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Despite all the controversy over Microsoft using Silverlight to take over the rich internet market from Adobe Flash, the software giant seems to be not even trying. In fact, even most Microsoft web sites are using Flash instead of Silverlight.

A quick check through Microsoft properties reveals that only the Microsoft Home Page and the Microsoft Developer Network use Silverlight; MSN Video, Zune.net and the new WWTelescope all use Flash.

Microsoft even appears to be on par with Adobe when it comes to platforms outside of Windows. Silverlight works on Safari for Mac or PC, as well as on Firefox and other Mozilla-based browsers. Silverlight even seems to work “unofficially” on Opera (as long you pretend you’re not running Opera).

Silverlight isn’t supported in Linux, but as an avid Ubuntu fan, I can tell you that Flash does not work well in Linux either. A host of open-source alternatives, like Gnash, have mostly solved that issue. Former Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen’s fears of Microsoft favoring Windows seem incredibly unfounded.

But if Microsoft is playing nice for a change, why are they afraid of promoting their product — and why are they afraid of even using it? Maybe “nice” is too novel a strategy for Redmond. It may take some getting used to — for everyone.

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I’ve been running websites on various servers for a [...]

Hold on tight SEM artists. Search marketing is mainstream bacon & eggs in America this morning. Even the “tease” story on the Today show was Microsoft’s “huge takeover bid to purchase struggling” Yahoo!

Microsoft’s profits have been soaring due to increased demand for computer software. Yahoo is in the dumper, having just laid off 1,000 people. Is this acquisition finally real?

In 2006, the SearchEngineWatch blog was aBuzz with “Microsoft buying Yahoo” posts and hashing out possibilities in search marketing forum chit-chat threads. The Wall Street Journal prognosticated about the possibility of “a major departure for Microsoft.” They wrote, “Microsoft has considered the idea of acquiring a stake in Yahoo, and that the two companies have discussed possible options over the course of the past year.”

Some SEMs who love major search engine drama games saw this one coming down the pike years ago, and are still salivating. For others, the very idea would be hell. Personally it makes me just giddy.

The potential implications for both organic and paid search marketing could be del.ici.us for the Microsoft desktop. For PPC the much maligned Panama and AdCenter paid advertising platforms, along with all their graphically beautiful albeit dysfunctionalretarded inadequacies, could be fixed.

Think about the intriguing social media marketing adventures which would be possible. Maybe Yahoo Answers will integrate in Windows Mobile OS. Office 2009 might just include Word documents sporting a new “Insert/Flickr Image” function. How does this affect the market landscape for Google’s much heralded GPhone initiative. An aligned Yahoo/MS mobile platform-play would no doubt be a fascinating addendum to the Linux vs. Windows shoot out.

How will Yahoo email mashup with Outlook? What would pumping Yahoo Pipes into the MS machine mean to the feed aggregation paradigm? How would Microsoft create marketing mechanisms marketing to the decade old Yahoo Personals social graph?

The list goes on. MSN AdCenter was the first mainstream engine to dabble in demographic targeting, but the interface is weak. One would hope a combined Yahoo/MS team would know what to do with reams of data Yahoo has gathered about us all.

Aside from the potential effect on Yahoo/MS investors and the American economy (which will be reported on ad nauseum), the implications for the search marketing industry could be massive and exciting. Stay tuned. It might finally be true. Hold on tight search marketers and we’ll see how it all mashes up.

Soon 80 percent of the mobile phones in Japan will feature the Google search engine.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Google will have an 80 percent share of all Japanese local mobile searches. Google partnerships with the #1 and #2 mobile carriers in Japan forces Yahoo and MSN to compete for the bronze.
Here’s the math: Google [...]

Soon 80 percent of the mobile phones in Japan will feature the Google search engine.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Google will have an 80 percent share of all Japanese local mobile searches. Google partnerships with the #1 and #2 mobile carriers in Japan forces Yahoo and MSN to compete for the bronze.

Here’s the math: Google (NTT DocCoMo + KDDI) = 80 percent of the Japanese mobile phone market. Not a bad equation.

Google announced today a partnership with NTT DoCoMo to place the Google search box, apps and services on 48 million mobile users in Japan.

Nothing extraordinary here — bigger share of searches, ubiquity of Gmail — all in search of local mobile ad revenue, and of course, indexing all the world’s information.

The partners aren’t strangers: Google NTT Docomo are shooting for 10 billion yen (only 942 million USD) in shared ad revenue (split undisclosed) with a Linux-based mobile handset in Japan.

Expect more partnerships post-Davos and pre-Google earnings announcements.

Open vs. Walled - let the best win.
Recently in Boston, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, was pushing a theme that is dear to many of us. The Mobile Web should grow with open standards. The Walled Garden approach should be abandoned.
The mobile Internet needs to be fully and completely the [...]

A lackluster reception for Windows Vista in the enterprise and some hard work by Linux vendors could be the harbinger of greater Linux adoption on desktops.And here we thought Wal-Mart’s Everex boxes running Linux would have Microsofties reaching for chairs to throw.
Turns out, according to eWeek, that Forrester Research sees Microsoft being threatened where all [...]

The appeal of Google’s mobile operating system, Android, and an alliance of handset makers, has not registered with two major phone OS builders.No one would expect Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer or Symbian’s John Forsyth to come out dressed as cheerleaders and lead the fight song for Google’s proposed entrant into the mobile operating system arena. Both [...]

Francois Bancilhon has posted an open letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to complain about Microsoft’s business tactics. Mssr. Bancilhon, welcome to the real world. Microsoft has a long history of playing tough with the competition.
Mandriva’s CEO is not happy with Ballmer and Microsoft. Mandriva has been working a deal with the Nigerian government [...]

A new project from the Mozilla Foundation, called Prism, lets people split web applications out of the browser and run them on the desktop.Prism is Windows only right now, but Mac and Linux versions have been promised and are in the works.
“Prism isn’t a new platform, it’s simply the web platform integrated into the desktop [...]