Microsoft has paid US$240 million for a 1.6% stake in social networking site, Facebook, making the company instantly worth US$15 billion.

Does this statement ring true? My view on this is that it’s a ridiculous theory.

Sure, if you do the maths considering current equity positions, it might come to $15 billion, but is that really what Microsoft is buying into? The most important part of the press release tells us that Microsoft is now the exclusive advertising partner for Facebook until the year 2011. The 1.6% equity stake is just extra gravy.

Similarly, Google paid US$900 million for exclusive advertising rights for MySpace a few years ago. If they had received a 1.6% share, does that make MySpace worth some multiplicative factor of $900 million?

If the press release had simply said, Microsoft pays $250 million for exclusive advertising rights, no one would have batted an eye. Microsoft has not paid US$15 billion for Facebook, but rather has purchased advertising rights. But I think it’s brilliant on Microsoft’s part taking 1.6% equity; the equity has little monetary value - it’s unlikely that Facebook will ever be worth $15 billion - but look, aren’t we all talking about it?

This is a win for Microsoft. And naturally, a win for Facebook.

The new Windows operating system (OS for short), Windows Vista, was launched on the 30th of January 2007 in what Microsoft described as “the most significant product launch in Microsoft history.”

Since then, early adopters have been buying Windows Vista and most new PC’s on the shelves in New Zealand stores are pre-loaded with the operating system.

The NZS.com statistics from October 2007 show that 8.59% of Windows users are accessing NZS.com from PC’s with the Vista OS and a whopping 84.09% are still using Windows XP.

So, what are the differences in the new(ish) Windows Vista OS?

• Easy on the eye - the new Aero interface is visually enticing, with a clean, modern look.
• Desktop search functionality - this helps users find information on their PC’s and organize them using handy virtual folders. It’s easier to identify documents using their icons, which now display the first page of the document.
• Advanced document framework - XPS makes it easier to use and share documents between a variety of devices.
• Enhancements for portable computers - including better power management, support for external displays and improved wireless networking capability.
• Better security - Vista incorporates defence tools to protect your PC from spyware, adware, phishing attacks and other electronic threats. It also includes better backup facilities for your files and defaults to a User Account Protection mode, meaning password authorisation is required for any changes that will affect your OS.
• Entertainment and multimedia tools - there are excellent new versions of Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker, as well as new applications like Windows Photo Gallery and Windows DVD Maker.

And what’s with the name? Well, according to Microsoft, the Vista branding comes from a desire to bring users an OS that lets your PC “adapt to you and help you cut through the clutter to focus on what’s important to you. That’s what Windows Vista is all about: bringing clarity to your world, so you can focus on what matters to you.” So, you can look through your own personal, customised Window.

Browse the directory for New Zealand computer stores.

As a New Zealand Search Directory with almost entirely New Zealand traffic (close to 300,000 user sessions; see Nielsen statistics), NZS.com is in a good position to follow New Zealand Internet browser usage statistics.

With the introduction of Internet Explorer 7.0 (commonly known as IE7) in October 2006, the browser statistics on NZS.com have shown a surprisingly gradual change from IE6 to IE7.

The graph to the right shows Internet Explorer percentages over the last five months (May 2007 to September 2007), indicating that IE7 is slowly taking over from IE6 but is taking longer than many expected. With the launch of IE7 a full year ago now, as well as the increased functionality (eg. tabbed browsing) which has been introduced in IE7, there were many expectations that it would quickly surpass IE6 in usage.

A recent blog post on Microsoft’s official IEBlog shows a change this month in the way IE7 is distributed:

Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users.

With this new development, it’s likely there will be an increase in percentage uptake of IE7 over IE6. We’ll keep an eye on our statistics with interest.

Recently, there has been a move made by Microsoft to get their digital document format OpenXML accepted as a standard by the International Standards Organisation (ISO). There have been many descriptions of how this format contains components that are proprietary and can’t be implemented by anybody other than Microsoft. Acceptance as a standard means that a government may, more easily, accept and prescribe it as mandatory for any communications. This, in turn, will mean that anybody who communicates with that government must use Microsoft’s software.

So, this can mean only that: the user’s choice is more limited, innovation is stifled, and the government is left vulnerable to the vagaries of the vendors’ business decisions in the future.

Yesterday Standards NZ decided to vote ‘no’ to the OpenXML standard proposed by Microsoft in competition with the present ODF standard. Congrats for making the right decision in the face of a tirade of PR noise. Let’s hope we avoid the Swedish situation and keep some sanity.

Who knows Microsoft might actually be forced to implement the present standard!