Microsoft Bing: Much better than expected

From CNet

Microsoft on Thursday took the wraps off Bing, the rebranded and rebuilt search engine formerly code-named Kumo, designed to replace Live Search. It's a solid improvement over the previous search product, and it beats Google in important areas. It will help Microsoft gain share in the search business. It's surprisingly competitive with Google.

Bing isn't available to the public yet, but you won't have to wait long. Starting on June 1, some users will get Bing search results from Live Search. On June 3, we're told, Bing will be Microsoft's new default search. We got early access to the service. Here's how it looks.

I have been using Bing on my Windows machines. Obviously IE7 automatically started using Bing, and Firefox and Chrome were easy to change. Sadly Safari does not allow one to make changes to the default search engine without some additional software.

I have enjoyed using Bing and have even found it more useful than Google in some instances. That in itself was surprising, given Google's domination of Search and the dismal performance of Windows Live Search. I especially like the short preview of each site's contents and links on that site that are shown when one rolls the mouse over the right side of a link. I continue to use Bing as my default on my Windows machines and thus far have not missed Google.

AV-Test calls Microsoft Security Essentials "very good"

From ZDNet Blogs

I know that it’s hard for some people to accept it, but Microsoft is capable of getting things right. One such example of “getting it right” is Microsoft Security Essentials beta. While some security vendors have been quick to dismiss this new tool, the independent testing company AV-Test ranked the beta product as one of the best security products tested.

I like Microsoft Defender as an Anti-Spyware tool, and thus far Microsoft Security Essentials (Anti-Virus tool) is getting good reviews. Sadly AVG is succumbing to the Symantec throw-in-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink philosophy. I prefer a keep it simple solution that consumes minimal system resources and this looks to be it. I was too late to get a Beta, but I will be keeping an eye out for the release version.

Fibre backbone cables for Africa

From MyBroadband

Fibre backbone cables spreading across the continent should lead to cheaper traffic between countries

With the arrival of six international fibre cables over the next two years, the race is on to provide national fibre backbones and competitive connections between countries. There have been for announcements this week that show that the arrival of these international cables has sparked a wave of fibre build-outs. These new routes should lead to both cheaper national backhaul rates and the switching of inter-country traffic from international to regional routings.

The next few years will be exciting as South Africa gets more international bandwidth. I don't think prices will come down as fast as people hope because international bandwidth costs are only one part of what makes up an Internet access product, but it should drive competition and hence meaningful price improvements across the board.

Apple vs. Microsoft: Yet another upgrade pricing fiasco

From ZDNet Blogs

Once again, Apple shows Redmond how it should be done on pricing upgrades, especially ones with plenty of internal fixes. Will Windows users feel grateful when Mac users get their upgrades for half to a quarter of the price? Or is it another sucker moment?

At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, Phil Schiller, senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, laid out the complex upgrade pricing for the next version of Mac OS X, called Snow Leopard: $29. And $49 for a 4-seat “family” license, which brings the cost per seat down to $12 and change.

Given that Snow Leopard is mainly a behind-the-scenes upgrade, although the fact that it frees up 3GB of disk space is not to be scoffed at, Apple have been smart to peg the upgrade at $29. I don't usually have a problem paying the $129 for an upgrade, especially as it's always the full system, but I must admit that it makes for a pleasant surprise, and a black eye for Microsoft given the Vista fiasco.

Google Apps is now an Exchange-replacement; Users can even keep Outlook

From Tech Republic

I’ve always thought of Google Apps as an product that’s trying to replace Microsoft Office with a simpler, cheaper, Web-based solution. However, on Tuesday Google unveiled Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, a new plug-in that allows Premier customers to access their Google Apps mail, calendar, and contacts using Microsoft Outlook, while also being able to have full Web access to all of our their data over the Web just like any other Google Apps customer.

This move changes the game. It pits Google Apps against Microsoft Exchange, the business world’s most popular email groupware platform. And, in many ways this makes a lot more sense for Google and allows the company to play to its strengths in building Internet-scale backend systems.

Exchange has been the one product the Open Source community have had problems replacing. Combine Google's Apps Sync and the trend towards cloud computing and this can result in a hit on Microsoft's Exchange revenues. Personally I think companies will continue to go for the locally hosted solution, especially in regions where bandwidth is expensive and/or unreliable.