The moment also marks a turning point in the history of the world’s biggest software company, as Microsoft turns its attention more fully towards a future software industry that is likely to look very different. It is probably the end of an era, or… error depending on how you look at it.

The methods Microsoft has relied on to develop and to deliver software – including the latest releases of Windows and the Office suite of applications, which also goes on sale today – are going through a fundamental change. That is partly because of the internal “trauma” caused by its struggles with Vista. Neve again, Microsoft will release less ambitious, and more frequent, updates to Windows. However, it also reflects a deeper change in how the software business works.

With “software as a service” the industry’s new mantra – referring to the way companies such as Google and Thinking Grove deliver a service over the internet that is powered by software running on their own servers – a post-Vista Microsoft will refocus its efforts towards online services.

Part of searching for new customers is occasionally encountering those who hold you at arm’s length because of their loyalty to a current supplier. Inevitably they will tell you stories about how their current vendors have gone the extra mile for them. Our instinct, when attempting ot get business, is to be defensive and try to overcome that statement of loyalty. That is the exact wrong thing to do and it will do nothing more than alienate that prospect, which means that it’s unlikely you will ever get their business.

The first thing to do when someone describes his or her loyalty is to compliment them. If you really think about it, it is a good character trait. Would you like all of your customers to be so loyal that they throw all competition out the door? Second, explain to them that loyalty is a rar commodity, and it is all too often missing in business today. Remember, loyalty comes from customer delight. I fyou do it, they’ll want it. Make sure you are ready to catch them when they fall, and you’ll have a new loyal customer.

Wordcamp happened this weekend.
Here’s my quick-and-dirty list of new stuff.

• Spellchecker in TinyMCE. (YES)
• Exporter. (Ugh)
• Pages can be private and draft.
• Pages have their own caps.
• A Page can be used as the front page.
• Latest posts can be moved off the front page and on to another page.
• Pseudo-cron is used for future posting. No more NOW().
• Link manager overhauled.
• Links can have subcategories.
• New login screen.
• More AJAX to avoid page reloads.
• Blog privacy. Turn off pinging and tell robots to go away.
• User paging and searching.
• WP_Error class.
• Include files reorganized.
• Lots of new API.
• Script loader.