Redmond, Washington -- It has been a long wait between Microsoft Office 2007's retail debut on Jan. 29, 2007, and Office 2010's arrival in stores today. The software giant on Tuesday formally pulled out the beta tag from the freshest version of its popular business productivity suite. The Redmond Vole's latest entrée in the desktop productivity wars includes free, online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that was available at more than 35,000 retail stores around the world, from online retailers such as Amazon.com or for download through Office.com.

Certainly, with the current release of Office 2010 that is bundled with several new features and improved productivity tools all under one roof.

Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business division, said Office 2010 is “the best ever productivity experience on three screens -- the PC, the browser and the phone.” The biggest change to Office is a free Web-based version called Office Web Apps.

“For the first time, people can purchase a Product Key Card at retail to activate Office 2010 preloaded on new PCs,” said Elop. “For those who wish to download Office 2010 direct from Office.com for an existing PC, the new Click-to-Run technology will have them up and running in a matter of minutes,” he added.

Redmond, Washington -- In an attempt to rival Google's recent upgrades to its search engine which allows real-time search results for Twitter posts, Microsoft's Bing is taking a leap forward on last year's promise on Wednesday announced that Facebook search will go live later today at bing.com/social, complete with full status updates and Fan pages in search engine results, as well as Twitter results will also be included into one search experience.

The latest alliance delivers the power of social chitchat to search, which has traditionally been a bunch of blue links and static Web pages. At the Search Marketing Expo's SMX Advanced conference in Seattle, Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President of the Online Audience Business at Microsoft, announced that Bing will start to integrate with Facebook data fan pages and publicly shared links.

Precisely imitating Google, which early this week integrated real-time Twitter and Facebook feeds in to its search engine query results, Microsoft's search engine will also combine both Facebook and Twitter results and publicly shared status update links will index in search query results starting today.

Redmond, Washington -- After hundreds of thousands of testers took the Technical Preview development milestone out for a spin, the Redmond Vole had finally entered in the the browser-based productivity race, on Monday making the long-awaited Office Web apps live on SkyDrive and are available for users residing in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland. And the coolest thing about this office suite in the cloud is that it is all free.

Currently the feature is accessible for all users in the US, the UK, Canada and Ireland on office.live.com, where users can view, edit, and share Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote documents from the browser.

Although the Office Web Apps is configured for most of the Web browsers, but Google Chrome appears to be missing from the list. And Office Web Apps is available and designed for Windows PCs, Macs, and Linux-based machines.

Needless to say, Microsoft has just began introducing an important side of Office 2010 to the world, and is bound to uncover even more in the coming week, when the successor of Office 2007 reaches the General Availability milestone on June 15th, Jason Moore, principal lead program manager, Windows Live SkyDrive, notes.

Redmond, Washington -- The Bing team on Monday in a blog post, declared the availability of the Bing Maps Apps software development kit (SDK), along with three new apps. Bing Maps have some fascinating applications that allow you to see twitter activities, parking places, fuel pricing or Foursquare check-ins near a particular location. “Hopefully, the release of the Bing Map App SDK and these apps will encourage you to get coding and add your application to Bing Maps!” the Bing team wrote in a blog post.

“Bing Maps holds some appealing applications that enables you to see twitter activities, parking places, fuel pricing or Foursquare check-ins near a particular location,” according to Bing team. “The SDK will allow developers to make their own apps over Bing maps and once verified by Microsoft, the apps will be featured in the Bing Maps Apps Gallery.”

One of the best part of Bing Maps is the gallery of Map Apps (Silverlight required) which includes different informational overlays to the maps. There are Twitter maps, Foursquare maps, Worldwide Telescope maps, and event maps. But today Bing is opening up its Map Apps more broadly to outside developers and releasing an SDK for anyone who wants to create their own Bing Map App.

New York -- Although Steve Ballmer did not, as some bizarre rumors asserted he would, make an appearance at WWDC 2010 today, but among the flurry of news from Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote speech did mentioned something important concerning Microsoft's search engine. Jobs announced that Bing will now officially become a search option on the iPhone users is certainly a glad tidings for Microsoft.

Two of Apple's innovations announced by Jobs during this keynote address was the star of the show, naturally, was the new iAds, a system Apple has designed and will soon release it globally that allows developers to sell interactive advertising space on their iPhone, iPod touch and iPad applications, and Bing's adoption into the iPhone search club was mentioned in passing.

Still the news is not bears such a significant that rumors earlier this year had predicted, nevertheless, the fact that Bing is joining Yahoo as a Google alternative was concealed in Job's Monday keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, does bestow credibility to Microsoft's ambitious--if seldom used--Web query tool.

“Microsoft has done a pretty excellent job with Bing and with HTML5,” Jobs said.  Apple mobile devices will now carry three third party search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing.

“Apple today declared that Bing will be accommodated as one of the search engine choices within Safari on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and within the Safari browser on the Mac and PC,” Senior Vice President Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post, expected to be posted later on Monday.

Redmond, Washington -- Software behemoth Microsoft last week rolled out a series of major updates to its Windows Live Essentials suite of tools for managing photos and videos and keeping files in sync. But, reviewing the update appears that the small and medium business customers will be much more impressed with the expanded features and functionality of Windows Live Mail.

With no major update to Windows in line this year, Microsoft is banking on enhancements to Windows Live would help it bolster the appeal of Windows for this year's holiday shopping season.

“We are updating Windows 7 with a new suite of apps,” general manager Brian Hall said in a telephonic interview.

The enhancements to Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Live Sync and Windows Live Mail will starts to appear in beta in the coming months, Hall said, declining to be more specific.

While a large number of the modifications to the suite have been reasonably minor, there are some new and noteworthy features which could turn out to be impressive to the masses. The first of which, as portrayed by TechCrunch, “allows for the creation of Animoto-like video clips containing photos and videos [in which they have] added a variety of transition and effect options, as well as the ability to add music and text, to these clips.”

Redmond, Washington -- Palm-greasing, while sometimes useful, does not always appears to be an effective method of attracting a large user base, Microsoft has discovered. The software behemoth on Friday announced that it plans to close down its “Bing Cashback,” a promotional program that offered online shoppers cash rebates for buying products after searching for them on Bing by “July 30,” because not enough people stuck around after taking advantage of it.

When introduced back in May 2008, it seems that the program did work in some respects, helping Microsoft establish relationships with a lot of different businesses, which the company considered as a significant way it could change the economics of search.

In a statement, the company said it ended the 2-year-old program because it “had not seen the broad acceptance it had hoped.”

Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft has added some new dimension to its Bing Maps, which was already impressive in quite a few ways. If you are taking a trip by car this summer, Bing has added three new applications to its Maps service that looks to beat the Google Maps competitor a one-stop destination for making your trip a little easier.

Bing continues to bundle its mapping program with overlay data, instead of banking on third-party mashups and gradually it is becoming amazingly useful in doing so.

The above screenshot shows the three -- A distance calculator; A Parking Finder and Gas Prices tool, all promises to facilitate people to plan trips and go about their daily lives more efficiently.

Redmond, Washington -- After an investigation extending for more than a year, Microsoft Corp., of Redmond, Wash., filed two click-fraud lawsuits Wednesday, in federal court in Seattle against Eric C. Ralls and the company he established, RedOrbit Inc., a Dallas science news and shopping site, plus 10 unnamed defendants that allegedly generate fake clicks on Web advertising to make money from advertisers that pay per click.

One of the suits, registered in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, accuses Eric Ralls, president and founder of Dallas science-news site RedOrbit. The software giant alleges that RedOrbit engaged in “click laundering,” a term the company coined for making bogus clicks on third-party sites look like legitimate clicks on a publisher's site, thus inflating ad revenue.

“We can either take violent steps to stop fraud or we can look the other way and make money from it,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, at a news conference Wednesday. Both the Web operators and the search engine can profit from click fraud.

Microsoft also filed a similar suit against several unnamed “John Doe” defendants who allegedly committed click laundering through HelloMetro Inc., a network of online city guides based in Louisville, Ky. The company itself is not named as a defendant, and spokesman Clark Scott said the company did not engage in fraud and is cooperating fully with Microsoft.

San Francisco -- Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday gave a major blow to Salesforce.com Inc., in a federal court filing, accusing that the customer-relationship management (CRM) vendor has violated on nine of Microsoft's patents for ways to make software more efficient, adding a legal angle to the software companies' brewing rivalry.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said in a complaint filed in federal court in Seattle that San Francisco-based Salesforce.com has deliberately violated on patents related to methods including mapping data and displaying menus on Internet pages, seeks both monetary damages as well as temporary and permanent injunctions.

The complaint targets the customer-relationship management, or CRM, software that is the trademark of Salesforce.com's business. Specifically, the company demands a jury trial and also asks that the damages be tripled and that Salesforce be ordered to pay legal fees and other costs, arguing that the company's patent infringement is intentional. Fufthermore, it also calls for a court order that would forestall the San Francisco-based company from providing features that Microsoft claims it invented.

“Microsoft has been a leader and innovator in the software industry for decades and keeps on investing billions of dollars each year in bringing great software products and services to market,” deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property, Horacio Gutierrez said in a statement. “We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard that investment, and therefore cannot stand idly by when others infringe our IP rights.”

Redmond, Washington -- Software behemoth Microsoft Corp., has agreed to pay VirnetX Holding Corp., “200 million dollars” to settle patent-infringement dispute over VPN technology in Windows, just around three weeks before a scheduled injunction hearing before a Texas judge, the companies announced Monday.

The settlement comes barely two months after a Texas jury granted 105.75 million dollars to VirnetX after finding Microsoft guilty of infringing two patents held by the Scotts Valley, California-based company.

As part of the settlement, the software colossus will license VirnetX's patents that secure communications on next-generation mobile-phone networks. The amount is monumental for the Scotts Valley, Calif., early-stage company, which reported revenue of only $26,306 for 2009.

VirnetX describes itself as a “secure real-time communications and collaboration technology company” with a patent portfolio “obtained from a Central Intelligence Agency security project.”

Its products include software that provides a secure environment for real-time communications such as instant messaging.

VirnetX first sued Microsoft in 2007, claiming the software giant had infringed on two of its VPN (virtual private network) patents through the use of the technology in Windows XP and Vista.

San Franciscon -- Microsoft has finally understood that there is more to maintaining its lead over Gmail than turning over buckets of storage at Hotmail users. In its latest attempt to counter Google Microsoft is set to begin rolling out the latest improvements to its “Windows Live Hotmail” Web mail service, with an aim to reduce clutter and by delivering new online editing capabilities for Office documents, and more than two dozen other enhancements for business and home users.

In recent years, rivals Google and Yahoo have been leading ahead of the game when it comes to improving things like conversation views, mobile synchronization and other features. Today's makeover to its Hotmail web email service, clamping the service to its Bing search engine -- Microsoft is clearly targeting at Google's success with its online Docs service by making a Web-based version of Office available from within Hotmail's Web interface that allows use of widely used document formats such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

Chris Jones, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, addressing a press briefing at the company's San Francisco, California offices on Monday. While giving a demonstration, explained that email has changed significantly, especially, thanks to social networking and the growth of photo sharing of links and that Hotmail had to go beyond more than simply replicating Google's Gmail.

Microsoft's renovated Hotmail is being announced Tuesday, just less than a week after the release of Microsoft Office 2010.

Redmond, Washington -- Microsoft on Wednesday gave a sneak preview of its revamped MSN Mobile homepage optimized for smartphone site at OMMA Mobile 2010 conference in New York. The refurbished page set to go live Thursday features a cleaner, more streamlined layout on a white background and tight integration with Bing and other Microsoft properties.

According to Microsoft general manager for mobile advertising Charles Johnson, during a keynote address on a multi-screen marketing, said the improved MSN site is equipped for mobile devices with full HTML browsers.

The redesigned mobile homepage is accessible on a variety of devices and browsers, including Safari on iPhone and Android, apart from the excellent Opera Mobile 10 and Skyfire third-party browsers.

The announcement comes barely two months after the relaunch of MSN on the desktop and Johnson emphasized that the aim is to give the site a streamlined design and deep integration with services such as Bing and other platforms.

The new page boasts a prominent Bing search box across the top of the page are customizable tabs linking to MSN partner sites like MSNBC and Fox Sports and other content areas including entertainment and weather and stock quotes. Microsoft says the redesign is not merely cosmetic, but also provides faster loading of pages.

New York -- Microsoft, pursuing the corporate customer, officially unleashed its cash cow Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 suite at an event Wednesday at Rockefeller Center, and also trotted out its local star launch customer in the form of the NSW Department of Education and Training. The latest update to the software adds new features to the desktop applications like Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

Office has customarily been a very powerful performer for Microsoft's bottom line. The products that rides around the suite accounted for more than half of the software giant's operating profits during its last fiscal year.

But the competition keeps boiling up for Microsoft's productivity suite both from freeware outfits such as OpenOffice and increasingly Google which wants to snatch Microsoft's large customer base and shift them into the cloud with online delivered productivity and collaboration apps.

In a statement issued with the release, which also contained Visio 2010 and Project 2010, business division President Stephen Elop said “Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 will define the future of productivity.” Outlook features e-mail management and PowerPoint can broadcast to browsers. Office 2010 features online components.

Stephen Elop, Microsoft Business Division president, unveils Office 2010 in New York City on Wednesday, offering a glimpse at some of the functionality the updated software suite has to offer. (Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET)

Redmond, Washington -- In a novel move that challenges Google and Nokia -- The Redmond software maker Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled that it is bringing new capabilities for its Bing app for Windows phones, including a redesigned home page and turn-by-turn navigation feature for driving directions that is powered by Microsoft's Tellme unit, creating what the company calls an “amazingly lifelike voice experience.”

Microsoft has just delivered the latest release of its search app to its Bing search engine that has been updated for Windows Mobile 6.1 and above, and includes turn-by-turn driving directions with voice-guided navigation. 

“Now when getting directions with Bing, you will see a new “Navigate” button. By selecting it, Bing will calculate your route, and guide you as you drive,” the company writes in a blog post. “You can select the fastest or shortest route, choose to avoid traffic and/or tolls, get a map or a list of directions, and see arrows and hear alerts to know which way to turn next.”

Now Windows 6.x phone owners can check for an update that is compatible with their smartphone or hit up their m.bing.com/download in your mobile browser to get the new features. Once you have downloaded the new version, simply install the app and you should see a new Navigate button, which will calculate your route and provide audio prompts as you head out on your journey.

Redmond, Washington -- Consumers and businesses still using Windows 2000 (desktop and server) and Windows XP SP2 will see the end of Microsoft's official tech support on July 13, 2010. Microsoft will withdraw support which means that Windows XP users can extend support at no cost by upgrading to SP3, but Windows 2000 users have no such option. So now is the right time to ditch the old-school OS for a spiffier Windows 7.

According to Microsoft, the company offers support for its products for five years and extended support for another five years. This means that both Windows 2000 (desktop and server) and Windows XP SP2 will no more receive any security updates, support assistance, or help from paid support.

Microsoft initially issued notice of the expiration back in April 2008 when it released Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. “This announcement is in line with the Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy for Windows service packs,” the company said. “This policy states that when a new service pack is released, Microsoft will provide 24 months of support for the previous service pack for products that belong to the Windows product family.”

But all is not lost: According to Microsoft, users of both operating systems would still be able to access self-help online support (such as Microsoft online Knowledge Base articles, FAQs, troubleshooting tools, and other resources) for at least another year.

New York -- A new, social characteristic is now available to users of Bing Shopping. After having made it possible for users to share their opinions on search results relating to news and entertainment, Microsoft's Bing search engine has introduced a new social integration feature to its Shopping section today that lets shoppers share products with members of their social circle via Facebook, Twitter, or email, expecting to get a feedback from friends on whether to buy or not. “Folks can now ask for input before they make that important purchase,” a representative for Bing, said in a statement.

Users can now post their shopping search results on their favorite social networking sites in order to consult a friend's advise while shopping online. The sharing choices are available only on the product reviews page, which can be accessed by clicking on the “User Reviews” link on the Shopping search results.

Sharing is permitted through Facebook and Twitter. Users can share the shopping search results either by clicking on the Facebook, Twitter or email link and then typing any questions about the product.

Lawrence Lam, program manager Bing Shopping, and Sonam Saxena, product manager Bing Shopping, inquired why online shopping should be a less social activity than the long-established experience.

Redmond, Washington -- According to sources close to the situation, one of Microsoft's most distinguished executives announced today that he is leaving the company. “Alex Gounares,” who until today was Microsoft's corporate vice president for Advertising Research and Development, has been appointed as the chief technology officer of New York-based AOL and will be moving to the East Coast to take the job. The announcement was made internally at Microsoft, and was first reported by All Things Digital.

The news was confirmed with an ex-Microsoft source close to Gounares, who says Microsoft is losing its “best technical brain” and a “great professional” who “works behind the scenes, like any good architect.” He is also an avid sailor who seems to have strong relationships throughout the company.

Gounare's departure was communicated internally at Microsoft today, where he is corporate vice president of Advertising Research and Development and CTO for the software giant's Online Services division.

Gounares is possibly best recognized for being Microsoft chairman Bill Gates's top technology subordinate for three years during the 2000s. Among his numerous responsibilities was to formulate and drive the technical strategy for the company and handpicked papers for Gates's famous “Think Week,” a biyearly custom dating back to the 1980s in which Gates would sequester himself for seven days to recharge, read papers and books, and brainstorm ideas.

Gounares, known to many as “AlexGo,” joined Microsoft in 1993 as a software developer, after having worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory and several small companies. A 17-year Microsoft veteran, Gounares in his most recent role led engineering for Microsoft's digital advertising business. Previously, he helped guide the software giant's overall business direction as corporate vice president for Corporate Strategy, according to his bio on Microsoft's website.

Redmond, Washington -- Software behemoth Microsoft on Tuesday, took the wraps off of a new tool called Spindex, an experimental online service that pools “social” content from various and sundry online sources, including Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, and Redmond's own Bing search engine.

The project was initiated by Microsoft's Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs, -- the research unit established by Ray Ozzie last fall -- the service is officially identified as Spindex.

Lili Cheng, general manager of Microsoft's FUSE labs, launched the tool onstage here at the Web 2.0 Expo, prefers to call it “the impossible project.”

Spindex is a way of extracting the most contributed or popular items that come through your personal news feeds on social networks like Twitter. Microsoft's project is part of a wave of similar projects like The Cadmus, Feedera and Knowmore that try and synthesize trends and news streams from personal social networks.

“Most people do not really care about what is trending on Twitter. They care about what is trending in your own personal index. They want something that is private, but that you can possibly make public and share with friends,” said Cheng.

Redmond, Washington -- Windows and 7 have now become synonymous name to reckon, and Redmond, Wash., software major Microsoft on Tuesday announced the release the first version of its Windows Embedded Standard 7, which allows manufacturers to utilize Windows 7-based components for the creation of specialized devices such as industry-specific handhelds.

Kevin Dallas, GM of the Windows Embedded Business Unit at Microsoft, addressing the attendees at the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) Silicon Valley, stated that this newly launched embedded OS will comprise of Media Center as well as multi-gesture touch programs and context-sensitive applications with Windows Touch, and the ability to develop “green” solutions with smart power management APIs.

The Windows Embedded Standard 7 OS was first released in January, when both Intel and Microsoft worked together on a retail proof-of-concept interactive sign that could distinguish users by their physical attributes (a man or a woman) and interactive features such as panning and zoom, touch, and gesture input. The OS also supports remote management features, plus power management as well.

Dallas went on to describe procedures in which the new addition to the embedded OS market could help OEMs produce richer, funner experiences for their audience. That should translate, or could translate, into big bucks. “With the release of Windows Embedded Standard 7, Microsoft has furthered its commitment to the integration of Windows 7 technologies in the specialized consumer and enterprise device markets by providing OEMs with the latest innovative technologies,” Dallas, said in an April 27 statement.