Ballmer at CES: On Windows 7, Live

In the biggest announcement of Steve Ballmer's Consumer Electronics Show keynote in Las Vegas yesterday, he declared Microsoft is ready with a beta version of Windows 7.

New deals for Windows Live were also announced, that will see Microsoft's search engine become the default on PCs from Dell, plus Ballmer touted a deal with Verizon Wireless that leaked earlier in the day.

But Microsoft faces considerable competition in each of the areas. On the PC front, a resurgent Apple has increased its share. In search, Google continues to dominate. In the phone market, Apple's iPhone has grabbed much of the spotlight, not to mention significant market share. Google also has joined the fray, while longtime competitors such as RIM and Palm are trying to maintain their slices of the pie as well.

And then, of course, there's the substantial financial headwind. Microsoft is clearly not immune from the problems that led Intel Wednesday to announce that fourth-quarter revenues were down 23 per cent from the same quarter a year ago.

On the PC side, Microsoft is looking to turn the page from Vista to its successor, Windows 7. As for the beta of Windows 7, Microsoft said it will be immediately available for technical beta testers and those in Microsoft's TechNet and MSDN developer programmes and will be made publicly available on Friday. But the company still isn't officially committing to a final release in time for Christmas this year.

In addition to the global PC deal with Dell and the five year US deal with Verizon Wireless, Microsoft has expanded its relationship with Facebook to allow users to see within their Windows Live homepage certain features of the social networking site. The company is also stripping the beta tag off many of its web-based and downloadable Windows Live products.

Original article: Ballmer touts Windows 7 beta, new deals from CNET News.com