Schmidt to chair influential think-tank

AS if he didn’t have enough influence as influence as CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the world, Google’s Eric Schmidt has been elected to chair an influential Washington politico/economic think tank.

Mr Schmidt was elected this week as chairman of the New America Foundation’s board of directors. The foundation bills itself as non-alligned politically and says it invests “in outstanding individuals and policy solutions that transcend the conventional political spectrum.”

He takes over the unpaid position from July 1, and is understood to be planning to focus on evolving a “digital think tank” model that will use new technologies to improve the Foundation's reach.

Mr Schmidt’s election follows the arrival last September of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll as the president and chief executive of New America, which has a $13.5 million annual budget, 75 staff members and 25 fellows. The group's policy issues also include economic growth, foreign policy and trade, among others.

The think tank has supported using unused and unlicensed television airwaves to transmit high-speed Internet service as well opening up some airwaves in a spectrum auction that would allow consumers use any cell phone or service they want on the resulting network. Google supports both initiatives.

The 17-member board also includes Francis Fukuyama, the noted economics professor with the Johns Hopkins University, Bernard Schwartz, former chairman and chief executive of satellite maker Loral Space & Communications, and Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek.

For more Digital Content news, click here.

Google ramps email security services

SEARCH giant Google has unveiled a new suite of security tools for protecting email from spam and related problems, technology it acquired when it acquired internet firm Postini last year.

The so-called Powered by Postini security products deliver message filtering, encryption and archiving for business, and works with any mail system, including Notes, Exchange, and Novell Groupwise.

Pricing for the Powered by Postini services start at US$3 (A$3.35) per user per year, although a premium service that includes filtering, security and archiving costs US$25 per user per year.

“As threats rise in volume and complexity, and compliance requirements pile up, IT is struggling to find the resources to keep up,” said Google director of product management Scott Petry.

“Now, Google can take care of this for you. Organisations of all shapes and sizes can get access to Google's industry leading security and compliance technologies,” Mr Petry said.

The Powered by Postini security products are the latest addition to Google Apps platform, which includes email, word processing, spreadsheets and personal information managers.

These online applications have become the latest industry battleground for the hearts and minds – if not their dollars – of customers. The threat of internet-based apps is one of the keys behind Microsoft’s massive bid for Google’s online rival Yahoo!

For more IT Security news, click here.



For more Web Applications news, click here.

SonyEricsson ramps download service

MOBILE phone giant SonyEricsson has signed distribution deals with ten major record labels, boosting the number of tracks available through its mobile download service to more than five million.

The company announced at the MIDEM conference in Cannes its strategic plans for the PlayNow arena operated by the company.

The partnerships with 10 of the largest international and regional record labels included Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, EMI, The Orchard, IODA, The PocketGroup, Hungama, X5 Music, Bonnier Amigo and VidZone.

Sony Ericsson is currently negotiating further deals with a host of regional labels to further broaden the variety of music available and bring more localised content direct to the consumer.

The PlayNow service was launched in February 2004 as the easiest way to pre-listen and then purchase polyphonic ringtones directly to your phone. Since launch, the scope of the service has expanded to include MP3 ringtones, games, full music tracks, themes and wallpapers.

The service has proved a hit with consumers and is now available in 32 countries around the world, with annual free and premium having reached more than 200 million.

For more Digital Content news, click here.



For more Telecommunications news, click here.

Firefox grabs more IE marketshare

MOZILLA’S open source browser Firefox has taken another big chunk of marketshare from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, according to the latest report from French research group XiTiMonitor.

The report says Firefox’ share of the Europe market climbed 5 per cent in the 12 months to December, giving it 28 per cent of the overall browser market.

In Oceania, which includes Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, Firefox performance is even stronger, claiming 31.1 per cent of the browser market – up from 29.7 per cent in November.

By region, internet users in Oceania are more likely to use Firefox than any other region. The 31.1 per cent Firefox market share in Oceania compared to the Mozilla browser’s 21 per cent in North America, 20.2 per cent in South America and 16.5 per cent in Asia.

For a single country market, Finland leads the world in Firefox users, with more than 45 per cent of the market.

Firefox’ growth in market share has come at the expense of Internet Explorer – which is still the commanding market leader at 66.9 per cent.

More interesting is the successful upgrade conversion rate of Firefox compared to Internet Explorer. Less than half of Internet Explorer site visits are performed with the latest version of the browser, while 93 per cent of all Firefox visits are done with Firefox 2, the latest version.

For more Web Applications news, click here.



For more Business Software news, click here.

Oracle buys Web apps specialist

BUSINESS software Goliath Oracle has acquired a Dutch software vendor Mobiforce, which specialises in monitoring the availability and performance of web applications.

Oracle said Moniforce’s technology was expected to strengthen its Enterprise Manager suite that lets application administrators to proactively detect and resolve end-user experience and application logic issues.

Moniforce boasts customer spanning key industries, including financial , retail, and government. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“The transaction underscores Oracle's strategy of lowering total cost of ownership and delivering higher quality of service for customers running packaged or custom applications in Oracle or non-Oracle environments,” said Oracle Product Development executive vice-president Chuck Rozwat.

Moniforce chief executive Willem-Jan Scholten said real end-user information was essential for improving application usage and business performance – and for lowering total cost of ownership.

“We're proud to become part of the world's largest enterprise software company and look forward to delivering solutions that maximise our customers' return on their application investments by ensuring the highest end-user satisfaction.” Mr Scholten said.

For more Business Software news, click here.

Yahoo settles over China dissident

WEB pioneer Yahoo has settled a lawsuit in the US that had accused the company of helping authorities in China to jail and torture two political dissidents.

The World Organisation for Human Rights USA, which had assisted in legal action agianst Yahoo in California over complicity in “major human rights buses in China”, said in a statement that the company had settled out of court.

The case had generated a growing public backlash, making the company the subject of intense political pressure from the US congress in the past weeks.

Details of the settlement have been kept private, but are thought to include a commitment from Yahoo to provide financial support to the families of the jailed men; to help secure the release of the men; and to reconsider the way it handles certain requests for information from authorities.

“Yahoo had handed over the identifying internet user information of well-known Chinese journalist Shi Tao, and pro-democracy writer Wang Xiaoning, to Chinese authorities, who sought to punish the two men for having done nothing more than expressed their free speech rights – rights that are, ironically, recognised under the Chinese constitution,” Human Rights USA said in the statement.

“As a result of Yahoo's cooperation with Chinese authorities, the two men were subjected to arbitrary arrest, long-term detention, abuse, and torture while imprisoned in China,” the statement read.

“Both men are serving 10-year sentences under the highly dubious charges of ‘subversion of state power’ and ‘sharing state secrets’ – vague charges whose underlying purpose is to detain individuals who make statements unfavourable to the Chinese government.”

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Google-DoubleClick deal sweet: ACCC

THE Australian competition watchdog says Google’s planned US$3.1 billion (A$3.4 billion) acquisition of online advertising specialist DoubleClick will not have an adverse impact on the market.

After a months-long investigation, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel said he would not intervene in the proposed acquisition.

“A key focus of the ACCC's investigation was whether the combination of Google's network of website publishers and DoubleClick's ad serving capabilities would enable the merged entity to increase the cost of ad serving to website publishers and advertisers,” Mr Samuel said.

“In reaching its decision, the ACCC noted that Google and DoubleClick are not close competitors in the provision of ad serving. In addition, the ACCC also took into account the presence of other competitors in this market that would be likely to constrain the merged entity post-merger,” he said.

“In this context, the ACCC considered that the merger was unlikely to result in a substantial lessening of competition in an Australian market.”

The Google-DoubleClick deal is being closely scrutinised by regulators in the US. Competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo say the acquisition will give Google too much power in the advertising market and will have an adverse affect on consumers.

The ACCC is continuing a separate investigation of Google’s AdWords product amid concerns the company contravenes the Trade Practices Act.

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Baidu doubles profit, dominates China

HOME-grown Chinese search engine Baidu.com has doubled third quarter profits on strong traffic growth that continued to outstrip search leader Google’s efforts in China.

Baidu.com reported profits of 181.7 million Yuan (A$26.6 million), more than double the 85.3 million Yuan for the year ago quarter. Revenue also more than doubled, from 237.6 million Yuan a year ago to 486.5 million.

“During the third quarter, we saw solid revenue and earnings growth driven by an increase in user traffic and active online customers,” said Baidu chairman and chief executive officer Robin Li.

“Our results reflect the scalability of our pay for performance (P4P) business model and demonstrate our growing reputation as the Chinese language search provider of choice,” Mr Li said.

“We also saw strong uptake of our community-based products and entertainment platforms, which we continued to enhance and expand over the third quarter to serve the evolving needs of our users. While we maintain our focus on our core search business, we also continue to launch new products and services that leverage our strengths and high user traffic.”

Baidu chief financial officer Shawn Wang said the Chinese search market was still in its early stages of development and Baidu would continue to invest in market growth.

“Looking forward, we will continue to enhance our product offerings, invest in key business segments and improve the overall user experience, as well as explore strategic partnerships that bring value to our users,” Mr Wang said.

Baidu boasts 60.5 per cent of the search market in China, up from 57.6 per cent in the previous quarter according to Analysys International.

Google is the second placed search provider with 23.7 per cent of the market, up from 21 per cent.

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Microsoft moves Office toward SaaS

MICROSOFT has moved to counter the threat from Google to its Office franchise, moving the first elements of the productivity software using the software as a service (SaaS) model.

The company has laid out new plans for its online services that combine elements of client-based programs with software that runs large servers and new services delivered over the internet.

The new strategy represents a radical first step in overhauling the Microsoft business, and is seen as a direct response to the growing threat of Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets SaaS offerings.

The new Microsoft Office Live Workspace is a Web component of its Microsoft Office desktop productivity software suite that lets user store, share and comment on documents, but its stops short of letting users create new documents through the internet.

The Microsoft Office Live Workspace is not yet ‘live’, though from this week users are ale to sign up as beta users of the new service.

The site gives users 250Mb of storage space, and the site can be used to email friends or colleagues inviting them to read and comment on documents. But to make editing changes, the users must still have a registered and installed copy of the Office package.

Microsoft will deliver a variety of new solutions during the coming months under two key families of service offerings: “Live” and “Online.”

“Live” services from Microsoft are designed primarily for individuals, business end-users and virtual work groups. Live offerings span entertainment, communication and productivity. These services emphasise ease of use, simplicity of access and flexibility, and are ideally suited for situations where people either don’t have access to professional technical expertise or don’t require high levels of system management.

“Online” services are for organisations with more advanced IT needs where power and flexibility are critical.

Online services from Microsoft give businesses the ability to control access to data, manage users, apply business and compliance policy, and meet high availability standards while providing performance, scalability, enhanced security, management features and service-level capabilities to support mission-critical applications and systems.

Microsoft is providing business customers with the flexibility to choose between traditional on-premise implementations, services hosted by Microsoft partners and now Online services that reside in Microsoft’s data centres

“This new era of connected computing is about empowering people and businesses to balance the power of the Internet with the rich interactivity and high performance of client and server software,” said Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes.

“With today’s announcements, we are taking a significant step forward by combining our deep client and server software experience with our strong commitment to delivering flexible services offerings for our wide variety of customers and their unique needs.”

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Microsoft moves Office toward SaaS

MICROSOFT has moved to counter the threat from Google to its Office franchise, moving the first elements of the productivity software using the software as a service (SaaS) model.

The company has laid out new plans for its online services that combine elements of client-based programs with software that runs large servers and new services delivered over the internet.

The new strategy represents a radical first step in overhauling the Microsoft business, and is seen as a direct response to the growing threat of Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets SaaS offerings.

The new Microsoft Office Live Workspace is a Web component of its Microsoft Office desktop productivity software suite that lets user store, share and comment on documents, but its stops short of letting users create new documents through the internet.

The Microsoft Office Live Workspace is not yet ‘live’, though from this week users are ale to sign up as beta users of the new service.

The site gives users 250Mb of storage space, and the site can be used to email friends or colleagues inviting them to read and comment on documents. But to make editing changes, the users must still have a registered and installed copy of the Office package.

Microsoft will deliver a variety of new solutions during the coming months under two key families of service offerings: “Live” and “Online.”

“Live” services from Microsoft are designed primarily for individuals, business end-users and virtual work groups. Live offerings span entertainment, communication and productivity. These services emphasise ease of use, simplicity of access and flexibility, and are ideally suited for situations where people either don’t have access to professional technical expertise or don’t require high levels of system management.

“Online” services are for organisations with more advanced IT needs where power and flexibility are critical.

Online services from Microsoft give businesses the ability to control access to data, manage users, apply business and compliance policy, and meet high availability standards while providing performance, scalability, enhanced security, management features and service-level capabilities to support mission-critical applications and systems.

Microsoft is providing business customers with the flexibility to choose between traditional on-premise implementations, services hosted by Microsoft partners and now Online services that reside in Microsoft’s data centres

“This new era of connected computing is about empowering people and businesses to balance the power of the Internet with the rich interactivity and high performance of client and server software,” said Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes.

“With today’s announcements, we are taking a significant step forward by combining our deep client and server software experience with our strong commitment to delivering flexible services offerings for our wide variety of customers and their unique needs.”

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Tiny Wikia to take on Google

WIKIPEDIA founder Jimmy Wales has moved to challenge traditional search giants like Google with an open source model that returns the balance power in the industry to the publisher.

Speaking at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) conference in the US, Wales announced that Wikia has acquired Grub, the original visionary distributed search project, from LookSmart and released it under an open source license for the first time in four years.

Grub operates under a model of users donating their personal computing resources towards a common goal, and is available today for download and testing at grub.org

Wales said the project had already received huge support from business.

“The desire to collaborate and support a transparent and open platform for search is clearly deeply exciting to both open source and businesses,” Mr Wales said.

“We’ve had a tremendous response from very interesting commercial players in the search space,” he said.

“Look for other exciting announcements in the coming months as we collectively work to free the judgment of information from invisible rules inside an algorithmic black box.”

Grub, now open source, is designed with modularity so that developers can quickly and easily extend and add functionality, improving the quality and performance of the entire system.

By combining Grub, which is building a massive, distributed user-contributed processing network, with the power of a wiki to form social consensus, the open source Search Wikia project has taken the next major step towards a future where search is open and transparent.

“In looking at the overarching industry, it has become clear that open is the business model of the future,” said LookSmart senior vice-president and CTO Michael Grubb.

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Second Life bans in-world gambling

THE user-generated Second Life has banned gambling from its in-world locations, with the virtual world’s developers Linden Labs taking a conservative approach to complying with real-world laws.

Linden Labs marketing manager Robin Harper said the company had introduced new rules the outlaw gambling, either as games that rely on chance or in wagering on real-world events.

Because Second Life has users from all over the world, logging in from places with vastly different gambling laws, Ms Harper said Linden Labs would take to conservative would to legal compliance.

“While Linden Lab does not offer an online gambling service, Linden Lab and Second Life Residents must comply with state and federal laws applicable to regulated online gambling, even when both operators and players of the games reside outside of the US,” Ms Harper said in a post on the official Second Life blog.

“And, because there are a variety of conflicting gambling regulations around the world we have chosen to restrict gambling in Second Life as described in a revised policy which is posted in the Knowledge Base under ‘Policy Regarding Wagering in Second Life’, she said.

The gambling ban includes casino type games like blackjack, poker, routlette and poker machines.

The ban has already generated lively discussion on the Second Life chatrooms, with many users unhappy at the encroaching rules.

Linden Labs says adherence with real-world laws have always been a central component of the Second Life terms and conditions for users.

For more Digital Content news, click here.

Microsoft dips toe in the Saas waters

MICROSOFT has launched its Office 2007 productivity suite as a subscription package in South Africa in a move interpreted as a growing acceptance of the software-as-a-service (Saas) model.

The company plans to charge users a A$33 (R199) subscription fee for three months, with users able to top up as they go.

The service is based on a mobile phone pre-paid system and will only be available on new computers.

The company said the model would make its Office software more affordable to users in emerging markets like South Africa.

Microsoft said the service would also be launched in Romania this month, though there is no word yet whether it will be rolled-out to the emerging market giants of Brazil, Russia, India and China (which with South Africa are known collectively as BRICS.)

“We need to think differently in order to address the needs of the next five billion users of computers and how we can make technology accessible to them,” Microsoft South Africa executive Cyril Belikof said in a statement.

The company says the Saas model would make its software more affordable to students, home users and small business who might not have otherwise been able to afford the one-off payment for the off-the-shelf package.

For more Business Software news, click here.

Google targets SMEs with custom search

IN another move targeting the massive small and medium-sized business markets, search giant Google has launched a special custom search service that lets businesses use Google to search inside their own sites.

Called Custom Search Engine Business Edition, the service offers the same custom search facility available for end-user consumers, but delivers no ads and lets each business ad cusomised enhancements like e-commerce functions.

Google said it would charge businesses $100 per year for an entry-level offering that would let users search through up to 5,000. Larger web sites would pay $500 for a search capability of up to 50,000 pages.

Google already offers custom search for businesses, but through a high-performance hybrid hardware/software solution – and priced in the thousands of dollars.

The existing custom search offerings have been targeted at the large businesses and corporations, where its new software-only search is squarely focused on the mass-market small business opportunity.

The Custom Search Engine Business Edition includes an XML-based application programming interface (API) that lets customers customise the service – like tailoring the results page to include a company logo rather than Google’s. The API also lets tailored e-commerce solutions to be built into the search results page.


For more Web Applications news, click here.

Google tightens cookie controls

DOMINANT search provider Google has announced plans to tighten its privacy policies, reducing the life-span of ‘cookies’ it users to track which sites users’ visit.

Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said the company would now program its cookies to expire after two years for a user that does not return to the Google search site.

The announcement is seen as a pre-emptive move as privacy advocates in the US continue to push Federal regulators for more stringent controls over the way online companies deal with personal information.

The company already promised recently that it would “anonymise” search server logs – including IP addresses and cookie ID numbers – after 18 months.

“We are committed to an ongoing process to improve our privacy practices, and have recently taken a closer look at the question of cookie privacy,” Mr Fleischer said.

A cookie is a small file that gets stored on the users’ computer when they visit a search site. The cookie reminds the search engine of the preferences the user sought the last time they visited the site. All search engines and most web sites use cookies.

The preferences let Google and other search engines remember basics, such as the user wanting search results delivered in English language, or that they only want ten results per page.

“After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we've concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies — as long as we could find a way to do so without artificially forcing users to re-enter their basic preferences at arbitrary points in time,” Mr Fleischer said.

“And this is why we’re announcing a new cookie policy.”

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Google acquires online security specialist

IN a move that bolsters its claim to the enterprise software application market, search giant Google has acquired US-based online security and compliance specialist Postini for US$625 million (A$725 million) in cash.

With more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users globally, Postini’s services include message security, archiving, encryption and policy enforcement and can be used to protect a company’s email, instant messaging and other web-based communications.

“With this transaction, we're reinforcing our commitment to delivering compelling hosted applications to businesses of all sizes,” Google chairman and chief executive Eric Schmidt said.

“With the addition of Postini, our apps are not just simple and appealing to users – they can also streamline the complex information security mandates within these organizations,” he said.

Under the terms of the agreement, Postini will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Google and while the agreement is subject to the usual closing conditions, it is expected to close by the end of the third quarter.

The Postini acquisition is all about enterprise customers, and Google continues to spruik its hosted applications as the future of enterprise productivity and communications applications.

Google Apps, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs & Spreadsheets, and Personal Start Page, has been adopted by more than 100,000 businesses already, the company says.

Google corporate vice-president and Google Enterprise general manager Dave Girouard – who was a keynote speaker at CeBIT Australia in May – says more than 1,000 small businesses signed up for the Google Apps service every day.

“At the same time, large businesses have been reluctant to move to hosted applications due to issues of security and corporate compliance,” Mr Girouard said.

“By adding Postini products to Google's technology, businesses no longer have to choose – employees get the intuitive products they want, and the company achieves the security and assurance it needs,” he said.

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Carriers to in on Net Neutrality: IDC

RESEARCH group IDC predicts that regulation in the US around Net Neutrality will be decided in favour of facilities-based broadband service providers.

But unlike other analysis of the net neutrality issue, IDC says regulatory decisions that favour the carriers initially will ultimately benefit the large scale internet incumbents like Google and eBay – the very companies that have campaigned heavily against net neutrality regulation.

The net neutrality debate in the US has been closely watched by regulators and policy-makers in Australia.

At the heart of the debate, according to IDC, is the issue of control and “monetization” of broadband networks by the facilities-based carriers. The explosion in the use of video over the internet has changed industry dynamics.

IDC forecasts that the consumer-generated IP traffic in the US will be three-times heavier in 2011 than it is today. The magnitude of the growth in traffic signals an “obvious and critical” need for broadband network upgrades.

IDC says aggressive versions of net neutrality regulation would dampen this upgrading effort as facilities-based providers would be prevented from building networks that offer new services requiring higher speeds or quality of service (QoS).

Net neutrality proponents like Google probably already realise quality of service (QoS) is essential to the delivery of new services and may quietly modify their position and join the network prioritisation environment they currently oppose.

“Google will likely maintain a public-facing resistance to network control in the short term, but should be making behind the scenes plans to act quickly when the matter is settled and the opportunity materialises,” said IDC Consumer Multiplay Services program director Matt Davis.

"Being caught flat-footed when a game-changing development occurs makes disruption from smaller, hungrier players willing to deal with facilities-based providers much more likely,” Mr Davis said.
For more Web Applications news, click here.

Google, utterly dominant, still growing

SEARCH giant Google not only completely dominates the global search market – commanding nine out of ten searches – but is still growing its market share, according to online metrics specialist XitiMonitor.

According to XitiMonitor' monthly search barometer, Google accounted for 89.53 per cent of all search-generated visits in June 2007, up from 89.33 per cent (up 0.21 per cent) from May.

And Google's market share had grown by 3.7 per cent compared to the year-ago search barometer in June 2006.

The four other principal search engines have all seen their market share decline.
Number Two search engine has been the biggest loser in the past year, losing 1.25 percentage points to 3.21 per cent of the market.

Microsoft search fell year on year, but is the only other Top Five search engines to grow its market share between May and June. Microsoft commands 2.3 per cent of the market.

Other Top Five search engines were Orange and Free.

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Google loses battle for German Gmail

A DAVID and Goliath story with a technology flavour has played out in a Hamburg court, with search giant Google losing a legal battle to win the right to use the brand "Gmail" for its online mail service in Germany.

A regional court in the northern city of Hamburg upheld a claim by a local businessman who said he had been using the name “G-Mail” for an electronic mail service he had been developing since 2000 – years before Google launched its hugely popular global mail service.

The court said Google may not use the Gmail brand in Germany. Google had sued the entrepreneur in an effort to have him stop using the name.

It is not yet clear whether Google will appeal the decision, which culminated a three year legal battle. The entrepreneur also has suits pending against him in Switzerland, Portugal and Spain.

For more Web Applications news, click here.

Surging Firefox growth challenges IE

OPEN Source browser Firefox usage has continued to surge globally, jumping more than 17 per cent in Australia/New Zealand, and more than 15 per cent in Europe.

New research from internet monitoring firm XitiMonitor demonstrates Firefox is now entrenched as a mainstream browser, taking a market share of close to 30 per cent in Europe and Oceania, and more than 15 per cent in South America.

XitiMonitor found that Oceania, the region made up of Australia/New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, was Firefox' fastest growing region.

XitiMonitor found Firefox was used by 28.9 per cent of Oceania internet users in the July survey, compared to 24.8 per cent of users its March survey.

Firefox growth in Europe jumped to 27.8 per cent in July from 24.1 per cent in March, while North America continued its strong momentum in Firefox take-up, growing to 18 per cent in July market share from 15.1 per cent in March.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still the clear browser market leader, but continues to lose ground to the open source competitor. In Europe, Xiti found IE market share dropped from 73.3 per cent in to 66.5 per cent in the year from July 2006 to July 2007.

The Opera browser, also an open source system, is the third placed browser with 3.5 per cent, far behind second-placed Firefox.

For more Business Software news, click here.