Microsoft Developing Office Suite For iPhone - Really

It’s been confirmed to Fortune by Tom Gibbons - head of Microsoft’s Specialized Devices and Applications Group - that the Big Blue will be looking to bring its Office suite to the iSlates.

“To the extent that Mac Office customers have functionality that they need in that environment, we’re actually in the process of trying to understand that now.”

With the help of the iPhone SDK, the eggheads at Big Blue will also be bringing TellMe, a voice recognition technology that they acquired last year.

So it looks like Microsoft is opening up to the idea of rapidly emerging markets, and that they’re willing to take the plunge a lot sooner than I anticipated - either way, it’s great to see big companies playing nice for a change.

Graham

Verizon Wins 700Mhz Auction, And Why That’s Not So Great

What Just happened: Just as Gizmodo, and to a lesser extent I believed, Verizon has won the auction for rights to the 700Mhz chunk of the US airwaves. The Giz has a handy guide here about why that’s important, and what it is.

Why that’s not so great: Simply put, Verizon doesn’t really change things.

When Google threw their hat into the ring, opinions were divided on whether it was purely to save face, but I thought that a Google-owned 700Mhz band would have been far more interesting.

More info after the jump>

Microsoft Lifts The Lid On Key Software… Excuse Me?

In a move of unheard of open-ness, the Big M - Microsoft - has said that it will lift the lid on some of its biggest software products.

Go ahead, read that again, I’ll wait. Done? Good.

Microsoft Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007, as well as all future versions of the same products will all be getting a healthy dollop of API (Application Program Interface).

The aim of these new developments is to allow third party applications like Nero, Blender, OpenOffice, and Photoshop to work more smoothly with Windows.

Blackberry: Quick, Plug The Internet Back In!

Whoops. Monday, Research In Motion’s Blackberry service was down all across North America as it’s users were cruelly kicked from the network.

Oddly enough, RIM let it’s bigger clients - no room for the little guy - know about the “critical severity outage” via email (am I the only one who sees the problem there?). In the email, “This is an emergency notification regarding the current BlackBerry Infrastructure outage” said Bryan Simpson, but Simpson did not say when the network would be back, or note a cause.

The outage was only a problem for North American users, and emails were starting to trickle through more than an hour after the notification arrived - if they could read it.

Archos Launches New Gear

Just to let all of my readers know, I’m off to London today to a presser by Archos. They’re launching the new ”Wifi Home Entertainment Center”, and I’ll be there talkin’ tech with those who are there, and rubbing shoulders with the world’s media.

 See you soon.

Windows And The Mobile Era

In an article for The Guardian’s Technology section, Tim Anderson has come down on Microsoft™’s (MSFT) new Windows Vista™ - like a ton of bricks.

Anderson talks to Steve Ball - the senior program manager at Microsoft™, discussing issues like glitches in sound playback.One of the main points that Anderson quotes from a user comment is that “My mobile phone can play MP3s, while I surf the web, on a call and text message; all without any glitches.” -

Microsoft™’s response? Windows has to do lots of things at once.Drawing away from the other issues and bugs in Vista™ for a moment, if you think about it, Microsoft™ actually has a good point there. One of the nails in Vista™’s audio/visual media coffin has always been that ‘Macs are better for media’, which I too believe.

But Apple’s (AAPL) Mac systems have always been designed primarily for the home user, and professionals who want to work with media. Not least, the Mac software also only has to run on one architecture - meaning that Apple designs their software packages for one platform, one set of hardware - the Mac.