Technology News and IT Business Intelligence

Most businesses I know stopped calling the class of documents that Excel produces a “spreadsheet” long ago, and have deferred to the phrase “Excel sheet,” rather than to Microsoft’s preferred “workbook.” The reason is because the types of data the application now works with have ceased to be exclusively flat and bordered. Excel data is complex, often relational, certainly networked.

So already there’s going to be a big distinction that limits anything that portends to be the Excel Web App from being the complete Microsoft Excel. You don’t want to bring networked, dynamic, data that’s interlinked to data elsewhere in the world, onto the public platform; there are too many risks involved. If you have a complex Excel workbook on your home or business system now where the source of your data lies outside the workbook, don’t expect to be able to use it on the Excel Web App.

The question, therefore, is not whether Excel Web App will be something less than Excel 2010, but to what degree. Of the three Office apps made available in the early Office Web Apps Technical Preview launched by Microsoft last Monday, Excel is the one with the most functionality — which is a surprise, because we had expected it to have been Word. But it’s clear that, at least at this point, the Excel Web App is not ready to enable users to create new workbooks from scratch. At this early stage, it includes just enough functionality for you to be able to make changes to the data and enter simple formulas into a workbook that already exists, having been created with Excel 2007 or the Excel 2010 Technical Preview. (You need to create this workbook as an .XLSX file in OOXML format; Office Web Apps will allow you to view, but not edit, Microsoft’s older, proprietary .XLS format.)

Although you cannot create a new chart in the Excel Web App, if you already created a 2D chart, the Web App will do its best to render a very good approximation of it, using the standard handful of Microsoft fonts. Some of the more obscure 2D chart styles are actually well-supported in this early version, and although the output looks a little scratchy in this early-going, it’s certainly legible. We did notice, for example, that when axis labels are tipped at a slanted angle, the font the Web App uses (or substitutes) will lose its kerning, resulting in some letters that are scrunched together and others that you could fit another letter in-between.

As of yet, 3D chart styles are not supported, at least by this early Technical Preview. But when you do upload to SkyDrive a workbook that contains a 3D chart, the substitute chart that the Web App renders instead uses the same design choices as when you change a 3D chart to a 2D one in Excel 2007, which result in a fair and legible chart, if not particularly elegant. Gradient fill patterns and embedded tile patterns are replaced with solid colors. And we did notice that other embedded elements such as titles and text boxes disappeared.

Microsoft made it a point of noting, on the single test workbook that it supplied for the technical preview, that conditional formatting works. As with charts, there’s no way in the Web App to apply conditional formatting to a fresh range of cells, but when such formatting already exists, the Web App knows what to do with it. It’s this fact, coupled with the realizations that both the Word and PowerPoint Web Apps are much more capable of displaying existing content features than enabling their creation or editing, that makes one wonder whether Microsoft is planning to make full editing features available to the general user for free. There’s a viable argument for not doing so, though the company’s silence on this matter suggests it may not have actually made this decision yet.

There are some familiar Excel features that do make a cameo appearance in the Excel Web App:

• You can declare formal table ranges with filters, which means you highlight a table full of data that has labels along the top tow, and declare that the data table for your worksheet. Controls pop up along the top of each column letting you sort information alphabetically or numerically, or to pick out key values.
• Summary views where multiple rows or columns of related information are grouped together, and “+” and “-” buttons expand and close the group views, work fine.
• Data connections with other workbooks also stored in SkyDrive (but not elsewhere on the Internet or, of course, on local systems) is officially supported, though so far we’ve seen evidence that this feature is a little wonky in the Technical Preview. Two Excel 2007 workbooks with locally connected data, uploaded to SkyDrive, did not maintain their connections (or translate those connections to SkyDrive) in our tests.

Some other features, however, either don’t work yet or may not be made to work, as the Web App itself explicitly explains they’re not functional. Linked elements (as opposed to embedded ones) aren’t supported, so if you have an image that isn’t embedded in the workbook but instead linked to on your hard drive, for understandable reasons, it will not be displayed in the Web App. Overlaid shapes and graphic objects are omitted as well, along with embedded cell comments (which is a shame, because Microsoft recently began using comments to explain errors in cell formulas). When an uploaded workbook contains unsupported elements, the editing ribbon for that file is often unavailable.

No matter how hard Microsoft tries, there may always be some level of discomfort veteran Excel users have with the Web App, for one glaring reason that is at this point out of Microsoft’s control: Right-clicking an object or a cell does not bring up a context menu. A recent blog post from Office Web Apps program manager Elliot Block suggests that his team is working on right-click functionality, including for proofing tools in a future distribution of the Word Web App. But there’s a possibility that right-clicking may not work in Firefox and other non-IE browsers, and for many users, that will be a problem.

We were happy to see how well Excel Web App appeared to run through Firefox 3.5.3, although we did notice one major bug that we believe is related to Firefox: No matter how frequently and often we interact with the app, it kicks in the 15-minute timeout notice. We’ve seen this with other cloud-based Web apps as well (Adobe’s Buzzword comes to mind) using Firefox, and we suspect it’s related to this glitch here as well.

Once again, the first Web Apps technical preview demonstrates that Microsoft knows how to display Office data online. For these applications to eventually become competitive even with apps such as Google Docs (which we have seen raise “wonky” to an art form), future renditions will need to demonstrate real productivity that users can accomplish remotely and from any browser.

In light of the coming revision to the United States’ regulations on net neutrality, AT&T contacted the FCC Wireline Competition Bureau with a letter today which said that Google –”one of the most noisome trumpeters of so-called ‘net neutrality’ regulation”– is violating the very net neutrality rules it claims to support.

But since Google is not a network operator, it is not subject to the same regulation that a company like AT&T is. Robert Quinn, AT&T’s senior vice president for federal regulations used today’s letter to the FCC to make the case that Google Voice should be.

“Google Voice appears to be nothing more than a creatively packaged assortment of services that are already quite familiar to the Commission…as such, [it] would appear to be subject to the same call blocking prohibition applicable to providers of other telecommunications services,” Quinn said.

While the carrier claimed it had no part in the rejection of the Google Voice iPhone application, this letter makes it plain that AT&T strongly opposes the service.

“By openly flaunting the call blocking prohibition that applies to its competitors, Google is acting in a manner inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the FCC’s fourth principle contained in its Internet Policy Statement,” Quinn wrote. “Ironically, Google is also flouting the so-called ‘fifth principle of non-discrimination’ for which Google has so fervently advocated.”

Even though AT&T spoke out against the principles of “wireless net neutrality” just days ago, this letter appears to be an attempt to turn that position around and use those principles to its advantage.

Richard Whitt of Google’s Washington Telecom and Media Counsel issued a public response this evening saying, “AT&T is trying to make this about Google’s support for an open Internet, but the comparison just doesn’t fly. The FCC’s open Internet principles apply only to the behavior of broadband carriers — not the creators of Web-based software applications. Even though the FCC does not have jurisdiction over how software applications function, AT&T apparently wants to use the regulatory process to undermine Web-based competition and innovation.”

“Google Voice does restrict certain outbound calls from our Web platform…But despite AT&T’s efforts to blur the distinctions between Google Voice and traditional phone service, there are many significant differences: Unlike traditional carriers, Google Voice is a free, Web-based software application, and so not subject to common carrier laws. Google Voice is not intended to be a replacement for traditional phone service — in fact, you need an existing land or wireless line in order to use it. Importantly, users are still able to make outbound calls on any other phone device.. Google Voice is currently invitation-only, serving a limited number of users.”

Google Voice has become one of the most controversial services in recent history, all thanks to the potential benefits it could bring consumers and headache it could bring to other companies. Let’s hope it doesn’t fall between the regulatory cracks.

A report from an unnamed source published on TheStreet.com last night claimed that the Palm Pre, despite all reports to the contrary, would not be coming to Verizon.

Previous statements from Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell McAdam somewhat spoiled Sprint’s launch of the Pre, saying that Verizon would be bringing the Pre to Verizon within six months.

But McAdam didn’t quite say it would be the Pre coming to Verizon. Here is his actual quote from May:

Now we aren’t typically the carrier that comes out and announces what we are going to be selling 12 months from now. Other carriers do that, and the media loves to speculate on what we are bringing to market. But what I will tell you is that over the next six months or so you will see devices like the Palm Pre and the cousin on our network from Palm.

So McAdam didn’t exactly say it would be the Pre, but rather devices like the Pre and “the cousin,” which presumably refers to the Pixi. News reports elsewhere that have been more directly influenced by Palm PR directly refer to the Pixi as Palm’s “cousin”, including from TheStreet.com.

Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg told Barron’s today that he believes the Street’s report yesterday is incorrect, citing Palm’s supply chain orders which are consistent with another version launch. Furthermore, there are rumblings that COO Dennis Strigl told Verizon investors this week that the company expects to ship both of Palm’s new devices.

Verizon Wireless’ phones right now just aren’t compelling, yet that fact hasn’t had a negative effect on the company’s revenues.

But that isn’t to say there hasn’t been an impact from Verizon’s competitors having more captivating devices.

“I think it should be pretty clear the iPhone has had an impact on us,” Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications Inc. said at the recent Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVIII Conference. “They have done a good job. AT&T has done a good job. Apple has done a good job with the iPhone.”

But the issue at hand is that Verizon doesn’t need a trendy device like iPhone or Pre to be successful. It is only affected by competitors’ big handset launches in the short term, and it has bounced back after every significant one thus far.

Seidenberg actually downplayed the importance of these trends, “AT&T introduces the iPhone, Sprint introduces the Pre, it stimulates the market and causes a little bit of switching. We focus on what we need to do to keep our churn rates as low as possible, recognizing we have to compete, but we don’t go overboard to cause ourselves the position of worrying about the port rate as the primary issue. It is the acquisition of customers and the churn rate.”

Through new partnerships with Verizon Wireless, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, and other major US firms, the European-based Philips spin-off hopes to at least hobble the Amazon giant in North America. Set for release next month, Irex’s 8.1-inch touch screen eReader will be better than the Kindle in almost countless ways, officials contended during a press conference today in New York City.

Unlike the Kindle, which is dedicated to sales from Amazon.com, the Irex DR800SG will support Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore and ultimately other e-comm sites, magazines, and newspapers, too, said Hans Brons, CEO and founder of Irex. Based in the Netherlands, Irex has been carefully eying the US e-reader marketplace for more than a year now, according to Brons.

Best Buy will be making the eReader available soon for $399. By comparison, Amazon’s 10-inch Kindle DX runs $489, while Sony’s upcoming 7-inch Reader Daily Edition will also be priced at $399.

In contrast to the “proprietary” Kindle, the eReader will support multiple document formats and DRM schemes, according to Kevin Hamilton, North American CEO of Irex, speaking at his company’s press conference today. Supported formats will include the increasingly ubiquitous Adobe PDF (for “flowing text”) and the international e-book standard EPUB.

Although the handheld reader will connect to Windows PCs through the USB port, its underlying platform will be built on Linux for “open development,” he said.

Beyond helping to power the reader’s custom battery, the USB connection will come into play when users want to send their own documents to the reader for viewing. For the moment, at least, documents saved in formats such as Microsoft Word .DOC or .DOCX will need to converted to PDF first. You can also power up the battery — which is replaceable — through an electrical connection to a wall outlet.

Currently, electronic pages appear on the Irex reader in black-and-gray, and a stylus is needed for carrying out tasks like turning pages, changing font sizes, and looking up word definitions. But Irex plans to add finger-touch capabilities in 2010 and “true color” in 2011, according to Hamilton. A notetaking feature is coming soon, as well.

A Linux-based software development kit is also in the cards for the Irex e-reader, to let third-party developers build new vertical market as well as mainstream applications.

Andrew Frank, research VP at the Gartner Group, told Betanews that he thinks Irex’s “more open” approach will help to hold down costs on the device.

Irex, though, faces big competition, not only from the Kindle and other e-readers but also from tablets from PC vendors, including the long-rumored Apple and the recently rumored Microsoft “Courier.”

In his presentation today, Brons pointed to Irex’ reflective screen technology, which consumes relatively little power, as one plus the Irex eReader holds over PC tablets.

Price, of course, seems like another. Brons said that two newspapers in Europe — where Irex has distributed its eReaders for several years already — are now helping to subsidize the devices.

Hamilton told Betanews that his company is now in talks with The New York Times about possible electronic distribution.

As first reported in the Washington Post this afternoon, and as has been independently verified by two other Washington news sources, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R – Texas) has agreed to withdraw her amendment to an Interior Dept. spending bill that would have cut off funding to any Federal Communications Commission effort to regulate “net neutrality.” This as aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, as reported by Congressional Quarterly, approached Sen. Hutchison seeking her withdrawal, at least until the Chairman can put forth a complete proposal.

On Monday, Chairman Genachowski made a public policy speech outlining a framework for new FCC regulations that would prohibit service providers from disabling certain Internet services on behalf of customers, as well as more transparently specify for customers what allowed measures they are taking to regulate traffic on their networks. The implication of these “Fifth” and “Sixth Principles,” as they’re being called, is that the FCC would in turn prohibit ISPs from being able to provide better bandwidth to certain classes of content providers willing to pay a premium.

That latter provision has long been part of proposals by Sen. Hutchison and others in Congress to create state- and/or federal-level broadband franchising operations, when they believe would simplify carriers’ ability to build out broadband services in outlying and rural areas. Permitting ISPs to charge premiums has been offered by Senate Republicans as an incentive for ISPs to seek state- or federal-level franchises to carriers, since carriers would still have to pay local-level franchise taxes — or, at least, pay into a fund that would in turn compensate municipalities for the taxes they would have received through municipal licenses.

Hutchison’s next move may also have been influenced by Chairman Genachowski’s appearance earlier today at a luncheon of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. There, accompanied by newly appointed Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, he promised the same broadband plan that would include new net neutrality initiatives would also create incentives for businesses to expand broadband to low-income areas — one of Hutchison’s hot-button issues.

There, Comm. Clyburn formally received the Joint Center’s Broadband Imperatives report, a set of recommendations for the FCC that could play into Genachowski’s final policy proposal. Many African-American policy organizations contributed to the report (Clyburn is herself African-American); and her father is no less than House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D – S.C.). Assuming Hutchison’s amendment would have passed the Senate, the Interior Dept. bill would then have faced opposition in the House.

Last month, Sen. Hutchison announced her candidacy in the 2010 Texas governor’s race.

While Linux-based operating systems have been well-received for netbook form factors, some of the highest-profile distributions have not yet taken a strong hold there, especially when competing against desktop operating systems like Windows XP. One of those not-yet-a-hits is Moblin, an Intel-endorsed open source platform designed especially for Atom-powered devices.

Today, however, Moblin received a couple of big boosts as a result of the Intel Developer Forum going on this week, helping to grow the project’s scope considerably.

First, Dell and Canonical announced that they have collaborated to create an Ubuntu Moblin remix for the Dell Inspiron Mini 10v netbook. Dell already offered the Atom N270-powered Mini 10v with Ubuntu 8.04 pre-loaded. This new remix –t echnically called Ubuntu Moblin Remix Developer Edition — will be a new pre-install option for the netbook on Dell’s Web site beginning tomorrow. Dell will be making this remix available to any who want to install it, but does not guarantee it will perform as well as it does on its intended platform, the Mini 10v.

In her keynote this morning, Intel’s corporate vice president and general manager of software and services Renee James, announced that Samsung will follow Dell’s, Asus’, and Acer’s lead, and release its own devices running Moblin 2.0 in the near future. No precise date was given.

Secondly, Intel and Microsoft announced that Silverlight 3 and Moonlight support are coming to all Atom-based devices. Renee James presented both Moblin and Windows 7 Atom devices running IIS Smooth Streaming this morning, the variable streaming technology that can provide live streams up to 1080p resolution.

“We are excited by further support of Silverlight by key industry leaders and how this collaboration delivers on Silverlight’s cross-platform, cross-browser, and cross-device promise by going beyond just the PC to allow developers to reach more endpoints for their applications and services. We see this is a clear extension of our current efforts with Novell where we are building an open source implementation of Silverlight called Moonlight that is targeted at the broad range of Linux-based PCs,” the Silverlight team blog said today.

Internet Explorer is in a state of crisis so severe that Microsoft may yet lose most of the browser market territory claimed during the browser wars. Microsoft has no choice but to make a leap of development faith, by abandoning the IE rendering engine and releasing new WebKit-based desktop and mobile browsers. IE is a dead platform. It’s long past time for Microsoft to end its “Weekend at Ernie’s” behavior.

What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago, Microsoft won the browser wars with Netscape, only to abandon the territory after Internet Explorer 6 launched. Many end users are still stuck in the IE 6 past, whether it’s the browser directly or progeny Internet Explorer 7 or 8. According to Net Applications, IE 6 usage share is higher than either of the newer versions. Perhaps IE’s market position would be better had Microsoft not let browser development lay idle until after Mozilla started working on Firefox about six years ago. AOL and Mozilla reignited browser development because of paid search — that Google box — as did several other software developers. AOL eventually gave up on Netscape, but Apple, Mozilla and Opera continued developing browsers.

Google entered the market just a year ago and already has released three versions of browser Chrome. The speed of Chrome development is eerily familiar. Microsoft rat-tat-tat released new browser versions in 1996 and 1997, going from IE 2 to IE 4. Through IE 6, Microsoft released new versions every year. In the new browser wars, Google is to Microsoft as Microsoft was to Netscape in the late 1990s. Microsoft fought to protect its Windows platform. Similarly, Google is fighting to protect its search and informational platform. If will determines winners, Google has got it over Microsoft.

Framing IE for Posterity

Matters bad are worse, with Google’s Chrome Frame announcement and Microsoft’s weak position in the mobile browser market, where WebKit-based Chrome and Safari rapidly gain users. Chrome Frame, which has just entered beta, is an Internet Explorer plug-in supporting HTML and JavaScript, among other technologies or tags. Google is trying to redefine Internet Explorer on terms that suit its product and platform objectives. It’s Google’s most ambitious drive into Microsoft controlled territory ever, even more than desktop search, Exchange email sync or toolbar products/services.

For Microsoft, Chrome Frame and forthcoming Google Wave are a looming crisis of IE’s character, as expressed in end-user features and the browser’s appeal — or lack thereof — to developers. By Framing Internet Explorer, Google seizes control of the end user experience away from Microsoft. If Google can succeed widely distributing Frame, the easy step is next: Moving those same users to Chrome.

Chrome browser usage share doesn’t seem like much — 2.84 percent — according to Net Applications. But that’s up from zero a year ago. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer usage share continues a long slow decline — 66.97 percent in August down from from 79.49 percent about two years ago. Firefox is up from 15.45 percent to 22.98 percent during the same time period.

If Chrome Frame succeeds, Firefox could easily be collateral damage. Firefox uage gains have largely come from Internet Explorer, which if Framed could give up many fewer users. Meanwhile, should Google succeed moving end users en masse from Framed IE to Chrome, Firefox growth likely would stall and over time recede. Looked at that way, Chrome Frame poses potentially more risk to Firefox than IE. Remember, Mozilla is dependent on Google paid search revenue through the browser.

Frame would be a seemingly small problem, if not for:

• The surge in competing browsers
• Monetization of browsers around search
• Increasing demand for browsers on mobile devices
• Declining developer interest in IE technologies like ActiveX
• Increasing developer interest in other Web browsers or technologies

Microsoft won the browser wars by several means, with establishment of IE as a development platform being one of the most important. Today, other than businesses with legacy dependencies, is there really any core developer interest in Internet Explorer? That’s a question for comment; please pipe in on the topic.

Apple, Google and Mozilla are doing much better wooing new developers to their browsers, and, again, Chrome and Safari are based on WebKit, whether for desktop or mobile device. Mobile applications are the future, and it’s there Microsoft looks surprisingly pale before brawny Apple and Google. Regarding Google, that’s without factoring Chrome OS, which could directly rival Windows.

Commercial Open-Source is the Solution

Microsoft should answer WebKit for WebKit, by releasing a new browser based on a new rendering engine; put on the IE brand and ship it for desktop and mobile. For businesses and consumers that need backward compatibility, there would be IE 8. But people wanting something new and fresh or developers looking to do cool development could choose the new IE, which Microsoft should tout for its standards support.

Something else: Such an approach would be in line with Microsoft’s so-called “Interoperability Principles.” Additionally, about two weeks ago, Microsoft opened the CodePlex Foundation, which is supposed to bridge commercial and open-source software development. WebKit may be open source, but the practical development comes from commercial developers like Apple and Google. Microsoft could extend WebKit, much as Apple has done with Safari and drive standards around it. Example: Silverlight integration.

Bundling IE with Windows certainly helped Microsoft win the browser wars, but the company did much more, such as either developing or coming to effectively control emerging Web standards during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Microsoft isn’t really driving Web standards today. A commercially developed WebKit browser, supporting HTML 5 and other standards, would strengthen Microsoft’s position of influence against Apple, Google, Mozilla and other developers supporting open-source browsing engines. Done right, WebKit-based IE could even steal marketshare from other open-source browsers. IE’s 67 percent usage share is helluva starting place.

By releasing WebKit-based IE, Microsoft could also:

• Offer a better IE alternative to users than Google Frame
• Nip the Google Chrome bud before it grows any meaningful usage share
• Quickly bring to market a competitive mobile browser and development platform
• Increase IE’s appeal among developers and to governments demanding open-source development
• Better support emerging Microsoft Web technologies that do interest developers, such as Silverlight
• Level the compatibility and performance playing field with open-source browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox
• Unload from developers Windows baggage — legacy technologies like ActiveX and constraints for backward compatibility

Left unchecked, Google will take Internet Explorer and Frame it. Perhaps Apple and Mozilla will break the glass. Microsoft is posed to become the Netscape of the 2010s, otherwise. Microsoft must act to preserve and even reclaim territory taken during the browser wars. There’s still time, but not for long.

Today, Google launched a new project called Sidewiki, which is a browser sidebar that lets users add footnotes to any existing Web page, even if the main site doesn’t allow comments. Sidewiki has been added as a feature on Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer, and the team today said they’re working on an edition for Chrome, too.

Sidewiki appears as a field on the left hand side of the browser, where users can post contextual commentary. If it’s a site paraphrasing a piece of literature and a user happens to have a link to the full text, it can be added there. While it can very easily suffer from “FIRST!” syndrome or serve as a spam advertisement platform, posts are not anonymous. And as Sundar Pichai, VP of Google Product Management and Michal Cierniak, Engineering Lead for Google Sidewiki today said the content will be ranked by quality.

“In developing Sidewiki, we wanted to make sure that you’ll see the most relevant entries first. We worked hard from the beginning to figure out which ones should appear on top and how to best order them. So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed,” Pichai and Cierniak wrote in Google’s official blog today.

The API for Sidewiki is available in Google Code Labs.

According to a Bloomberg report yesterday, Deutsche Telekom is in early talks with Clearwire and MetroPCS about 4G development.

The report cites unnamed sources who said that a bid to buy Sprint, as had been previously rumored was highly unlikely. Instead, the sources said Clearwire needs a $2 billion investment by the end of the year to complete its WiMAX expansion, and that Deutsche Telekom could provide that funding in exchange for access to the network.

But alignment with WiMAX would be out of character for T-Mobile. The company decided to go with LTE as its 4G standard in 2008, and at Mobile World Congress In February, the company set up a live LTE demo network with equipment vendors Nortel and LG.

Only a couple of weeks ago, T-Mobile announced it had set up the first multi-user mobile LTE test network in the city of Innsbruck, Austria with equipment provided by Chinese manufacturer Huawei. “With this showcase we implemented a completely new generation of mobile network…these tests are paving the way to the customer experience of the future,” T-Mobile Austria’s CTO Jim Burke said at the time.

However, talks between T-Mobile, MetroPCS, and Clearwire — assuming Bloomberg’s report is accurate — do not necessarily mean T-Mobile will be changing its plans for supporting LTE. All three companies are significant wireless spectrum license holders, and the construction of a new network depends largely upon what wireless real estate can be obtained.

In the not-too-distant past, professional musicians used dedicated sound modules and sound synthesis hardware to produce realistic representations of full orchestras. We’re not so certain what composers used to do before such hardware existed, though they probably all sympathized with Ludwig van Beethoven struggling with his immortal Ninth Symphony while deaf.

As PCs rapidly evolved, their CPUs and everyday sound chips became theoretically more capable of producing and reproducing realistic sound samples than dedicated MIDI sound modules. So software very quickly assumed the role not only of sequencer but of virtual orchestra; and just like in every other field of software, one or two standards-bearers swiftly emerged: Sibelius (named for the composer) and Finale. And a very familiar logic was applied to them: If you were a composer and you didn’t produce scores using either or both standards, you were officially declared non-professional.

But North Carolina-based Notion Music is taking a gamble that the state of competition in this niche of the software market has not calcified the way it has in most other segments. Tomorrow, it releases version 3 of its surprisingly capable Notion composition software, which premiered in 2006. Its formula for breaking through the Sibelius/Finale barrier this time just might work, beginning with a price markdown of $50 to $249 for both Windows and Mac (Notion suggested a $249 price for 2.0 last July, though dealers continued to sell it for $299), and an upgrade price for existing Notion 2.2 users of eight bucks.

Notion is the company’s top-of-the-line product; up to now, it has sold a scaled down version for journeymen and small band composers called Protégé (which deals with fewer instruments in polyphony at a time), and a separate package for guitar composers called Progression. Starting with Notion 3, however, the company is throwing in the full guitar functionality from Progression, including the fret controls, along with a completely upgraded library of samples featuring acoustic and electric guitars, and electric and upright bass.

Rather than just hire an intern to pluck strings, Notion has borrowed the talents of renowned professional musicians such as Grammy Award-winning soul artist Victor Lamonte Wooten.

“Notion 3 will include an enhanced and expanded instrument library — more instruments including guitar, bass, and drum samples from Progression — [plus] close mic recordings,” Notion Music Marketing Director Jake Van Wyk told Betanews.

We’d noted that Notion 2 had used a third-party copy protection scheme which was giving Windows Vista (and Windows 7) users fits, especially during installation. Van Wyk acknowledged that in ditching this scheme for Notion 3, the protected samples in Notion 2 would no longer work for upgraders. That could be a problem, because so many of those samples were sold in expansion packages that sold for an average of $40 apiece.

Notion’s solution to the problem, however, is to go all out: It’s actually throwing in completely re-mixed sound samples, recorded by members of the London Symphony Orchestra at their own studios overseas, from five of those sample packages which used to sell separately, in the new Notion 3 package along with remixed samples from the original set. For example, though Notion 2 came with samples for string sections of the orchestra, solo strings (and the various playing techniques that are associated with them) used to be sold separately; tomorrow, they won’t be. Woodwinds used to come standard except for contrabassoon; and brass was standard except for saxophones and euphonium.

As for other instrument samples which Notion used to sell in collected packages, it now plans to take an almost “app store”-like approach, selling instrument samples online a la carte though an “instrument library.” There, samples can be collected for prices starting at $1.99 apiece. As Van Wyk told us, “We will be adding to the library on an ongoing basis,” although he advised us that the first entries in this library will not include wild percussion instruments or, as I suggested, a harmonica…to go along with the banjo and mandolin. (Hey, if you’re composing bluegrass…) “We are focusing on instruments that are more broadly used, and with traditional playing techniques,” he said.

But the completely new feature that floored composers during Notion 3’s initial demos in August when they saw it for the first time, was a realistic sound mixer panel for regulating recording-quality volumes from not only individual instruments, but digital tracks such as MP3s blended from the outside world. So you can mix demo tracks using the same methodology you’d use if you were still using sound modules and sequencers; plus, Notion is bundling reverb and amplifier simulators from sound software producer IK Multimedia.

“Notion is fully VST and VSTi compatible,” Van Wyk told Betanews, “so you can integrate just about any sound into your music.”

Tomorrow could be a test for how an underdog breaks into an established, if not yet entrenched, software market with a more competitive product — a test that publishers and manufacturers everywhere may want to observe. If you care to join in, you may hear me in the background — I’ll be the one making samples of my Hohner Chromatic.