PC World Business

Much like the political advertisements that have finally stopped invading our homes, the constant argument over whether Vista is good or bad is over. Is that because a final determination has been reached? Hardly. It’s because the Microsoft lovers have a new candidate to extol -- and the Microsoft haters have a new target to fire upon, thanks to Windows 7.

In the past two years, mobile phone and laptop companies have unveiled breathtaking innovations -- from 24-hour battery laptops to dual-screen laptops to "augmented reality" mobile phone applications.

Here's a statistical downer: there will be around 40 trillion inbox-clogging spam e-mail messages delivered this year. Experts know this because there were 30 trillion spam messages last year. With this much hay in the stack, it's hard to find those message needles, and that's why some smart companies are looking beyond public e-mail.

It's official: The next version of Windows will be called (drumroll, please) ... "Windows 7!"

Microsoft has kindly extended its XP "downgrade" program for OEMs by another six months. Rather than appreciating the extension, some people have chosen to mock Microsoft and call for the curtain to close on Windows Vista once and for all.

Motivated to help the environment as well as their businesses, SMBs are increasingly embracing green practices. One of their primary approaches: employing green technology, according to recently released survey results from KRC Research.

Now that I know for certain I'll be receiving a pre-beta build of Windows 7 at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in November, it's time to start thinking about some of the performance-related characteristics I'll be looking for in the new OS.

The world's richest and most powerful 10-year-old says it can handle far more of your technology needs than you think. Google started almost exactly 10 years ago, and it is making big noise about invigorated Apps and some Googlers called to tell me about the improvements.

Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, Siegfried and Roy, Gates and Seinfeld. Years from now, they will be remembered as the some of the great comic duos of all time.

It's hardly news these days when RHEL or Suse Linux boots Windows or Unix off a server. And we know that commercial software vendors are paying plenty of attention to commercial open source.

The IT world has a certain level of craziness that is remarkable, and nowhere does it show up more than in how various companies market their products. I have all sorts of examples to illustrate this, but given that I have limited space I'm going to concentrate on what I consider to be the 800-pound gorilla of marketing crazy: Microsoft.