Rumor: Microsoft Eyes FaceTime-Like Option for Windows Phone

Microsoft is cooking up a FaceTime foe for Windows Phone 7, according to Neowin.

At last week's Consumer Electronics Show, a "key WP7 employee" disclosed to the Web site that Microsoft was hard at work on a FaceTime-esque feature that could be bundled with Microsoft Live, allowing video chatting across platforms and devices. The new feature might also link with MSN Messenger. When asked why not use Skype, the anonymous employee suggested that the new service would extend beyond the reach of the VoIP service.

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Apple announced FaceTime with the launch of iPhone 4 last June, and brought the service to the desktop last October. Skype recently brought videoconferencing to 3G with its updated client for the iPhone and iPad. And Google has already flashed its tablet-based video chat feature for Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

When the FaceTime competitor will arrive remains to be seen. While it's possible that Microsoft's FaceTime will come bundled with the Windows 7.5 update, codenamed "Mango," it's more likely that it will arrive alongside "Windows Phone 8."

"It was hinted at, but not confirmed, that WP8 requirements may include a front facing camera," Neowin wrote.

Correspondingly, the feature could surface as early as next month, at Mobile World Congress 2011 (February 14-17), or as late as the second half of the year. Whatever it is, Microsoft had better work quickly to recapture a bit of the media spotlight, which seems, at present, singularly focused on Apple.

Report: Microsoft to Talk Tablets at Oct. 11 Windows Phone 7 Event

Now that we have confirmation that Microsoft's Oct. 11 event will include the launch of Windows Phone 7, it's time for some rumors about what else Microsoft might discuss. Neowin reports that Microsoft will unveil its tablet strategy during the launch event.

The company will reportedly "hint at its future Slate plans" next Monday, Neowin said. Windows Phone will still be the major focus, but there will be some discussion about tablets.

Microsoft has been a bit late to the party on the tablet front. Chief executive Steve Ballmer showed off a Windows-based HP Slate during his Consumer Electronics Show keynote this year, but aside from a questionable YouTube "review" of the Slate that popped up online, nothing much has happened with the device.

During the company's recent annual financial analyst meeting, Ballmer said Microsoft had "to make things happen" on tablets, and that the successful launch of a Windows 7-branded slate is "job one urgency around here."

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The device will be available "as soon as we can," Ballmer said at the time, but "I'm going to wait until I have the device that I want to hand you and tell you to go use."

Failure to produce a Microsoft-based tablet to compete with the iPad - as well as the failure of the Kin phone and a decline in Microsoft's mobile OS market share - recently cost Ballmer half of his annual bonus, according to regulatory filings.

Microsoft Slams Google in EU Privacy Comments

Microsoft objects to Google's search-related business practices because Google locks in publishers and makes it hard for competing search engines to gain market share, not because of its popularity and competitive power, Microsoft said Friday.

Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel at Microsoft, released a blog post this afternoon in which he discussed the EU's decision to look into Google's search result rankings. He slammed Google for what he considered to be finger pointing at Microsoft over the investigation.

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"Google's public response to this growing regulatory concern has been to point elsewhere--at Microsoft," Heiner wrote. "Google is telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors."

On Tuesday night, Google announced that European antitrust regulators are investigating whether Google intentionally buries search results that might promote its competitors. Three companies - Foundem, ejustice.fr, and Ciao from Bing - filed complaints with the EU over Google's rankings, said Julia Holtz, Google's senior competition counsel.

Foundem, which Google said is partly funded by Microsoft, and ejustice.fr are arguing that Google's algorithms demote their search results because they are a vertical search engine and, therefore, competitive with Google, Holtz said.

In regards to the third company, Ciao, Google suggested that the problems with them started after Microsoft acquired the company in 2008. Prior to that, Ciao was "a long-time AdSense partner of Google's, with whom we always had a good relationship," Holtz said. After Microsoft bought Ciao and re-branded it Ciao from Bing, Google "started receiving complaints about our standard terms and conditions."

In his blog post, Heiner did not address Microsoft's connection to the three companies, referring to them only as "upstart innovators."

UPDATE: A Microsoft spokesman e-mailed to say that the company does not directly fund Foundem. Microsoft partly funds the Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace (ICOMP), of which Foundem is a member, Microsoft said.

The real issue, Heiner said, is "whether Google's response really addresses the concerns that have been raised [because] complaints in competition law cases usually come from competitors."

Microsoft did not admit to being directly involved in filing the complaints against Google. Microsoft has heard complaints about Google over the years, Heiner said, and when those "antitrust concerns appear to be substantial, we suggest that firms talk to the competition law agencies."

Heiner acknowledged that Microsoft has talked with European investigators and the Department of Justice about Google, but only in the context of Microsoft's recently approved search deal with Yahoo.

"We told them what we know about how Google is doing business," Heiner wrote. "A lot of that entails explaining the search advertising business, which is complex. Some of that inevitably gets into Google practices that may be harming publishers, advertisers and competition in search and online advertising."

Specifically, Microsoft is concerned that "search and online advertising are increasingly controlled by a single firm, Google," Heiner said. "These and other network effects make it hard for competing search engines to catch up."

This is why Microsoft and Yahoo are combining their efforts, Heiner said. "And that is why we are concerned about Google business practices that tend to lock in publishers and advertisers and make it harder for Microsoft to gain search volume."

Heiner concluded by saying that "leading firms should not be punished for their success [or] because a particular business practice may harm a rival." They should face scrutiny, however, for practices that "exclude competitors, thereby undermining competition more broadly," he said.