So what now is the general view of Windows Vista after a month or so in the real world?

After scouring various sites and outlets, the comments in the Wall Street Journal by Walter S. Mossberg struck me as closest to reality :

“Vista is much prettier than previous versions of Windows. Its icons look better, windows have translucent borders, and items in the taskbar and in folders can display little previews of what they contain. Security is supposedly vastly better …”

However, it’s not as radical as once promised :

“After months of testing Vista on multiple computers, new and old, I believe it is the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced. However, while navigation has been improved, Vista isn’t a breakthrough in ease of use. Overall, it works pretty much the same way as Windows XP. Windows hasn’t been given nearly as radical an overhaul as Microsoft just applied to its other big product, Office.”

We know of course that much of the new engine was removed in the panic-fuelled rewrite of the code in 2004, especially in the file handling department. Also :

“There are some big downsides to this new version of Windows. To get the full benefits of Vista, especially the new look and user interface, which is called Aero, you will need a hefty new computer, or a hefty one that you purchased fairly recently.”

So, a bit disappointing and still slightly out of reach for most folk in the market for a new computer.

We hear that the first System Pack upgrade is just around the corner. Same old, same old from Microsoft it seems.

Google’s announcement of an Office 2007 killer in the form of Google Apps Premier, its subscription package of premium, business applications hosted online, put Microsoft on the back foot today.

For $50 (£26) a year per user, Google Apps Premier Edition will offer business customers a number of web-based applications including email, word processor and spreadsheet. It will compete with Microsoft Office’s desktop-based Word and Excel.

A Microsoft spokesman downplayed the launch, claiming online services such as Google’s are “not alone in altering today’s technology industry. Productivity applications represent a very competitive space in which more than 450 million users around the world have consistently chosen Microsoft.”

The Times (London) reports : “Microsoft’s Business Division, which includes Office, accounted for $3.5 billion of the group’s revenues of $12.5 billion in the latest reported quarter, making it the largest source of sales. However, industry insiders say that Google has been quietly preparing for months to tap Microsoft’s cash-cow. Keen to supplement its lucrative search business, Google has built massive data-storage plants, thought to be years ahead of those so far developed by Microsoft and IBM.”

This “cloud” is now being used to host both software and data, while the internet becomes ever more the operating system.

Tom Austin, of Gartner, the technology analysts, said: “This constitutes a real threat to Microsoft’s business model. Eventually, it will have to switch from limited-use licences to software as a service. That will require a fundamental reengineering.”

Despite investing heavily in Office 2007, which was released earlier this month and which, like its predecessors, is anchored firmly to the PC, Microsoft has earmarked $2 billion to develop its own data centres.

The company added that it is now partnering other businesses “to capitalise on emerging services, such as advertising-based software, subscription or on-demand software”.

Most of the Premier Edition components are already available free. “From today, for the first time, it will charge for “white label” tools that carry its customers’ brands, so that e-mail addresses can be in the name of the client company.”

Microsoft unveils Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 and Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2007, much to the delight of accounting fraternity. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant is offering Accounting Express for free and promoting it via a slick new Web site, ideawins.com. I just wonder what the other accounting software vendors think about this.

For VARs, Microsoft has set up another Web site, oapipeline.com, to help them drive sales of Office Accounting products by promoting other Microsoft products that can be combined with the accounting software to form larger solutions.

Accounting Express is limited but is no toy. Microsoft combined both products into a single install, so users only need to add a key to activate the Professional trial version. Accounting Professional is priced at $149, and the full activation key will be available early in 2007. Upgrading from Microsoft Small Business Accounting 2006 is $99. Express users will be able to activate the full Professional version as well from their install without having to download new software.

According to office12watch, Microsoft has warned its Office 2007 beta users to be ready on a big flood of email coming their way. Microsoft in partnership with Waggener Edstrom will release a new weekly e-mail newsletter to keep users updated on its impending full release. Ho hum..Yes. We are eagerly awaiting Office 2007 and Vista to clean out our pockets. Please tell keep us informed as we are Microsoft Zombies.