OneNote, the popular note taking application, is the first application from Microsoft Office suite available on iOS devices. Available free for a limited time, OneNote Mobile requires Windows Live ID and is currently for US App Store only. There is no iPad specific version but its certain that Microsoft is working on one.

In case you haven’t experienced the unsung hero of Office, OneNote is a digital notebook that lets you put everything you need to remember in one electronic place and then easily find it wherever you are. I use it every day. Think of it as a digital file cabinet for all the random bits of information that are too hard to keep track of in your head. According to comScore, 78 million PCs in the U.S. have OneNote – more than a third of all the PCs in the country.

OneNote Mobile for the iPhone lets you capture and review notes and lists on your phone. Notes are automatically backed up and synced with free Windows Live SkyDrive online storage, so that you can access them from virtually anywhere – your PC, phone, and browser. Collecting thoughts and ideas on the go is what OneNote was made for.

Announcement

Microsoft OneNote Mobile iTunes link

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In its campaign to ask users to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft is calling Internet Explorer 6 an 9-year-old milk.

Internet Explorer 6 has not been popular among web developers due to its many non-compliances to the open web. Google is one of the major vendors that ceased support for IE6 for its Google Docs site in January. And this week, Google Reader axes support for IE6.

If you still have some Windows XP machines lurking around, its time to check the IE version and do the necessary upgrade.

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It makes no business sense for Apple to allow compiling native apps using Visual Studio 2010 on Windows as Apple is foremost a hardware business. Right now, if you want to develop for iPhone, iPad and Mac, you have to buy a Mac with Apple’s Xcode development environment. There is less incentive to buy a Mac if you can create Apple apps using Windows PC. Apple might not see the developer community as having a significant number, but they are an influencing lot that helps make the iPhone and Mac what there are today.

There are lots of technical hurdles to allow full and smooth development experience of iPhone/Mac apps on Windows, this is always the case for non-native development work. What we will see is probably Visual Studio for Mac, an interactive development environment that ties tightly with the Xcode environment. This could be the same app that Microsoft Mac Business Unit (MacBU) has been using to develop their Office for Mac suites. The reorganization this week in Microsoft by putting MacBU under their Microsoft Business Unit could be a precursor. The question is will developers finally get to develop apps using language other than Objective-C?

Besides Visual Studio for Mac, the other unthinkable announcement is the support of Microsoft .Net and Silverlight on the Mac and iPhone/iPad. This is highly unlikely for the next iPhone OS as iPhone OS 4.0 is into its late stage of beta cycle. .Net and Silverlight for Mac? We do not think Steve will give us this shock as the coming WWDC is a more iPhone/iPad focus conference. Lets June 7 be not a hell freezes over day.

Outside of developers tool, there are other collaboration possibilities between Apple and Microsoft. How about Bing search on iPhone/iPad? It is trivial for iPhone/iPad to add support for Bing, as currently you can use Google or Yahoo search on Safari for iPhone/iPad. How about build-in integration with Microsoft Messenger? One of the main feature of 4th generation hardware is the front-facing camera. Which leads to the obvious iChat app on the new iPhone. Apple might surprise us by integrating Messenger with iChat. This will be welcome news for lots of business users who rely on MSN Messenger. And don’t forget Microsoft owns game studios. A Halo for iPhone and iPad will be greatly welcomed.

Whatever is going to happen in the 7 minutes, we will know come June 7. That is less than 2 weeks away.

Update: Microsoft has confirmed via a tweet that Steve Ballmer will not be at WWDC. Which suggests that the announcement will not be an earth-shattering one.

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Outlook for Mac is being built from the ground up as a Mac OS X application using Cocoa. It will have a new database that delivers a reliable, high performance, and integrated experience with Mac OS X. Users will be able to back-up with Time Machine and search email, calendar and contacts with Spotlight. Additionally, Outlook for Mac and the rest of Office will include Information Rights Management, which helps keep sensitive information for only audiences that you intend. IRM compatibility will make it possible for Mac users to share and receive sensitive information using Microsoft Office tools.

In the same note, Microsoft MacBU announced packaging refresh for Office 2008 for Mac. Coming this September, Office for Mac lineup will reduce from three to two editions to make it easier for customers.

Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student will include the familiar Word 2008 for Mac, Excel 2008 for Mac, PowerPoint 2008 for Mac and Entourage 2008 for Mac. A new Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition will, in addition to the applications in the Home & Student edition, include tools to help manage and grow a business:

• Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition: Improves performance, brings new features including task, note and category syncing and support for the latest version of Exchange Server

• Microsoft Document Connection for Mac: Improves access and browsing to documents on SharePoint Products and Technologies and Microsoft Office Live Workspace

• More than 200 business-related templates and clip art

• Training for beginning to advanced users by lynda.com Inc.

Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition will be available for pre-order on August 18 and on sale beginning September 15.

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When you enter those famous people and do a Bing search for example “Kara Swisher Twitter” or “Kara Swisher Tweets” or even “@karaswisher”, the result will include the latest tweet from the user, together with a link to more tweets from the user.

We did a trial using the search examples “Kara Swisher Twitter”,“Kara Swisher Tweets” and “@karaswisher” provided in Bing’s blog post, but none returns the above result format. Maybe Bing is fine-tuning this feature at the moment.

And now you can follow Microsoft on Twitter. This Twitter account is run by four members of Microsoft’s corporate communications team. There is no verified account logo on the page but it should be the real thing.

So far there are only 3 tweets, with the first tweet being a Xbox promo: “Anyone can make games now, Kodu is available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace http://bit.ly/3wlWKo #microsoft #xboxlive #kodu”.

Compare this first tweet with the stylish first tweet by Google back in February. Do you see a winner already?

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Microsoft will release Windows 7 on Oct 22, ahead of its original schedule and in time for the year end holiday season.

“We feel confident that we will deliver Windows 7 with our partners on Oct. 22,” Bill Veghte, senior vice president for Microsoft’s Windows business, said.

There is no news on pricing, and we do not know if there is any licensing restriction to run Windows 7 on virtual machine. And it is still early for Apple to announce support for Windows 7 on Bootcamp. The wait is almost over for the true upgrade to Windows XP.

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Microsoft is spending an estimated $80 million to $100million to convince people to go “binging” instead of “googling” when it comes to search. Microsoft will launch the ad campaign when it unveils its new search engine next week.

Code-named “Kumo”, the search engine will most likely be branded Bing, and is Microsoft’s third attempt at winning the lucrative search marketplace, after the not-so-successful MSN Search and then Live Search. Live Search is the fourth most used search engine, after Google, Baidu and Yahoo!. Microsoft Bing is likely to incorporate the semantic search technology of Powerset which Microsoft acquired last year, after its failed bid for Yahoo! search.

Not much is known about the new search engine except for leaks screenshots in March. From the look of it, we could not see how Bing will be drastically better than Google, which is what Bing needs if it intends to sway away users’ search habits. Playing catch-up is not always easy, the problem for Bing is Google is doing a pretty good job at the moment.

Lately it is hard to get excited by anything from Microsoft. We will see if third time is a charm for Microsoft. Let’s hope Bing brings some cool search breakthrough and spice up the competition. Winning the search marketplace is a daunting task, increasingly we are seeing ‘live-search’ capability (Twitter search) gaining importance in the search landscape, and we doubt Bing is equipped and ready for it. Bing’s challenge is Google and Yahoo, and not forgetting Twitter and Facebook search.

Will spending 100 million greenbacks be enough to convince people Bing is a better verb than Google for search? Good luck Microsoft.

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Microsoft COO Kevin Turner said, “We’re working hard to transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience at retail by improving the articulation and demonstration of the Microsoft innovation and value proposition so that it’s clear, simple and straightforward for consumers everywhere.”

It looks like Microsoft is showing keen interest in Apple’s operations lately. Before the retail store, we have an iPod like Zune. And Microsoft recently announced an App Store like service for its Windows Mobile platform called SkyMarket. And the just announced My Phone syncing service looks similar to MobileMe. And iPhone touch features is coming to Windows Mobile too. And no doubt many Mac users would find Windows 7 somewhat familiar.

But retail store is in a territory that is not familiar to Microsoft. Gateway, Palm and Dell boutique stores have come and go. The success of Apple Store is hard to copy. There is no other tech retail store at the moment that is as successful or even come close. Apple open its first store back in 2001. And today it has 251 retail stores with nearly 16,000 employees. 41 of its stores is outside of the US. It is interesting to see if Microsoft could pull it off, especially during this difficult times.

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Microsoft has confirmed that there will be six SKUs for the Windows 7 OS. This follows long standing Microsoft tradition of having multiple version of its Windows OS, a practice widely-criticized and mocked for bringing confusion to the marketplace.

• Starter: Available to OEMs on new PCs. Missing Aero UI. Can run 3 applications concurrently.
• Home Basic: For ‘emerging markets’. Missing Aero UI.
• Home Premium: Available to OEMs and retail. Includes Aero UI, multi-touch capabilities, media features. Can create home network groups.
• Professional: Includes all of Home Premium features. Adds enhanced networking, Mobility Center and Presentation Mode.
• Enterprise: Available only in volume licenses. Includes all of Professional features. Adds Branch Cache, Direct Access and BitLocker.
• Ultimate: The same features as Enterprise, with limited availability to OEMs and retail.

It appears that Starter will find its way into netbooks, and we will not heard alot about Home Basic since its available in ‘emerging markets’ only, whatever that means. For most consumers, the choices are between Home Premium and Professional. It is simpler compare with Windows Vista and more akin to Windows XP options.

Windows 7 Professional is comparable to Mac OS X and is the version of choice if you are running the OS dual boot via bootcamp. It is still early to see which version will run best on VMWare Fusion, Parallel or VirtualBox.

Microsoft has mentioned that there will be uprade version for existing XP and Vista users. There is no information on product pricing and for the upgrade path from old Windows versions. During installation, Windows 7 will upgrade for you if you are running Windows Vista. There is no system upgrade option for Windows XP, you need to install fresh new Windows 7.

What is your view on the same yet many versions of Windows 7? Well, we were hoping one single version of the OS, just Window 7, similar to Mac OS X. If single version is not feasible, then the line up could be simpler. Starter, Home Premium and Professional could be merged into one version, with resource intensive features such as Aero UI disabled automatically during system startup. Ultimate should be dropped, instead make Enterprise version available to OEMs and retail.

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Microsoft vice president Bill Veghte who is responsible for the $300 million campaign said that the first ad is meant to restart a conversation with consumers. The campaign aims to tell the story of Windows, the story of “how Windows enables a billion people around the globe to do more with their lives today”, and “to re-ignite consumer excitement about the broader value of Windows”. Subsequent ads in the series will focus more on Windows itself, he said.

Besides the series of ads, Microsoft has also changed the way it works with PC manufacturers in order to build computers that perform better, and “to deliver a compelling Windows experience”. Microsoft also plans to hire 155 “gurus” by this year to assist customers in Circuit City, Best Buy and other retailers.

The ad campaign has been seen as response to Apple’s successful “Get A Mac” ads and to counter the resurgence of Apple Macs. This first ad, however does nothing to shed the bad reputation of Windows Vista. We are also not clear who is Microsoft’s target audience as Seinfeld is not really the favorite of the younger crowd. Easily one of Microsoft’s biggest campaign to date, we would think the money could be better spend on building better quality Windows instead.

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