Microsoft wants a more cohesive look and feel for its applications. This came through loud and clear at last week's Convergence user conference, where Microsoft showed off new versions of its Dynamics ERP and CRM apps. They use the "ribbon" interface that Microsoft launched in Office 2007, where toolbars and menus have been replaced with a strip of icons across the top of the app window.

There's a long list of capabilities Microsoft wants to add, CEO Steve Ballmer told attendees, and he expects the Office interface "will become a standard ... that many, many companies will follow."

More to come for the interface, says CEO Steve Ballmer

By this fall, Dynamics applications will have 60 tailored interfaces, each intended to give people in specific jobs exactly the features they need.

Microsoft also showed off its hosted Live CRM product, expected in the fall, which expands the use of graphical mashups. Live CRM was able to match location data with Microsoft's Virtual Earth mapping service to give a bird's-eye view of all the stadiums in a city where an events company could host a concert.

Microsoft also demoed a prototype of a future workplace computer that uses voice activation, has a touch screen that can handle multiple points of touch simultaneously, and uses a touch-sensitive radial dial of icons that could be the successor to the ribbon interface.