A representative of Google has highly praised the work of rivals at Microsoft over the future of HTML in a recent blog post.

Writing for the WHATWG Blog, a forum for web developers which allows in-depth discussion of web standards, Google's HTML 5 expert Mark Pilgrim went out on a limb and gave Microsoft's Adrian Bateman a lot of credit.

He said: "On August 7th, 2009, Adrian Bateman did what no man or woman had ever done before: he gave substantive feedback on the current editor's draft of HTML5 on behalf of Microsoft.

"His feedback was detailed and well-reasoned, and it spawned much discussion"

Mr Pilgrim sounded shocked as he continued to detail how after five years of "virtual silence", not a single person would ever want to miss the chance to engage with a worker for "the world's still-dominant browser".

This week, Microsoft announced that it would be providing Windows 7 to students for just £30, providing they have a .edu email address.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent).