It was October 22^nd, 2009 when Windows 7 was officially launched and it would be some good day in 2012, when Microsoft Windows 8 is launched, hopefully.

Taking three years leap into the future, (and ignoring the doom that 2012 spells over the world) as the roadmap suggests, we would be seeing Microsoft launch another operating system, a successor to Windows 7, to delight us.

The Microsoft roadmap (pictured below) suggests that Microsoft has clearly exercised the trend of launching every major release with a four year gap from the previous one.

Windows 8 : Road map To Success ?

What could Windows 8 probably be? Would it be just another Windows OS with further refined Windows 7 functionality in a different cover or would Microsoft take chances in going unconventional to develop the Windows 8 OS as a breakthrough to the regular lineup and still keep the hold on software market.

Featured : Microsoft OS Releases Chart

If my predictions aren’t too exaggerating, people wouldn’t prefer to buy an OS in 2012, a time where almost 90 percent of the software around the universe should be open source. Who knows if Google Chrome OS would take over Microsoft’s long-celebrated Windows OS by 2012.

Microsoft can also go to the extent of making it completely a Web OS or team with an open source party, otherwise, to live up to open source markets that will lead in 2010, presumably.

Only time and official confirmations will tell. Meanwhile, let’s roll back into the present and you can pop in a comment if you have some good stuff in mind. We would always appreciate it.

Just after 6 months of releasing IE8, the company starts talking about its upcoming version IE9. Keeping in mind that there was a 5 year gap between IE6 and IE7 this tells us that Microsoft is serious about beating it’s rivals in the browser drag race.

Microsoft claimed that the JavaScript performance gaps between IE and Firefox and Chrome are almost closed. In the current phase of development the browser scores an impressive 32/100 on the Acid3 test against 24/100 on IE8, however, not as impressive when Chrome, Opera and Safari score a 100!

Following videos shot by Channel 9 show interviews with the big-guns working on the upcoming version of IE9.  Videos require Silverlight to run properly. Click here to download Silverlight or simply click on the format links below the video to download and watch it.

iPod (MP4) - MP3 - PSP (MP4) - WMA - WMV - WMV (High) - Zune

Pod (MP4) - MP3 - PSP (MP4) - WMA - WMV - WMV (High) - Zune

iPod (MP4) - MP3 - PSP (MP4) - WMA - WMV - WMV (High) - Zune

WolframAlpha and Bing come together to bring some interesting search experience for Bing users. WolframAlpha is one of the most advanced computational engine on the web which converts queries to graphs and numbers.

For example one could simply compare a number of US states to see crime rate in each state.

I ran a query (crime chicago / new york /detroit ) to see the crime rate in 3 US states and I got the following results.

Click to enlarge

Though the results shown on the site are not the latest it does give you a good idea of the criminal activities going on in each of these states.

This is the kind of experience Bing is trying to offer to its users as a decision engine.

To start with, Bing is targeting its services at the health conscious and students. Soon you will be able to nutrition related and math related queries and get processed results from Bing.

For example if you want to see how many calories does each serving of cheese fries has just type in 200 g Cheese Fries or Cheese Fries to see the results.

Click here to read the announcement and see more examples of the kind of results you can see on Bing in the coming days. Also visit this link to know how WolframAlpha works!

For readers who don’t know what WolframAlpha is or haven’t used it yet, this is a good time to learn more about what it does and how to use it.

Following is 1st of 2 videos introductory videos of WolframAlpha

This time when Microsoft is promising that Windows 7 will not be a disappointment; Apple does not leave a chance to say “We’ve heard that before!”

From what I have seen and experienced so far I think Windows 7 is nothing like Vista when it comes to freezing and crashing. Also, I’ve read quite a few comparisons and reviews where Windows 7 outperforms Snow Leopard in certain cases.

Maybe this (somewhat) positive press in blogosphere is making Apple a bit cranky. So, what’s the next best thing to do? Launch new Anti-Windows 7 ads just around the Windows 7 launch date.

Watch the following ads which point out two things, 1) How Microsoft made mistakes in the past and 2) How users are eager to switch to Mac!

@MicrosoftHelps feed has been quite active and we can already see quite a few tweets in just about 24hrs time since its launch.

Here is how Microsoft defines the new Twitter initiative, “@MicrosftHelps is the official Twitter account for Microsoft Customer Service. Our initial focus is to provide a quality experience helping you find answers to your Windows 7 questions. We are planning to expand the scope of our support over time.”

The company chose CoTweet as the platform to serve the Twitter community making CoTweet as the #1 enterprise tool on Twitter.

Such initiatives by companies like Microsoft underline the importance of communities on twitter and interacting with the existing/potential customers in real-time.

Click here to subscribe to @MicrosoftHelps

Microsoft just announced a contest for Female bloggers and College students (US residence only!) winners of this contest will be sent to Vancouver Games or International Electronics Show in Las Vegas to cover the events live using Microsoft tools.

Interested candidates may click here to register for the contest, registrations close on 1st of Nov, 2009.

Make sure you take enough time to fill in the form as what you write in there will decide if you will be one of the winners. Uploading your blogging area picture and adding your social media profiles carries additional points and might put you ahead of others in the race!

All the applications will be filtered and brought down to 10 semi-finalists after which public votes will be invited to name the winners. Public voting is expected to open around 9th of November and users can go to http://www.officewintergames.com/ to vote for the semi-finalists.

Winners will be given Acer Aspire laptops loaded with Office 2010 Professional to meet all the needs of the bloggers.

Click here to register… Good Luck!

Nokia and Microsoft exchanged announcements of their new business relationship a couple of days ago. Accordingly, they have entered into an alliance that is set to deliver a groundbreaking, enterprise-grade solution for mobile productivity.

Those who use Nokia just love the simplicity in its user interface, the ease of accessing applications, and above all the quality of the product. Personally, I never encountered any regrets by owning a Nokia. It’s just so pleasure.

On the other side, Microsoft’s operating systems are so dominant in most of the homes and offices, that we are just so used to it. So, anything that comes out of this alliance will certainly be a  cherry on the cake.

Primary Target – RIM Blackberry. Blackberry has been the profound choice of innumerous business professionals, primarily because of its ability to instantly sync with email servers, which Nokia phones do not. Even with Windows Mobile, Microsoft could not hightail it.

Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will begin collaborating immediately on the design, development and marketing of productivity solutions for the mobile professional, bringing Microsoft Office Mobile and Microsoft business communications, collaboration and device management software to Nokia’s Symbian devices.

Nuclear Fusion : Nokia-Microsoft

The Microsoft-Nokia Alliance aims to develop applications for Nokia smartphones and tailor them to meet the needs of the business professionals. And they will leave no stone unturned to battle with RIM in this regard. In a gist, the new alliance will enable users to manage their home and home-office businesses right from the comfort of their palms.

Precisely, we are most likely to see mobile versions of Microsoft Office on our devices. Users will be able to sync directly with their office or home systems and make their business portable. Internet and Intranet on the mobile device will enable one to find and interact with the colleagues via IM.

Services will be available on a wide platform of devices. To begin with, Nokia chose the E-series, which perhaps is a strategic move to counter the Blackberry handsets that rule the enterprise market. This will be possible through the Enterprise Device Management software.

Nokia has already started working to optimize access to emails on mobile devices.   Next year, it  plans to launch a Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile (the first Microsoft Office product to run on Nokia smartphones). Users will also be able to view, edit, create and share the Microsoft office documents through the mobile based versions of the same.

Both, Nokia and Microsoft are masters of their own arenas. And the fusion of these two tech giants will yield a very innovative, user friendly and tailored-to-meet-your-needs product that you will find irresistible to own.

This alliance isn’t the end of Windows Mobile platform nor does it signify inability of either Nokia or Microsoft to perfectly aid the customers’ demanding needs. It just marks a new beginning.

The future is better Nokia business devices. If you are interested in learning more about this alliance, click here to read the complete Press Release.

People found it gross, Microsoft took the ad down after receiving several complaints..

There is quite a bit to this Ad … read the rest here..

As we inch closer to Windows 7 (22nd of October) the expiry mechanism for the beta releases kicks-in.

This is a reminder for users running their machines on Windows 7 Beta. Windows 7 will reboot every 2hrs and will expire on the first of August!

If you dont want to get back to your ageold Windows Vista or Windows XP, download and install Windows 7 RC. The downloads for Windows 7 RC will only be available till 15ht of August after which new keys for installation can still be generated but new copies cannot be downloaded.

Downloads for Windows 7 RC is available here.