Direct from Google headquarters, Vice President of Product Management Sundar Pichai explains that the company’s forthcoming Chrome OS could signal the end of desktop apps as we know them.

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Speaking at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans this past July, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said of Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS, “Who knows what this thing is?” Today, he found out. The operating system, a direct challenge to Microsoft Windows, was on display at a media gathering at the company’s HQ this morning, and in the words of Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management, it is intended to make computing a “delightful” experience.

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Once the plucky underdog in the browser battle, Mozilla’s Firefox is today the second most popular browser worldwide, after Internet Explorer. Since it was first released in November 2004, the browser has succeeded not just in dislodging IE from its dominant market position, but in proving that an open-source project can become a widely used consumer application. At 7:47 am PDT this morning, the browser reached its billionth download.

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Despite all its threats and protestations, Microsoft has finally capitulated to the European Commission’s demand that it bundle rival Web browsers along with Internet Explorer in Windows 7. “Microsoft has proposed a consumer ballot screen as a solution to the pending antitrust case,” the Commission said in a press release. Microsoft, for its part, says the move is a “big step forward.”

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Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Microsoft Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, was given a bump-up in title today. He was promoted to president, joining Stephen Elop, Bob Muglia, Qi Lu and Robbie Bach as the fifth company executive with that title. The official announcement and all-hands memo, after the jump.

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After four beta versions and nearly as many release candidates, Firefox 3.5 is finally here. This latest version of the browser offers a number of new features. Among them: Private browsing, location aware surfing, support for emerging HTML 5 standards such as plug-in-free video and audio playing, and better JavaScript performance.

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Microsoft’s proposal to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7 in Europe may put the company in compliance with European law, but it’s not going to lead to better competition in the browser market. That’s the word from Microsoft’s rivals at home and abroad who say the “must-carry” provision the European Commission has been mulling as a solution to the company’s antitrust indiscretions is the only one that will work.

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What a brilliant move. The European Commission claims Microsoft’s practice of bundling Internet Explorer with Windows violates European competition laws, so the company strips IE out of European versions of Windows 7. Now the Commission can’t argue that Microsoft’s behavior distorts fair competition in the browser market because, well, there’s no browser.

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QOTD

“To ensure that Microsoft is in compliance with European law, Microsoft will be releasing a separate version of Windows 7 for distribution in Europe that will not include Windows Internet Explorer. Microsoft will offer IE8 separately and free of charge and will make it easy and convenient for PC manufacturers to preinstall IE 8 on Windows 7 machines in Europe if they so choose. PC manufacturers may choose to install an alternative browser instead of IE 8, and has always been the case, they may install multiple browsers if they wish.”

– Bowing to regulatory pressure, Microsoft agrees to ship Windows 7 in Europe sans IE

With a 20 percent share of the the world-wide browser market and 31 percent of its European segment, Mozilla’s Firefox browser has clearly proven that Microsoft Internet Explorer is not immune to free-market competition. But the natural course of the free markets is apparently not moving fast enough for the European Commission, which is mulling forcing Microsoft to include browsers other than IE in its Windows OS.

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Microsoft has a far easier time meeting legal deadlines than software ship dates, doesn’t it? The European Commission today said the company met its deadline to respond to charges that its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows violates European competition laws.

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Is Microsoft truly committed to bringing its major productivity applications to mobile devices? Of course it is. Will the iPhone be one of them? Absolutely. How can I say that with such certainty? Well, because Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s Business Division, hinted at Web 2.0 Expo yesterday that it would be. But more importantly, because Microsoft formally announced it last November.

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