I don’t use my Pocket PC much at all anymore. I really should sell it. But, I still like to play PDAmill’s Mahjong on it from time to time. And, it still holds several unread e-books in Microsoft Reader format, and I really should read them … most are good books.

But, if I really wanted to, I could find a good Mahjong game for my iPhone and iPad. And, I could read the Microsoft Reader e-books on my Windows-based laptop. (It is pretty much going unused, too, though … I have to remember to turn it on for a while every couple of weeks to keep it from just dying of non-use.)

The Pocket PC feature that I can’t replace, though, is the handwriting capability. Microsoft’s handwriting recognition software is really pretty neat. Often I would just pick the Axim up, open an empty notepad, and just begin writing — just for the therapy. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, though … now I just grab a legal pad or steno notebook and begin brain dumping. But, for a few years, I preferred to use a Pocket PC for that.

Technology comes and technology goes. In its day, the Pocket PC was every bit as innovative as the iPhone. Maybe more so. But, it was marketed more for geeks and never really caught on with the masses. That just goes to show that it’s important to keep in mind who you are selling to, and to ensure you are really marketing to the audience you want to capture.

Do you still have a Pocket PC?

And now, surprisingly, Tim O’Reilly announces that O’Reilly Media and Microsoft Press have a strategic partnership. It’s good to see the Microsoft books come under the stewardship of O’Reilly, and I am especially pleased that Microsoft agreed to make Microsoft Press e-books DRM-free. That is huge!

Anyway, since several of you are into web development, I thought this would be of interest to you.

For those of you who are interested in why and how businesses can decline and be taken over by competitors, Gruber’s article is a pretty good read. He put a lot of thought and research into it.

But, regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions, I’d like to hear from you on what you think are the key lessons that executives should take away from the article? For that matter, what are some lessons any of us can take away from the article?

I’ll share my thoughts on it in a few days via a separate article, but would really like to hear your thoughts on it.

Those are great examples of the benefits of competition between Microsoft and Google, and there are even more examples. Another really huge example is Microsoft’s relaunch of its search service as Bing. I have been using this as my default search engine for the past two weeks, and have only had to go to Google a few times to find what I was looking for. Bing is doing a really good job and some of the qualitative tests I have done suggest that it is improving almost daily.

And then there is a new product from Microsoft called BingTweets, which integrates Bing with a search of the real-time information stream from Twitter. Here is a snapshot that I took of it last week:

It’s a pretty neat service. Still in beta, but definitely offering some promise for integrating classic search and real-time search.There is a huge future in real-time search, and tying into Twitter makes a lot of sense. For example, I actually learned of Michael Jackson’s death via Twitter even before it was announced on CNN. Twitter is truly real-time and it is often possible to see trends developing in it before they show up in the more classic media.

Another good product that has come out of competition between Google and Microsoft is Google’s Chrome Browser. It is an extremely fast browser that renders web pages very well. The Windows version is pretty full-featured and is gaining market share: 5 percent of the people who visit Keener Living are using Chrome.

The Mac version is also starting to take shape. My main complaint with it is that it lacks a bookmarks manager:

Once Chrome for Mac has a bookmarks manager, I may just it make it my default browser.

Competition is great. Google Docs will get better because of Microsoft Office 2010, and Microsoft Office will get better because of Google Docs, and so on. And we are the beneficiaries.

As you can see from the snapshot, the video on the right did not load when I first tried the web site. But, after a few attempts, it did load.

And, the invitation to participate in the Technical Preview program (the link at the top right of the page) did not work for me until about the 10th try. (It seems to be more consistent at loading correctly now.)

But, I think it is worthwhile to persist beyond these little rough spots in the rollout to get a good description of the program. I love competition, and it is good to see Microsoft entering the online office competition with Google and Zoho.

From the Microsoft press package:

Office 2010 and related products will deliver innovative capabilities and provide new levels of flexibility and choice that will help people:

- Work anywhere with Office Web applications — the lightweight Web browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote — that provide access to documents from virtually anywhere and preserve the look and feel of a document regardless of device.

- Collaborate better with co-authoring in Microsoft Word 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 and Microsoft OneNote 2010, and advanced e-mail management and calendaring capabilities in Microsoft Outlook 2010, including the option for users to ”ignore” unwanted threads.

- Bring ideas to life with video and picture editing, broadcast capability in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, easy document preparation through the new Microsoft Office Backstage view, and new Sparklines in Microsoft Excel 2010 to visualize data and spot trends more quickly.

Microsoft also announced that it is streamlining the number of Office editions from eight to five and enhancing each edition with additional applications and features. The company also announced that Office Web applications will be available in three ways: through Windows Live, where more than 400 million consumers will have access to Office Web applications at no cost; on-premises for all Office volume licensing customers including more than 90 million Office annuity customers; and via Microsoft Online Services, where customers will be able to purchase a subscription as part of a hosted offering.

Note that the free (ad-supported), online versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are not yet available, and I have not found a firm release date for them yet. I also do not know if access to them will be available to technical previewers or not.

I’ve signed up for the technical preview. No telling if I will be approved or not, but I hope I will be … I’d really like to see this new offering in action.

Thoughts?