Electronics Today,Shimon Lewin

· Microsoft - Later this year, Microsoft will allow all businesses to use some of its software applications online (for a fee, of course). Microsoft started this service in an effort to protect itself from rivals, i.e. Google. Although in the past Microsoft's business was built on selling software (out-of-the-box), hosting software online will start to become more and more popular in the years to come.

· Mozilla- Good news for fans of Firefox and cell phone users. In recent years Mozilla's Firefox web browser has become more and more popular. At the same time, cell phones with Internet access, have also started to pick up momentum. "Mozilla's mission is to break open a closed market," so the company is now in talks with mobile operators. At year's end it is very likely that Mozilla will be releasing a mobile version of its popular web browser.

· e-mail abuse- Think twice before sending that next e-mail from work, which might contain questionable content, not in line with your company's web and e-mail policy. The American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute recently surveyed more than 300 companies and learned that over 50 percent of companies fired employees for web and e-mail abuse. More than 25 percent of bosses fired their employees for overusing e-mail for personal use.

· eBay- eBay is not predicting very rosy conditions for its company this coming year. Due to changing demands, eBay will find it more difficult to get former customers to return. In addition, thanks to weaker consumer spending in countries that comprise much of eBay's business, these factors will affect eBay's growth in the immediate future.

· IBM - IBM is currently working on a project that could revolutionize the way video is downloaded off the Internet. The project is known as "Green Optical Light" and if successful, will be able to transfer 8 trillion bits of data in approximately one second.

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