Microsoft announced this morning at its PDC conference that the next release of Microsoft Office will include browser-based versions of some of its main office software products - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. These will be “lightweight versions”, but Microsoft told us yesterday that they’ll still have rich functionality and will be comparable to Google’s suite of online office applications. The apps will enable users to create, edit and collaborate on Microsoft Office documents through the browser. The apps will work in IE, Firefox and Safari browsers (no word on whether Google Chrome will be supported). Update: Microsoft clarified in an email that these apps will use HTML and AJAX, but also Silverlight components.
Update 2: For a contrary view on use of Silverlight, see Matthew Holloway’s comment below (comment #19), in which he says that “SilverLight apps on OSX and Linux are typically second-class citizens to SilverLight on Windows.”
The online versions will share the same names as their desktop counterparts (Word, Excel, etc), although unfortunately they don’t fully escape the awkward and confusing branding that Microsoft gives to most of its Internet apps. The collective name for these apps is “Office Web Applications”. To remind you, there is also an Office Online (a separate Microsoft site where users can download templates) and an Office Live Workspace (for sharing office files between desktop and Web - our coverage).
The “Office Web applications” will be available to consumers through Office Live, a service which has both ad-funded and subscription options. Business users will be offered Office Web applications as a hosted subscription service and through existing “volume licensing agreements”. There will be a private technology preview of the Office Web applications later this year.
Last month we ran a poll asking which word processing tool you primarily use. We got over 2,600 separate votes and a resounding 49% of people still use Microsoft Word as their main word processing tool. Its open source desktop equivalent OpenOffice got 16%. Google Docs was the best placed Web Office app, with 15%.
The results showed that there is still a big place for desktop Office apps. Nevertheless, with the announcement yesterday of Microsoft Azure - a so-called cloud computing OS - Microsoft is clearly serving a growing demand for browser-based office software. We expect these apps to become more full featured over time.
Comcast Corp. on Wednesday said it will begin rolling out faster Internet speeds over the next few weeks in selected markets to homes and businesses.
The nation’s largest cable operator and residential Internet service provider will offer speeds up to 50 megabits per second, which enables users to download a high-definition movie in 16 minutes and a standard definition movie in 5 minutes.
Most Comcast customers will double their speeds for free.
The service will be available in parts of New England, including the Boston area and southern New Hampshire, as well as in portions of Philadelphia, New Jersey and the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Over the next few months, Comcast expects to roll it out to over 10 major markets.
For residential users, Comcast’s new ‘Extreme 50′ tier, including up to 10 Mbps upstream service, will cost $139.95 a month. For businesses, it will cost $189.95 monthly, including extra features and support.
The ‘Ultra’ plan for individuals will offer speeds up to 22 Mbps for downloading and up to 5 upstream for $62.95 a month. The business “premium” tier will offer the same speeds for $99.95 a month.
To get the new Internet plans, individuals must also subscribe to Comcast’s cable TV service.
With canvas view, a new feature on Google’s iGoogle, users can now move widgets around on the page and get more uses out of them without having to leave the actual portal. The new layout will also open avenues to advertisers.
Google has rolled out a new, bigger viewing feature to its iGoogle custom home page builder app. iGoogle basically lets users select and move little gadgets — which are miniature, modular applications that provide news feeds, comics, Gmail access, games, weather, movie listings, etc. — anywhere they want on their iGoogle home pages.
The new feature is called “canvas view,” and it allows users to take an application from a simple list or snippet to an entire page. In the case of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post gadgets, invoking canvas view shows readers an entire “front page” of the electronic version of those publications.
“I’m an iGoogle addict. I check my news, e-mail, stocks, feeds and weather there and sometimes even manage to squeeze in a game or two during the day. Having everything in one place is super convenient, but I often wish I could deal with all my stuff without having to leave my iGoogle page,” noted Matt Gundersen, an iGoogle engineer, on the Official Google Blog.
For those outside of the U.S., Gundersen noted that Google would be rolling out the new feature in other countries “very soon.”
A Closer Look
At a glance, then, iGoogle users can browse their favorite publications and look for interesting items without immediately leaving their iGoogle pages. Once a user clicks on a headline, however, they’ll usually leave the site and go to the site that owns the content. For instance, click on an NYTimes.com article and it will take you straight to the Times.
“It’s definitely useful — you can [see a fuller page view] as opposed to just snippets within the iGoogle environment,” Greg Sterling, principal analyst for Sterling Market Intelligence, told TechNewsWorld.
And It May Get Even Better
Because the new canvas view is so new, not all gadgets perform optimally within it, though some point to a future where developers can create more fully functional gadgets that don’t require users to leave iGoogle at all. The Sudoku gadget, for example, lets users play full-page puzzles. And Google’s own Gmail gadget, which used to link to Gmail messages from a cramped little box, can now get blown up into a full-fledged list of e-mail messages. Click on a message and it will open in canvas view, making it easy to read.
In addition, you can reply, forward, or compose new Gmail messages from within canvas view on iGoogle.
Unfortunately, you don’t get the full Gmail experience in canvas view on iGoogle — Gmail’s left-side menu is stripped out, presumably because it would look odd next to iGoogle’s new left-side navigation menu, which replaced the tabs from the previous version.
Ads on the Way
Google has said it wouldn’t place its own ads on iGoogle. However, “third parties have the option to put ads in canvas view, which was a necessary concession to them, given that people will be reading articles in canvas and not go back to the publisher site — so they have to be permitted to show their ads, which is what Google is doing,” Sterling explained.
The key point here is that canvas view will let developers create new, ad-supported gadgets, which should help spur development.
“Canvas view allows developers to deliver richer content, games, and UI (user interface) to users on iGoogle as well as the opportunity to monetize. We’ve seen a lot of great development in the sandbox already,” noted iGoogle Engineer Jake Quist on the iGoogle Developer Blog.
Google did not immediately respond to inquires about the number of iGoogle users.
Microsoft has scheduled a conference call on Monday to announce, among other things, that it has completed version 2.0 of Silverlight, its rival to Adobe’s Flash.
The software maker has scheduled a conference call for 9 a.m. PDT with developer division executive Scott Guthrie.
A Microsoft representative declined to comment on the impending announcement, but a source told CNET News that the completion of Silverlight 2.0 is among the topics of discussion. Microsoft released Beta 2 of the software in June, while a “release candidate” version was offered up last month.
The software maker apparently has more to say than just the completion of version 2.0. (I’m all ears, folks).
Otherwise, I’ll tune in Monday and let you know the rest of the Silverlight story.
WASHINGTON - A federal grand jury has indicted the son of a Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker in connection with the hacking of the e-mail account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
David Kernell, 20, of Knoxville, Tenn., the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley, according to a statement from the Justice Department.
David Kernell was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Knoxville for intentionally accessing without authorization the e-mail account of Palin, Alaska’s governor, the Justice Department said.
Kernell, an economics major at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release.
His father, a Memphis Democrat, is chairman of Tennessee’s House Government Operations Committee. Mike Kernell has said he had nothing to do with the hacking incident.
The indictment against David Kernell alleged that on Sept. 16 he reset the password to Palin’s personal e-mail account to gain access to it. Authorities say Kernell then read the contents of the account and made screenshots of the e-mail directory, e-mail content and other personal information, later posting some of the information to a public Web site.
The Justice Department said the case was being prosecuted by section chief Michael DuBose and trial attorney Mark Krotoski of the criminal division’s computer crime and intellectual property section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Weddle of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The FBI’s Anchorage and Knoxville field offices investigated the case.
Employees’ bad habits, such as using company computers for personal business and allowing others to use company-owned technology unsupervised, cause a glaring gap in security that goes unnoticed by many IT managers, according to a study conducted by Cisco Systems.
While enterprises may be on top of their security practices for the most part, data leakage as a result of end user misuse and abuse is something that might very well be flying under the radar.
According to a newly released global study by Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), “The Challenge of Data Leakage for Business and Employees Around the World,” employees are taking numerous risks that could lead to the loss of corporate information.
Personal and Local Matters
The use of corporate technology resources for personal activities is becoming increasingly prevalent as the line between people’s personal and work lives continues to blur. The study indicates that nearly eight in 10 end users use their company-issued computer to send and receive e-mails through a personal e-mail account on a regular basis. In addition, roughly half use their work computer for personal research and online banking.
The most interesting numbers coming out of the survey of 1,009 end users and 1,011 IT decision makers in 10 countries is the disparity in data security practices from country to country. In China, Brazil and India, for example, a significantly larger proportion of end users has altered the security settings on their company-issued laptop (42 percent, 26 percent and 20 percent, respectively). By way of comparison, the U.S. sits at a mere 2 percent.
This discrepancy could be attributed to the fact that these countries have been experiencing a significant ramp up in the knowledge worker industry over the past five years, notes Marie Hattar, vice president of network and security solutions for Cisco in San Jose, Calif. “There is more outsourcing of services and as a result, more Internet use. Given that this is fairly recent, they weren’t there nine years ago when the rest of us were hit by Blaster, Nimda or Code Red viruses.”
Open Doors and Open Minds
Physical access to networks and premises is another issue that deserves attention. About four in 10 IT decision makers have had to deal with an employee gaining access to an unauthorized physical or network area. The same holds true for vendors or partners visiting sites.
Users are also more cavalier with their IT resources. More than four in 10 end users have allowed someone else to use their company-issued computer without supervision.
The risk can even extend to conversations between co-workers and family members. More than four in 10 end users have shared sensitive information about their job with others.
“Companies tend to think that data loss is all about network security,” Hattar says. “When you think of data loss, you have to look at it as anywhere someone can potentially take information away. If you want to develop a holistic strategy, you have to include the physical security [of server rooms and computer use] and personal behavior.”
Bad Habits to Break
For the most part, user habits that can lead to data loss are done without a second thought. Approximately two-thirds of respondents have done one or more activities that threaten corporate security on some level. At the top of the list is stepping away from a computer without logging off or shutting it down and/or leaving a computer turned on overnight.
Other potentially risky activities on the list include carrying corporate data on portable storage devices outside the office; storing computer login/password information on your computer at work; sharing computer login/password information with fellow workers; and throwing away corporate paperwork without shredding it.
The risks are also increasing as we deal with a rapidly growing mobile workforce:
Only half of remote workers continually monitor their surroundings to make sure no one is looking at their work
More than half do not take any special precautions to ensure security and privacy while working in a public setting
Almost half transfer work documents to and from their home computer
The Learning Curve
Dealing with data loss is only going to be more challenging in today’s networked world, Hattar says. “All of a sudden there are a lot more collaboration tools and thousands of entry points to corporate assets. The explosion in social networking is only adding to this, as employees become much more open and less private about anything. That’s why they need to be brought up to speed on good security practices.”
Social engineering is creating one of the biggest gaps in network security, so the need to look at behavior as well as technology is critical, said Michael Hall, chief information security officer for Drivesavers in Novato, Calif., a data recovery firm.
“IT departments are very proficient at defining their network architecture. One telling thing that this study shows, however, is the lack of communication with end users. You can hedge your bets by putting restrictions on laptops and manipulating hardware to stop some [bad habits] but you can’t control what people say to other people. The only thing you can do is educate them, and have security training policies and procedures in place to create constant awareness.”
During the course of an interview, Google Android pioneer Andy Rubin made sure so say that the Android Market will be a whole different ballgame compared with the iPhone Apps Store. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Even though Apple released iPhone developers from its overly strict nondisclosure agreement, there is still a lot of grumbling going on in Apple’s orchard. The approval process remains to be a mystery, with Apple approving and disapproving of applications seemingly at whim. Apple may have “opened up” the iPhone, but it is still maintaining strict control of the ecosystem surrounding its darling device.
Google, says Andy Rubin, will not play things that way. BusinessWeek interviewed him recently and reports that “Google won’t impose many of the restrictions Apple developers have been grumbling about. Unlike iPhone aficionados, developers using Android Market will, for example, be able to allow consumers to try their applications for free before they buy them. This may seem like a small thing, but developers name lack of free trial as one of the biggest reasons behind their lukewarm App Store sales.”
Sampling products before you buy them is by no means a revolutionary idea. Many of the network operators’ content can be previewed or sampled before users commit to purchasing it or subscribing to certain services. That Apple does not allow iPhone users to sample applications before they buy them is odd, especially considering that Apple allows iTunes users the ability to sample 30-second snippets of songs before buying them. Why doesn’t Apple allow apps to be sampled?
The Android Market is following the model set by the existing content delivery platforms of the major network operators, and that is a good thing. There are definitely a few applications that I paid for for my iPhone that I am less than thrilled with. Sampling them, even for a few moments, would have been enough to allow me to make a more informed purchasing decision and possibly even save some money.
There, he said it. Microsoft is interested in making money. That’s what CEO Steve Ballmer said in reference to Microsoft’s motivation in the mobile space. Google and Nokia, on the other hand? Who knows what their goal is with all their not charging people for mobile operating systems, Ballmer said.
Microsoft plans to continue charging licensing fees from handset makers for using its mobile operating system and not follow the free offerings of Google and Nokia, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday.
The pressure on Microsoft’s high licensing fees has increased over 2008 with Google rolling out free Android technology and Nokia offering to buy out others from Symbian and also make its software royalty-free.
“We do,” Ballmer told Reuters, when asked whether his firm would stick with licensing fees. “We are doing well, we believe in the value of what we are doing.”
Who Benefits?
“It’s interesting to ask why would Google or Nokia, Google in particular, why would they invest a lot of money and try to do a really good job if they make no money. I think most operators and telecom companies are skeptical about Google,” he said.
Google tries to promote Web surfing on phones and the use of their services such as e-mail and search so they make advertising revenue.
“In the case of Nokia — are they really open sourcing, or are they really making Symbian their own operating system? We have to wait and see,” Ballmer said in an interview.
Motivated by Money
Microsoft’s market share in smartphone operating systems has stayed at about 10 percent for several years, despite the U.S. technology giant’s efforts to win more.
Microsoft charges US$8 to $15 per phone, according to Strategy Analytics.
“Handset makers are skeptical of Nokia, operators are skeptical of Google, I think by actually charging money people know exactly what our motivations are,” Ballmer said.
Not Into Hardware
He said there was no reason to expect Microsoft to enter the mobile phone making business, like some analysts foresee.
“I do not anticipate us building a phone. Sorry, we are not going build one,” Ballmer said.
Last month we ran a poll asking which word processing tool you primarily use. We got over 2,600 separate votes and a resounding 49% of people still use Microsoft Word as their main word processing tool. Its open source desktop equivalent OpenOffice got 16%. Google Docs was the best placed Web Office app, with 15%.
