download it. Whether youre a Microsoft customer, partner, analyst, competitor (or even employee), you might find the Tracker useful.
If theres a Microsoft codename missing from my chart that youd like me to check out and ultimately add, please dont hesitate to contact me via e-mail. Im working on fleshing out several new reader suggestions and hope to be adding them to the next update of the tracker. Just so you know: All e-mails I receive are treated as confidential unless you want a mention/credit line, of course.
The new owners of Skype are none other than the largest software maker in the world Microsoft. It seems fitting that Microsoft adds another premier service to its stable, but the interesting thing is that Google contemplated buying Skype during an earlier period.
In fact, much of Google was on board to buy Skype until a clever plan from inside the company sabotaged the entire thing.
Wesley Chan, now a partner on the Google Ventures team, at the time in 2009 was in charge of Google Voice. Chan when to Europe to check out Skype, and came away with the impression that it was a bad match for Google’s business.
The worst thing about peer-to-peer is that it doesnt work well with Google, Chan told book author Steven Levy for In the Plex in February 2010. Peer-to-peer just eats up your bandwidth, right, its like the old technology.
Chan figured that an acquisition for Skype could take up to two years to complete after regulations approvals. It wouldve been disastrous, he said.
Chan had to find a way to sabotage the deal for the good of the company, and he and Salar Kamangar, one of Googles first 10 employees and today’s CEO of YouTube, went to Google co-founder Sergey Brin with a plan.
In a Google meeting about the acquisition plan, Chan would play the part of an acquisition supporter. Brin, on the other hand, would shoot down Chan’s ideas and ask questions that would lead to the conclusion that buying Skype would be the wrong move for Google.
During Chan’s presentation in favor of purchasing Skype, Brin took the floor and started getting really negative, Chan said. He asked a series of questions that he knew would get unsatisfactory answers. Is this purchase data-driven? Who is going to spend all those months commuting to Europe? (No one stepped up.) How long is the government review expected to take?
Computerworld - As NASA marks the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. manned space flight, IBM is celebrating the mathematicians and engineers who helped make it happen.
While people around the world held their breath and watched astronaut Alan Shepard blast off on May 5, 1961, workers at IBM sat on the edge of their seats watching their technology go to work. IBM not only had been in charge of installing and maintaining three “large-scale” computers for the mission, it also was also responsible for developing the technology that enabled NASA to track the spacecraft and provide real-time information to Mission Control.
“Alan Shepard was the bravest of the brave, and his flight ushered in America’s space age,” said Arthur Cohen, the mathematician who led IBM’s Project Mercury Team. “The IBM team had the honor of applying computing power and mathematics to support the project…. We experienced an unforgettable sense of excitement when Alan Shepard safely accomplished his mission. I will forever remember May 5, 1961, and the incredible team of NASA and IBM men and women I had the opportunity to work with.”
Cohen, in an email to Computerworld noted that IBM’s work involved an early manifestation of real-time and predictive analytics. What IBM technicians put together for NASA helped to usher in the days of real-time communication.
According to IBM, its team of more than 75 employees working on the Mercury Project from 1959 to 1963 developed a “real-time channel” called the IBM 7281, which could receive up to 1,000 bits of data per second.
They also created advanced software programs and mathematics models to analyze incoming data and provide mission-critical information to NASA flight controllers throughout the space flight.
IDG News Service - Yet another problem has cropped up preventing some Windows Phone 7 users from getting two software updates, adding a new chapter to the update saga that started in February.
Microsoft acknowledged that some Samsung Focus owners in the U.S. haven’t yet received notification that the updates are available for them. “They’re looking into the situation, but I’m afraid there’s not much to report yet,” wrote Michael Stroh, a Microsoft employee who is answering questions posted to the comments section on the Windows Phone blog.
On another Microsoft forum, some Focus users who haven’t received the updates noticed that they have a more recent build version of the phone. While people with version REV 1.3 have gotten the updates, some of those with REV 1.4 haven’t.
In addition, Stroh said that Microsoft has stopped sending updates to the Omnia 7, a phone available in Europe. “The team discovered a technical issue with the update package for this model. The work of fixing and testing the package is nearly done, and the team hopes to resume update deliveries soon,” he wrote.
For many people, a broken or failing PC is one of the scariest things they’ll face. They have no idea what’s wrong or how to fix it. Some get overly aggressive with their recalcitrant system and cause more harm than good. Others simply hand it over to someone else and hope for the best. I’m here to, through my own tale, teach you how to become a PC Whisperer. Sometimesbut not alwaysyou can diagnose and fix your own PC, if you have the patience and take the time to get to know your ailing, electronic friend.
First, my story:
My poor PC. It’s had a rough six months and most of the fixes I’ve applied have been little more than band-aids. I’ve reset the date in the CMOS, reinstalled the OS and backed up everything just in case. The recalcitrant PC has stayed well for a week or more, only to fall back into a more worrisome chasm of crashes and un-explained reboots. Its most recent issues, though, signaled a downward spiral from which I thought it might never recover.
The latest issue was different than the others, in that it was visual. The screen would start pixellating and, usually without warning, the entire system would shut down and reboot. Unfortunately, after each of these crashes, it wouldn’t always successfully restart. Instead it would cycle through repeated boot attempts. Windows 7 would report that the restart was failing and offer to find a solution and also to search online for help.
Google’s Chrome browser is turning 3 today.
For many people, a broken or failing PC is one of the scariest things they’ll face. They have no idea what’s wrong or how to fix it. Some get overly aggressive with their recalcitrant system and cause more harm than good. Others simply hand it over to someone else and hope for the best. I’m here to, through my own tale, teach you how to become a PC Whisperer. Sometimesbut not alwaysyou can diagnose and fix your own PC, if you have the patience and take the time to get to know your ailing, electronic friend.