In some recent blog posts it seems that Windows 7 is not perfect and maybe closser to what Apple says in its most recent add campaign. 

Microsoft is offering students the option of buying a downloadable upgrade version of Windows 7 for $29--a significant savings off the full boxed copy of the new operating system. However, a number of students have reported problems when trying to download and install the new version of Windows.

In a blog posting, Microsoft says it is aware of several issues that folks have encountered. Most common is the fact that folks can't easily go from the 32-bit version of Vista to the 64-bit version of Windows 7. That requires a clean installation.

Those in that camp can either get a refund or contact Digital River, the company managing the digital downloads, to try to get a disc with the operating system.

In addition to that issue, Microsoft notes that it is investigating two other errors that folks have been encountering. For some folks, the download hangs at a certain percentage and won't continue or resume.

"This appears to be a series of isolated issues that are often related to the user's Internet provider or installed third-party software," Microsoft said.

In other cases, users get a generic unspecified error message. "While not widespread, this issue appears to be caused when one of the downloaded files is incomplete or has become corrupted on the user's computer."   Students in that camp should try re-downloading the operating system, Microsoft said.

Microsoft Corp. forecasts the information technology (IT) industry will create 5.8 million new jobs and more than 75,000 new businesses over the next four years.

The expected growth rate for IT employment of 3 percent a year is more than three times the rate of growth of total employment and a strong indicator that investing in IT will contribute to economic recovery and growth.

“In this fundamental economic reset, innovative technologies will play a vital role in driving productivity gains and enabling the creation of new local businesses and highly skilled jobs that fuel economic recovery and support sustainable economic growth,” said the CEO of Microsoft. “Countries that foster innovation and invest in infrastructure, education, and skills development for their citizens will have a major competitive advantage in the global marketplace.”

Microsoft claims that about 14.9 million IT jobs worldwide are related to the business activities of the Microsoft ecosystem (Windows based systems and applications), an inter-dependent ecosystem of nearly 700,000 local companies that partner with Microsoft as developers, distributors, retailers and service providers.

National and local communities particularly benefit from Microsoft partner-driven business model, which creates jobs and spurs innovation. For every dollar of revenue made by Microsoft, local partners around the world on average will make $8.70 in 2009. Local partners will generate local revenues for themselves of $537 billion in 2009.

BlackBerry has ceded the leadership role in the smartphone market to iPhone. No longer is the smartPhone the  mark of the user being an executive or business traveler. Today, SmartPhones are now bought mainly by individual consumers and used for mostly personal needs.

The Apple iPhone has the best level of customer satisfaction, at 83 percent. Google's Android platform and the Palm Pre tied for second place at 77 percent, followed by the Research in Motion BlackBerry at 73 percent, the "dead" Treo at 70 percent, and devices using Nokia's Symbian OS and Microsoft's Windows Mobile coming in last at 66 percent.

Apple is using its automatic update process to deliver massive amounts of new software to users.  And it is delivering this massive payload without even a pretense of proper disclosure and without asking consent from its users.

Apple is completely out of step with generally accepted norms for delivering updates and new software to users with proper consent . In the past 18 months, the only evidence Apple has shown that it is capable of learning from its mistakes is that it decided to stop installing Safari along with iTunes upgrades on Windows systems.

A program called Apple Software Update should not push new programs on users. Not without getting their consent first.

iTunes 9 has now crossed the 100MB threshold? ThatÂ’s a 25% increase in only one year.

Microsoft said that some "in-place" upgrades from Windows Vista to the new Windows 7 may take some users over 20 hours to complete.  

The best that users can hope for is a 1 hour and 24 minute process, said a member in the Windows deployment team, in a company blog published.

So-called "clean" installs, where the user overwrites an existing edition of Windows to end up with the OS, but no former data or applications, take less time: from 27 to 46 minutes.

In-place upgrade times were obtained from lab machines in three different configurations -- labeled low, mid-range and high-end -- with three simulated users: a medium user, a heavy user and a super user. The profiles differed in the amount of data and the number of applications that were on the PC before the upgrade to Windows 7.  The medium user profile, for example, assumed 70GB of data and 20 applications; the super user profile, on the other hand, contained 650GB of data and 40 applications.

It's becoming obvious that Microsoft Corp. officials, including CEO Steve Ballmer, wish Windows Mobile were a better mobile operating system.  Earlier this year, Ballmer told public sector CIOs that Windows Mobile 6.5 (Version 6.5 is due out in October while version 7 is due next year) was not "the full release we wanted to have this year." His comment was made in response a question about how Microsoft planned to keep up with phone rivals, such as iPhone and Android.

Attendees of Microsoft's Venture Capital Summit reported via Twitter today that Ballmer said Microsoft "screwed up with Windows Mobile" and changed the Windows Mobile team recently to try to recoup losses.

Microsoft started a new Windows 7 promotion that heavily discounts copies of Windows 7 for college students, with the price nearly matching what Apple charges for its Snow Leopard upgrade.