• San Jose Mercury News, Monday, September 21, 2009 10:49 AM

Microsoft is trying hard to increase its share in the markets where its brands are also-rans such as search, digital media players and mobile, reports Larry Magid. He also says that, after testing Windows 7 for several weeks, it's good enough to "help keep some Windows users from defecting" to the Macintosh OS.

In search, Microsoft's new Bing engine grew 22.1% in August from the previous month and now has 10.7% of all U.S. searches, according to Nielsen. (But part of that came out of the hide of Yahoo, which is in the process of adopting Bing as its own search engine.)

After testing Microsoft's new Zune HD, Magid feels it is "superior" to the iPod Touch from a hardware point of view. "It's sleeker and more polished and sports a gorgeous OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen that is more energy-efficient." It also can send HD video to TV sets and has an HD radio tuner. But it has a long way to go to compete with all the apps written for Apple, he points out.

That doesn't mean it can't get there. "This is a company that knows how to dust itself off after failing and to keep trying until it gets it right," Magid writes.

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