1. Bing
The most popular thing to do on the Internet is to use a search engine. Bing has actually come out of the gate to some strong market share, and with some innovative tie-ins such as offering search features on news sites. According to Nielsen, Bing continues to grow, taking 11.5 per cent of all U.S. searches. Google still wins with 69.97 percent of all U.S. search traffic.
2. Microsoft Office
While Open Office and Google Docs try, and in many cases succeed, nothing has yet supplanted Microsoft Office as the best Office suite ever. Microsoft Office is a combination of desktop applications, servers and services for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. The Microsoft Office package includes Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Access and number of other programs to make business life easier.
According to Office Watch, 500 million people around the world use Microsoft Office, from July 2008- 2009 Office 2007 had a 92% increase year over year growth trials and Office 2007 Home and Student Editions have been the top sellers for PC software for the past two years.
3. Philanthropy
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing some amazing things. It is the biggest private foundation in the world. The main focuses of the foundation are to globally enhance health care, reduce poverty, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in America.
It is one of the leaders in the philanthrocapitalism revolution in global philanthropy due to the way it uses business skills. Some projects that the foundation are doing are Kangaroo Mother Care, which gives special treatment to underweight and premature babies, improving water, hygiene and sanitation in Third World countries and improving agricultural development.
4. Burying Internet Explorer 6
Microsoft held a mock funeral for IE6, something that won the hearts of most of the geeks on the intertubes. Internet 6 had been around from August 27, 2001 until March 1, 2010. The funereal was on March 4, 2010 in Denver, Co and more than 100 people attended, most Microsoft employees and friends.
5. Windows 7
Yes, it is very much like a Mac OS, but the people still love it because of its huge improvements over previous Windows operating systems. Windows 7 allows you to re-size and arrange windows by simply dragging the borders to the edges of the screen. From there it will expand to full screen and back. you can also arrange two windows side by side.The Live Taskbar Preview allows you to manage opened programs easily by showing a thumbnail preview of open windows.
The search option allows you to instantly locate and open any file on your PC from the Start menu, such as documents, media and emails. Jump Lists keep the most recent things you have opened, such as a website or a file, ready to be used. So far the feedback from Windows 7 users is positive. According to a survey conducted by Forrester Research in late December 2009, 86 per cent of Windows 7 users were satisfied compared to 74 per cent of all Windows users in the sample.
Source: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Windows 7, Bing, IE6Funeral, Flickr, Nielsen Wire
If selling more software $ is their goal, they have succeded. However, if worldwide efficiency and speed is their goal, they have failed and the current offering truely does suck. They have wrecked MS Access 2003 with their silly ribbon and lousy table / query / report / macro navigation.