Mobile applications are the way forward

Microsoft and Nokia are teaming up to create an application called Microsoft Office Mobile on Nokia handsets it was announced last month. The deal will give Microsoft leverage against Google and others that are attacking its Office business with free or low-priced, Web-based productivity applications.

The companies are going to design, develop and market productivity applications for mobile professionals. They are going to work on an application called Microsoft Office Mobile and install it on Nokia’s Symbian devices. They will also do the same for other Microsoft communications, collaboration and device-management software. Even though Microsoft already had its own Windows Mobile platform they have realised that they have never really established itself in the mobile market while Nokia’s Symbian handsets is market share leader for midrange handsets.

With the launch of google docs, this venture is sure to create a cause for concern in the google offices. Google claims 1.75 million businesses use Google Apps, which is a small number compared with the amount of businesses and customers at hom using Office. According to Forrester who undertook a survey of 152 IT decision-makers, nearly 92% per cent support Office, while only a little more than 3% use Google Apps. This year, Office is forecast to generate about $20bn (£12.2bn) in revenue.

The new Microsoft app will first be available on Nokia’s Eseries phones, which are optimised for the business market and then will be extended to other Nokia handsets marketed jointly by both companies.

This alliance shows that sometimes competitors have to work together to beat the bigger rivals. By installing the Office applications on Nokia handsets, Microsoft and Nokia will be competing against Apple and Research in Motion (RIM). The iPhone as we already know has radically changed the smartphone market and the RIM Blackberry OS is very popular for business users. However, both companies will still be competitors in the mobile market. Microsoft already offers Office Mobile on Windows Mobile handsets and plans to put a new version of the application on mobile phones next year.

The first application to appear on Nokia phones will be Microsoft Office Communicator which will appear in 2010. The Communicator is the company’s instant messaging and Web presence client for business users.

Microsoft has also been working on its own apps what it calls “Office Web Apps” which includes Web-based version of Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote and will be availble on PCs when they release the next version of Office 2010. The apps will work on Safari and Firefox browsers on the Mac.

If you would like to find out more please visit the source of this post.

The search engine monopoly

The google giant is in the news again this week, for launching the Chrome operating system (OS) for the mobile.
This is separate from Android and Google Chrome OS is aimed for those who tend to spend most of their time on line. It will power all computers, from small netbooks to desktop systems.

A company having more than one operating system, is not unheard of. Afterall, Apple has three OSes including Mac, iphone and ipod.
Google first launched the chrome browser in September last year and now has over 30 million users. Now they want to bring chrome into an operating system and I have no doubt they will succeed in this area.

Google is performing well in the search area where it became famous. According to Hitwise, google is the top search engine with 74% market share week ending June 27th. This is up from last year’s 69%. Since my last blog posting here, Bing.com which only went live last month, has seen an increase in market share from 3.4% in the beginning of June to 6.63% by the end. Not bad for a company entering an already saturated market place.

There have also been changes in the keyword field. People are typing in longer search queries.

Longer search queries have increased in popularity over the past year, on average searches of five to more than eight words in length have increased 8% from a year ago. Where there are searches of eight or more words, they have seen an increase of 16%. SEO experts be aware – the shorter search queries of one to four words long decreased by 2%. So next time you are thinking of bidding on keywords, think more along the lines of key phrases and insert these into your meta data.

What is new in SEO?

I know I haven’t written on my blog for a while. No excuses, except for the usual, busy with work, with study etc.

Anyways, a lot seems to have happened since I last uploaded a post.

Microsoft has launched its new search engine. That’s right, the company that seems to be always at the forefront of technology has decided to improve on its 8.2% market share of the search market and update its MSN live search.

Bing.com went live June 3rd.

Microsoft wants users to have a better search engine experience with its new product. Before Bing was launched there was a lot of hype about it, www.discoverbing.com was a site to introduce people to bing.
Bing is supposed to deliver a more organised experience, deliver better results than the search engines out there at the moment. It is marketed as a decision engine, it brings more relevant results. Also offers different tabs, not just images and maps, but videos and shopping as well, similar to google. I must admit, when typing in a search request in bing compared to google, I have got very different results.

The home page of bing will change daily but is already looking prettier than google’s with its different arty photos.

There will be a lot more news in the coming weeks about the new search engine. Feel free to add comments on what you like or dislike about Bing.