Microsoft Unloads Razorfish To The French For $530 Million

More than two years after buying advertising network aQuantive for $6 billion, Microsoft finally unloaded the digital advertising agency that came with that deal. It sold Razorfish to French advertising conglomerate Publicis Groupe for $530 million in a combination stock-and-cash transaction. The price was 1.4 times Razorfish’s 2008 sales of $380 million.

Microsoft has been shopping Razorfish around all summer. It was reportedly hoping to get $600 to $700 million, but the advertising recession didn’t help. Microsoft settled for a slight discount to that.

But at least now Microsoft is out of the people-heavy ad agency business (Razorfish has 2,000 employees), and can concentrate more on its automated search and display ad platforms. Razorfish remains one of Microsoft’s preferred ad agencies (it came up with the Bing ads). And as part of the deal, Publicis agreed to purchase both search and display ads from Microsoft on behalf of its clients.

Maybe that is where Microsoft will make up the difference between the $530 million and its original asking price.

Complete Guide To Microsoft’s Office 2010

The web has been abuzz the past few weeks with chatter about Microsoft’s announcement today at its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans about the new version of Microsoft Office 2010. There’s even a mini-movie about its debut. Facing potential challenges from Google’s browser-based Apps products and its new Chrome OS, Microsoft has been touting its three screens strategy, which is the ability for products to synchronize across the phone, browser, and desktop, for some time now.

With the release of Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 and Visio 2010, we finally see the implementation of Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie’s mantra. We had the opportunity to see an in-depth demo of the new suite of products from Microsoft’s Group Product Manager for Office 2010, Chris Bryant. Here’s a complete breakdown of all the functionality that has been added, including screenshots:

The Move To The Browser

Most certainly a direct response to Google Apps, Microsoft is rolling out lightweight, FREE, Web browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. All based in the cloud, the web-based versions of these products have fewer features than their desktop cousins but still give users basic tools to edit and change documents.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

PowerPoint has been upgraded not only with a new browser version, but also a slew of bells and whistles have been added to the desktop version. Users now have the capability of editing video and images within PowerPoint with a basic video editing tool (not so different from the capabilities of iMovie) and an image editing tool, which is like a basic, simple version of Adobe Photoshop. Microsoft has also added the ability for users to launch a WebEx-like live sharing feature with other users. So if you create a slideshow in PowerPoint, you can share it with other people in real-time (which can be run on top of Sharepoint).

Microsoft® PowerPoint® 2010 delivers more new and exciting ways to create and share dynamic presentations with any audience. Improved audio and visual capabilities help you tell a crisp, cinematic story that’s as easy to create as it is powerful to watch. New, easy-to-use tools help you polish your presentations to help you keep your audience’s attention even longer. Almost-anywhere access to PowerPoint 2010 from your smartphone or the Web allows you to simultaneously work on presentations with other people. Simply put, it’s never been easier to express your ideas with PowerPoint 2010.

Here’s what the video editing tools look like in PowerPoint:

To share a deck with other users, you send an email to individuals with a link. Once they click the link, they will see the slideshow within the browser. This feature can also be used on a mobile phone’s browser. You can also create a slideshow in the desktop version and then publish it to the web version to access it via the browser. The browser version of PowerPoint doesn’t include the video editing features, but most of the functionality of 2008 is included in the browser version.

Microsoft Excel 2010

Excel spreadsheets can now run in the browser, and similar to PowerPoint, spreadsheets can be published to the browser via the desktop version. The browser version of Excel has limited features, but offers more in-depth functionality than Google Spreadsheets. Microsoft has added a particularly innovative feature called Sparklines, which gives a visual snapshot image of a data trend over time within a cell. You can also share Excel via the browser with other users and set special permissions on who can access the document.

Microsoft® Excel® 2010 makes it possible to analyze, manage, and share information in more ways than ever before. Track and highlight important data trends with new data analysis and visualization tools. Work more effectively with multiple people by simultaneously editing Excel files over the Web. Access important data on the go using Office Excel Mobile or the Office Excel Web Application. Whether you’re producing financial reports or managing personal expenses, Excel 2010 gives you the proficiency and flexibility to accomplish your goals

Here’s what the web version of Excel looks like:

Microsoft Word 2010

Microsoft® Word 2010 gives you the best of all worlds: enhanced features to create professional-quality documents, more ways to work together with multiple people, and almost anywhere access to your files. Create and organize documents in less time, with less effort. Store your documents online, then access and edit Word 2010 from practically any Web browser. Word 2010 gives you tools that let you capture your best ideas whenever and wherever they occur.

Bryant says that the number one piece of feedback from users producing documents on Microsoft Word is that they want to preserve the look and feel of a document created in the desktop version in the browser. Microsoft calls this “document fidelity” and created the browser version of MS Word accordingly. In the browser, documents retain the same look and feel as in the desktop. The browser version still has the “ribbon user interface,” where you can change fonts, size, formatting, styles etc.

An image of the web version of Word:

Microsoft has also updated the desktop version to have collaborative features so that multiple users can be editing a document at once. This collaboration is not available in the web version, unfortunately. Microsoft says that users don’t want this feature but this might be a move to protect the Office revenue model.

When two people are editing the same document (in the desktop version) at the same time, Word will notify each user when there are changes that need to be synced with their document. The copy/paste function of the desktop version has also received an upgrade, where you can see see a live preview for the paste function. The paste function also has an advanced option to create and insert screenshots. To make moving around a long document easier, Word now has a visual navigation pane and section header breakdown which makes it easy to jump around different sections of a document.

Microsoft Outlook 2010

Microsoft® Outlook® 2010 gives you tools you need to stay on top of practically everything. Save valuable inbox space with improved e-mail conversation tracking and management. Compress long e-mail threads into a few conversations that can be categorized, filed, ignored, or cleaned up with a few clicks. From advanced e-mail organization and search to a completely redesigned look, Outlook 2010 provides you with a world-class experience to stay productive and stay in touch with all of your networks.

Outlook 2010 now has a ribbon user interface, like Word, PowerPoint and Excel. The UI of email conversations has been upgraded to look almost like a message tree, allowing users a more visual view of sent and incoming emails. Search functionality has been improved as well, making it much easier to find content. Also, you can preview calendars in emails and choose to ignore selective email conversations.

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010

Groove 2007 has a new name: Microsoft® SharePoint Workspace 2010. More than a new name, SharePoint Workspace 2010 expands the boundaries of collaboration by offering fast access, online and off, to all SharePoint content. Synchronize SharePoint libraries and lists to your computer with just a few clicks, and then easily update documents and forms offline. When you’re done, you can be confident that everything will automatically synchronize to the server when you’re back online. Usher in an entirely new way of working with SharePoint Workspace 2010.

Like Outlook, Sharepoint now gets a ribbon UI, making the document-hosting product more similar to Microsoft’s flagship products, like Word. You can tag authors of documents now and can share documents and files more easily.

Microsoft says that its browser versions have been tested on all major browsers aside from internet Explorer, including Firefox and Safari. Office 2010 is still being tested and reworked to function on Chrome. Microsoft also announced that it is streamlining the number of Office editions from eight to five. Office Web applications will be available in three ways: through Windows Live, where consumers will have access to Office Web applications at no cost; via on-premises versions; and via Microsoft Online Services, where customers will be able to purchase a subscription of MS Office. Microsoft says Office 2010 will be available in the first half of next year.

The key part of all of this news is the free, browser-based versions of Microsoft’s most popular Office products. Bryant says that Microsoft expects the browser products to be especially popular amongst student, but I think that the web-based applications will be hugely popular in the enterprise space as well, as long as there are security precautions taken to put documents in a secure part of the cloud.

But as more and more businesses are becoming comfortable with trusting cloud environments, Microsoft’s move to the browser could pay off in a big way, especially because it’s so easy to use both the desktop and browser versions of products interchangeably. The more successful Microsoft is in its browser strategy, the more they validate Google’s approach in the space, which will eventually put price pressure on Office

Microsoft OneNote 2010

Microsoft® OneNote® 2010 gives you the ultimate digital notebook experience. Store and share notes in one single, easy-to-access location. Capture text, photos, video and audio files so your thoughts and ideas – as well as any other important information – are available when you need them. You can even take OneNote 2010 on the road with you by accessing Notebooks from the Web or smartphone, making everything you need available from virtually anywhere

Microsoft Publisher 2010

Microsoft® Publisher 2010 helps you create, personalize, and share a wide range of great-looking publications and marketing materials with the world. Save time and money while communicating your brand’s message loud and clear. Deliver professional-quality results without having a background in graphic design, whether you’re creating brochures, newsletters, e-mails, postcards, or greeting cards. Using Publisher 2010, you’ll get the job done right the first time around.

Microsoft Access 2010

Microsoft® Access® 2010 is all about simplicity, with ready-to-go templates and powerful tools that stay relevant as your data changes and grows. Amplify the power of your data by making it easier to track, report, and share with others – either through your computer or on the Web. Access 2010 empowers you to make the most of your information, with fewer barriers and at a lower cost.

Microsoft InfoPath 2010

Microsoft® InfoPath® 2010 is a forms-creation and data-gathering tool that helps you and your organization streamline business processes. Without writing any code, advanced business users can use InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 to design sophisticated and elegant electronic forms. Developers can create advanced forms for departmental and enterprise business processes, including composite SharePoint applications and document workflows, with InfoPath 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 – all using little or no code.

Office Communicator 2007 R2

Office Communicator 2007 R2 is tightly integrated into Office 2010, working seamlessly with the familiar Office applications you use every day. Business users can rely on the presence icon in Office Communicator when communicating using Outlook® 2010 or co-authoring in Word 2010 or PowerPoint® 2010 to see who’s working on a file at the same time. If the person shows an available status, you can easily initiate a conversation directly through instant messaging, a voice call, or video without leaving the Office application you’re using.

Microsoft Visio 2010

Microsoft® Visio® 2010 takes diagramming to a new level with dynamic, data-driven visualization tools and templates, enhanced process management capabilities, and advanced Web sharing. Bring real-time data together from multiple sources, including Excel and Microsoft SQL Server, in one powerful diagram using vibrant graphics like icons and data bars. Manage processes with sub-processes and rules and logic validation to ensure accuracy and consistency across the organization. Create SharePoint workflows and export them to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for real-time execution and monitoring. Share refreshable, data-linked diagrams over the Web with anyone, even those who don’t own Visio.

Google Launches A Major Offensive Against Microsoft

Microsoft and Google have seen their rivalry kicked up a notch in recent weeks. First, Google announced Chrome OS, the company’s first operating system. Then Microsoft announced the new version of Office with major cloud app support. Then Microsoft announced its deal to take over Yahoo’s search business. Starting today, Google is back on the offensive, with a major promotional campaign to get the word out about organizations switching to Google apps for their daily computing needs.

The campaign, called “Going Google,” has a very clear target: Microsoft Office. A series of advertisements [disclosure: including on this blog] will begin touting how and why some 3,000 organizations are signing up to use Google apps each day. But the crown jewels of this campaign will be billboards on four major U.S. highways that will give a new message about Google apps everyday for a month.

The billboards will be placed on the 101 in San Francisco, the West Side Hwy in New York, the Ike in Chicago, and Mass Pike in Boston. Google says that the vinyl being used to create these new messages each day will be recycled or reused into either computer bags or shopping bags.

Google says that so far over 1.75 million businesses, schools and organizations have signed up to use the various combinations of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and the other Google apps. But that is of course a drop in the bucket compared to the number of companies that use Microsoft Office and its other enterprise solutions. Now, Google is clearly trying to be proactive in telling people why its solution is better before Office goes online in a big way with the 2010 version.

Google is also attempting to use the viral message platform of choice these days to spread the “Going Google” message: Twitter. At the bottom of its blog post on the matter, Google urges people that use its apps to “Tweet your story” and provides a link to auto-populate a tweet with the #gonegoogle hashtag. You can also follow the GoogleAtWork Twitter account to follow the Gone Google stories.

It has also set up a site to “Spead the word” about Going Google. This is similar to what Mozilla has long been doing to promote Firefox — and it’s worked to the tune of over a billion downloads. The site has a range of options for letting your company or organization know that you want it to “Go Google,” including things like fliers and pre-populated emails to send out.

And Google is also promising to give away “goodies” each week in August to users who have Gone Google and fill out a Google Doc describing their experience.

Will any of this work? Who knows. But I know that I can’t wait to see how Microsoft responds in this back-and-forth war. “Stay With Office” blimps, perhaps?

Microsoft Popfly Gets Squashed

Microsoft has announced that in late August it will be discontinuing availability and support for its once popular mashup creation application Popfly. In a blog post, team leader John Montgomery confirms the internal deadpooling, although he doesn’t call it the way we do. He writes that on August 24, 2009 the Popfly service will be discontinued and all sites, references, and resources will be taken down.

Montgomery points developers to Microsoft’s Web Platform and Xbox development program as all projects that were created using Popfly will effectively be discontinued completely.

TechCrunch got an early look at the Silverlight-powered application when it debuted in private beta mode over 2 years ago. At the time, mash-up and widget creation tools were all the rage, with Yahoo introducing its Pipes web app just a few months prior. Google got in the game with its Mashup Editor a bit later, but that service never left private beta and the company ultimately announced it would be axing the product last January. Two days ago, the team even reminded developers that it would soon be shutting down.

ProgrammableWeb in its coverage of the discontinuation of Microsoft Popfly points back to a February 2008 article in the NY Times, in which the newspaper talks about Montgomery and Popfly in a positive light, with the product manager being lauded as “an example of how it just might be possible for someone to teach dinosaurs to dance”.

Last fall, his team introduced an intriguing software Web service called Popfly that is intended to make it possible for nonprogrammers to plug together Web components and data sources quickly to create useful new Web services. For example, news feeds could be added to digital images, or data lists to maps.

Introduced at the Web 2.0 conference last year by Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, Popfly was picked by PC World magazine as one of the most innovative computing and consumer electronics products of 2007. It has garnered more than 100,000 users — the company says the exact number is confidential — and now has a library of more than 50,000 “mashups”: new components or Web pages that have been created in a visual snap-together fashion, like Lego blocks.

Web 2.0 Conference organizer Tim O’Reilly also gets quoted in the article, and he apparently expressed skepticism early on:

“Popfly shows me that Microsoft still thinks this is all about software, rather than about accumulating data via network effects, which to me is the core of Web 2.0,” said Tim O’Reilly, the founder and chief executive of O’Reilly Media, a print and online publisher. “They are using Popfly to push Silverlight, rather than really trying to get into the mashup game.”

Seattle-based tech blog TechFlash got a bit more information out of Microsoft regarding Popfly’s sudden death. In an e-mail to editor Todd Bishop, Redmond says Popfly was simply no longer part of its refocused strategy, which was outlined in light of the dismal economic situation.

Microsoft Promises New, Fluffier Version of Windows

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, has hit the European press circuit in full-on tease mode. He’s talking up a new version of the Windows operating system that will cater to so-called cloud computing technology, where people use software running in a data center rather than on their local machine.

Mr. Ballmer has mentioned this operating system, called Windows Cloud, at events in London and Paris. The name-dropping comes ahead of Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference later this month in Los Angeles.

So what exactly is Windows Cloud? Well, Microsoft won’t budge on exact details just yet.

But Dave Cutler, one of the company’s top software engineers, has spent years working on a project code-named Red Dog that some suspect will serve as the underpinning for the new operating system. Mr. Cutler has a knack for developing sophisticated code, and he may have come up with an operating system tailored to this notion of distributing software across thousands of servers and letting customers tap into all that horsepower from their home or office computers.

Google’s vast data centers rely on a modified version of the open-source Linux operating system and the MySQL database. By going with open-source software, Google can tweak code to suit its needs. In particular, Google has been able to create lightweight versions of Linux and MySQL that spread well across myriad machines.

Microsoft may now have taken a similar approach with Windows and its own SQL Server database by developing a thinner, faster version of Windows that server makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard could offer with their systems. Presumably the new version of Windows would also make use of Microsoft’s server virtualization software, which today lets customers run many applications on a single physical system, and will soon let them move those applications around from server to server at will.

“Just as we have an operating system for the PC, for the phone, and for the server, we need a new operating system that runs in the Internet,” Mr. Ballmer said during a speech in France on Thursday. “I bet we’ll call it Windows something. We’re going to announce it in four weeks. We might even have a trademark by then. So, for today I’ll call it Windows Cloud. And Windows Cloud will be a place where you can run arbitrary applications up in the Internet. . .”

I’ve done a search through Microsoft’s trademarks, and, as Mr. Ballmer indicated, there doesn’t appear to be a name for the software.

Fluffy Windows, anyone?

Microsoft Office 2010 Starts Ascension to the Cloud

Microsoft A screen shot of the word processing application in Office 2010, which will allow more than one user to edit a document at the same time.

Microsoft’s saunter toward providing all of its Office software online continues this week with a preview of its Office 2010 software.

Unlike more Webby types that throw their code willy-nilly into the Internet cloud under a beta tag, Microsoft remains committed to its protracted, multistep software release process. On Monday, Microsoft will announce the “technical preview engineering milestone” for Office 2010, which means that tens of thousands of people — many of them software engineering partners — can download the software and give it a test drive.

At the end of the year, Microsoft expects to release a proper public beta for the software, and it intends to ship a final version off to PC makers in the first half of 2010.

Ultimately, anyone who signs up for a free Windows Live account will be able to use online versions of applications like Word and PowerPoint, regardless of whether or not they buy the desktop versions of the software. This is Microsoft’s response to Google, Adobe, Zoho and others that offer online productivity software free for personal use.

Corporate customers will be able to tap into the online services as well through a couple of paid subscription options. Smaller customers could sign up for a service in which Microsoft would store their online files and help with things like security and data backup. Large customers that already have Office licenses could have Microsoft host their information or store it in-house.

All told, Microsoft says about 400 million people already have a Windows Live account through services like Hotmail and Messenger, and 90 million more corporate customers have Office subscriptions. So, the company is boasting that half a billion people will have ready access to Office 2010 online next year.

Microsoft rejects criticism that it’s late to the online party, saying that competitors have just been playing a major game of catch-up.

“Lots of competitors are doing nothing beyond copying what we have done in our product for years,” said Chris Capossela, a senior vice president in Microsoft’s business division. “They have weekly releases to add things like bold and italics and more than four fonts. We have to redefine what productivity means to 500 million people.”

As you might expect, Office 2010 has tools for letting people collaboratively work on documents, presentations and other projects at the same time over the Internet.

Microsoft has also spiced up applications like PowerPoint by making it easier to add high-definition video into projects. Microsoft has software that compresses the files down, and it has a tool that will produce a Web address for the presentation that can be sent to coworkers or customers.

“Anyone can get that address and then have a slideshow come up,” Mr. Capossela said. “We call it just-in-time show-and-tell.”

Microsoft appears to have added some nice tweaks to Outlook as well.

For example, there’s a new tool for compressing e-mail threads down to a single message. Mr. Capossela said this could be of particular use if you’re away from e-mail for a while and want to condense the back-and-forth that has taken place with coworkers on a particular topic. (This is a common feature in Google’s Gmail, for example.)

Microsoft argues that it has a real breakthrough with its Outlook “Ignore” button. This comes in handy if there’s an out-of-control e-mail thread that you don’t want any part of. You hit “ignore” and all of the messages in the thread are deleted and so is future e-mail tied to the thread.

“That is one feature nobody else has done,” Mr. Capossela said.

As Microsoft mounts its online attack, Google is encroaching further into Microsoft’s traditional turf by saying it will ship an entire computer operating system next year. Called ChromeOS, the software is based on the open-source Linux operating system and will place a premium on speed and security.

Of course, a number of companies have tried to blunt Microsoft’s dominance over office productivity software, including Google with its Apps suite and Sun Microsystems with OpenOffice. Both have had little success so far.