Microsoft Corp’s long-awaited release of the upgrade to its flagship Windows operating system will likely be delayed again by at least three months, research group Gartner Inc. said on Tuesday.

The research note, released to clients on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft’s targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates.

Vista is the first major overhaul of its operating system, which sits on 90 per cent of the world’s computers and accounts for nearly a third of Microsoft’s total revenue, since Microsoft rolled out Windows XP nearly five years ago.

Microsoft originally targeted a 2005 launch for the new Windows, then pushed the release out to 2006 before announcing in March that Vista would again be delayed to improve the product’s quality.

Gartner targets a Windows Vista release in the April-June quarter of 2007, nine to 12 months after Microsoft conducts a second major test, or “beta,” release for Vista during the current quarter.

“Microsoft still wants to get it out as soon as possible, but slipping from January to March is nowhere near as bad as slipping from shipping before the holidays to after the holidays,” a group of Gartner analysts wrote in the report.

Gartner said Windows XP took five months to go from a second test release to the start of production, but the magnitude of technological improvement in Vista is closer to Windows 2000, which took 16 months between the second test and production.

Once production starts, it usually takes between six- to eight-weeks for PC manufacturers to load the operating system onto new computers, Gartner said.

Microsoft shares were down 22 cents at $24.07 in afternoon trading on Nasdaq.

Intel Corp. said on Tuesday it plans to spend $1 billion to promote Internet use and computer training in developing countries, the latest move in the No. 1 chip maker’s effort to break into new markets.The program, which Intel has dubbed “World Ahead,” aims to bring high-speed wireless Internet access to 1 billion people who can’t get online, while training 10 million teachers to use technology in education.

The Santa Clara, California-based company said it would back those goals with $1 billion of spending over five years.

“Decades of providing technology in growing volume and at decreasing costs have driven great gains for developing nations, communities and people worldwide, but there is still much to do,” Intel chief executive Paul Otellini said in a statement.

Otellini is expected to give details of the initiative at a technology conference in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday.

The program includes Intel’s ongoing effort to promote cheap PCs that it hopes will find enthusiastic buyers among schools and villages in developing countries where most people cannot afford to buy their own personal computers.

It also extends Intel’s push to popularize a new wireless technology called WiMax, whose fast speed and long range has led many companies and industry groups to think it is ideal for poorer regions.

Intel, which makes the microprocessors that power the vast majority of personal computers around the world, has grappled with slowing growth in PCs as wealthy markets in the United States, Europe and Japan become saturated.

Microsoft Corp. scored an important win against rival Google Inc. over the weekend, as Amazon.com began using its technology to power the Internet retailer’s A9 search unit.Microsoft’s new Windows Live is at the core of the company’s efforts to win online advertising dollars away from Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.. A9 had previously been powered by Google.

Amazon’s search engine, A9, breaks down searches into various categories, such as Web searches, book searches, and blog searches. It is a stand-alone search site, www.a9.com, as well as the search technology used on the www.amazon.com Web site.

A9 Chief Executive David Tennenhouse told Reuters that Windows Live presented a “very interesting, powerful Web search option” that had previously been featured on the A9 site.

Tennenhouse said the Google search was removed from the site on Sunday, following the expiration of that contract. He would not comment on the terms of the Microsoft deal, or whether a new contract with Google had been an option.

Microsoft’s new search engine and user interface consolidates a variety of the software giant’s Web services such as search, e-mail, instant messaging and security at its Live.com site.

Senior product manager at Microsoft’s MSN Internet unit, Justin Osmer, confirmed that Google’s contract with Amazon.com had expired, but did not elaborate on what was behind the switch.

“It’s another opportunity to reach a new segment for us and get people acquainted with the Windows Live search brand,” Osmer said.

Google and Yahoo built multibillion-dollar businesses supported mainly by online ad sales from search, while Microsoft lagged behind. But Microsoft now aims to close the gap with Windows Live and a new pay-per-click advertising system called adCenter.

“We view this as more of a marathon than a sprint,” said Osmer.

MSN’s search engine lost market share again to Google and Yahoo in March. Its U.S. share fell to 11 percent from 14 percent, while Google and Yahoo each gained, rising to 49 percent and 22 percent of the search market, respectively, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Google did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson are back together. In the wireless world, anyway. Both are participating in a new mobile blogging service offered by Sprint called BlogStar, which also counts Wesley Snipes, the Game and Bam Margera as contributors. The rich and famous stars are documenting their lifestyles with camera phones and posting pictures, text and, eventually, video to their personalized mobile blogs. Access to each blog costs $5 per month. Subscribers receive alerts when new posts are uploaded, to which they can leave replies as well as discuss content with other subscribers. It’s just one example of how the blogging and social networking that have taken the Internet by storm are going wireless. At a time when ringtone and wallpaper image sales are beginning to flatten, the music industry is looking for new mobile revenue streams and promotional opportunities. MySpace has a tremendously strong impact on the music industry, and now the pieces are in place for a wireless version to do the same. BlogStar CEO Keith Yokomoto — founder of the original ArtistDirect service — says he and ArtistDirect co-founder Ted Field formed BlogStar to better capitalize on MySpace’s promise. “Just imagine if 100,000 of your fans were all connected,” Yokomoto says. “You send out a blog that goes straight to their cell phone, and you’ve got an army of folks out there blogging back in real time. How powerful is that?” On paper, the marriage of blogs and mobile phones seems like a perfect match. Everyone seems to have a mobile phone, and increasingly these devices have photo and video cameras included. Supporters say the ability to blog on the fly rather than hold off until reaching a computer adds a more intimate, real-time element to the experience.

Yet mobile blogging is no slam-dunk. Camera phones may be ubiquitous, but only the most expensive actually take decent pictures, and video phones are even more expensive. What’s more, carriers face a herculean task in convincing subscribers — who for years have been trained to view their mobile devices as a tool for making voice calls — to start thinking of their phones as a mobile computer.

Companies like Text100, MyMMSBlog.com and SMS.ac pioneered the mobile blog space by providing wireless subscribers a means of posting camera phone pictures and text messages online. But their services never grew much beyond their novelty factor.

Sprint’s BlogStar service is one of many attempts to put a recognizable face on mobile blogging to generate interest and awareness among mobile phone subscribers — in this case by relying heavily on star power.

In the last two months, however, the 800-pound gorillas of the online social networking scene began muscling their way into mobile as well. In March, MySpace — by far the most influential service, with 36 million unique visitors and more than 60 million members as of March — struck a deal with startup youth-oriented wireless operator Helio. Users will be able to update their MySpace profiles with text and photos, as well as access the profiles of others, from their mobile phones. It’s expected to go live later this spring.

At the CTIA Wireless 2006 industry conference in early April, MySpace rival FaceBook — with about 10.5 million monthly unique visitors — rolled out a mobile extension to its service with Cingular, Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Members initially will only be able to post text updates to their FaceBook profiles, with photos expected over time.

Others are following their lead. Intercasting’s Rabble mobile blog service now runs on Cingular and Verizon Wireless, which charge subscribers $3 per month to join. Los Angeles-based startup Juice Wireless launched its Juicecaster blog service at CTIA as well. Unlike online blogs now creating wireless extensions, Juicecaster was built from the ground up to integrate online and wireless posting and access.

Buzznet has been doing the same for the past two years, and recently won a contract with concert promoter Goldenvoice to power the integrated online and mobile social networking site of the upcoming Coachella music festival in Indio, Calif.

Wireless operators could not be more thrilled. The wireless industry has long believed that the successful mobile content and applications will be those that best take advantage of the communication elements of wireless. For years, the industry has been throwing everything it had at consumers to see what would stick.

Web auctioneer eBay Inc said on Monday it had bought Tradera.com, a small Swedish rival, for about $48 million.Tradera.com has more than 750,000 listings at any given time, eBay said in a statement, adding it had plans to expand online trading in Sweden using its new investment.

eBay said it did not expect the acquisition to have a material impact on its financial guidance issued with its first-quarter results last week.

Tradera’s investors include Provider Funds and TIME Vision bpart AB.

Software giant Microsoft Corp. said on Friday it hired away Steve Berkowitz, the chief executive of rival Internet company Ask.com, to head Microsoft’s own Internet business.Effective May 8, Berkowitz succeeds David Cole, a 20-year Microsoft veteran, who is set to begin a one-year leave of absence, Microsoft said in a statement. He had outlined his plans in a memo to employees in February.

Berkowitz is credited in the industry with orchestrating the turnaround of Ask.com, the Web search and media business acquired by Barry Diller’s conglomerate, IAC/InterActiveCorp, for $1.85 billion 13 months ago.

Under his leadership, Ask, originally known as Ask Jeeves, enjoyed a revival in its audience and market share gains in the highly competitive Web search business over the past year.

Berkowitz was named the senior vice president of Microsoft’s recently formed Online Business Group, which brings together the operations of Microsoft’s MSN Internet business unit with other consumer businesses within Microsoft.

The group includes MSN.com, MSNTV and MSN Internet Access programming, advertising sales, business development, and marketing for Live Platforms, MSN and Windows Live, with responsibility for generating greater advertising sales.

Microsoft’s Online Business Group competes against rivals such as Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Time Warner Inc.’s AOL unit and Ask.com.

Berkowitz will report to Kevin Johnson, co-president of Microsoft’s platforms and services unit, Microsoft said.

He propelled Ask Jeeves into the contemporary Web search market with the acquisition of Teoma in 2001. He led the redesign of Ask, made the site easier to use by removing pop-up and banner ads and providing greater context on searches.

Revenue more than doubled under his leadership.

Previously, Berkowitz was president and chief operating officer of technology trade publisher IDG Books, where he built a hit consumer brand by expanding the “Dummies” series of books to cover topics ranging from the Web to pet care. He expanded IDG Books by acquiring publishing brands such as Cliffs Notes, Frommers Travel Guides and Betty Crocker Cookbooks.

Oracle is considering launching a version of the Linux operating system and has looked at buying one of the two firms dominating the technology, a newspaper reported on Monday.

The report, citing an interview with Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison, said the move will redraw the software landscape and open a new front in Oracle’s long rivalry with US rival Microsoft. It said Mr Ellison told the newspaper that Oracle wanted to sell a full range of software that, like Microsoft, included operating system and applications. “I’d like to have a complete stack,” Mr Ellison was quoted as saying.

“We’re missing an operating system. You could argue that it makes a lot of sense for us to look at distributing and supporting Linux.” The report said that like IBM, Oracle has counted on Linux — an open source system, whose code is open to anyone to view and adapt — to act as a counterweight to Microsoft’s Windows, which has expanded rapidly from desktop PCs into corporate IT systems.

As part of a recent study of the open-source software market, Mr Ellison told the newspaper that Oracle had considered buying Novell, which after Red Hat is the biggest distributor of Linux.

Google Inc CEO Eric Schmidt on Wednesday defended the search engine’s cooperation with Chinese censorship as he announced the creation of a Beijing research center and unveiled a Chinese-language brand name.Google is trying to raise its profile in China after waiting until January to launch its Chinese-language site Google.cn.

Activists have criticized the company for blocking searches for material about Taiwan, Tibet, democracy and other sensitive issues on the site.

“We believe that the decision that we made to follow the law in China was absolutely the right one,” Schmidt said at a news conference.

He said Google had to accept restrictions in order to serve China, which has the world’s second-largest population of Internet users after the United States, with more than 111 million people online.

Schmidt also announced the creation of a research center in Beijing that he said should have 150 employees by mid-2006 and “eventually thousands of people.” He said the center is meant to create products for markets worldwide, though he said planning was still in such an early stage that he didn’t know what they might be.

Schmidt was speaking at a ceremony to announce Google’s Chinese-language brand name — ‘Gu Ge,’ or ‘Valley Song,’ which the company says draws on Chinese rural traditions to describe a fruitful and rewarding experience.

Talking to reporters later, Schmidt said Google’s managers were stung by criticism that they accepted Chinese censorship, but said they haven’t lobbied Beijing to change its rules.

“I think it’s arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning to operate and tell that country how to operate,” he said.

Asked whether Google might try to persuade Beijing to change its restrictions, Schmidt said he didn’t rule anything out, but said it hasn’t tried to change such limits elsewhere. He noted that Google’s site in Germany is barred from linking to Nazi-oriented material.

“There are many cases where certain information is not available due to local law or local custom,” he said.

Schmidt said China accounts for only a small portion of Google’s revenues because the company has only recently obtain a license to allow it to carry local advertising. But he said the company expects China to be an important part of its future business.

One possible Google project in China would be to make Chinese books available online in digital form or to use translation software to produce English-language editions, Schmidt said.

He said the Beijing technical center could quickly become Google’s biggest outside the United States, surpassing its European lab in Zurich, Switzerland.

Chinese universities “are now churning out a very large number of very, very good programmers,” he said. “So we are moving quickly now to hire the best and the brightest.”

Google Inc. is introducing on Thursday a free Web calendar service for consumers to schedule events and share them with others, opening a new level of competition with rivals such as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.Google Calendar, available at www.google.com/calendar, offers a variety of features to make using Web calendars as easy as desktop calendars such as Outlook, allowing users to “drag and drop” events from one calendar to another.

The new service takes advantage of slick Web programming tricks using Javascript and XML along with RSS. But perhaps the biggest breakthrough is the calendar’s use of “natural language processing” technology that simplifies how events are entered.

The feature allows users to type simple commands like “leave work today at 5 p.m.” or “drinks Thursday with Elinor” that the system can interpret and automatically insert into the calendar. Events can be private, shared with friends, or made public on the Web, Google Calendar’s product manager said.

“Google Calendar takes all the events in my life and keeps them in one place,” Carl Sjogreen said in a phone interview.

“We enable the user to create multiple calendars, share them with other people and overlay Web calendars back on the user’s own calendar,” the Google product manager said.

Users of Google’s free e-mail service Gmail may find the Google Calendar particularly useful. Google’s software scours Gmail to recognize mentions of events and then automatically offers the user to add the date information to the calendar.

PRESSING OTHERS TO INNOVATE

Details of the long-rumored calendar, complete with screenshots of features and instruction guides, had leaked out in late February among Silicon Valley technology enthusiasts.

The calendar poses a direct challenge to Yahoo Calendar, the No. 1 Web calendar service in the United States, which was introduced in 1998 and has changed little in substance in recent years. But Google said it plans to “play nice” and allow users to share Google Calendar events with Yahoo Calendar.

While Sjogreen is careful to say that Google Calendar is not designed to replace corporate calendars, it could raise expectations among office workers that its features should be part of corporate scheduling systems like Microsoft’s Outlook or IBM’s Lotus Notes.

Sjogreen said Google is working to offer seamless connections to Microsoft Outlook, the Palm Treo smartphone and to various other mobile phone calendars in coming months.

The trial version of Google Calendar is being offered in English. Gmail users will begin being offered the service within the next week. In coming months, Google will translate the calendar into multiple languages, Sjogreen said.

The Sunnyvale, California-based rival of Google said in a statement that the company is working on updates to Yahoo Calendar, which it plans to release in coming months.

Last year, Yahoo acquired Upcoming.org. (http://upcoming.org/), a social event calendar that helps users manage events, share them with friends and family, and post notifications to one’s own or to other Web sites.

If this detective takes off it will be more popular than Sherlock Holmes — it’s a software to trace lost mobiles. Inspired to create a mobile tracking solution after his 16-year old son lost his cellphone, P Sekhar, chairman and managing director of Micro Technologies, and his team began work on a programme to track phones.

The code, downloadable at Rs 200 to Rs 300 a year on most handsets from Micro’s website, allows the owner to track the exact location of his or her phone and the number of the new SIM (subscriber identity module) card that has been inserted. Explaining the technology, Sekhar said, “When a phone is stolen, the thief generally sells the device in the grey market.

When a new SIM card is inserted, the solution embedded in the phone will send an email or voice message to the original owner notifying him of the number on the new SIM card and the location of the phone.” “Most times,’’ he added, “the third party tends to return the gadget procured from the g rey market.’’

As of now, the only action a subscriber can take is to call the service provider frantically and seek to block his or her card — retrieving the handset itself is a lost cause. Called the Lost Mobile Tracking Solution (LMTS), the e-sniffer is awaiting a patent.

It was created with an investment of Rs 50 lakh, of which half has already been recovered in the four months of its launch in the Indian market. It would be safe to say that thousands of phones are stolen and lost in India every day, left behind in cabs, washrooms, restaurants and shops. In 2005, 20,000 cases of stolen mobiles (worth Rs 300 crore) were reported with the police.

About eight crore mobile handsets were retailed in India in the same year. Sekhar, who plans to take this solution global in the next two months, is in talks with five of the largest mobile manufacturers as well as the police, who say that lost mobile complaints are on the rise. He estimates that the market for such a solution could aggregate to Rs 30-40 crore within the next three years.