It's not the endlessly customizable interface that the open-source-hungry are begging for, but Microsoft's next beta release of its next-gen browser, Internet Explorer 7, will fix problems with some popular features when it comes out some time in August. Jeremy Reimer from arstechnica notes that the design of previous releases seems "bizarre" and confirms that users won't be able to change the layout -- with "the menu bar being sandwiched between the address bar and the tab bar" -- in Beta 3 according to a recent Microsoft chat.

In a bit of rather technical mumbo-jumbo about caching behavior (why you care: it greatly increases bandwidth requirements in the Beta 2 version), developer Eric Lawrence explains some of the fixes that will be available on the IEBlog.

Last week, the developers announced the official name of the new browser would be "IE7+" or "Internet Explorer 7+" rather than tying it to the Vista moniker (as Tony says, " 'The version of IE7 in Vista' doesn't roll off the tongue as easily...")

Business Week's Burt Helm describes Google's multi-billion-dollar strategy thusly: "Provide a relevant search result for just about any esoteric, tiny piece of information. Problem is, according to SVP of product management, Jonathan Rosenberg: it hasn't worked so well offline.

The company ventured into print ads late last year, with a novel approach similar to the extremely popular AdSense program. Google Publication Ads gave advertisers the opportunity to bid on one of several small ads placed on one page in a magazine, with the hope that it would be at a discount to traditional print ad rates. Advertisers complained of poor results, however, or failed to bid on placement at all.

Helm argues that Google has trouble with all kinds of traditional media, from its attempt to index TV shows to its widely criticized Google Books project. Detlev Johnson of Search Engine Watch points out that the faithful shouldn't worry; "Eric Schmidt commented that it took several years for the successful model to crystalize online, and he is not detered from further development of offline print ad experimenting."

Can Google hack it in an offline world? Maybe they'll have to wait until Steve Ballmer's vision is realized and paper is eliminated.

Jeff Pulver says that Vonage (and, by association, Skype) shocked the world because they consider voice an application, something that you could monetize without owning the underlying network. Wall Street, however, doesn't get it. "While it is easy for analysts to try to put unaffiliated Voice over Broadband companies inside a telecom box, comparing them to a standard telecom services company that has CapEx and OpEx just doesn't compute," he writes, noting that the monies typically spent on burying lines and buying ever-more-impressive switches are instead spent on building a brand.

What's next, then? Pulver insists that TV will soon be placed over the internet protocol (TVoIP? TVIP?) thanks to the vision of "a next-gen TV broadcasting mogul whose customers pay for their own connectivity and whose content is licensed from third parties." He doesn't know who, but here are my predictions: eBay, whose radio "enterprise" just expanded today; or either Sirius or XM Satellite Radio. Whichever of these companies jumps first is certain to have a number of imitators.

But, will it make money? I think Apple's iTunes is the best example of something equally fantastic, and if the financials prove to be similar, the answer to the profit question is yes.

The general consensus on yesterday's announced partnership between Google and Dell to pre-load Google's search toolbar and homepage on Dell PCs seems to be: Google + , Microsoft - and Dell ~. According to Moors & Cabot research VP Cindy Shaw, as quoted in the New York Times, "It's a slight positive for Dell ... But it will not solve Dell's larger issues. It's not going to be what gets people to buy a Dell."

Dell's bigger issues include a major decline in profit, and no one seems to think this partnership will result in huge additional revenues for the nation's biggest PC manufacturer. Good Morning Silicon Valley puts most of the analysis in their headline regarding the deal, wondering, "How soon can we get these Google apps added to the Dell De-crapifier?", and mentioning that it's a net positive for Google in the search wars: "It's a turnkey solution for Google as well, at least when it comes to wresting control of PC users' default settings away from Microsoft." Meanwhile, Garett Rogers at Googling Google "didn't realize this was news" and hopes for Google software on every Dell sold and -- no, that's not all -- wants even more deals in the future.

For Amit Agarwal, it's not the smiley happy party it seems to be for the Google fans 'round the net. He warns glumly in a tantalizing headline that the deal is "Dangerous for Desktop Search Industry." He worries that default-setting-not-changing users will "miss the innovations from other desktop search companies" and wonders how long it is until Microsoft runs to the DOJ, as Google just did in anger over Vista's default-happy browser. Steve Bryant from Infoweek seems to agree with the general negative feelings towards Google, calling the company an "infovore."

üInsider Blogging looks at the employees blogs of our favorite companies, exposing the last legal way to get "inside information."

Bill Gates gave a keynote address at the Microsoft WinHEC today, and boy are the Microsoft Kool-Aid drinkers buzzing over it! David at the Windows Server Division Weblog is "gushing" over the newly-unveiled Beta 2 release of the Longhorn Server Manager. He says, "Each role has been redesigned to expose greater granularity in how the role services can be installed and configured," and, it turns out, even the outsiders at PC Magazine ("Microsoft makes a valiant effort to simplify the life of the busy administrator in a smaller shop-and almost succeeds") and eWeek ("we were impressed by the way that Microsoft's forthcoming refresh has progressed, inside and out") are pretty jazzed.

When it comes to security on Microsoft's internal systems, however, the message seems to be a bit less effusive. Microsoft is considering taking away admin rights from its employees, basically keeping them from installing whatever software they wish (and closing the door on the vast majority of viruses and other security risks). Dana Epp tells Microsoft to "Eat your own UAC dogfood already!" (UAC stands for User Access Control, the Vista feature that would be altered to remove employees' administrative rights) and über-insider Robert Scoble agrees: "It's time to step up and do this, no matter how painful it is."

Scoble points us to a list of reasons why to consider Microsoft for Web 2.0 development, on Web 2.0 Central. The writer admits he is drinking the Microsoft Kool-Aid and tells us that Scoble is reason #8 (others include #1, Free Developer Tools, and #3, Microsoft Atlas makes AJAX easier). Matt Griffith gives the other side of the coin, disagreeing with each of the 13 reasons; even Robert Scoble is a negative to him ("the recent openness of Microsoft is a double-edged sword ... these guys and gals are smart ... Yet Microsoft as a company still makes decisions that only serve their self interest").

Insider Blogging looks at the employees blogs of our favorite companies, exposing the last legal way to get "inside information."

Yahool! has been busy with its mission to "expand the user's visual space," otherwise known throughout the blogosphere as the Yahoo! homepage redesign. Over at Read/WriteWeb, in a podcast interview with "VP of Front Doors" Tapan Bhat describes the challenges of using the programming language Ajax, and the extensive testing that was required. The interface is wider (but, not hugely wide -- plenty of white space on my tiny but self-described "widescreen" laptop), more muted (so Web 2.0), tab-heavy and more multi-media-rich. There's plenty of effusion at the Yahoo! User Interface Blog, where you can tour the "patterns" behind the redesign ("this is similar to creating a play. At any given time the view on the stage is only a small part of the action. The backstage, props, and other actors are all being prepared for the next scene. A home page can provide ways to allow a user to take a 'sneak peek' at additional content and essentially 'open up' the page space") and the many benefits of "Ajax-ifying" the design.

Insider Blogging looks at the employees blogs of our favorite companies, exposing the last legal way to get "inside information."

AOL Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis feels "pretty good -- not great, but pretty good" about AOL's results, as reported Wednesday. He'd feel better, of course, if the street wasn't a little peeved about the too-rapid decrease in subscribers. He doesn't mention why he doesn't feel great, instead focusing on the positive, the ad revenue growth: "the businesses we get compared to most often are Yahoo! and MSN, and we grew nearly as fast as the former and nearly four times faster than the latter."

He's also wonderfully pleased with the company's decision to take the content out from behind the subscriber-only wall and offer it to everyone (along with free e-mail). "Customers like our products," he says, pointing out AOL's 107 million unique visitors, a number that's stable despite the subscriber loss.

Meanwhile, over at the Yahoo! Publisher Network blog, we finally have a response to their unceremonious boot-age of many MySpace publishers.

Everyone's talking about the big showdown of the old Evil Empire (Microsoft) and the up-and-coming dark horse contender of Evil (none other than the faux?-friendly Google).

IE program manager Dave Massy gives us the party line at the IEBlog. "The typical default when users install IE7 on their Windows XP machines will most likely be their usual search engine. Despite claims from some people around the web, MSN is not 'The Default,'" he tells us. Although, it is true, corporate administrators could set the default on a group of employee's machines, he says, it just hasn't been an issue in beta testing. For once, I'm not going to give my usual disclaimer about not believing the party line -- in my opinion, Massy is shooting straight from the hip here.

Even Yahoo! uber-blogger Jeremy Zawodny weighs in (interestingly, never mentioning Yahoo!'s interest in the debate).

So, here we virtually are at the Lehman Brothers ninth annual retail seminar, where Wal-Mart Chief Financial Officer Tom Schoewe will be presenting today. What will he have to say? With Wal-Mart having a 6.8% same-store sales growth figure for April, perhaps there are a few shining nuggets about to drop. Stay tuned to this post for minute-by-minute updates to his presentation, and we'll try to get as much skinny and straight dope as we can (hey, that sounds like a new midnight sitcom, but we digress).

Setup: the Lehman Brothers Retail Seminar -- hosted in NYC -- is a showcase where global retailers -- of many sizes and representing many industries -- present the state of their respective retail merchandising efforts, in a nutshell. When a retailer like Wal-Mart presents at a seminar like this, entire countries listen: call it a side effect of the Wal-Mart Economy, with or without a next-morning market hangover. The times below are in Eastern Standard Time (EST).

Remember, keep your browser glued to this page for constant updates, and keep the refresh button handy. With that said, let's roll:

12:20pm: We're waiting patiently for Wal-Mart CFO Tom Schoewe to take center (virtual) stage -- already, the webcast is behind schedule (egad, no!)

12:25pm: [twiddles thumbs while still waiting for webcast to start]

12:30pm: apparently, someone is asleep at the wheel...maybe WMT is out of stock on bandwidth?







12:32pm: starting, finally!

Insider Blogging looks at the employees blogs of our favorite companies, exposing the last legal way to get "inside information."

How many times can you say "ouch"? That's pretty much the theme at MSFT insider blogs today. Over at Mini-Microsoft, the discussion seems to be centered on Steve Ballmer's comments about how great it was to fire people. Mini thinks that Ballmer "needs to be taking some advice vs. giving it.... If you're in one of the groups that Kevin notes as being part of the redundant overhead (e.g., photos), you know it's time to start looking around before someone starts arranging the chairs." One commenter wonders if the company is creating huge headcount just to cut it. Hah. "Cut 10% employees after shipping Vista (thanks for the hard work!) - stock goes up 10%. Cut another 20% in 2007 - stock will top $30," Anonymous says. I wouldn't count on those numbers, though, if I were you...

Robert Scoble, on the other hand, says basically nothing but wonders about how cruel and unforgiving is the world where profits can be up by 13% and the stock can be down by nearly the same percentage. Oh, Scoble, sweetie! Let me just get you a big ol' $30-billion-dollar box of tissues...