Over the last 2 weeks, the internet has been ablaze with talks of the IT giant acquiring the Telecom giant. For those who are wondering what brought upon this decision, here's a little background information. 

With over  550,000 devices that have flood the market through a network of 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers since November 2007, the Android has proved to be a huge success in a short period of time. The epic battle being fought over patents saw Apple joining hands with cut-throat competitor Microsoft and an organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies through bogus patents. The idea is to impose a tax for the patents which would make Android devices more expensive for consumers and make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices.

" In 2008, Motorola bet big on Android as the sole operating system across all of its smartphone devices. It was a smart bet and we’re thrilled at the success they’ve achieved so far. We believe that their mobile business is on an upward trajectory and poised for explosive growth. Motorola is also a market leader in the home devices and video solutions business. With the transition to Internet Protocol, we are excited to work together with Motorola and the industry to support our partners and cooperate with them to accelerate innovation in this space. 

Motorola’s total commitment to Android in mobile devices is one of many reasons that there is a natural fit between our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers everywhere. This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences," blogs Larry Page, CEO.

The combination of Google and Motorola will serve to supercharge Android. It is also one of the arrows that Google has in its quiver aimed at enhancing the competition, offering consumers a greater choice among innovative devices and wonderful user experiences and of course delivering a punch to reduce the anti-competitive threats against Android by strengthening their patent portfolio.

Since I started on my quest with Gulf Infotech a little more than 6 months ago, there's one nifty piece of software that I have noticed most users bend over backwards for - Internet Explorer. In my quest to figure out the reason behind the popularity of this browser, I approached some of our customers and asked them why they preferred IE over any of the other browsers. Over 90% of them came up with the same reply - "We didn't know we had a choice!" 

In an era where gigantic IT companies have been known to battle each other so valiantly, where hundreds of computer manufacturers boast their state of the art products, where emerging IT trends like cloud computing and tablet PCs are steadily taking over the  workforce, why limit your Internet experience to just one little browser? 

Here are the top 5 benefits to using Google Chrome that we've put together after getting feedback from customers who are ardent fans of the browser - 

1. Blazing Speed - Google Chrome relies on WebKit  to allow web browsers to render web pages to match the blazing speed with which Scotty would beam up Captain Kirk. WebKit also powers other browsers like Safari which allows Macintosh users like me to speedily surf the web.  

2. Incognito-oh! - For times when you want to browse in stealth mode, Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode. Hit Control-Shift-N to feel the magic.

3. Drag & Drop Tabs - You can drag a tab out of Chrome into a separate window, and you can drag a separate window back into tab bar, where it’ll be happily received by Chrome. A small but seductive feature which makes us want to stick around.

4. Minimized Crashes - With its high stability and unheard-of browser crashes Chrome becomes an instant winner in our eyes.
 
5. Intelligent Start Page- Besides the ubiquitous search bar, Chrome also gives you a list of most commonly visited Web pages which can be fired up quickly.

We have vowed our allegiance to Google Chrome. Treat yourself to a simpler, lighter and faster browser by visiting http://www.google.com/chrome

Tired of having to open up each email to check its contents? Wouldn't it be more convenient to preview a conversation before opening it? With a solution to our pain, here comes Google with Email Preview Panes! (We're really excited about this feature, do forgive us the pun) With the click of a button and a twirl of your mouse, you will see message snippets to figure out which messages to open first. Welcome to a simpler, faster and more efficient way to manage your email!

You will have access to a 3-window panel with the Preview Pane in between the navigation and email panes. Click on the email on the left, to view its contents on the right.

To enable this feature, simply navigate to Google Labs and enable 'Preview Pane.'  Once done, you will see a toggle button in the top right corner of your message list which allows you to switch between preview and list views. You can choose to have more vertical space by moving the preview pane below the message list. The dropdown arrow next to the toggle button allows you to do this. 

Drop a comment to let us know what you think about Preview Panes. We'd love to hear your feedback!