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Microsoft is likely to soon announce a partnership deal with Nokia to help get its Office software onto Nokia mobile phones. The two sides aren’t talking details, but both have confirmed a press conference today and are expected to discuss on the lines of alliance.

The software-maker had earlier announced that its next version of Office will be compatible with browser, and had announced web-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. (However, Microsoft has yet to start publicly testing the browser-based versions. The final version of Office 2010 is due next year)

These programs will be able to run inside Safari and Firefox in addition to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. That means Office, for the first time, will run on Linux-based machines.
Although Nokia and Microsoft have long been rivals in the phone business, the two have struck deals at times. Nokia already has a license that allows its phones to connect to Exchange Servers using Microsoft’s ActiveSync protocol.

Microsoft has launched Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 for mid-market companies. It provides capabilities, including smart search, security-enhanced payment processing, and a SDK. This platform is designed to boost employee productivity and provide data for business solutions.

The software includes a number of features designed to take advantage of current IT trends, including optimization for touch-screens and the ability to create custom buttons.

Dynamics CRM also facilitates Microsoft’s public sector on-demand solutions for government and education. The company has also introduced several features for its Dynamics CRM suite that allow the enterprise to pull data from social networks, including Twitter and centralize sales management across multiple channel partners through a common Website and integrate it with Web portals

Microsoft will pay Yahoo $50 million a year for three years and hire at least 400 Yahoo employees, as part of the companies’ recent search agreement, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Yahoo-Microsoft deal will make Microsoft’s Bing search engine power Yahoo’s search site, while Yahoo will sell premium search ad services for both companies. Yahoo’s form 8-K, which appeared online Tuesday, reveals a few additional details about the agreement that Yahoo and Microsoft had announced last week.

According to regulatory filing by Yahoo, the share of revenue that Microsoft pays to run search ads on Yahoo’s network of sites will increase from 88 percent to 90 percent in the second five years of the partnership.

The agreement also mentions that five years into the ten-year agreement, Microsoft can opt out of the exclusive engagement for Yahoo’s ad sales services. Yahoo and Microsoft have estimated that implementing the deal will take two years, and in case they fail to implement the deal by July 29, 2010 the companies can terminate it by mutual consent. Yahoo can also decide to use Microsoft’s mapping and mobile search services.

According to an Oracle whitepaper, collaborative Web 2.0 technologies enable enterprises to foster employees critical thinking and creativity while providing a platform to capitalize on their innovations for product and process improvement.

But what goes into the process? Web-based end-user content management, user-driven applications, blogs, wikis, aggregation, user participation, collaboration, etc… most features that would complement unified communications technology. And yet are the enterprises adopting Web 2.0?
Dhruv Singhal, Director, Sales Consulting Fusion Middleware, Oracle India admitted that non-enterprise segments are easily adopting the technology. People coming to Facebook or LinkedIn are comfortable using it. he agreed that security continues to remain a concern, but that vendors are introducing tools to address it.

So how mature is the Indian enterprise? Well, they are using Web 2.0 for internal communication. It is used to share information with internal customers, or with partners and dealers. The information is largely regarding a new marketing campaign or a new product launch. Enterprises want to make their people more productive and use Web 2.0 as one more tool.

Oracle has sold its Web 2.0 products to some large enterprises in India, but did not disclose names because of NDAs. Singhal however gave examples of how the automotive, manufacturing and telecom segments could use this technology. The auto giants can direct interact with customers. Blogs can be dry. They are not interactive. Moderated forums can be much more alive. The manufacturer can talk about features and other things, and the users can give live feedback. Similarly, telecom companies can use information to sell products, study user behaviour to form marketing strategies.
Right now our focus is on expanding the customer base and penetration Web 2.0. What will be Oracle s USP when competition such as IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and even Intel has products which offer enterprise and SMB customers with Web experience which enables the management to communicate with workers and external customers on the same lines of Oracle s UC offering?

Singhal said that on the collaboration side, Oracle can integrate the front-end with the backend applications. We support SAP, IBM, Lotus Notes, email, and any other middleware. Java and .Net make interoperability easier. This is a great value proposition. We also have ability to offer rich client interface (also through browser based applications.). This is besides Web 2.0 feature staples like tagging, ranking, and commenting.

And Oracle is also utilizing its business intelligence (BI) expertise to further ease communication and collaboration tools, back-end integration efforts.

Not to be left behind, SAP too lay focus on this technology. None other than Leo Apothekar, CEO SAP at the Sapphire 2009 event said, The digital generation are joining the workforce, and they expect enterprise software to be easy to use, to be rich, and to be collaborative. They even want enterprise software to be fun.

Microsoft too explained its Web 2.0 strategy in terms of its Microsoft Office 2007 and enhancements in products released thereafter.

The information technology (IT) industry will see a new period of rapid growth in investment, driven primarily by new smart computing technology.

According to Forrester Research’s IT 2009-2016 Long-Term Forecast, current IT vendors IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft are best positioned to win in next-gen technology, while GE and Semens will emerge as bigger factors.

Old technology will continue to be in demand, but purchases will grow at trend rate. Smart computing solutions will address critical business issues.Sales directly to business - not to IT.

Investment in new technology driven by strategic rationales, not cost/benefit calculations, with multimillion-dollar deals.

Highly vertical solutions will capture more of the growth, although not the largest share of sales.
Asset-intensive industries like government, healthcare, utilities, education, and professional services will be the biggest buyers.

Forrester describes smart computing as flexible, adaptable, responsive, and extended IT systems that incorporate awareness (location, status, condition) and analytics to make IT more intelligent to solve new business problems.

Microsoft is pulling the plug on its personal finance management tool Money Plus. The move comes as a range of similar tools available from banks, brokerage firms, and websites have made Money Plus redundant.

Microsoft had already stopped annual updates to Money in 2008, it will now stop selling the product post June 30, 2009. The software giant said all purchased Money products must be activated prior to January 31, 2011.

The Money Plus portfolio consists of Microsoft Money Essentials, Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe, Microsoft Money Plus Premium, and Microsoft Money Plus Home & Business. Current Money Plus users can continue using the product (except for Money Essentials) though online services will no longer be available.

Microsoft however said its MSN Money website will continue to function as before, with enhancements and new features planned for the coming months.

For Money Plus users:

Additional information can be found at the Microsoft Money Plus FAQ site

Microsoft has acquired certain assets of Rosetta Biosoftware, a company that builds gene analyzing software. Products from Rosetta will be incorporated into Microsoft Amalga Life Sciences platform.

Rosetta is a business unit of Rosetta Inpharmatics,a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck & Co. The deal allows Microsoft to incorporate genetic, genomic, metabolomic and proteomics data management software into the Microsoft Amalga Life Sciences platform for enhanced translational research capabilities. In addition, Microsoft will establish a strategic relationship with Merck to enhance the Amalga Life Sciences platform to meet emerging pharmaceutical research needs.

Under the terms of the agreement, Merck will become a customer of the Microsoft Amalga Life Sciences 2009 platform and also will provide strategic input to Microsoft on the direction and evolution of new solutions incorporating Rosetta Biosoftware technologies.

Introduced in April 2009, Microsoft Amalga Life Sciences is a new software platform for data analysis during clinical trials. The platform automates the management and analysis of massive, heterogeneous research data.

The deal is expected to close at the end of June 2009, and the new Amalga Life Sciences platform incorporating Rosetta Biosoftware technologies is slated to be available in early 2010.

Until the deal is closed, Rosetta Biosoftware will continue to operate as a business unit of Rosetta Inpharmatics.

San Francisco: Can the tight US economy help Microsoft beat back the cavalry charge of its much smaller, but much cooler, competitor Apple?

The software giant from Seattle seems to sense a whiff of opportunity in the air, bombarding the trendy maker of Macs, iPhones and iPods in ads and executive comments for being too expensive in these penny-pinching times.

The latest salvo comes in the form of widely screened TV ads, which show what Microsoft says are real life computer users shopping for new machines.

In one ad a bubbly, red-haired, 20-something named Lauren goes looking for a 17-inch laptop with a $1,000 budget. She walks out of the Apple store empty handed, proclaiming that she’s obviously “not cool enough to be a Mac person”, since the appropriate machine there would cost $2,000.

But Lauren finds several dream machines at a PC retailer, where she squeals with delight as she pays $699 for her new laptop and pockets $300 in change.

The ad ends with the tagline, “I’m Lauren, and I’m a PC”, an unabashed reference to Apple’s famous ads where an uber-cool actor portrays an Apple computer while a super nerd plays a hapless PC.

Even before the latest ads, signs were emerging that Apple’s exclusive cachet and relatively higher prices were hurting it in the market.

Unit sales for Apple computers were down 16 percent in February while the overall computer market increased by 10 percent, according to a research report by Morgan Stanley. Revenues at the iconic Silicon Valley company were down 22 percent compared to an 11 percent decline for the overall market.

Media experts are divided on whether Microsoft’s new campaign can blow a hole in Apple’s mythical status, especially as the company’s worldwide success with its iPhone and iPod products continues to draw customers into the Apple firmament.

“I don’t know what took Microsoft so long,” advertising executive Josh Barsch told E Commerce Times. “The biggest chink in Apple’s armour has always been its price tag.

“In flush times, the young and hip can afford to shell out more for a trendy machine. When they no longer have jobs and can’t pay their rent, it’s a different story.”

That message is reinforced by other Microsoft ads that feature kids performing all kinds of multimedia wizardry on their PCs.

But some say that Microsoft’s ads will ultimately backfire because they bring Apple into every purchase consideration. When users compare features, they could well find that the elegance, functionality and integrated software that are part of the Apple package are worth the extra money.

Recent Mac convert Greg Willis says he has no regrets about the switch. “Everything works smoothly right out of the box because it all comes from the same company,” he said. “I’m glad I paid the extra money. I got a quantum leap in quality.”

Others are not so sure that the extra expense is worthwhile. They argue that with less money to spend, they can forego the luxury of the Apple experience to save a few bucks. One of them is Jay Siegel, who has owned Macs for 25 years but recently bought a Windows PC as his main work computer.

“I’m getting my work done, using Windows. Surfing the Internet, using a web browser and a graphics programme all work on this computer,” noted the self-described Apple fan on Examiner.com.

“It may not be elegant or refined but it’s getting the job done for me. And it cost so much less. I’m sorry Apple, I just couldn’t justify those extra dollars right now. When the economy recovers and I have a bit more cash to spare I’m going to run, not walk, to buy another Mac.”

Feb 12, 2009 at 3:55pm ET by Vanessa Fox

The web is full of duplicate content. Search engines try to index and display the original or “canonical” version. Searchers only want to see one version in results. And site owners worry that if search engines find multiple versions of a page, their link credit will be diluted and they’ll lose ranking.

Today, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (links are to their separate announcements) have united to offer a way to reduce duplicate content clutter and make things easier for everyone. Webmasters rejoice! Worried about duplicate content on your site? Want to know what “canonical” means? Read on for more details.

Multiple URLs, one page

Duplicate content comes in different forms, but a major scenario is multiple URLs that point to the same page. This can come up for lots of reasons. An ecommerce site might allow various sort orders for a page (by lowest price, highest rated…), the marketing department might want tracking codes added to URLs for analytics. You could end up with 100 pages, but 10 URLs for each page. Suddenly search engines have to sort  through 1,000 URLs.

This can be a problem for a couple of reasons.

• Less of the site may get crawled. Search engine crawlers use a limited amount of bandwidth on each site (based on numerous factors). If the crawler only is able to crawl 100 pages of your site in a single visit, you want it to be 100 unique pages, not 10 pages 10 times each.
• Each page may not get full link credit. If a page has 10 URLs that point to it, then other sites can link to it 10 different ways. One link to each URL dilutes the value  the page could have if all 10 links pointed to a single URL.

Using the new canonical tag

Specify the canonical version using a tag in the head section of the page as follows:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish“/>

That’s it!

• You can only use the tag on pages within a single site (subdomains and subfolders are fine).
• You can use relative or absolute links, but the search engines recommend absolute links.

This tag will operate in a similar way to a 301 redirect for all URLs that display the page with this tag.

• Links to all URLs will be consolidated to the one specified as canonical.
• Search engines will consider this URL a “strong hint” as to the one to crawl and index.

Canonical URL best practices

The search engines use this as a hint, not as a directive, (Google calls it a “suggestion that we honor strongly”) but are more likely to use  it if the URLs use best practices, such as:

• The  content rendered for each URL is very similar or exact
• The canonical URL is the shortest version
• The URL uses easy to understand parameter patterns (such as using ? and %)

Can this be abused by spammers? They might try, but Matt Cutts of Google told me that the same safeguards that prevent abuse by other methods (such as redirects) are in place here as well, and that Google  reserves the right to take action on sites that are using the tag to manipulate search engines and violate search engine guidelines.

For instance, this tag will only work with very similar or identical content, so you can’t use it to send all of the link value from the less important pages of your site to the more important ones.

If tags conflict (such as pages point to each other as canonical, the URL specified as canonical redirects to a non-canonical version, or the page specified as canonical doesn’t exist), search engines will sort things out just as they do now, and will determine which URL they think is the best canonical version.

The tag in action

This tag will most often be useful in the case of multiple URLs pointing at the same page, but might also be used when multiple versions of a page exist. For instance, wikia.com is using the tag for previous revisions of a page. Both http://watchmen.wikia.com/index.php?title=Comedian%27s_badge&diff=4901&oldid=4819 and http://watchmen.wikia.com/index.php?title=Comedian%27s_badge&diff=5401&oldid=4901reference the latest version of the article (http://watchmen.wikia.com/wiki/Comedian%27s_badge) as the canonical.

The search engines stress that it’s still important to build good URL structure and also note that if you aren’t able to implement this tag, they’ll still keep the processes they have now to determine the canonical. For instance, at SMX West on Tuesday, Maile Ohye of Google explained how Google can detect patterns in URLs if they use standard parameters. For instance, with these URLs:

• http://www.example.com/buffy?cat=spike
• http://www.example.com/buffy?cat=spike&sort=evil
• http://www.example.com/buffy?cat=spike&sort=good

Maile explained that Google can detect (particularly when looking at patterns across the site) that the sort parameter may order the page differently, but that the URLs with the sort parameter display the same  content as the shorter URL (http://www.example.com/buffy?cat=spike).

While it’s rare for the search engines to join forces, this isn’t the first time they’ve come together on a standard. In November 2006, they came together to support sitemaps.org. And in June 2008 they announced a standard set of robots.txt directives. Matt Cutts of Google and Nathan Buggia of Microsoft told me that they want to help reduce the clutter on the web, and make things easier for searchers as well as site owners.

This new tag won’t completely solve duplicate issues on the web, but it should help make things quite a bit easier particuarly for ecommerce sites, who likely need all the help they can get in the current economic conditions. Site owners have been asking for help with these issues for a really long time so this should be a greatly welcomed addition.

Postscript by Barry Schwartz:

The search engines will be talking about this news at the Ask the Search Engines panel at SMX West. We will be blogging this panel live at the Search Engine Roundtable.

The worm continues to infect a large number of computers while security experts try and figure out what to do.

Microsoft has created a new technology industry posse and a $250,000 reward for people who help turn over the creators of the Conficker worm.

The Conficker worm multiplied like wildfire, and spreads through a hole found in Microsoft Windows systems, though the vulnerability was patched in October.  It also is able to disable anti-malware protection and will block an infected PC from visiting anti-malware vendors Web sites to receive updates.

Security experts are even more worried about the possibility the worm calls home every 24 hours to at least 250 servers each day for instructions or directed actions.

The Houston police department was forced to stop arresting people with traffic warrants because the worm spread its way through the police and city court’s computer systems.  Violent offenders were still arrested, but those with outstanding traffic warrants were simply issued citations instead of being arrested, Houston police officials said.

There also was a Conficker outbreak among French military computers, which led to several fighter planes being grounded until everything could be fixed.

Microsoft is working with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and PC security experts while trying to identify the worm’s creators.  VeriSign, NeuStar, Public Internet Registry, Global Domains International, AOL, F-Secure, George Tech, and several other organizations have joined the fight to help capture who ever created the Internet worm.

“As part of Microsoft’s ongoing security efforts, we constantly look for ways to use a diverse set of tools and develop methodologies to protect our customers,” Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Group G.M. George Stathakopoulos said in a statement.  “By combining our expertise with the broader community we can expand the boundaries of defense to better protect people worldwide.”

Security company Symantec reported that more than 2.2 million IP addresses over the past five days have been infected with two different forms of the worm, three months after it first hit the Internet.  To date, it’s infected at least 10 million PCs since first being introduced into the wild.