I've never been a huge fan of browser toolbars: I believe that the browser itself and the Web pages you view in its window should provide all the tools and links you need in order to go about your daily Web browsing, and toolbars can slow you down as well as confusing the top of the browser and reducing space for Web pages. But the Bing Bar released today, at version 7, is thin, fast, and useful.
Toolbars often hitch a ride when you're installing other software, but in a call this week with Bing's director, Stefan Weitz, the Microsoft exec told PCMag.com that "40 percent of toolbar users have intentionally installed them, because they like toolbars that are designed to make everyday 'stuff' easier and faster."
The new Bing bar takes the toolbar back to what it's good at—bringing information to the forefront, with an emphasis on what types of tasks people were doing on the Web.
With that as its mission, the new toolbar gives one-button access to News, Maps, e-mail, and Facebook, along with offering a separate search box. A big part of the design is meant to expose Bing capabilities that users may not know about—Web-based gaming, stock quotes, and movie showtimes, among them. The Bing Bar also works with the search provider's rewards program, whereby users can earn points towards purchases by using Bing search, the toolbar, and allowing Microsoft to collect anonymous data on your search behavior.
Rather than redirecting your browser to a new Web page when you click one of the toobar's buttons, it drops down what Weitz called "wings" or panels populated with your map, e-mail messages, news headlines and blurbs, or whichever type of content you requested. Possibly the most powerful feature is the toolbar's Facebook integration: the wing for the dominant social network not only shows you your timeline, messages, and notifications, but even lets you Like or comment within the wing.
The new Bing Bar is only available for Internet Explorer 7 and later. To read more about the new Bing Bar, see Microsoft's blog post on the Bing Search blog (requires Windows Live ID). To install it for yourself, visit the Bing Toolbar download page.
Read the views of online Certification Experts, which provide the real questions and correct answer and explanation for the students / professionals who are seeking or enhancing their level of expertise. more at certkingdom.com
February 21, 2011
Nokia-Microsoft Deal: Winners and Losers
Nokia agreed to make Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 its primary OS platform today, changing the cell phone landscape in major ways. Who's going to benefit from this, and who's going to lose out? Here are some of our preliminary guesses.
The Winners
Winner: Microsoft. Microsoft is the big winner here. Windows Phone 7 was a second thought for Samsung and HTC; now it's the number-one platform for the number-one phone maker. If Nokia doesn't completely flub this, Microsoft's OS will now be a huge player in the smartphone market.
Winner: ARM. Nokia momentarily toyed with using Intel's Atom chipsets as the basis for its next generation tablets and MIDs, which would have been powered by MeeGo OS. Windows Phone 7, on the other hand, runs on ARM's chips. ARM's dominance in mobile devices is no longer even slightly threatened.
Winner: Apple. The iPhone killed Symbian. It was a slow death, but even Nokia admits that Symbian is dying because it couldn't keep up with the move towards finger-friendly interfaces incited by the iPhone. This deal validates the thought that Apple sets the agenda in mobile.
Winner: HTC. I think the Nokia/Microsoft deal will drive HTC closer to Google, focusing HTC's plans on making some truly amazing Android-powered phones. In this case, less is more, and I think HTC will rise to the competitive occasion.
The Losers
Loser: LG. LG proclaimed itself a premier Microsoft partner at MWC 2009 when it said it would produce 50 Windows phones by 2012. But the Korean company is suddenly second fiddle to Nokia, who has a tighter and more vital relationship with Microsoft.
Loser: Intel. Intel just can't catch a break in mobile. The MeeGo project was supposed to be another way for Intel to break into the handheld market. Now it's been relegated to a science-fair research project. That platform will never be viable.
Loser: Symbian developers. Symbian's developer base is now doomed to write for an admittedly large, but shrinking platform, and Nokia said it won't adapt the Qt tools for Windows Phone 7. Time to learn Silverlight, folks.
Loser: Nokia. This is a humiliating climbdown for Nokia, which basically admitted that it's been wasting a huge software R&D budget and that its OS engineers are incompetent. It puts Nokia's destiny in hock to a third party, and turns the company into an OEM rather than a platform provider. Nokia could go on to become a successful manufacturer of high-quality hardware. But it will never again dominate the global smartphone market like it once did.
The Winners
Winner: Microsoft. Microsoft is the big winner here. Windows Phone 7 was a second thought for Samsung and HTC; now it's the number-one platform for the number-one phone maker. If Nokia doesn't completely flub this, Microsoft's OS will now be a huge player in the smartphone market.
Winner: ARM. Nokia momentarily toyed with using Intel's Atom chipsets as the basis for its next generation tablets and MIDs, which would have been powered by MeeGo OS. Windows Phone 7, on the other hand, runs on ARM's chips. ARM's dominance in mobile devices is no longer even slightly threatened.
Winner: Apple. The iPhone killed Symbian. It was a slow death, but even Nokia admits that Symbian is dying because it couldn't keep up with the move towards finger-friendly interfaces incited by the iPhone. This deal validates the thought that Apple sets the agenda in mobile.
Winner: HTC. I think the Nokia/Microsoft deal will drive HTC closer to Google, focusing HTC's plans on making some truly amazing Android-powered phones. In this case, less is more, and I think HTC will rise to the competitive occasion.
The Losers
Loser: LG. LG proclaimed itself a premier Microsoft partner at MWC 2009 when it said it would produce 50 Windows phones by 2012. But the Korean company is suddenly second fiddle to Nokia, who has a tighter and more vital relationship with Microsoft.
Loser: Intel. Intel just can't catch a break in mobile. The MeeGo project was supposed to be another way for Intel to break into the handheld market. Now it's been relegated to a science-fair research project. That platform will never be viable.
Loser: Symbian developers. Symbian's developer base is now doomed to write for an admittedly large, but shrinking platform, and Nokia said it won't adapt the Qt tools for Windows Phone 7. Time to learn Silverlight, folks.
Loser: Nokia. This is a humiliating climbdown for Nokia, which basically admitted that it's been wasting a huge software R&D budget and that its OS engineers are incompetent. It puts Nokia's destiny in hock to a third party, and turns the company into an OEM rather than a platform provider. Nokia could go on to become a successful manufacturer of high-quality hardware. But it will never again dominate the global smartphone market like it once did.
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