Where is Wednesday’s IT Blogwatch? In Denver, where Microsoft launches a Salesforce.com-killer. Not to mention building Scott Hanselman’s ridiculously fast PC…

Marc L. Songini reports:

Years after nimble upstarts like Salesforce.com Inc. broke ground in the on-demand CRM business, Microsoft Corp. is finally set to launch its own, much anticipated hosted offering today at its Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver. The offering from Microsoft’s Business Solutions unit is based on the next version of its packaged CRM application, code-named Titan, which is due to ship in the fourth quarter.
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The hosted service will come in two versions — Professional and Enterprise Editions. The Professional Edition will include all the customization, sales, service and workflow capabilities of the Titan software. The service will be offered without charge through the end of 2007, and then will be priced at $39 per user per month during 2008 and $44 thereafter … The Enterprise Edition includes the same capabilities and allows users to continue working in an application independently of the service. Once the user logs back on to CRM Live, the data on the laptop is automatically synchronized with the online database … available in April 2008 … at $59.

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‘Twas a busy weekend of finger pointing with the DoJ pointing to Google, which pointed to Microsoft, which beckoned its former attorney — at the DoJ! Not to mention effective procrastination …

Joe Wilcox blows the whistle:

Back in November, a mystery company filed a legal complaint about Windows Vista. The company has been revealed to be Google, in a breach of legal protocol.
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Suddenly there is chatter about the Google complaint, as seen in a New York Times story posted [Saturday], with a Sunday dateline. The public disclosure, which fingers Google as the November complainant, violates the court’s protocol for protecting the privacy of companies filing complaints. Apparently, there is division among some states and the Justice Department about the Google complaint.
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As for the complaint: Apparently, Google contends that Windows Vista’s built-in search feature is anticompetitive because the search indexer can’t be turned off. So, for people choosing Google Desktop Search, there would be two indexers running, which allegedly would degrade performance and the overall end user experience.

Oh, hi! Here’s Tuesday’s IT Blogwatch: in which Microsoft reveals more details about Silverlight (née WPF/E). Not to mention baby diaper tracking graphs…

Eric Lai reports:

Microsoft Corp. kicked off its Mix07 Web development conference today by announcing that a full portable version of its flagship .Net programming environment will be fused to the next version of its Silverlight ‘Flash-killer’ rich media technology … can allow multimedia developers to juice their Silverlight apps with .Net — even on non-Windows machines.
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[Microsoft chief software architect, Ray] Ozzie also said that Web and graphic designers and developers will have free use of Microsoft’s Windows Live Platform, a Web storage service, to store, run and show off their Silverlight applications and videos. Microsoft also released the alpha of its Silverlight Streaming service, with which developers will be able to store up to 4GB of high-definition video and stream it out to Silverlight users.
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The beta of Silverlight 1.0, which was known as Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere until two weeks ago, was released today. The final version is due sometime this summer.

Oh, hi! Here’s Tuesday’s IT Blogwatch: in which Microsoft reveals more details about Silverlight (née WPF/E). Not to mention baby diaper tracking graphs…

Eric Lai reports:

Microsoft Corp. kicked off its Mix07 Web development conference today by announcing that a full portable version of its flagship .Net programming environment will be fused to the next version of its Silverlight ‘Flash-killer’ rich media technology … can allow multimedia developers to juice their Silverlight apps with .Net — even on non-Windows machines.
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[Microsoft chief software architect, Ray] Ozzie also said that Web and graphic designers and developers will have free use of Microsoft’s Windows Live Platform, a Web storage service, to store, run and show off their Silverlight applications and videos. Microsoft also released the alpha of its Silverlight Streaming service, with which developers will be able to store up to 4GB of high-definition video and stream it out to Silverlight users.
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The beta of Silverlight 1.0, which was known as Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere until two weeks ago, was released today. The final version is due sometime this summer.