When Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 launched last year, it received largely positive reviews, including from us. But there was a nagging sense that it was incomplete, and there were a lot of tiny but important features missing.

With the follow-up officially known as Windows Phone 7.5 (codenamed Mango) now out on new phones as well as an update on existing models this month, the platform is proving to be a capable OS with enough features on take on both iOS and Android.

People who have never used WP7 before this will probably find it difficult to spot most of these improvements, as the user experience remains consistent. So without further ado, let’s dive into our Goondu review!

Improved performance

After upgrading my LG Optimus 7 to WP7.5, I fully expected some slow-downs. After all, it’s not the best of Windows Phones, and 7.5 brings with it more than 500 new features that are sure to bog down the phone, right?

To my pleasant surprise, performance actually improved. Everything bounced and jumped along even faster than before the upgrade. Even on the relatively old 1GHz chip the Optimus 7 uses, everything worked just fine, and dare I say, even faster than the dual-core Android behemoths out there.

Unfortunately, battery life seems to have suffered a little. I used to be able to get through an entire day with just one charge. Now the battery gets precariously close to needing a new charge by the end of the work day.

The souped up “People” hub

The People hub is basically your phonebook, but augmented with additional data from Facebook.  WP7.5 adds Twitter and LinkedIn support so you can natively check your social networks without installing separate apps. Of course, these apps are all available in the app marketplace (with the exception of LinkedIn) should you prefer the full experience.

In addition, the “Me” tile has also been improved. You can now post updates straight to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Windows Live right from the “Me” tile. Notifications such as Facebook comments and Twitter mentions also gets delivered straight to your “Me” tile, without the need to open different apps all the time.

WP7.5 also adds a Groups feature, which lets you group contacts together and view just their updates. This is an excellent feature which lets you quickly get an update on what’s happening in your social circles.

Email and messaging

Prior to 7.5, e-mail in Windows Phone looked nice, but was largely inefficient. Messages were not threaded, and you had to have separate tiles for different inboxes. 7.5 brings a unified inbox, and threads related e-mails together so you don’t have to scroll down 1 kilometre just to find an e-mail you sent a week ago.

You can even pin a specific folder to the start screen, allowing quick access to your most important emails.

If you link up your contacts with their respective Facebook and Windows Live accounts, SMS messages will also threaded with Facebook chat and Windows Live Messenger IMs, making a seamless flow of conversation really possible.

App handling & interaction

Despite going for less focus on apps, Microsoft has vastly improved what apps can or cannot do within WP7.5. For one, the much-hankered after multi-tasking ability is now present – just hold down the back button and a spread of your open apps appears in front of you.

But it’s still not true multitasking.  Instead, developers have to manually add to their apps the ability to freeze the app in the background, much like how iOS does it.

On top of that, freezing isn’t really done on an app by app basis, but more on a screen by screen system. For example, I could have three messaging threads as my last three “apps” and the phone will show all of them in the multi-tasking screen.

To make it even more annoying, WP7.5 limits the number of frozen “screens” to only 5. Anything app beyond that isn’t frozen, and will have to start from scratch the next time you open it.

Moving on to a more positive note, developers can now deep link an app from the home screen. Simply put, developers can get creative and allow certain functions of their apps to be pinned directly on the home screen. For example, I can pin my favourite foursquare location to my home screen for faster check-in. That way, I don’t have to open up the app (I use a third-party app called 4^th & Mayor), navigate to the location, and check-in.

Apps can also take more advantage of Windows Phone’s best features: live tiles. On top of displaying information on one side, tiles can now flip to display more information on the other side. For example, if you pin your “Me” tile to the start screen, it will flip to display new notifications when they come in.

Camera & photos

Windows Phone’s camera software also sees and upgrade in 7.5. For one, you can finally save your camera settings (e.g. no flash, effects etc.). Previously, the camera settings reset every time you exit the app, causing a lot of frustration.

Microsoft has also baked in an “auto-fix” function which automatically edits the brightness, exposure, colour etc. of your photos to make them look better.  However, there’s no manual control, so the photos don’t always look the way you want them to.

Twitter sharing has been added to the existing Facebook sharing. Photos you share on Twitter will be shared on SkyDrive, in a folder called Mobile Uploads. This is immediately less appealing to people who prefer to use their SkyDrive for storing other data.

In addition, you can now tag your Facebook friends right from the phone. Tags can be done either through manual typing, or choosing a contact from your People hub. However, there’s no way to fine-tune to position of the tags; you’ll have to download the Facebook app for that.

Office & SkyDrive

Microsoft Office is now fully integrated with SkyDrive in WP7.5, letting you view, edit, and save documents in the cloud. Also in the new OS: support for multiple Exchange account, Information Rights Management for confidential documents, the ability to sync Outlook tasks and set up out-of-office messages.

Internet Explorer 9

WP7.5’s browser has been upgraded to IE9, with the full works: HTML5, CSS3, SV and more! The interface has also been tweaked to allow more of the webpage to appear on the screen. Each tab runs as a separate process so a rogue webpage won’t crash your entire browser.

IE9 mobile also features hardware acceleration, and webpages do load faster compared to pre-7.5. On the flipside, my phone gets really hot after browsing for about 10 minutes. It would be nice if I can turn off hardware acceleration when on-the-go to save some power.

What’s missing

Despite this update bonanza, there are still lots missing in Windows Phone. Chief among these is the inability to sync your shared Google calendars. Currently, to see the events on a shared Google calendar, I first have to copy them to my personal calendar.

Internet sharing, or tethering, is also missing from the update, although new Windows Phones like the HTC Radar do get them. Some manufacturers like LG have already promised to deliver the functionality through an update, while others like Dell have said their Venue Pro will never get it.

Also, I’d like to see more IM options available in the messaging threads. Not everyone chats on Facebook or Windows Live Messenger, and options like Yahoo! Messenger or Google Talk would be welcome.

All the Bing location-based goodies are unavailable in this part of the world. With Siri now about to go on tonnes of iPhone 4S handsets – global support will be available in 2012, says Apple – Microsoft better work fast or Apple’s offering will eclipse Bing very soon.

Looking for a new phone? Give Windows Phone a look

If you’re in the market for a new smartphone, it’s time to look at Windows Phone seriously. The latest update brings it up to par to Android and iOS, and in some areas it even surpasses the two in functionality.

This review only covered the major new features, but there is a lot of original stuff going on in Windows Phone that should have people picking it up for the first time pleasantly surprised. Plus, with Android facing legal difficulties, manufacturers might just start to look at Windows Phone as a safer alternative to put on their phones.

With Nokia set to release their first Windows Phone device in the coming few months, the future of the platform looks bright.

For those who tire of a scroll wheel, Apple’s Magic Mouse has always been the standard in touch mice that let you simply slide your finger on the smooth surface to navigate on screen.

Recently, Microsoft came up with the quite amazing Arc Touch Mouse, which offered not just touch sensors but also a smart flexible shape that users cracked open whenever they wanted to use it, but snapped back into a easy-to-store position when not in use.

This month, Microsoft is shipping two more touch mice – the sexy-looking S$99 Touch Mouse and the more budget-friendly S$59 Explorer Touch Mouse.

Let’s talk about the Touch Mouse. It doesn’t have some of the indentations that fit your grip like Logitech’s MX series mice, for example. But the basic shape, as Microsoft points out, does feel pretty natural to grip. It also makes life easier for left-handers whose hands won’t fit sculpted mice shapes made for right handers.

Microsoft’s new Touch Mouse is fully touch-based, which means you can not just scroll up and down your webpages using a simple movement of your fingers, but also control a whole range of actions.

The top portion, though not marked out physically, actually responds like three physical mouse buttons. So, you can set, say, your left mouse finger to tap for the traditional left click, while the centre and right can be programmed for either anything from right click to zoom in/out.

Speaking of which, there are a lot more things that you can do with touch. Using your thumb, you can go forward or back on your browser. Slide along with two fingers and you can maximise, minimise or restore your window. Finally, when you put as many as three fingers on the mouse, you can minimise all windows and reveal the desktop – a great help for folks who work with many windows.

I like the Touch Mouse’s design and build, which are as reassuring as the three-year warranty that Microsoft offers. But like all touch mice, you may have to set the sensitivity to a level you are comfortable with.

I used my wife’s iMac to create some Powerpoints recently and was annoyed to no end by the Magic Mouse’s ultra-sensitive surface that kept scrolling through the slides accidentally.

Another thing to note, of course, if that the Touch Mouse works only with Windows 7, at least for the advanced touch functions. So, if you are using Windows Vista or XP, too bad. Still, if you are on Windows 7, I’d recommend the Touch Mouse – it’s a well-built alternative to Apple’s Magic Mouse.

The Explorer Touch Mouse feels a little plasticky, and does not have the all-round touch sensors that the Touch Mouse offers. But to be fair, it is quite a lot cheaper, comes in four colours and also promises battery life no shorter than 18 months.

(WIN a free Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse from Techgoondu – find out more here)

Stand aside, browser wars; a new battle is heating up between Microsoft and Google and this time, the battlefield is email.

Google fired the first shot by launching a new website called Email Intervention, designed to help you stage an intervention among your friends who still use that outdated email address from the 1990s. The accompanying video featuring an “intervention specialist” is cute, funny and completely in Google’s cheeky style.

Out of the blue, a video meant for internal salespeople leaked out from Microsoft and drew quite a few chuckles from us. Unexpectedly hilarious, Microsoft’s clip featured “Gmail Man”, a mailman who goes around reading your personal email and then says, “Who cares?”

In the video, the Redmond company exaggerates the function of Gmail’s advertisements, emphasising the privacy and security of its own product, and throws in a few catchy jingles to boot.

His favourite game is peekaboo,
His favourite words, “So what?”
He smiles in your face when
You stutter, “But, but, but…”
His ads are unsolicited,
Based on what you type,
Makes you wanna ditch Gmail
And go Office 3-6-5.

The message Microsoft is trying to bring across is how Google’s enterprise offerings, although inexpensive, are merely channels for it to sell ads. When you buy an Office 365 plan, there are no ads!

But what Microsoft is forgetting is that there are no advertisements in Google Apps for Business! Ads are turned off by default, and administrators can turn it on if they so wish. And of course, we all know no real person actually reads our Gmail account. It’s a fully automated system that learns as it goes along.

That’s what Google says, and we all trust Google… Right?

Microsoft has released a new Camera Codec Pack that enables Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines to view and edit a wider range of image formats, including the RAW format popular with serious photographers. The Codec Pack is available in both 32- and 64-bit systems, and will support RAW files from more than 120 different DSLR cameras.

With this update, users will be able to view raw images in Explorer and edit them in Windows Live Photo Gallery. However, there are quite a few variations within the format itself – usually a proprietary format by the camera maker – and Microsoft is working to add support for RAW images from more cameras.

The RAW format is popular among photographers because it reproduces each and every original pixel captured without any form of compression. In comparison, the JPEG is a very lossy format that typically compresses the image up to ten times. RAW files thus allow the photographer to have greater control over the photograph’s output.

One of the chief reasons photographers usually prefer Mac systems to Windows is because of the former’s native support for the RAW format. Apple has been offering a regularly updated RAW codec pack as part of OS X since 2005. No such support was available on the Windows front, except from third-party vendors, until now.

This new codec pack will surely give users an easier time managing and organising raw image files on their PC.

Everybody is looking at social media as the next gold rush.

It’s not surprising, given that social media has moved beyond the consumer space and into the enterprise.

At a press event last week, infrastructure software company TIBCO showed off Tibbr 3.0, an social media platform for enterprises that will be available in August 2011.

Tibbr was launched in January this year after being in development since 2009.

It may be a little bit late to the game though, and gaining mindshare will be difficult as the market is quite crowded.

There are a ton of niche companies who specialize in this space like Yammer and Socialcast.

Not to mention all the big IT companies, who all have solutions or are looking at this space, like IBM (with Connections and Lotus Live) and Microsoft (with Office 365 and Officetalk) and Salesforce.com (with Chatter).

So what makes Tibbr different?

According to Ram Menon, executive vice president of worldwide marketing for TIBCO, traditional social media platforms — especially mass consumer ones like Facebook — allow you to reach out and connect with as many people as possible.

This is great when it is about our personal lives, but when it comes to the enterprise, things like security and the right information flow is more important.

“In the enterprise domain, you want pinhole access to information, with the right information given to the right folks at the right time,” he said.

And his argument is that TIBCO, being in the space of event messaging, communications and workflow for 14 years, understands the domain and has built a better product in this space.

Tibbr can connect to third-party applications like Oracle iExpense and SugarCRM, and works across mobile platforms like iOS, Android and Blackberry. Ram claims that Tibbr can be deployed in “hours instead of months”.

My take? Call me cynical, but even if the Tibbr product has good reviews, the solution will have a tough time gaining mindshare in the wider enterprise market.

Customers who use platforms like Salesforce.com, IBM, Microsoft, Google, etc. will probably consider social media solutions from these big IT companies, who also integrate social media workstreams into their software platforms.

If it’s bespoke, an enterprise can choose a smaller, nimbler system integrator to implement its vision.

It wasn’t articulated at the press event, but if TIBCO’s vision is to use social media to differentiate itself from other infrastructure messaging players in its middleware stack space, then it makes sense. Upsell it’s existing customer base on the new product to defend and grow its turf (as I’ve argued before on Salesforce.com’s Chatter), and see where the market takes you.

After all, social media is still begining its nascent rise in the enterprise, and there’s lots of room for jockeying in the space.

UNWIRED, Singapore’s first and only independent wireless and mobile conference, returned for a second run last Thursday, and saw the attendance of top-level executives from the relevant industries from across Southeast Asia.

Opened by the Infocomm Development Authority’s assistance chief executive Khoong Hock Yun, it featured half a day’s discussion on hot topics affecting the industry and its users.

From Singapore’s expected move to next generation mobile broadband (4G/LTE) to the rise of mobile computing and winning features of a mobile operating system, the conference was packed with fresh insights from a who’s who list of the country’s industry experts, who fielded a number of questions from the audience.

Of particular interest was the first panel, which starred Chan Kin Hung (head of products and solutions at Starhub), Chan Yim Leng (vice-president for consumer products at SingTel), Raymond Tan (former CEO of Berca Global Access), and Remus Tan (director of mobile networks from Tellabs). The discussion centered on the upcoming 4^th generation of cellular wireless standards, and their rollout in Singapore.

Some telcos, for instance in the US, have branded their networks as 4G, but there is currently no system which meets the 4G standards set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), although there are viable candidates. True 4G standards will be able to deliver all content, from voice to multimedia, over IP and provide a completely different user experience.

SingTel and Starhub are already conducting LTE technical trials, but the key driver, according to StarHub’s Chan Kin Hung, is devices that support LTE. SingTel’s Chan Yim Leng also cited the importance of establishing a regulatory environment as an important factor to get things going. The idea is thus for telcos to jointly roll out LTE with manufacturers and governments.

What about WiMAX, a competing wireless standard to LTE? According to Raymond Tan, the issue in many developing countries like Indonesia, where “outside of big cities, the closest thing to mobile broadband is GPRS”, is not speed, but stable throughput. WiMAX cannot provide spectacular speeds, but it can deliver stable rates of 1 to 2 Mbps, he said. Both telco panelists expressed that Singapore has no use of WiMAX, and that 3G is a more suitable standard locally.

The conference then moved on to the rise of mobile computing with a second panel made up of hardware makers. Spiros Nikolakopoulos, Motorola’s vice-president for mobile devices for Asia, called the new trend “converged computing”. Indeed, the rise of tablet devices has many people using computers when many have not even owned a desktop in their lives, he noted.

Moving forward, it is agreed that two largest issues facing mobile computing the battery life of devices and consumer education in the devices’ usage. As of today, most smartphones can barely last a day in usage. Consumers will also benefit from tips on how to get the most out of their new toys.

What will a winning mobile OS look like in the future? That was the topic for the last panel. Less than a year ago, iOS was the dominant mobile OS; now that crown belongs to Android.

If Marc Hopstein, Microsoft’s lead for Windows Mobile, APAC, is to be believed, people-centric communication and the ability to build an ecosystem around the OS are important.

But to a hardware manufacturer like Samsung, “building brand loyalty, regardless of platform” is the most important factor, said Winston Goh, product marketing manager of Samsung Asia. Customers must identify with the brand and stick with it even if they decide to jump platforms, and this is something hardware manufacturers must work towards.

The day culminated in a networking session at the hotel bar, with the first round bought by one of UNWIRED’s main sponsors Tellabs. (Never say no to free beer!) It was enlightening to listen to speakers who would not otherwise talk about what their companies are up to and what’s next for the industry.

See you next year!

After a six month investigation in cooperation with Microsoft’s Counterfeit Investigation unit, the Singapore police last week seized over a thousand pieces of pirated Microsoft software as well as twelve tablet PCs that had unlicensed Windows 7 installed.

The police raided warehouses in Changi, Pasir Ris, Chinatown and Bukit Batok to uncover a covert counterfeit software ring that operates across China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia.

Microsoft said in a statement that there is an increase in the availability of sophisticated counterfeit software that closely resembles genuine and authentic versions, some even with the Certificate of Authenticity sticker on them. These products look like the real deal to the untrained eye and consumers who don’t pay close attention will likely buy software that is laden with malware.

And while it feels good to get a bargain on Windows — which can be seriously expensive — pirated Windows will fail the activation test and subsequently be denied any future software updates and security patches. There is, of course, also the issue of intellectual property rights.

In the Asia-Pacific region, 59 percent of PCs contain unlicensed, pirated or counterfeit software compared to the global average of 42 percent. While Singapore is reported to have the fourth-lowest software piracy rate in the region, data from anti-piracy watchdog, the Business Software Alliance (BSA), and IDC suggests that piracy rates continue to hover around the 35 percent mark, representing dollar losses of over US$197 million a year in Singapore alone.

If you’re concerned that your copy of Windows or any other Microsoft software smells fishy, Microsoft has a portal which educates consumers on how to spot pirated software. In addition, you can email piracy@microsoft.com for any queries or reports.

Fortune published its list of the Most Admired companies in the world earlier this month, and BrandFinance just followed suit with its list of the 500 world’s more valuable brands, measured with a different methodology. Surprisingly, this list is rather different from Fortune’s; more technology companies made it into the top ten, and (gasp!) Microsoft is ranked higher than Apple!

To arrive at its results, BrandFinance put factors such as brand’s revenue into the blender of a rather complicated methodology to come up with a rating that is similar to a credit rating issued by banks. Hit up their site for a more comprehensive explanation.

Of the companies that made it to the top ten, seven can be considered tech companies. We’re all familiar with Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Apple. General Electric also manufactures high-tech products from aircraft engines to power generators. Rounding up the seven are two telecommunications companies – Vodafone from the UK and AT&T from the US.

Google jumps to the top spot this year from its second place last year, with its brand valued at US$44.2 billion dollars, 23 per cent higher than last year’s $36 billion. The search giant received a brand rating of AAA+ for going into un-commercial endeavours and its active not-for-profit ventures such as the Google Person Finder. Google’s reputation for innovation is renowned, and continues to grow with the impending launch of Chrome OS.

Microsoft climbed from the 5^th spot last year to the 2^nd this year, and also received a rating of AAA+. Valued at US$42.8 billion (up from $33.6 billion in 2010), the world’s largest software maker has indeed been making significant changes to its product line-ups. Windows 7, Bing, and Windows Phone 7 have garnered generally positive reviews, and the company is set to preview its next desktop operating system soon.

IBM, the “big blue”, held on to its fourth spot, and continues on strong in its offerings of infrastructure, hosting, and consultancy services. IBM holds more patents than any other US corporation, and is extending its reach into Asia with the construction of its China Analytics Solution Center. BrandFinance valued it at US$36.1 billion.

But the most dramatic improvement comes from Apple, which leaped from the 20^th spot last year to the 8^th, coming in at an increase of 45 per cent to US$29.5 billion. The company commands almost unwavering loyalty from its fans with a mixture of good products and clever marketing, and single-handedly created an entire class of products with the iPad. It is expected to launch the iPhone 5 later this year.

Other notable brands on the top 100 include Intel (No. 27), Amazon (No.32), Oracle (No.53), Sony (No. 61), and Dell (No. 77). Nokia experienced a freefall from the 21^st spot down to the 94^th, perhaps signaling that it really is time for the company to change. This latest list, which ranks Microsoft so high up, suggests that they might have made the right decision to work with Microsoft on Windows Phone 7.

A new face on the list is Facebook, which comes in at the 281^st spot. The social networking company’s brand is valued at US$3.69 billion and has grown to more than 500 million users since its inception. As a young company, it still has a lot of questions to be answered. Will it go public this year? Will a competiting product from Google successfully challenge its reign? Indeed, it’ll be interesting to see where Facebook is going this year.

Again, we have a bonus for Singapore readers! Singapore Airlines made this list too, and clinched the 274^th spot, though down from 225^th last year. It received an impressive grade of AAA-, and is valued at US$3.75 billion.

How would you change the list? Let us know in the comments!

Microsoft officially took the wraps off the final version of Internet Explorer 9 in Singapore today. We’ve reviewed the beta previously, and nothing earth-shattering has been added since then. The spanking new browser saw mainly performance tweaks and interoperability enhancements in its final version.

For the benefit of those not up to speed with the browser, let’s do a re-cap of its new features: IE9 is very, very fast due mainly to hardware acceleration, it has a clean new interface, it complies with Web standards, and you can do neat things with websites like pin websites to your Windows 7 taskbar. Developers can even take advantage of jump lists by coding their websites appropriately.

As you can see, there’s really nothing new to review. IE9 is a surprisingly good browser; once Web developers update their website to render their pages correctly – and not assume that every IE is born equal – there could potentially be an uptake in usage.

According to Windows Client Business Group Lead Matthew Hardman, that’s not a very difficult thing to do. The IT staff at Citibank, for example, took only one day to optimise their site for Internet Explorer 9, providing personalised experiences to their customers through custom jump lists. Other Singapore companies which have adopted IE9 in its Web design strategy include Golden Village Cinemas and DBS.

Microsoft claims that IE9 blocks 99 per cent of socially engineered malware attacks, five times more than Firefox and 33 times more than Chrome. The browser comes with its own ad blocker of sorts called Tracking Protection, which is designed to stop third-party content from tracking the user’s browsing habits.

But the feather in Microsoft’s cap is surely IE9’s extensive support for Web standards, such as HTML5 and CSS3. In fact, one of the browser’s unique selling point is the decreased reliance on plug-ins for displaying content, letting pure lines of text code do all the work. IE9 is thus future-proof to a certain extent. At the same time, a compatibility view button lets users “fix” weird-looking pages by switching back to old IE mode.

But with Firefox 4 coming on March 22, Microsoft’s browser could be in for a tough fight, especially in view of the former’s strong ecosystem of extension developers. Regrettably, the company currently has no formal plans to enhance IE9′s add-on ecosystem, something which we’re sure will put off power users.

All in all, IE9 seems to have successfully struck the sweet spot between performance and compatibility, though it’s a pity that Windows XP users won’t get the upgrade.

To see for yourself just how good this browser is, visit the Internet Explorer Test Drive site and compare how various tests perform when run in IE9 or your other favourite browser.

Meanwhile, here’s Hardman giving you a quick preview of the browser for Techgoondu:

Microsoft is stepping up its efforts to wean the world off Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). A new website has been created by the Redmond company just to watch the aging browser die.

It sounds kind of morbid to put it that way, but for a slow and insecure web browser to stick around for 10 years causes a lot of trouble for web developers. They often have to take into account the different page rendering capacities of old browsers in creating web pages.

According to the website, 12% of the world is still using IE6, with China being the worst perpetrator — a whopping 34.5% of web surfers there are still on IE6. Singapore, being generally tech-savvy, still sees about 4.4% of usage. A very curious phenomenon indeed, since two new versions of Internet Explorer has been released since then, and a third newest one has hit Release Candidate status.

Recognising that a percentage of these people still using IE6 are doing so in corporate settings, Microsoft also put together some links to help convince IT departments to move to IE8. The list includes case studies and migration tips.

So how can you play a part in this race to kill IE6? Why, put a banner on your site informing your visitors, of course! Only IE6 users will be able to see this banner, and clicking on it will bring them to a site prompting them to upgrade.

If you’re reading Techgoondu, chances are you’re tech-savvy enough to be using a more modern browser. And if you’re not, do upgrade now! IE6 is one of the least secure browsers out there (if not the least secure) and your browsing experience would be greatly enhanced by choosing any other browser.

Are you still forced to use IE6 at work? Let us know in the comments!