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Microsoft has announced plans to launch a marketing campaign sometime in the next few months to compel mobile telecommunication device users to use Microsoft software to operate those devices. According to early reviews, the new 6.5 version of Windows Mobile offers a few modest upgrades but not enough bells and whistles to improve market share. Blackberry, Microsoft’s chief competitor for mobile business devices, has gained market share by making phones that are much more user-friendly than those running on Windows Mobile are.

Microsoft has been advertising that the new software upgrade would greatly simplify the user experience. Reviewers do say that Windows Mobile devices are a bit easier to use. Removing the need to use a stylus to select and use features, Windows Mobile devices now have icons that are large enough to activate with a finger. Reviewers applaud the new utility and ease of operation, but say that users wishing to browse the Web on their phones will be disappointed with the upgrade.

They point to the lack of a multitouch screen on Windows phones, which would allows users to pinch, pull and otherwise modify their displays to a preferred size like iPhone and Palm Pre users can. To accomplish these tasks, Windows phone users must press buttons and sliders that make for much more cumbersome and less precise controls. Microsoft executive Greg Sullivan said that in internal tests of the new functionality, users were able to complete tasks far more easily with the new version of the software than on any other mobile browser currently on the market. A reviewer with the New York Times disputed that claim.

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Google recently introduced a free GPS navigation system for some cell phones that provides turn-by-turn instructions very much like subscription GPS services. Industry analysts predicted that if the free service is popular, it could negatively impact sales of GPS navigation devices and subscription-based GPS services provided by cell phone carriers.

“There’s no doubt that those guys are going to be disrupted,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst with Opus Research.

Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, said recently that he did not regard his company’s new service as disruptive to the industry. He claimed that it would be a windfall for consumers facilitated by the popularity of Smartphones and easy access to the internet. “Obviously we like the price of free because consumers like that as well,” he said.

He said that he was not concerned that offering GPS service free would create more enemies for his company. “As long as you are on the side of consumers, you’ll be fine,” he said. The new service will be incorporated into the newest build of Google Maps for Mobile, which will be released along with Android 2.0—the latest version of the company’s operating system for mobile devices. Google executives expressed hope that the new GPS service in Google Maps for Mobile would become available on Apple’s iPhone and similar devices. Google did say advertising in the future might support its free GPS navigation system.

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Google’s innovative telecommunications service, Google Voice, allows easy management of multiple phone numbers, blocks telemarketers, makes inexpensive global phone calls and even provides voicemail transcription. However, these conveniences came at a steep price that many people were unwilling to pay: it required users to get a new phone number. In a move to entice more users to the service, Google is offering a less comprehensive version of their services that allows users to keep their existing phone number.

Google says that participants in the new program will be able to use the company’s online voicemail service instead of their cell phone provider’s voicemail. This service is central to the services, as users will be able to read their voicemails online, save them, play them back, forward them to a designated email in-box or receive them as a text message on a mobile device. They will also be able to save these massages, search them and forward messages to others.

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Google Labs has just launched a new search function called Social Search, which allows users to enhance their search experience by providing them with search results that are more personally relevant. Google announced that it is working on implementing Social Search at the Fall Web 2.0 Summit, but doesn’t expect to make it available until later in the season. The personalized search function utilizes a user’s social network profiles to display relative links as well as status updates that members of the user’s social network have shared at the bottom of a page of search results.

People interested in checking out Social Search will need to point their browser at Google’s experimental section and activate the new search feature that is only available to users in the U.S. and only in English. Social Search creates personalized searches utilizing Google Talk, Gmail, Google Reader subscriptions and social networking profiles that a user has added to his or her Google Profile. While participation in Google Profile is not mandatory, based on information in a user’s Google Profile, Social Search can automatically detect a user’s social networking profiles and friend lists on BrightKite, Digg, del.icio.us, YouTube, FriendFeed, Flickr and other networking sites.

Not every search will yield Social Search results at the bottom of a search results page. When it does, however, socially relevant search results will appear at the bottom of the user’s page labeled as "results from people in your social circle." Users will also be able to start Social Search from the search options panel currently embedded in the search page, and Google will provide a list of the user’s friends that it decides are the most closely related to the search terms. If a user clicks on a name, they will be able to confine search results to see results from that friend.

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