Speaking at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer claimed that the software company will acquire 20 companies a year for the next five years, in the range of $50 million to $1 billion.

Google has also acquired many technology companies over recent years — at least 10 companies in the past year, compared with Microsoft’s four. Yahoo has also acquired four. The stage seems set for an open season on new and exciting start-ups.

Unfortunately, Microsoft made a reputation during the 1990s for negotiating with start-up outfits only to pull back and launch its own competitor. Now, it’s said, with less time on its hands to keep abreast of nimble competitors like Google, developers may believe the software giant has changed its spots and needs them more than they need Microsoft.

We shall see.

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Windows Live is Microsoft’s big new idea for challenging the likes of Google in online software services.

Microsoft will now allow you to test out the new suite of Windows Live software at http://get.live.com/wl/all.

Windows Live makes it easy to store and manage your communications and information, and share what’s going on in your life with the people who mean the most to you. Many of you have already tried out new versions of our web services – Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live SkyDrive beta, and the new Windows Live Home page beta.

[Now] we’re releasing beta versions of a new generation of Windows Live software designed for your Windows PC that makes it easier than ever to get connected to Windows Live or other services. This suite of software includes e-mail (Windows Live Mail), photo sharing (Windows Live Photo Gallery), a great publishing tool that lets you post directly to your blog (Windows Live Writer), parental controls (Windows Live OneCare Family Safety), a new version of Windows Live Messenger (8.5), and more.

CNET News.com has learned that Microsoft is aiming to ship its next version of Windows, codenamed version 7, within three years or so.

Microsoft discussed Windows 7 last Thursday at a conference for its field sales force in Orlando, according to sources close to the company.

Windows 7 will be under new orders to establish a more predictable release schedule, as suggested by Ray Ozzie following the multi-problematic Windows Vista rewrite and more than five years of development.

CNET comments, “Like Vista, Windows 7 will ship in consumer and business versions, and in 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The company also confirmed that it is considering a subscription model to complement Windows, but did not provide specifics or a time frame.”

Details were released, a representative said, “as part of our ongoing outreach to enterprise customers and partners, Microsoft has begun sharing plans for how they will continue to deliver value to businesses in the future…Software Assurance customers in particular. Microsoft is scoping Windows 7 development to a three-year time frame, and then the specific release date will ultimately be determined by meeting the quality bar.”

Windows 7 was previously codenamed, Windows Vienna.

Livestation built on Microsoft’s Silverlight will bring Live TV to your PC.

The project, currently in beta, uses technology from Skinkers, a UK based company and rebroadcasts the BBC live. It could also be expanded to other TV stations.

Don Dodge writes, “LiveStation is delivered on Microsoft’s Silverlight with extraordinary quality and crispness. The video is like watching a DVD on your PC — no jerky motion, no buffering — it is just like watching live TV. What is different? There have been several ways to watch TV on your PC, so what is different here?”

* LiveStation uses Peer-to-Peer technology to distribute the TV signal, so it doesn’t require a big server infrastructure and lots of bandwidth. The P2P technology was developed at Microsoft’s Cambridge research lab and functions similar to BitTorrent.
* Silverlight allows the video to be displayed in very high quality, and with amazing speed. Silverlight was unveiled at MIX07 earlier this year to rave reviews. LiveStation shows off the power and elegance of Silverlight.
* Live TV, this isn’t recorded TV being re-broadcast…it is live, without delay. Of course the technology could be modified to stream recorded shows or other types of content.
* TV on your cell phone? Silverlight runs on cell phones, so in the future it could deliver Live TV directly to your cell phone or mobile device.
* LiveStation is built on two research technologies, Pastry and SplitStream, from Microsoft’s Cambridge Research Lab. Pastry is a type of P2P system called a ‘distributed hash table,’ which makes it easier for computers to find and store information, and to organize themselves for collaborative tasks.
* Splitstream is an application built on top of Pastry which allows real-time streams such as live video to be robustly distributed peer-to-peer.

This could be big.