Online MS Office 2010: for free or not?

It was last week when Microsoft announced that they will offer a "Free" lightweight online version of Microsoft 2010, which includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote. Since then, I started to read reviews and press releases of this move from Microsoft and started to draft a post regarding this big change that the company does. But what made me changed my mind to post that said draft is because of Michael Hickins's report on the Hidden cost of Microsoft's Free online office suite.


[Microsoft Office 2010 Logo and its Applications new logos]

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Just a quote from his post, "But wait – there’s more! A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs or $41,000, all CALs included if they want to share documents using the online version of Office 2010"
I bet its really clear that there is always a hidden agenda on that Free offerings. And as usual, at the end of the day, business is business.

At first, i enjoyed comparing these two online applications; namely Microsoft office live workspace and Google Docs, but at the end i would prefer to use Google docs than any other, most especially when i used it to convert office 2007 files into 2003. The two web versions of applications, have offer lots of advantages, doing some documents online anytime and anywhere but do Microsoft risks its sells of Office Applications (as we know, Office is the company's big cash drawer) and goes with online versions?


[Google Apps VS Office Live Workspace]

Office 210: The Changes

And now, as what i am always looking forward, is the idea and inquiry what could be the changes that Microsoft can offer rather than the online version thingy?


[2007 VS 2010: Ribbon Changes]

First of all, is the revision of the Microsoft Office 2007 trade mark, the Ribbon. In the offline version, Microsoft designed the Ribbon enclosed with a circular form on which at first i thought it was just another nonfunctional design until such time i learned that it is somewhat like a functional button having there the sub menus; New, Open, Save and others.
Another offering is the photo editing tools, which can now be accessed inside the Ribbon. You just need to open a picture file, then a format tab will show and you can now do some photo enhancement.


[Office 2007: Sub Menus under the Ribbon ]

And another ribbon inclusion program (which is excluded last 2007 version) is the Outlook 2010. It do now have full marked ribbon and is offering the same overall interface except its new feature Quick Steps. Excel and Word have no lots of new features on them not like outlook and of course the PowerPoint which give a video features in it.



Just a note, to access the lightweight version of office 2010, you all need a Windows Live ID (formerly hotmail account). But not so sure if you can have a total access on that package since Microsoft has not released any news about it although they have appended the word "free".

Cyber Attack Code Starts Killing Infected PCs

By Thomas Claburn

Read the Original Article at InformationWeek

Infected computers participating in the distributed denial of service attack on U.S. government and South Korean Web sites are set to destroy their own data.

The botnet-driven cyber attack on government, financial, and media sites in the U.S and South Korea includes a newly discovered danger: The malicious code responsible for driving the distributed denial of service attack, known as W32.Dozer, is designed to delete data on infected computers and to prevent the computers from being rebooted.

"Your machine is completely hosed at this stage," said Vincent Weafer, VP at Symantec Security Response.

The malicious code includes instructions to start deleting files when the infected computer's internal clock reaches July 10, 2009. That's today.

According to Weafer, the malicious code will attempt to locate files with any of more than 30 different extensions, such as .doc, .pdf, and .xls, copy the data to an encrypted file that's inaccessible to the user, and then overwrite the data in the original files. It targets files associated with office, business, and development applications.

The malicious code is also programmed to modify infected computers' Master Boot Records. The change renders computers inoperable following any attempt to reboot.

The impact of this self-destruct sequence should be minimal, however. Weafer said that he expects only a few thousand machines will be damaged. "I don't expect this to be a major issue, except perhaps in South Korea," he said.

The cyber attack against sites in the U.S. and South Korea began on July 4 and temporarily interfered with access to the Web sites of the Treasury Department, the Transportation Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

The South Korean Intelligence Service estimated that about 20,000 compromised computers -- mostly in South Korea -- had been ordered to conduct a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on U.S. and South Korean sites.

Given the timing, which coincided with a North Korean missile test, suspicions have been raised about the involvement of hackers in North Korea or possibly China.

In a press briefing yesterday, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said, "[The attacks] are continuing, and we are taking measures to deal with this and any potential new attacks." He said he had no information about whether North Korea was involved.

It is possible to direct an attack of this sort from anywhere. According to Alan Paller, research director at The SANS Institute, the compromised computers participating in this attack are located all over the world, including the U.S. The bots that participate also vary over time, so that the source of the attack is constantly changing.

"The attacks have become increasingly sophisticated since the end of last week -- it started as a flood that was easy for network service providers to filter and then went through at least two increases in sophistication so that the flood looks more and more like legitimate traffic," said Paller in an e-mail. "Network providers have to work much harder to filter out malicious traffic that resembles legitimate traffic."

But with W32.Dozer already deleting files and crippling its hosts, the attacks should soon subside.

Google Chrome OS: Web Platform To Rule Them All

By Thomas Claburn

Read the Original Article at InformationWeek

With Chrome OS, Google aims to make the Web the primary platform for software development.

Google's plan to release its own operating system based on its Chrome browser is at once audacious and laughable. Microsoft Windows represents slightly less than 90% of the personal computer operating system market, a position it has held for years.

Google's industry ally, Apple, has managed to steal a few percentage points of market share away from Microsoft in the past twelve years under the singular leadership of CEO Steve Jobs. But Windows remains the dominant operating system, more dominant even than Google is in search.

And with the forthcoming release of Windows 7, Microsoft appears to be well-prepared to defend its empire.

It's hard to imagine a less promising business for Google to enter, especially given that Google plans to give Chrome OS away for free. And Google's grand plan to shake up the operating system market isn't made more credible by the absence of any actual programming code or substantive information about Chrome OS.

Yet, the fact that Google has partners that share its vision says something about the shakiness of Microsoft's position. Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba are all working with Google to help it re-imagine the operating system. So too is Intel, as The Register reports.

Google's decision to target the netbook market may help the prospects of Chrome OS. Although Microsoft has made a concerted effort to push Windows on netbooks to fend off low-cost Linux-based challengers, Google may find it easier to compete in the netbook market because access to cloud-based services and software is more valuable on devices with constrained resources than on high-powered desktop computers.

Steve Andriole, professor of information technologies at the Villanova School of Business, observed in an e-mail that Google's announcement comes at the right time, just as the industry is moving to smaller, more mobile devices.

He believes that both pricing and Google's vendor relationships will play major roles in determining the acceptance of Chrome OS.

The fact that Chrome OS applications will be written using open Web standards like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS might seem like a liability because Web applications still aren't as capable as applications written for specific devices and operating systems.

But Google is betting that will change and is working to effect the change on which its bet depends. Within a year or two, Web browsers will gain access to peripherals, through an infrastructure layer above the level of device drivers. Google's work with standards bodies is making that happen.

According to Matt Womer, the "ubiquitous Web activity lead" for W3C, the Web standards consortium, Web protocol groups are working to codify ways to access peripherals like digital cameras, the messaging stack, calendar data, and contact data.

There's now a JavaScript API that Web developers can use to get GPS information from mobile phones using the phone's browser, he points out. What that means is that device drivers for Chrome OS will emerge as HTML 5 and related standards mature. Without these, consumers would never use Chrome OS because devices like digital cameras wouldn't be able to transfer data.

Womer said the standardization work could move quite quickly, but won't be done until there's an actual implementation. That would be Chrome OS.

And as the long-foretold Internet of Things emerges -- allowing everyday objects to be addressed via online queries -- Chrome OS will be well positioned to help Google organize even more of the world's information than the company already handles.

Chrome OS will sell itself to developers because, as Google puts it, writing applications for the Web gives "developers the largest user base of any platform."