News Analysis. Microsoft is smartly using April 30's Windows 7 Release Candidate release to MSDN and TechNet to prelaunch the new operating system.

There is just so much about Windows 7 marketing that reminds me of Windows 95. Perhaps most important is product evangelism, which if done right should be easier now than 14 years ago. Way back, enthusiasts gathered on AOL, bulletin boards, CompuServe, IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and Internet newsgroups. Today's communities are bigger and more consolidated than in the mid-1990s.

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

Not since Windows 95 have I seen Microsoft push marketing, end-user and partner outreach so aggressively so soon in the development process. Clearly, Microsoft is committed to making Windows 7 a success in all the ways Windows Vista couldn't be. For their marketing and partner value, some resources stand out, such as Web resources "Talking About Windows" and "Ready. Set. 7."

"Talking About Windows" is a new Website that offers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Windows 7 from the Microsoft engineers who helped build the product as well as showcasing real IT professionals talking candidly about their implementations and experiences in considering a more modern OS. This is done through a series of videos hosted on the Talking About Windows Website. "Ready. Set. 7." showcases Microsoft partner solutions, through videos, for Windows 7.

These and other larger marketing efforts are the air cover. Microsoft's more effective marketing will come from blogs, Twitter and social networking services. But that's a topic I don't have time for in this post. For now: Enthusiasts are the best marketers. Microsoft is right to go for them.

For Apple, the days of reckoning will be many, and they start today. Macs had a good market-share run in 2007 and 2008. Apple's "Get a Mac" ads effectively marketed its computers during a time when Microsoft didn't advertise Windows and there was so much grassroots countermarketing against Vista. Today, Microsoft has got effective marketing, the sizzling hot (my fingers are burning on the keyboard) Windows 7 and a community of grassroots supporters. I predict that Microsoft will own holiday 2009. Sorry, Apple.

But evangelism doesn't just happen. Nurturing is needed, and that's what Microsoft so effectively has done since Windows 7 Beta 1 was released on Jan. 9, almost five months ago. But the coordinated effort going on now is simply breathtaking for its scope—and, I predict, its effectiveness.

Apple will lose the PC market-share war, as the marching Windows 7 horde overruns the Mac camp. The question: Will Windows 7 be Microsoft's last campaign? Windows 7 represents the PC, which is computing's past. The mobile phone, where Apple has the increasingly popular App Store, is the future. But that's another topic I don't have time for today.

Running Windows 7 Release Candidate
None of this evangelism could be effective without a good product, and Windows 7 is just that. There has never been a better Windows operating system, and Windows 7 is sure to give Mac OS X a deserved kick in the butt. I ran Beta 1 since early January until Tuesday, April 28, when I moved to the release candidate. On April 6, I blogged about how, in part because of Windows 7, I switched to a Sony Vaio from a MacBook.

Here, I want to give some first impressions of the release candidate. I would write more, but I'm unusually rushed today. I'll explain why in the post that follows this one.

My initial reaction to the release candidate isn't as good as to the beta, although I'm more satisfied today than on Tuesday. My upgrade took about 4.5 hours. I wanted to upgrade from Windows Vista Business, which meant backing up my data, restoring the laptop to factory settings and upgrading to Windows 7 Ultimate. A clean install would likely have taken about 30 minutes.

I installed Seven on a Sony Vaio VGN-Z590, with 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 13.1-inch LED backlit display with 1600-by-900 resolution, 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS graphics, 3GB of DDR3 (double data rate 3) memory, 320GB hard drive, DVD burner, fingerprint reader, Wi-Fi and Sprint 3G modem. The computer had a Windows Experience Index of 4.4 before and after the upgrade, but some component ratings changed, possibly because of hardware drivers. The 2.4GHz processor rating went up to 5.8 from 5.3, while memory dropped from 5.9 to 5.5.

The upgrade portion took about 2.5 hours, which is much longer than I expected. Suspected reason: updates. Early on in the process, the upgrade moved back to Windows Business Service Pack 1 to download and apply 45 updates. This surprised me. I suspect that a fully updated Vista installation would upgrade much faster.

I got some unexpected surprises when Windows 7 booted up for the first time. The system performance wasn't nearly as snappy as it had been running Beta 1. Maybe there was search indexing or other optimization features running. I will say that System Idle Process is much more active now than with the beta. What's going on with the kernel? Disk activity is increased, and the laptop's fan runs more frequently. I haven't looked at logs or done any real tests to see what's going on in the background. Perhaps some drivers need updating.

Performance is much better today than two days ago, but there are hesitations in the user interface that are Vista ghosts in the machine. The Beta 1 UI was snappy and applications switched smoothly. There are little annoyances that are just that, and they're decreasing. I would still recommend Windows 7 over Vista or even Mac OS X Leopard.

Windows 7 features some surprising desktop backgrounds that can only be described as charming, comic or colorful. The provided Aero Themes, desktop backgrounds and user control over translucency don't just allow for personalization. Other Windows versions have had garish personalization. Windows 7 creates a pleasant working environment, and the UI looks better the higher the screen resolution. The 13 new audio themes sound delightful. Microsoft made personalization one of the design priorities for the UI, but done tastefully for the first time in any Windows version.

Overall, my initial reaction to the RC is quite good. It's in some ways unfair to compare the release candidate with the beta. I'm as committed as ever to running Windows 7 as my primary operating system. Later today, my daughter will switch from a MacBook to Sony Vaio VGN-CR290. That laptop requires 64-bit Windows 7, which I don't yet have.

Windows XP Mode Security
This morning, eWEEK published my news analysis about Windows 7 RC availability. Yesterday, April 29, another story highlighted 10 things to expect from Windows 7.

The first story includes some detail about Windows XP Mode, which deserves further consideration. Yesterday I spoke with Jeff Price, senior director for the Windows ecosystem team, about the new feature, which for compatibility purposes provides a virtualized Windows XP environment for running older applications.

XPM comprises "both the underlying virtualization layer that has been updated for Windows 7 as well as a pre-built [version] of Windows XP SP3," Jeff said. He asserted that XPM "sets us up for a smoother migration experience for customers, because it allows them to carry forward compatibility with some older XP apps that provides a good transition experience as they're moving to Windows 7."

Microsoft is releasing Windows XP Mode concurrently alongside the release candidate but not as part of Windows 7. XPM will come as a beta, for now. In concept, once installed, XPM looks to the end user like any other application. "We will populate that to the Windows 7 Start Menu," Jeff said. "You as an end user might not know anything about virtualization or how this was set up for you by your IT pro. You'll just start Quicken 2004 from your Start Menu, and in the background we will start up the XP virtual machine and surface that application into a window."

I was really curious about security. Earlier in the week, eWEEK colleague Larry Seltzer raised legitimate questions about XPM and security protection. So I asked Jeff and got the answer I dreaded.

"We recommend that you secure it just as if you were running it on a physical PC -- meaning you should use anti-virus software and all the security practices that you would within the VM as you would on a Windows XP PC," Jeff responded. I asked if this would mean running two security software products, He replied: "Yes. Yes. Suspenders and a belt." Cute.

In concept, I think XPM is a great idea. Microsoft should have done something like this years ago. But I wonder how enterprises will deal with the licensing and management logistics.

Anyway, to close, this is a big day for Microsoft. From a marketing perspective, it's perhaps more important than Windows 7's launch.

NEC and Panasonic will unveil on Monday nine new cell phone models running the open-source LiMo operating system, wireless Linux foundation LiMo said at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.

The focus of the cell phone market has been shifting to software development since Google and Apple entered the mobile market in the past two years, with phone vendors and operators increasingly looking for open source alternatives like LiMo to cut costs.

The market for software platforms on cell phones is led by Nokia's Symbian operating system, but it has lost much ground over the last year to Apple and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.

Computer operating system Linux has had little success in cell phones thus far, but its role is increasing with the LiMo platform, and Google is using Linux for its Android platform.

Linux is the most popular type of free or so-called open source computer operating system, which is available to the public to be used, revised and shared.

Linux suppliers earn money selling improvements and technical services, and Linux competes directly with Microsoft, which charges for its Windows software and opposes freely sharing its code.

LiMo also said five firms -- Aromasoft, CasioHitachi Mobile Communications, Marvell, Opera Software and Swisscom -- had joined the not-for-profit foundation, increasing its membership to 55.

Google's Android camp has so far announced 47 members.

However, LiMo has been missing support from the largest cell phone vendors -- so far only NEC, Panasonic and Motorola have unveiled phones using its software.

The world's second- and third-largest cell phone vendors, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, are members of LiMo, but have not unveiled commercial models.

LG Electronics will be providing technology previews of its sleek touchscreen handset at the trade show, LiMo said, while Samsung will show plans of two devices.

LiMo hopes to benefit from its focus on giving greater say over software development to telecoms operators.

Last week its key members -- Vodafone, Orange, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, Korea's SK Telecom, U.S. operator Verizon Wireless and Telefonica -- pledged to introduce LiMo phones in 2009.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki, editing by Martin Golan)

Washington will be the first U.S. city to get free digital TV broadcasts for mobile devices like cell phones, laptop computers and in-car entertainment systems, broadcasters were set to announce Monday.

Broadcasts using new "mobile DTV" technology are expected to begin in late summer from five stations: local affiliates of CBS, NBC, PBS and Ion and one independent station owned by Fox.

The initial broadcasts will be identical to those beamed to TV sets, including the advertising.

It's unclear what devices might be available with the special receivers needed for the new signals. Cell phones are main candidates for the technology, but the wireless carriers have shown no enthusiasm, and the largest two have their own TV services, which require subscriptions.

However, Dell Inc. will be showing a prototype of a small laptop with a built-in mobile DTV receiver at the National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas this week. The computer maker joins cell phone makers LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. in supporting the technology. Kenwood Corp. is developing car-based receivers.

The companies backing the technology in the so-called Open Mobile Video Coalition said Washington was chosen as a test market because the city is full of tech-savvy viewers who pay attention to local news. Attention from politicians and regulators probably doesn't hurt either — the coalition has earlier pointed to the usefulness of free mobile TV broadcasts in case of emergencies and disasters like hurricanes.

Broadcasters plan to quickly start broadcasts in more than two dozen other cities by the end of the year, covering 39 percent of U.S. households. Among the target cities are New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Atlanta.

BOSTON – IBM Corp. withdrew its offer to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. for about $7 billion this weekend, clouding the prospects for a deal that would have shaken up the computing industry, The Associated Press has learned.

Talks were in their final stages in recent days, but IBM took its offer off the table after Sun terminated IBM's status as its exclusive negotiating partner, according to two people familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the negotiations.

One of these people said the two sides were still meeting Sunday.

Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM was believed to be offering about $9.50 per share for Sun. That was about double the price the Santa Clara, Calif.-based server and software maker was trading for when the discussions leaked last month. Sun shares closed Friday at $8.49.

Sun was one of the darlings of the dot-com era but spent most of this decade struggling to find its place, wrestling with huge losses and thousands of layoffs. As a result many analysts were not surprised Sun and IBM were in talks.

Sun still owns key server and business-software technologies that might fit in IBM's product and services lineup. But a deal likely would face antitrust questions, and in addition to haggling over price, Sun has been pushing IBM to make certain commitments to seeing the deal through such scrutiny.

At North America's largest cell phone trade show, running this week in Las Vegas, there were few new phones for the U.S. market that had a numerical keypad instead of an alphabetic keyboard. Touch screens also were out in force.

These changes are a recognition of the popularity of text messaging and wireless Internet use. Industry organization CTIA Wireless, which hosts the show, said U.S. subscribers sent 1 trillion text messages last year, three times the 2007 volume. Meanwhile, the same people used 2.2 trillion minutes of voice calls, an increase of less than 5 percent.

This shift in how people use their mobile devices has overturned cell phone design. According to NPD Group, 31 percent of phones sold in U.S. stores in the fourth quarter of 2008 had full-alphabet keyboards, up from 5 percent two years earlier.

AT&T Inc., the second-largest wireless carrier after Verizon Wireless, introduced six phones this week, all of which had either a touch screen, a typewriter-style keyboard, or both. At the booth of Samsung Electronics Co., the largest seller of phones in the U.S., there were no new keypad phones.

Motorola Inc., the largest domestic maker of phones, was showing off one low-end handset with a keypad. It went on sale through AT&T two weeks ago. But Motorola's big news was a model called the Evoke, which has a touch screen. It's designed for the U.S. market, though it doesn't have a carrier distribution agreement yet.

LG Electronics Inc. displayed a new handset, the GD900, that seemed to both emphasize a numeric keypad and make it vanish. A pad slides out from the GD900's body, but it's made of transparent plastic, so you can see right through it. You don't need to use keypad at all, since the screen is touch-sensitive. Other new LG phones were also dominated by touch screens.

Even at the low end of the market, keyboards for text messaging are becoming common and affordable. AT&T expects to sell two of the keyboard-equipped phones it introduced, the Samsung Magnet and LG Neon, for about $20 to $30.

Old-fashioned numeric keypads still will have a prominent place — but largely overseas. In a twist of market dynamics, the demand for QWERTY phones is mainly a North American phenomenon, said Ross Rubin, an analyst at NPD.

Although touch screens are gaining in popularity all over the world, people in other countries got into text messaging much earlier and "became acclimated to texting with a keypad," Rubin said. Meanwhile, the U.S. market has been influenced by high-end smart phones like the Treo and the BlackBerry that pioneered small versions of typewriter-style keyboards.

As a result, numeric keypads were still dominant at the CTIA booth of Nokia Corp., the world's largest maker of cell phones, which has a relatively minor presence in the U.S. The same was the case at the booth of Japanese-Swedish manufacturer Sony Ericsson.

Other notable wireless devices at the show (prices are with two-year contracts):

• The Samsung Impression is the first phone on the U.S. market with a screen that uses organic light-emitting diodes rather than liquid crystals. Since OLEDs emit their own light, rather than filtering a fluorescent backlight like LCDs, they can save on battery life and provide better image quality. The Impression has a 3.2-inch touch screen capable of showing very saturated colors and dark blacks, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. AT&T will sell the phone for $200 starting Tuesday. OLEDs have shown up before in camera displays, and Sony sells a small, expensive OLED TV.

• AT&T will sell the Nokia E71x, which is billed as the thinnest smart phone in the country, less than half an inch thick. The layout is similar to that of a BlackBerry or BlackJack, and includes a keyboard. Nokia has had a hard time penetrating the U.S. smart phone market, and previous, similar Nokia models sold by AT&T haven't made much of dent on the dominant market share of Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry. Despite being so thin, the E71x has a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus. The phone will cost $100. AT&T has no firm launch date.

• Sprint Nextel Corp. trotted out the Samsung Instinct s30, a follow-up to the first Instinct, which it introduced last year as a touch-screen competitor to the iPhone. The s30 has a thinner, more rounded body and includes a more fully featured Web browser. The s30 will be available April 19 for $130.

• Samsung is making a Web tablet for Clearwire Corp.'s wireless broadband network, which uses a technology known as WiMax. There are laptops and modems for the network, which is live in Portland, Ore., and Baltimore, but there hasn't been a standalone portable device for Clearwire since Nokia discontinued its WiMax tablet in January. Samsung's Mondi will go on sale in the next three months. No price was announced. It doesn't work as a phone, but it could run teleconferencing applications like Skype. The underlying software is Windows Mobile. Naturally, the Mondi has a keyboard and a touch screen, with a 4.3-inch diagonal.

But all the power wasted while computers are sitting idle overnight adds up, and one study has finally tried to measure it. The tally: An estimated $2.8 billion wasted on excess energy costs each year in the U.S. alone.

On a CO2 basis, that's 20 million tons of carbon dioxide, about the amount produced by 4 million cars on the road.

The full report is available for download here (scroll down to "PC Energy Report US 2009").

But big numbers like that become almost meaningless in an era of trillion-dollar bailouts, so to put the wasted energy in perspective, the study provides the data in terms you can better understand: If you run a company with 1,000 PCs left on overnight, you can save about $28,000 a year if they are turned off after hours. That's not chump change.

Of course, it's also a fact that your PC will function better if you restart it regularly, and nightly shutdowns can help you avoid having to suddenly reboot in the middle of the day when you'd otherwise be productive. So even though this little laptop, by my math, eats up only about a quarter's worth of power overnight, maybe it's a smart idea -- and ultimately a time-saver, too -- to shut it down after hours after all.

2009 Ford Fusion Action

David Wurster could hardly believe it recently when he filled the tank of his Ford Focus ZX5 with gas that cost just over $1.60 a gallon. It was a far cry from the $3.60 he paid last summer. But Wurster's not letting himself get used to the new low.

It's the unease of impending high gas prices and the shaky economy that necessitates consumers arming themselves with as much information as they can before heading out to buy a new car, experts say. And the research can pay off, since the true costs of owning a car are realized only after you drive off the lot, not when you hand over a cashier's check for the car itself.

The Wrangler Unlimited SUV, however, fares worse when it comes to affordability over five years. Its lower gas mileage (15 mpg in the city, 20 mpg on the highway) and the higher cost of insuring a mid-size SUV make it more expensive to drive than a smaller car of comparable sticker price.

"They are looking at the overall cost over the life of the vehicle," he says. "And the millennials, as we call them, are also doing the research for their mothers and fathers. So they know about insurance costs and maintenance and fuel costs. They're looking for that value."

To identify 2009's most affordable vehicle in each major market segment, we used Vincentric data to add to the base price the five-year totals for fuel costs, maintenance and repairs, as well as the average national insurance rates in each segment. To find the gas expense, we assumed an annual rate of 15,000 miles driven per vehicle at a price of $3.25 per gallon (the 2008 year-to-date average). We then evaluated affordability based on the percentage of each vehicle's five-year costs compared with its grand total costs, including base price.

2009 Volkswagen GTI

Most SUV owners don't really need the extra towing capacity of a larger, heavier SUV for making weekend trips to Wal-Mart, says Jason Fogelson, a Los Angeles-based auto writer who maintains the About.com guide to SUVs. Consumers should buy the smallest, most fuel-efficient vehicle they can get away with, he says--the Kia fits the bill for those who truly need an SUV. And despite recent generous deals on full-sized SUVs, buyers should remember that they'll usually save more money on their initial purchase and on gas later on if they choose the smaller SUV or engine.

Scaled-Down Luxury, Bigger Savings

Of course, smaller vehicles tend to cost less to own over the years than crossovers and SUVs. The Nissan Versa, which topped the compact entry-level segment, costs roughly $26,000 to own over five years, while the Chrysler 300, the large premium sedan winner, costs almost twice that much. But opting for the smaller car doesn't mean settling for chintzy workmanship and a bare interior.

"People want small, they want fuel economy, but they want the creature comforts they see in other cars," Jarvis says. "They want the leather seats. They want heated seats. They want [the voice-activated communication system] Sync."

The Bottom Line

So what really matters when searching for an affordable vehicle? Keep in mind smaller, cheaper cars tend to include less equipment, which reduces weight and improves fuel efficiency. They also tend to have lower maintenance fees.

Models like the Volkswagen Tiguan SUV and Ford Fusion mid-size, for example, are both in crowded segments, but each is the most affordable in their class because they have lower fuel costs and lower long-term maintenance costs than their competitors.

Jarvis took all that into account before he bought his 2009 Ford Focus, which cost him $14,995.

Consumers who do their homework, as Jarvis and Wurster did, will feel much less of a pinch should gas prices spike again in the summer ahead.

Companies, which make the expansion to the market in 2006 with the purchase DMarc Broadcasting Inc., are seeking buyers for a software program to set up ads on the radio. Google will discontinue the sale of radio ads on 31 May and will focus on streaming audio, according to any posts in the blog today.

Step shows that the failure of Google to strengthen its dominance in Internet advertising to offline media. Months ago the company wanted to close the business that sells ad space in newspapers.

Google spent U.S. $ 102 million in cash for DMarc and agree to pay U.S. $ 1.14 billion in installments depending on performance.

"They try to penetrate the media that really old and institutions," said Sameet Sinha, an analyst from JMP Securities LLC in San Francisco.

The growth of radio advertising has been stopped in the last three years. Ad revenue rose 0.4 percent in 2006, and down 2.3 percent in 2007, according to Mark Fratrik, an analyst from Bia Financial Network in Chantilly, Virginia.

Meanwhile, preliminary figures show a decline 8.5 percent in 2008, and Fratrik reduction estimate of 10 percent this year.