Microsoft releases beta of mashup tool

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the public beta availability of Popfly, the company's mashup creation tool for non-technical users introduced in alpha form in May.

During Ballmer's appearance on Thursday at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, a Microsoft staffer gave a demo of Popfly in which he showed how the tool can be used to create applications for sites like Facebook's social network and Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces without the need to write code.

Popfly is built on Silverlight, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering video and interactive applications. Silverlight is Microsoft's answer to Adobe's ubiquitous Flash technology.

While acknowledging that Adobe has done "a good job in rich media" with Flash, Ballmer nonetheless said there are plenty of opportunities for Microsoft to innovate as Web applications "continue to get richer and richer."

Speaking at the same event on Wednesday, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen downplayed Silverlight's threat to Flash, saying Flash has been around for 10 years, is widely adopted and has a broad ecosystem.

Ballmer, who answered questions from conference chair John Battelle and from attendees, said that the clamor over Web-hosted office productivity applications like Google Apps and suites from Zimbra and Zoho as major threats to Microsoft Office is misguided.

In the communication and collaboration software space, Microsoft is focused on making its applications accessible in whatever way customers require, and that the issue isn't a black-and-white opposition between packaged and hosted software.

He acknowledged that Microsoft pays attention "to what the other guy is doing" and is receptive to implementing good ideas in its products.

As the interest in hosted applications rises, critics have said Microsoft has been slow in responding with a hosted alternative to Microsoft Office, and that it risks missing an opportunity that others are eagerly pursuing.

Asked if he was getting impatient with Microsoft's search and online advertising efforts, where the company lags far behind leader Google, Ballmer said he's confident his company will continue to improve in the coming years as it focuses on several key areas.

For example, Microsoft will continue improving its search engines, because they are key for generating online ad revenues. It will also continue to strengthen its consumer communication services, like webmail and instant messaging.

Key as well is having a strong ad platform, which is why Microsoft spent $6 billion on aQuantive, and a strong ad syndication business, he said. Ad syndication will go through a major transformation in the next five years as the focus shifts from matching ads based on a Web page's content to based on users' online behavior, he said.