MS offers online document storage

Microsoft is moving to deliver more software technology over the Internet as a service, forced to follow an industry trend led by Google, its newest archrival, reports The New York Times.

But its strategy is a careful balancing act, adding Internet services without offering online versions of its most lucrative desktop products like Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Microsoft is making announcements today that it plans to offer a free service, called Office Live Workspace, that will allow people to store, access and share documents online. A user will be able store up to 1 000 documents on a workspace on the Web.

Adobe Systems has officially entered the "Web office" game, says CNet News.com.

The company is expected to announce that it has acquired 11-person start-up, Virtual Ubiquity, which has built a free Web word processor called Buzzword. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The move expands Adobe's collaborative software services and steps up its competition with Microsoft and a host of other Web application providers, including Google.

Since the iPhone hit the market in June, tech-savvy owners of the phone have been busy messing with its insides, figuring out how to add unauthorised software and even "unlock" it for use on networks other than AT&T's.

Apple has been warning iPhone owners that using unlocking software could damage the phone, states The New York Times.

However, the Web was filled Friday with complaints from people who had installed the latest iPhone software update, only to see all the fun little programs they had been adding to their iPhones disappear - or, still worse, see their phones freeze up entirely.

Smart phones, or phones that enable Web access and e-mail, are heading for the mass market, according to CNet News.com.

Palm's new $99.99 Centro, the sleeker, hipper update to the business-centric Treo, is the latest example of a phone that provides all the data-centric features of a business device with the price point and design of a consumer phone.

"What we've known as the smart phone market is quickly becoming just the cellphone market," said Iain Gillott, founder of iGillottResearch. "These phones used to cost $500 and $600. Some still do, but we're seeing more and more of them come down in price and targeted for consumers."