Microsoft has now planned to have social networking services inside its Office 2010 applications. Microsoft Office 2010 is planned to be released this year.

Social media sites like LinkedIn have already started creating plugins which can integrate your Outlook with LinkedIn by passing updates to your inboxes. Microsoft is working with MySpace and Facebook to create a similar synch program.

Dev Balasubramanian, Outlook Office group product manager stated, “”It really is about bringing friends, family, and colleagues into you inbox,” Balasubramanian said in a video posted at the US software giant’s website.”

Dev also added, “As you communicate with them you can see their social activities; you can see all of the folks in your social network and it updates as you are reading your email.”

Though Microsoft feels LinkedIn connection would help people using email programs stay updated on job status, contact informations or affiliations on the friend network, one would feel would many companies allow these features be used by its employees. Given the fact that LinkedIn is a huge source for job updates, job searches and enquiries.

Elliot Shumkler, product management director, LinkedIn mentions, “LinkedIn is all about your professional network. Meanwhile, Outlook powers the professional inbox so the match is very clear.”

The test version is available online at office.com/beta

Microsoft Interop Days was recently held in The Capitol, Bangalore. The event was attended by a large number of programmers, probably more than 200. Around 95% comprised of PHP programmers and the rest .NET programmers. Discussing with participants, I could find a mix of experience ranging from fresher’s to senior level PHP programmers, managers and entrepreneurs.

The first session started at 10:00 am with Nahas Mohammed and Harish Ranganathan from Microsoft explaining about how an end-to-end authentication and authorization model can be built for existing PHP application in less than 30 minutes. It was interesting to know how Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 can help build a secure model for PHP applications.

Lunch was impressive (Did I mention that that was the only thing impressive?) and after lunch you could see half the seats vacant.

The next session was followed by Praveen Srivatsa from AsthraSoft who mentioned about how to access your data exposed from your PHP apps through a RESTful (REpresentational State Transfer) service interface. The session again brought in Microsoft’s new products that can help do these at ease.

After-lunch sessions proceeded with Vinu Thomas, PHP UG Lead and Nahas Mohammed mentioning about how to configure Windows to run your PHP applications.

The last session was from Supreet Singh who spoke about how to create pure CSS based PHP websites. I could hear from guys nearby stating, “Wish this was the first session. We waited so long for this”. Supreet explained the basics of working on DIV and provided sample sites which can be used as a tutorial or as an example. Some of the sites which he showed were amazing. He also went on with Microsoft’s Silver Light and other features which help in uninterrupted caching on various bandwidths.

Overall, though the day was good knowing some really useful products from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx) for open source developers, however, I would say it wasn’t impressive. Microsoft should have made an impact with their product line or with the knowledge that the presenters had to share.

Though the invitation/agenda looked like an event for PHP programmers to help them know how to make their PHP applications more secure and easier, the program landed up as an awareness program promoting new Microsoft applications for open source programmers. I wouldn’t blame that as Microsoft is a business company and not a charity

Many came with the expectation that they could learn something from Microsoft meet which could enhance their skills. But rather it was a complete day where Microsoft marketed its product to open source developers. Most of the presenters were unprepared or hadn’t prepared well. We could see some presenters struggling and breaking heads before the entire crowd to find out why their simple configuration did not work.

An organizer/presenter was saying that it was the first time that they are doing such a meet and do not know if they have chosen the right topics and if we would like them. Well, I would only expect a fresher to say that statement. NOT a senior guy from Microsoft!

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While Google has been repeatedly warning, penalizing and even banning websites which does Link Exchanges, it is quite strange to see Skip, Senior Product Manager for Office Live Small Business promote link exchange openly.

On the MS Office Live blog, Skip openly propagates to go for link exchanges. He states, “If you want lots of visitors to your Web site, it helps to have lots of links to your Web site. Link exchanges — sometimes called reciprocal linking or link swaps — are a popular way to generate more links.”

While Google, Yahoo and MSN guidelines severely warn webmasters not to indulge in any such activities, it is quite surprising to see a senior product manager recommend one of the most familiar black hat methods.

Going on further, Skip also recommends to even use link-management software and join automated link-exchange programs. Jeess.. That’s hypocrisy! That’s blasphemy against search engines!!

He recommends several ways to do link exchange.

1. Do it manually
2. Use link-management Software
3. Join an automated link-exchange program
4. Pay someone else to create your links

Well the article does not end with that. He even recommends third-party tools to effectively increase links. I wonder if he works for Microsoft or it looks like these third-parties have paid him hands full to have their products promoted.

The Microsoft-Yahoo stage show is in a hiatus and Microsoft wants to spend the money. That’s how all seems like. Microsoft has acquired Greenfield Online, the owner of ciao.com for a stunning $486 million. Ciao is a popular price comparison website on the European market.

Microsoft’s long wait and dream to buy Yahoo failed early this year and it had $47.5 billion left out which made its wallet heavy. That’s how Microsoft got into this shopping spree.

This acquisition would be a huge benefit for Microsoft as Ciao reportedly has more than 26 million unique visitors each month and has over 5 million product reviews. However, business analysts feel the money paid out is more than it is worth for.

Ever since Google captured the internet and not just dominated but also started ruling over it, Microsoft, the once big giant has been on acquisition one after another to get back its lost kingdom. But would this strategy work out?

Try sending a TinyURL link to your friend. You would get a message “The following message could not be delivered to all recipients:” Microsoft has recently banned sending these URLs on Windows Live Messenger at the time when GTalk has taken away most of its chat users.

It is reported that TinyURL has more than 1.5 billion hits every month. TinyURL helps make long URLs shorter and easier to send through email. TinyURL has become largely popular and there have been reports of spamming as spammers send malicious site links in the form of TinyURLs.

However, none of the popular messengers have blocked URLs from TinyURL. Microsoft has blamed its third-party partner who handles spam and URL blocking.

It looks like Carl Icahn, a person from no where is being backed by the entire Yahoo Shareholders. Carl Icahn, from the beginning has been demanding the replacement of Yahoo’s nine directors.

Microsoft, who in recent days has always found out the mean way to monopoly has backed Icahn’s claim with no surprise. Microsoft has mentioned that it would renew its bid if there is a successful shareholder rebellion.

Icahn, however has no reason for his obstinate request for the board replacement. He has been writing to shareholders stating “If the current board and management team of Yahoo mismanage the company (and their recent track record is far from reassuring), Microsoft would be putting its money at risk and a great deal could be lost.”
An industry watcher stated, “Looks like this Icahn is being not just backed but funded, motivated and assisted by Microsoft to make up a cheaper and faster deal on Yahoo.”

Yahoo has mentioned, “If Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately.”

The recent deal with HP to have MSN Live search installed on all its machines and Microsoft’s policy of acquiring and not competing with its competitors for a monopoly shows that Microsoft is not much interested in drawing customers with its innovation and technology; rather just with its money power.

Microsoft Corp signed a deal with HP, the leading PC manufacturer, to install Live Search toolbar on all HP PCs that would be shipped to Canada and the United States from Januray 2009. The deal also includes MSN Live search set as the default search engine on all HP browsers.

Kevin Johnson, President of Platforms and Service Division in Microsoft stated, “This agreement with HP is a strategic indicator of our increased focus on securing broad-scale distribution for Live Search. This is the most significant distribution deal for Live Search that Microsoft has ever done, and we are very pleased to be partnering with HP to help bring Live Search to millions of consumers across North America.”
Microsoft is planning to provide a custom Live Search toolbar for HP customers to provide additional search experience to its users using Microsoft Silverlight.

Microsoft’s plan to increase Live Search users should be targeted on innovative search experience, pleasing features and creative packages similar to Google. Forced search strategies would not be beneficial for Microsoft in the long run.

Yesterday Microsoft had is farewell for one of its valued employees. Well, the farewell was not for an employee who was a staff but an employee who changed the face of science and technology! Changed the lives of millions around the world! An employee called Bill Gates. The last day would have been a speech about his legacy by fellow workers and would have ended with some cakes but it was a day marking the end of an era, an era which changed the world for ever.

Bill Gates had spent 33 years of his life building the world’s largest software company. What could he have spoken when asked about his accomplishments all these years? Which ones would he highlight? May be that’s the reason Gates did the impossible and never spoke about it.

Chip Ganassi Racing has selected Microsoft solution to help improve their car performances during racing. The high-performance computing (HPC) solution is based on Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. Now simulations which took 24 hours can be run in less than a hour, thanks to Microsoft solution.

Chip Ganassi Racing is an racing organization with its team competing in NASCAR, IRL and Grand-Am. Owned by Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates, the team is based in Concord, North Carolina. Chip Ganassi Racing worked with Microsoft and Stackpole Engineering Services Inc. who were their simulation software vendors to modify the software to run on the Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.

Previously, the racing team spent 24 hours to run a simulation. Now, with the use of five-node HPC cluster, the team can run a simulation in less than an hour. This has helped the team run simulations faster and more frequently to equip the team better and more competitive in race tacks.

Paxton of Chip Ganassi team mentions, “We’re all about making cars go faster, not building fancy computer systems. At first, I thought HPC was only for big companies that can afford multimillion-dollar supercomputers. After we realized that HPC was accessible and affordable, we saw the potential competitive advantage it would bring. My only concerns were that the solution be easy to use and easy to manage, and that we could easily modify the application. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 enabled us to meet all three requirements.”