And after spending an hour talking with Fred Studer, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics, and Microsoft Business Solutions Technical Fellow Mike Ehrenberg Thursday, we can say it's probably an unfair chuckle at both Microsoft and its customer base. "I bet they still use IE6," Alex Wilhelm writes in his post.

So tech journalists and Microsoft can make declarations about the cloud being great, the place only a fool would avoid, but it's up to tech journalists and the companies that make those cloud-enabled products to show them why they're losing time and productivity by doing things the way they have always done things. And remember, Microsoft made a lot of those on-premise technologies a lot of companies purchased a decade or more ago, so they have to be extra tactful in convincing companies about what can be a radical shft.

Breaking Down The Microsoft Dynamics Strategy

At the risk of oversimplifying, Studer and Ehrenberg are tasked with anticipating problems for a wide range of businesses, then figuring out which tools from Microsoft's ample shed they can apply to solving those problems. For example, they were the ones who leaked news to ReadWriteWeb that a workplace version of Kinect would be available next month.

The two are clearly focused on Cloud-based products that are more affordable and easier to implement, but that is not all the division is working on. But they also want to introduce those products to customers with on-premise products with gentle nudges as opposed to simply demanding that they change. The strategy, as outlined by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, includes moving all four of the Dynamics ERP products to the Azure, offering exclusive tie-ins to other products with the cloud versions of its ERP products and eventually releasing new products on the cloud before the on-premise versions are released.

"We think our history of building on-site solutions give us an advantage. The shift isn't going to be immediate," Studer said. "People are going to exist on-premise and on the cloud for a long time to come, and that is building into the things we do well."

Studer and Ehrenberg outlined some of the problems they are addressing, some of the possible solutions and gave a sneak peak of some of the topics they'll be discussing at next month's Convergence 2012 conference in Houston.

ERP Needs To Be Better At Predicting Business Trends

Ehrenberg said ERP has been good at analyzing past business trends, but it needs to get better at predicting what will happen tomorrow. We talked about restaurants and grocery stores that still may be using a spiral-bound notebook to record daily sales and weather figures on any given day to help them make food orders for the same day the following year.

One small chain of convenience stores Microsoft Dynamics has been working with had a women who was doing just that for about 20 stores in the chain and used about two dozen data points, ranging from weather forecasts to local sports team schedules.

Dynamics was able to build a machine-learning model of the women's system and analyze 200 days of historical data. The Microsoft model was better able to adapt, finding new information to pull into the model (like a sports team's schedule that was affecting sales but not being accounted for), while eliminating other data points that didn't matter.

Other models can be tailored for other businesses. Retailers rely on foot traffic, something that may be affected by city sidewalk construction projects. A convention schedule from the local Chamber of Commerce could also be rolled into the model.

"We've done the science," Ehrenberg said. "Now we're working on ways to turn it into a product."

Giving Little Guys A Fighting Chance Against Wal-Mart And Amazon

The cloud, Studer said, will let small retailers share inventory: with other small retailers.

There's a good chance you've done something like this in the past year. You've vowed to support small, local businesses. Maybe you're buying a newly-released book or an oil filter for your car, or a set of socket wrenches. You head to the local book shop, auto parts dealer or hardware store, only to find the item is out of stock. The shop owner can order it for you, but...

You soon find yourself walking across the parking lot of a big-box retail store, or you find yourself driving home to order the item online. Chances are it's cheaper than you would have paid at the smaller store, not to mention it's in stock, and that's enough to temper the guilt you're feeling about not buying local. And maybe the next time you need a similar product, you don't even bother with the well-intentioned trip to the small store first.

That's been the plight of small retailers for more than a decade: bigger stores have bigger inventories, and online stores have unlimited inventories. Price isn't even a factor if you don't have the product to sell, but Studer thinks the cloud may offer smaller stores a novel to at least compete with bigger rivals on inventory control.

"You come in looking for a certain auto part and, using the cloud, I can look it up and say that I don't have it, but the guy down the street has what you're looking for," Studer said. "Yes, I'm sending you down the street to a competitor, but at least I'm not putting you in the habit of going to Amazon or Wal-Mart first."

The point is translating the benefits of cloud-based, ERP products into something that is easy to understand, easy to use and easy to implement for businesses outside of the tech sector. Microsoft Dynamics believes that allowing companies to choose on-premise products, if that is what they are most comfortable with, and then transitioning them at their own pace is crucial.

"There's a value in having that choice," Studer said. "We really want to provide customers with a lot of flexibility."

Photo courtesy of ShutterStock.

The company launched Kinect for Windows this month, which is the first Kinect sensor licensed for commercial use. Microsoft Dynamics, the company's unit that develops enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management (CRM) software applications, is currently exploring business scenarios that could benefit from the use of Kinect technology.

Update: On Friday, a spokesperson for Microsoft clarified the company's plans for exploring Kinect motion-detection technology in the workplace. The spokesperson said no products were currently in development.

Ehrenberg outlined a scenario where workers on a warehouse floor or in a manufacturing plant are wearing safety gloves that make it difficult for them to operate computers and other systems that may be used to track inventory or confirm that certain steps in the manufacturing process are complete. Kinect's motion-detection technology, he said, could be adapted to allow accurate input through a gesture which does not require glove removal.

"Or what about food service? You've been in the store where the worker wearing gloves makes your sandwich, then has to remove the gloves to operate the cash register," he said. "We all see a lot of things in the workplace that don't make a lot of sense and can be improved."

The original Kinect was released on Nov. 4, 2010 and after selling 8 million units in 60 days, the Guinness Book of World Records named it the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history.

"We mention it to companies and they think 'Why? It's a toy'," Ehrenberg said. "But it doesn't take us long to show them it has a place in the workplace."

Photo courtesy of ShutterStock.

ARM is not a processor, like Intel or AMD; rather, it's a selection of technologies that a manufacturer licenses from an extensive ARM portfolio, that are condensed into a very small system - usually a system-on-a-chip (SoC). In Sinofsky's blog post today, as well as in an accompanying video - a shot of which is shown above - Microsoft showed three examples of ARM-based devices from (left to right, above) Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments, which don't use CPUs the way we know them, but behave enough like a PC to run Windows 8. Or at least, a new form of Windows 8 that resembles the Windows we use today only partly.

"Using WOA [Windows on ARM] 'out of the box' will feel just like using Windows 8 on x86/64," writes Sinofsky. "You will sign in the same way. You will start and launch apps the same way. You will use the new Windows Store the same way. You will have access to the intrinsic capabilities of Windows, from the new Start screen and Metro style apps and Internet Explorer, to peripherals, and if you wish, the Windows desktop with tools like Windows File Explorer and desktop Internet Explorer. It will have the same fast and fluid experience. In other words, we've designed WOA to look and feel just like you would expect. WOA enables creativity in PC design that, in combination with newly architected features of the OS, will bring to customers new, no-compromise experiences."

Another World

Yet while Sinofsky made it very clear - in an abundance of words - that Microsoft will not be compromising on what it has not compromised on, today's blog post does also reveal that those parts of WOA that don't work "the same way" will work a different way. Most different of all will be the Desktop, which is the part of Windows 7 that used to go by the name "Windows." As we noted when the Windows 8 Developer Preview was rolled out last September, the Desktop has become just one of two "worlds" where Windows 8 applications will run. The other is a completely new class of "Metro-style" apps, based on a new runtime called WinRT that is not downwardly-compatible. It's not made for Windows 7, and it's not compatible with Windows Phone 7.

But at least with Windows 8 on PCs running Intel and AMD architectures (x86/x64), most Windows apps since version 3.0 will run on the Desktop. This will not be the case on Windows for ARM for an obvious and unavoidable reason: Applications compiled to run on these processors are not code-compatible with ARM-based platforms. And managed apps made for the .NET Framework - which as late as Spring 2011 was still being touted as the platform of Windows' future - will not run on WOA because the .NET Framework is not code-compatible with ARM, at least not at this time. Sinofsky did not state these facts outright, though he gave plenty of information for an eight-year-old to make the correct deduction.

"WOA does not support running, emulating, or porting existing x86/64 desktop apps," the blog post reads. "Code that uses only system or OS services from WinRT can be used within an app and distributed through the Windows Store for both WOA and x86/64." It also states that if a developer wishes to target WOA as a platform, all he really needs to do is write a Metro-style app using WinRT and regular OS services.

Another Office

So what is the Desktop for in WOA? Why is it there if it can't run a great majority of the Windows apps we've come to know? Sinofsky states that the WOA Desktop will run built-in versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote from the new "Office 15" (probably Office 2013). It will also run a desktop version of Internet Explorer 10 (as indicated by a blue "e" icon on the taskbar in the screenshot), as well as the Windows Explorer file manager.

The division president characterizes this degree of resemblance as "supporting the Windows Desktop experience," adding that applications which can run on the WOA Desktop have been significantly re-architected to support ARM features such as low power consumption and multitouch. At one point, Sinofsky said, the question of how to approach the role of the Desktop for ARM architectures seems ever so faintly like a certain scene from Hamlet:

"To us, giving up something useful that has little cost to customers was a compromise that we didn't want to see in the evolution of PCs. The presence of different models is part of every platform. Whether it is to support a transition to a future programming model (such as including a virtualization or emulation solution if feasible), to support different programming models on one platform (native and web-based applications when both are popular), or to support different ways of working (command shell or GUI for different scenarios), the presence of multiple models represents a flexible solution that provides a true no-compromise experience on any platform."

Which must give us pause, Sinofsky might have added.

Another Form Factor

In a statement to ReadWriteWeb this afternoon, IDC program director for applications development software, Al Hilwa, calls WOA "separate but equal... a different OS on its own schedule, but Microsoft is doing its best to deliver it at the same time."

Hilwa believes that the first WOA-based tablets will be released some time following the first Windows 8-based tablets with Intel and AMD processors, which means this class won't be ready for back-to-school until 2013. In the meantime, he points out that AMD and Intel are feverishly working to improve the power consumption and efficiency of their CPUs.

Assuming PC manufacturers - especially including those who produce Intel's Ultrabook form factor - beat ARM producers to market with competitive street prices, and that their Windows 8 PCs run all the existing software (there's no reason to think they won't), then they could retain a distinct advantage. Today, Microsoft's spokesperson told RWW that the work being done by competitors to produce AMD- and Intel-based PCs represents "an equally strong commitment, new designs, and improved architecture for Windows on this hardware. Microsoft could not be more excited or supportive of the new products from Intel and AMD that will be part of Windows 8 across a full spectrum of PC form factors."

Nevertheless, besides the myriad, perhaps countless, ways in which Windows for ARM is completely different from Windows, it's just the same as the product you haven't come to know yet because it hasn't been released. Because many consumers choose Windows because they need to run Office, Microsoft is making sure that four key Office apps are distributed with WOA. They will use different code bases, but because they're pre-installed, that fact won't matter. What will matter is whether consumers feel they're running Windows while they're using the applications that are the very reason they use Windows.

The venue may definitely steal some of the thunder from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt's keynote, which remains set for the day before.

For Windows 8 to recapture the mindshare that PC-related software developments have lost over the past five years, Microsoft would have to execute a completely game-changing strategy, redefining the computing category by essentially merging mobile and desktop into the same class. There's only one way to accomplish this: by aligning every consumer-facing product with the Windows brand on a single kernel, with at least one flexible software platform among all form factors. This appears to be exactly the move that Microsoft is making, and the fact that it's declaring Barcelona to be ground-zero for this announcement indicates it will be firing everything in its arsenal.

The completely revised Start Menu for the Windows 8 Developer Preview, released last September. The Consumer Preview, in three weeks if not sooner, should feature a blue background by default, though it may have personalization options.

Granted, the expected changes between the existing Developer Preview and the coming Consumer Preview, as revealed by leaked screenshots of an evidently current build, are worth noting. As many developers noted last year, including myself, the familiar Start Button on the Windows 8 Desktop acted as a kind of trap door into an unfamiliar "Metro" world with which only frequent users of Zune or Windows Media Center might find themselves at home. The leaked screenshots indicate that Microsoft has at least listened to these complaints.

The steps it's taking to address these concerns would appear - at least from the leaked screenshots - to include the complete removal of the Start Button altogether. Some unofficial sources have also said that the functionality of the Taskbar has been extended to compensate, perhaps alleviating the problem of Windows 7's most useful control feature being relegated to a "Desktop" that no longer resides, in the Windows 8 world, on a "Desk" but rather in what in the Developer Preview looked like a sinkhole.

The spokesperson did leave open the possibility that the Consumer Preview may be made available for download prior to February 29. Subscribers to the company's MSDN program may be offered advance downloads, if history with Windows 7 is any indication.

It seems pretty basic, considering all that we're capable of doing in tech. But as anyone who has been put on hold for tech support, received a robo-call about suspicious activity on their credit card, or tried to deal with sudden travel changes can attest, dealing with customer service still seems to be stuck very much in the pre-Internet age.

"From speech to touch to gestures, consumers expect and demand more natural and intuitive ways to interact with technology," Zig Serafin, general manager of the Online Services Division at Microsoft, said in a statement. "This same demand will change how consumers interact with businesses, and it creates an inflection point for how people will expect businesses to provide customer service. "

The firms say not only will they help companies link customer service over multiple platforms, but they'll help companies figure out what your preferred platform is and make it easier for you to get the fixes you need.

"All of us are quickly coming to expect companies to communicate with us in proactive, more natural and intuitive ways, and on the devices we use in our daily lives," Serafin wrote about the deal on Microsoft's official blog. "We should expect businesses to reach out to us when we need service, and to do so in a way that anticipates how we want to be communicated with; whether that's through our smartphone, our PC or through our TV if we happen to be in the living room."

Of course the deal isn't all about altruistic good will to consumers: the market for customer service applications like the ones proposed by Microsoft and 24/7 is huge and expected to grow. The announcement also follows a long-building trend of Microsoft working to offer more, specialized B2B solutions.

The deal also includes the shuffling of some Microsoft employees, as well as Micrsoft taking an unspecified ownership stake in 24-7, according to ZDNet.

The post then goes straight to the list of Microsoft products to which Google users can switch: Hotmail, Bing, Office 365 and Internet Explorer. How are these products better for users' "own information" than Google? Well, they don't read it to target ads. What else do they do with users' information? No explanation here. "We've left the light on for you. :)", VP Frank X. Shaw writes. You have to hand it to Microsoft for being so forward, but by rushing to the sales pitch, this post misses a huge opportunity to be informative. Is that because the information might be more complex than Microsoft (and the press) would care to admit?

It then goes on to explain to the public that the reason people get to use Google's suite of products for free is because Google uses the data to target them for ads. What an astonishing revelation. Microsoft gives the disclaimer every critic of free Web services uses before assailing a new, user-unfriendly change: "To be clear, there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to improve the quality of an advertising product. But, that effort needs to be balanced with continuing to meet the needs and interests of users."

That's a great talking point. But Google's response to this campaign is so easy to imagine. "We rewrote our 60 privacy policies to be one clear, human-readable document. This policy doesn't collect any new information." Or how about this one? "Google users can export all their data and be gone forever. How's that for 'maintaining control of your personal information?' Hey Microsoft, how's your partner, Facebook, doing with that?"

The blogosphere won't make that argument for Google. It has to pay for an expensive campaign, just like Microsoft is.

UPDATE 12:30 p.m.: Google has posted a response. It's a simple checklist of myths versus facts, and it saves the deepest cut for last:

• Myth: Microsoft's approach to privacy is better than Google's. [Microsoft]
• Fact: We don't make judgments about other people's policies or controls. But our industry-leading Privacy Dashboard, Ads Preferences Manager and data liberation efforts enable you to understand and control the information we collect and how we use it--and we've simplified our privacy policy to make it easier to understand. Microsoft has no data liberation effort or Dashboard-like hub for users. Their privacy policy states that "information collected through one Microsoft service may be combined with information obtained through other Microsoft services."

We've always believed the facts should inform our marketing--and that it's best to focus on our users rather than negative attacks on other companies.

The sad thing is, there's plenty to critize about Google's new direction and its impact on users, it's just too complicated (and politically sensitive) for Microsoft to explain in an ad.

This is just a shady PR attack by Microsoft, and the press is buying it. Microsoft doesn't deign to inform its readers about Google's policy. It uses a few kumbaya words up front and then gets straight to the point: it's BAAAAD. But we've seen less spun talking points in the Republican presidential debates.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

What do you think of Google's new privacy policy? Sound off in the comments.

Videogame blog Kotaku reported yesterday that the next Xbox - still not yet announced by Microsoft - will support Blu-ray discs, and may incorporate some sort of technology that prevents users from playing used games.

Isn't a more future-thinking move to skip discs altogether and switch to an Internet powered game store?

So why not move the entire Xbox platform in that direction? That would give Microsoft complete control over game sales and distribution: No more dealing with physical disc inventory, dingy game retailers, or the pesky used-game market at all. That's the way the movie industry is moving, the PC industry and the handheld gaming market. So why not consoles?

If the next Xbox really will rely on Blu-ray discs for games, my guess is that the reasons are bandwidth first, storage second and movies third.

Bandwidth, Storage and Movies

Regarding bandwidth, Kotaku notes that Blu-ray discs can contain 25-50 GB worth of data, versus 9 GB for DVDs. Over the average U.S. home Internet connection, that could take several hours, or even days, to download. At that point, running out to the local game store is actually faster than downloading the game, especially if it's a brand new game and you want to play it soon after it's released.

And if more ISPs eventually start limiting how much bandwidth you can consume per month, or charging by the gigabyte downloaded, Microsoft could also hedge against that by using discs for games.

Then there's the storage issue. If you have 5 or 10 games sitting around, taking up 25-50 GB each, that's a pretty big hard drive you'd need to include in the standard Xbox 720, or whatever they'll call it. Storage is getting cheaper, but it's still a cost to figure into the pricing equation.

Plus, the addition of Blu-ray support would make the Xbox a better movie machine, perhaps the main advantage the PS3 has enjoyed over the Xbox 360. While streaming movies are the future, and even today's Xbox is set up to take advantage of that, Blu-ray isn't a total flop: Some 33.5 million homes in the U.S. had Blu-ray at the end of September 2011, up over 50% year-over-year, according to DEG, a trade group. That's about half of the roughly 70 million U.S. households with HDTVs. Blu-ray disc sales also grew 58% year-over-year in Q3 2011.

Some combination of these reasons could end up encouraging Microsoft to support discs, specifically, Blu-ray, for at least the next generation of videogame console. The future is probably downloadable or streaming games, but until we get better bandwidth, it's not practical for everyone yet.

That was the first in a series of so-called "platform support" payments believed to eventually total billions of dollars. To date, Microsoft and Nokia have been quiet about the deal's specifics, perhaps because it appears as if Microsoft is paying Nokia significantly less than its paying other cellphone manufacturers.

Slashgear's Chris Davies is suggesting Microsoft's Nokia arrangement is less than that it has struck with other cellphone makers. LTE, for example, is reportedly paying about $27 for each phone it sells with Windows Phone.

"Over the life of the agreement both the platform support payments and the minimum software royalty commitments are expected to measure in the billions of U.S. dollars," Nokia said.

Windows Phone has gotten rave reviews, but Microsoft could struggle to get developers to create apps for the phone. By some estimates, Windows Phone could pass Apple's iOS in market share by 2015.

DDRBoxman downloaded the Android 4.0 ICS source tree from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and created a custom ROM for his Galaxy Nexus. He then sends command to the Nexus with TUIOForAndroid. TUIO is, "an open framework that defines a common protocol and API for tangible multitouch surfaces" according to TUIO.org. The PC is then configured with the touch interface through the open source Kinect API and voila! We have a tangible user interface on the wall.

The Kinect API is fascinating. Some of the greatest innovations of using motion-based input methods are being cooked up at the MIT Media Lab where they use Kinects and its API as a cheap implementation of motion computing. That includes 3D interfaces, motion tracking and an array of other innovations.

Now, think of the potential with mixing Kinect with Android. One of the untapped potentials of Android is that it is not just a mobile platform. Android could run on set-top televisions boxes or control all of the electronics in your household. The concept of the "smart home" takes a step forward in the marriage between the two open source projects. It is all the more delicious that the sources come from two companies that have historically been at each other's throats: Google and Microsoft.

Google announced a framework at I/O last year that can bring Android to all of your appliances or devices. Called Android@Home it was the first notion that Google has projected that Android could be have far more uses and be more ubiquitous than most people originally believed. Now, add the Kinect API to Android@Home and you could walk into your kitchen, wave to turn on the lights, program your microwave from across the room with just a few waves of you hand. Then, go into your living room where you have an Android smartphone hooked to a projector running the Netflix app and stand in the middle of the room, swiping the air until you find your viewing material for the evening.

This all sounds like some crazy science fiction movie a la Minority Report. It is not. The fact of the matter is that right now, this technology exists. The hack by DDRBoxman is just the beginning. Within the decade, we will see this type of functionality in homes across the world.

The person, identified as a "reliable industry source" also told Kotaku that Xbox 720 will be able to play Blu-Ray discs, an option not offered on current versions of the Xbox. The next generation of Xbox is expected to be released later this year or early in 2013.

Update: "As an innovator we're always thinking about what is next and how we can push the boundaries of technology like we did with Kinect," said Microsoft spokesperson Allison Milton. "We believe the key to extending the lifespan of a console is not just about the console hardware, but about the games and entertainment experiences being delivered to consumers. Beyond that we don't comment on rumors or speculation."

It was unclear how Microsoft planned to thwart people from playing used games on their consoles. Game publishers have long complained that the used game market erodes their bottom line, but users, who are expected to pay more than $300 for the new units, may bristle and turn to systems on which they can still play second-hand games.

Other rumors tied to Xbox 720 is that it will mark the debut of Kinect 2, Microsoft's highly-praised hands-free sensor. The newer version of Kinect would contain an on-board processor to better detect user motions, according to Kotaku.

Still, a report released by IHS in the wake of Microsoft's earnings announcement last week is worth a closer look.

"Combined with Nokia's efforts to drive the development of the Windows Phone ecosystem, the Lumia 900 and its successors will help Microsoft to reclaim its No. 2 ranking in smartphone operating system market share by 2015." Lam wrote.

To do so, Microsoft would need to jump from its current market share of 2% to 16.7% in four years. Windows Phone has gotten loads of praise from reviewers and tech writers, but the company does face some hurdles, including a lack of apps when compared to the number of apps available for iPhone and Android.

Based on comments after the release of its earnings Thursday (which topped Wall Street analysts' estimates), Microsoft seems to be positioning itself to make Windows Phone more developer friendly. To date, developers have been far more interested in working on applications for iOS or on Web-based platforms.

"I would say one of the things [we] talked about at CES last week was just how important it is for us to work on and with developers to create a really vibrant developer ecosystem," said Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations, during the call with analysts.

Critics love Windows Phone, but it still has a relatively low market share, which left most people to assume Instagram would next aim to conquer Android. The photography application was named the iPhone's app of the year by Apple and now has more than 15 million users.

One of the biggest drawbacks for Windows Phone has been its lack of apps, and securing a partnership with Instagram ahead of Android would be a big coup. Instagram wants to someday be on par with the major mobile social networks (Systrom once told Fast Company he wants 300 million users), meaning it will need to be available on devices beyond the iPhone.

Windows Phone designers have been insisting that phone makers meet certain design standards - something that plagued Microsoft's previous mobile efforts. That means better cameras and platforms that are fast enough to handle Instagram. Microsoft is also undertaking a big marketing push, reportedly pumping $1 billion into Nokia to promote their partnership.

Perhaps unintentionally, the presentation comes off like a political statement, maybe as phrased by a Microsoft shareholder.

In his story, Vance recaps Microsoft's cloud strategy mostly from a consumer perspective, making sure to include Zune, Xbox, SkyDrive, and even the recent Skype acquisition in the mix, although the latter may be somewhat of a stretch. "The fullest expression of Ballmer's ambition is Microsoft's cloud computing strategy," Vance writes. That statement soon appears to be contradicted by a quote from startup analytics firm Kaggle, whose chief scientist says, "When you talk to other entrepreneurs and tell them you're using Microsoft's cloud services, they look at you like you have leprosy."

It's the negative image, and specifically the one attributed to Ballmer himself, that Microsoft is working to escape. If the Businessweek story counts as its latest move in that direction, then that's at least three that could be considered as having backfired. Last November's company shareholders meeting, according to all reports, was less than one hour in length, and cut short the Q&A session while grumbling shareholders waited at the microphone. Then the Monday keynote at CES 2012, said to be Ballmer's and Microsoft's last, was roundly excoriated by critics who expected the CEO to present a bolder, clearer strategy, as opposed to a list of underdeveloped brand names.

Truth of the matter is, compared to the fellow we saw on stage Monday, Microsoft and its customers could use a bit of the old "Monkey Boy" right about now.

That's just one example of how quickly a company's fates can change in today's fast-moving tech industry. Every company -- even those as seemingly strong today as Apple and Google -- have clear risks and weaknesses. The iPad could drive Microsoft's decline. The government could smother Google's growth efforts. And a mobile player that doesn't even exist could be the one that takes down Facebook.

Of today's tech giants, it's actually Microsoft whose position seems the most precarious: Most of its business is still based on the idea that the vast majority of the world's computers will run Windows and many of them will also run Office. During Microsoft's last fiscal year, some 60% of Microsoft's sales and even more of its profits came from its Windows and Office divisions.

But today's computer industry is growing rapidly in areas where Microsoft is currently weak: Smartphones and tablets, primarily. If the iPad starts replacing Windows computers as the default home PC or even as business kiosks, that could be problematic. If today's Windows Phones don't catch on, Microsoft might have to spend big to buy its way into the smartphone market. And even if Microsoft-based tablets and smartphones do catch on, can its economics for Windows and Office licenses in those markets be as good as they are today? Maybe not.

Microsoft is massive and it is still very profitable. But for the first time in about 20 years, it looks vulnerable.

Google

Google's biggest risk isn't competition from Facebook or Apple: It's the government.

Today, almost all of Google's revenue still comes from advertising, and the majority of it comes from advertising on Google's own sites. Google continues to invest in its future through dozens of acquisitions per year, including some big ones, such as ITA (travel search) and Motorola (mobile phones). Some of these deals are designed to expand Google's existing products, and some are designed to help diversify Google's business into new areas.

But if the U.S. or E.U. ever decides that Google is finally getting too big, it could become a real headache. Microsoft's monopoly status almost certainly hurt its ability to innovate as the Internet matured.

This isn't as far-fetched as it seems, either. The U.S. government just made a big statement by blocking AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile. It already has one eye on Google. And one wrong move, such as this week's controversial decision to integrate Google+ social data -- and only Google+ social data -- into its market-dominating search product could be the first big slip.

Apple

Apple's biggest strength -- and, therefore its biggest risk -- is its ability to dictate what's fashionable in consumer electronics, particularly with the iPhone. Over the past year, the iPhone business has generated almost half of Apple's sales, and likely even more of its profits. (Add the iPad, Mac, and iPod, and those gadgets combined generate about 90% of Apple's revenue.)

Apple's biggest weakness, then, would be a situation where its phones and other gadgets fell out of fashion, either because they stopped being very good, or another company stole the market's interest with a different take, or something along those lines.

Apple has experienced this before, when Microsoft took control of the PC industry last century. (And it has recently been the one to upset industries, too, with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.) This time, it looks like Android is the biggest threat to Apple's position.

If Google and its partners can get their act together and create a product, service, or business model -- free, ad-subsidized phones with incredibly cheap, proprietary service? -- that makes the iPhone seem old-hat, then Apple might have to scramble. Given Apple's continued lead in design, technology, apps, and fashion, it's hard to see this happening. But Apple certainly can't relax now.

Facebook

Facebook knows firsthand how precarious the lead in social networking can be: It has only been a few years since it zoomed past MySpace, knocking its rival down and forcing its fire sale. And since then, Facebook has executed very well, building an extremely popular, addictive service that is tied into many of its users' Internet activities.

But the Internet is changing from something you mostly do at a desk to something you'll mostly access from a mobile device. Facebook's biggest vulnerability, then, is that it will be replaced by a mobile-first or mobile-only social network that does magic on your phone that Facebook can't imagine and can't effectively copy.

So far, Facebook's mobile presence looks great -- on paper. The company says it has more than 350 million active mobile users. Its iOS app alone had some 98 million monthly active users before Facebook stopped publicizing this statistic. It will take any new competitor a long time to reach those numbers.

But new competitors are making Facebook look incredibly uninventive in mobile. Apps like Instagram and Path have made mobile photo sharing -- one of Facebook's main features -- much more fun than Facebook has. Facebook's apps hardly exude the sense of quality that its website did in comparison to MySpace. And Facebook's mobile-only features, such as its "Places" ripoff of Foursquare, have been uninspiring.

Perhaps Facebook is saving its best work for its ambitious mobile platform, and maybe that will even be the phone that pops the iPhone off its pedestal. Who knows! But even with Facebook's huge lead, its sustained dominance in mobile is far from certain.

Now, we'd love to hear the "top risks" you'd pick for companies we didn't get to, such as Netflix, Twitter, Amazon, Comcast, and Samsung.

It was like watching an old friend kill himself through years of alcoholism. Eventually, the bad decisions just start to pile up. But, like many alcoholics, somebody was there to throw a lifeline into that freezing, murky sea. Nokia grabbed onto Microsoft's life preserver and hung on for all it was worth. A year later? Nokia has the one thing that all technology companies crave: the buzz of the masses. People are saying positive things about Nokia again. That is an amazing thing.

When we rewrite the history of the first decade of the smartphone revolution, 2011 will likely be known as Nokia's "Lost Year." It was a strong player before 2011 and likely a strong player after. The year started with new CEO Stephen Elop, fresh out of Microsoft, taking the reigns and completely blowing up five years of development strategy. Employees that had worked on Symbian and MeeGo were irate. Elop then announced that Nokia would transition to Windows Phone for its newest smartphones. The skeptics came out in force and shouted "collusion, collusion!" Elop was ostensibly a Microsoft plant embedded in Nokia to deliver the Finnish giant into the hands of Redmond.

That may still end up being the case if Microsoft wants to buyout Nokia's handset division. There have been rumor of that recently but it is still probably too early to tell if Microsoft will make that plunge.

Image: Nokia Lumia 800

In 2011 we waited and waited for some news of how and when Nokia would implement Windows Phone. The longer the wait went on, the more technology pundits said, "Nokia is just screwed." The announcement came at Nokia World in London in October with two devices, the Lumia 710 and 800, which were released to the European market almost immediately. Yet, Nokia missed the boat on the holiday shopping season, a move that many (myself included) said was a big mistake. At the time, Nokia's head of North America, Chris Weber, told me that Nokia was going to have several differentiated devices coming to the U.S. across carriers in a way that would make the company highly competitive in the market.

Disclosure: Nokia paid ReadWriteWeb's travel and lodging to Nokia World in London.

North America, the Lumia 900 And the Buzz Engine

Nokia World is where the true buzz started. The company made a special effort to bring in U.S. journalists (many bloggers were shipped across the pond at Nokia's expense) and promised that these bright and shiny Lumia's would eventually make it stateside. There is a lot to like about the Lumia 800. In terms of hardware, it is one of the most solid smartphones that I have ever laid hands on. Windows Phone is not a complete disaster either. The user interface takes some getting used to and the app ecosystem is a work in progress but there is distinct potential for Microsoft's smartphone operating system.

The first Lumia device to reach the U.S. was the 710, rolled out to T-Mobile. The Lumia is the poor little sister to the 800. The hardware and form factor are not as evolved as the 800 and it is designed to be a middle class device. This is what Nokia is giving us? So much for that life preserver.

Right image: Nokia Lumia 710

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday, Nokia finally released its secret weapon: the Lumia 900 coming to AT&T later this year. This is a smartphone worth of consideration. It has a 4.3 inch display and superior camera optics and will run "4G" LTE.

More than anything the Lumia 900 is where Nokia's North American buzz will start. Former ReadWriteWeb and current TechCrunch reporter Sarah Perez summed it up nicely with a single tweet:

Reporter Farhad Manjoo who writes for Slate, Fast Company and the New York Times, said it succinctly in comparing the Lumia 900 to the iPhone:

Even perpetual Apple proponent MG Siegler thinks the Lumia 900 has potential.

Now Comes The Trick

Buzz is good. Especially buzz from top tech pundits that have not been friendly to your company in the last year. Research In Motion could desperately use some positive buzz at this point. A year ago it looked liked both RIM and Nokia were on the way to the Land That Technology Forgot. Nokia pulled itself out of that death spiral and today looks to turn the corner. RIM? Well, the situation there is far worse than it ever was at Nokia.

But buzz does not sell smartphones. It might sell a few to early adopters and enthusiasts but the product itself has to be able to carry consumer mind share. And that's the rub: can Nokia turn the buzz surrounding the Lumia 900 into actual sales in North America? For a populace that is enamored with the iPhone and various Android devices, that is no sure thing.

The fate of Nokia's handset division rests on how well the Lumia 900 sells at AT&T. So does the Microsoft's entry into the mobile operating system wars. At Nokia World, Elop said that the Lumia 800 was, "the first real Windows Phone." The Lumia 800 was just a precursor to more important markets. The first real Windows Phone that U.S. consumers will crave has to be Lumia 900. Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are at stake.