Microsoft Falls from Grace, Can Blame Google
Google is currently the pet of the American consumer. Although many in the industry don’t find it particularly likeable, the company’s reputation is tops among US consumers, based largely on how it treats employees and a perception of social responsibility, according to a Harris poll, in which Google dislodged Microsoft from the perch. Johnson & Johnson, the Band-Aid king, came in second and Intel third. Microsoft is now number 10. Google was previously number four. Companies with the worst reps include Halliburton, Comcast, Northwest Airlines and Exxon.

LiPS Closes
The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum, which was trying to create a mobile Linux standard, has collapsed into the LiMo Foundation. LiPS members were already joining LiMo, which is chasing a mobile Linux platform. There’s strength in numbers especially with Nokia buying up Symbian.

The First Billion’s the Hardest
According to Gartner there are upwards of a billion working PCs in the world and the number should double by early 2014 thanks to the developing world.

Google Biggie Can Leave Now
Google CFO George Reyes, who said last August that he was going to leave and was just waiting for a replacement, can go now. The company has hired Patrick Pichette, the president of operations at Bell Canada, responsible for the management of the most extensive communications network in Canada and its ongoing migration to a new national IP-based infrastructure. He was previously, if briefly, the company’s CFO. He’s an ex-McKinsey guy and a Rhodes scholar. He starts August 12.

The DOJ’s the Key
Besides the Justice Department – the lynchpin if Microsoft is going to get it derailed – as many as five congressional committees want to talk to Yahoo and Google about their advertising deal, including the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust wing, the Senate Commerce Committee, the House Small Business Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee. Figure Microsoft has until October 1 to persuade the DOJ the deal is evil and to intervene.

AMD Changes EMEA Boss
AMD has plucked Emilio Ghilardi out of HP to run sales and marketing in EMEA, replacing Alberto Macchi, who is leaving the company “to pursue new opportunities.” He starts in mid-August and will report to Gustavo Arenas, AMD’s newly anointed chief sales officer. Ghilardi was head of HP’s EMEA Consumer Business Unit, managing a multibillion-dollar consumer PCs and printing business. He was with HP for 25 years.

So It’s a Fight to the Last Algorithm Then
Microsoft, which recently bought Fast Search, is buying the three-year-old semantic search engine start-up Powerset for $100 million, according to VentureBeat, which says it’s to “close the perceived quality gap with Google’s search engine.” Still, the natural language approach is a long shot. The only thing Powerset’s put out so far is a month-old service to search Wikipedia on an iPhone. Steve Ballmer’s been on an “improve search” kick.

openSUSE Hits 11.0
Novell’s community-based openSUSE Project has pressed on to rev 11.0, adding 200 new features and the usual host of application updates. The new features include a redesigned installer, faster package management and OpenOffice 2.4. It is the first Linux distribution to include Banshee 1.0, so users can manage their digital music and video. Novell charges for support.