We all know Google is the king of Internet search engines. Obviously, some may not agree, and they may be right - I didn't say that Google is the best all-around search engine, I simply said Google is the king, and sometimes a king doesn't have to be the best all-around performer. For now, Google is best thing we have...but it seems its Chinese counterpart, Baidu, started to expand and challenge Google on foreign territory (Baidu is the most used search engine in China already), heating up things a bit...

In the US, things are written in stone: there's Google, then comes Yahoo, then simply "the others". Although some smaller search engines are very good for specific areas of interest, Google is "the king", as I was saying. In Europe, things aren't much different, the only differences being in the "others" area, but we won't talk about that. The burning issue for both Yahoo and Google is Asia, where things don't look so simple...

Let's leave China behind, because things are clear there. Just look at the graphic above, and you'll understand. In Japan, Google also has some problems, since in the last 7 years, the leading search engine was Yahoo, with over 43 million users, while Google only had about 28 million, gaining second place.

According to various reports, it seems Baidu isn't playing a clean game, as long as it was revealed that some users ended up on that site through the help of an IP address redirection from... you got it, Google!

Well, we need to wait and see how things are going to evolve, as long as Baidu Japan's division chief Masuda Jun doesn't give any relevant information when asked:"Following the formal launch of our Japan site, we expect to see even greater user reception to the four different Japanese language services we will offer, including Web search, image search, video search and blog search services.", he said today, in a public statement.

Remeber Vista? That failure not-so-good-as-expected operating system from Microsoft? Well, despite the low customer satisfaction degree, sales don't look that bad, especially since computer sales all over the world exploded, and the OEM market is clearly dominated by Microsoft, so a lot of people end up with a Vista computer, no matter how much they want it. Anyway, according to recent reports, the first service pack gets closer and closer (while the second patch for Leopard is near), and some voices also claim that Vista is "most secure". Interesting, so let's see...

First, let's talk about the "secure" part. According to Microsoft's Steve Wilson, "During Windows XP's first year, updates were released on 26 separate days.", while "Through a combination of the move to a predictable monthly release schedule, and decreased vulnerabilities, Windows Vista had updates released on just nine days in its first year. To the average security professional, this is one of the most relevant metrics: how many times did I have to activate my internal patch management process due to vendor update releases over the course of a year?"

No, Mr. Wilson, I don't think this is true. If you release less patches, that doesn't mean the system is more secure. In fact, Vista manages to be much more annoying than Windows XP, and I don't think that petition was initiated by a bunch of oldies still dreaming about CP/M...

On the other hand, let me throw one "conspiration theory" into the pot - most people using Vista are not professionals, and so those attacking the Windows platform didn't move to this OS yet, simply because breaking into a Vista computer has less chances to deliver interesting results than a Windows XP system. Well, it's just a thought, don't pin me to the wall!

I was just about to forget...the first service pack to Vista! Everyone is expecting it, especially corporate users and gamers that didn't move to Vista yet because what they heard or experienced with the new OS. What do we have for now? It's only just another Beta, without any significant improvements, especially when it comes to the performance issue on low-end PCs.

These being said, the news is...there's really no news, and if you didn't make the downgrade upgrade to Vista, you still have to wait some time until this is really an option. We'll keep you in touch with the evolution of this situation, don't worry!

Skype has a very large user base, and I am sure a lot of them were happy to use the video sharing feature. They "were happy", but now, they have to limit themselves to linking to YouTube or other sites, because Skype turned off the built-in video sharing feature for an undetermined period of time. Why? Unfortunately, the reason is a flaw that can lead to serious security problems, so until that one gets fixed, no more video sharing with your friends, co-workers or even business partners(I don't think virtual business presentations sound like something out of this world)...

Yesterday, security researchers said that the video-sharing feature in Skype allowed launching a self-copying worm attack against the program's users, which doesn't sound good at all, in my opinion. The feature disabled with this occasion allowed users to share videos from Dailymotion.com and Metacafe.com, at the same time as they were chatting with their friends, but due to the fact that this feature uses an Internet Explorer component for rendering HTML pages, attackers could easily run unauthorized software on computers using Skype's video-sharing feature.

At this time, Skype officials didn't make any comments, but Metacafe officials said that Metacafe videos should become available once again to Skype users by Wednesday morning.

Unfortunately, it seems Skype needs some serious changes to its code, because the Internet Explorer components can always have bad security settings, and I wouldn't trust using them in a thousand years.

Anyway, I am sure that a day or two without this feature won't kill anyone. If you are really addict to Skype's video sharing feature, maybe this is the right time for you to go out, get some fresh air, meet new people, stare at the sky...are you cursing me already? Well, as soon as I hear something new about this problem, be sure I'll get here and write a report!

If I would be someone in Microsoft's top management team, I wouldn't sleep well these days. Contrary to my belief, the guys at Microsoft are very confident in the future. Well, maybe they have some ace up the sleeve, but if this is true, only time shall tell. For now, let's see why analysts consider Microsoft's profit should have risen in the last quarter of 2007, data that is expected to become public this week...

Despite the global economic cool down, computer sales are speeding up in every corner of the world, and this helped Microsoft get back on track, after some concerns generated by the financial results of 2007's first quarter. Anyway, if we look a bit further into the future, we should notice that customer satisfaction offered by Vista is not as good as expected, and 2008 may not be as bright as analysts say now...

Andy Miedler, a technology analyst at Edward Jones, said "We're looking for Microsoft to continue to have positive results. Last quarter was one of the best we've seen from it in a very long time and we think the company is certainly headed in the right direction."

I am not going to give you figures regarding Microsoft's growth, because if you really are interested in those, you already know them. What I want to say is that, for now, Microsoft has to choose the direction, and also they have to think well about discontinuing Windows XP in June or not. Just as a final thought, the number of people that signed the petition to save XP is over 60,000 already...

For large companies as Microsoft, Google or Yahoo, the only chance to keep growing is to enter new markets and pursue projects completely different from what they've done so far. Obviously, this is only going to happen between certain boundaries, because I can't imagine Google producing and selling eco food, for example. Anyway, today it's not about Google, because they seem to be on the right path, and we didn't have any interesting news about them in the last weeks. This one is just as big, because Microsoft just decided to enter South Korea's Internet TV market!

Baiscally, Microsoft agreed to become partner with two South Korean companies and take advantage together of the fast-growing Internet TV market. These two companies are Daum Communications Corp, second largest Web portal in South Korea, and the local set-top box maker Celrun, according to Daum's spokeswoman, Park Hyun-Jung.

While Daum will provide content, know-how and access to a wide range of people that are already using its services, Microsoft will throw its own IPTV solutions into the pot, as well as focusing on the marketing part. At last, Celrun will come with the hardware part required for the mix to be complete.

The result? That's what remains to be seen, because at this time, only the basics of the recipe are known. If the consumers will consider this Internet TV effort to have tasty results or not, that's a bit too early to estimate, so let's leave Microsoft and their South Korean partners to cook the cake properly...