Android users can have very different mobile experiences depending on their platform version. Many people haven’t been able to use Android 2.2 (also known as Froyo), since some Android devices don’t support it, or the company that makes their handset doesn’t offer it yet. If you think it’s not important to have the latest and greatest, or that what you have works fine for you, check out this list of new features included with the Froyo upgrade and see if this is the type of thing that you might be interested in.

First, the Bluetooth voice dialing feature.  It’s straightforward- just press the button on your Bluetooth earpiece and say the name that you want to call. Reports indicate that Froyo’s Bluetooth dialing has more consistent recognition accuracy than a similar feature on the iPhone.

The cloud-to-device messaging allows you to send applications, video, messages and other files directly to other Android phones. Look for this capability in your business apps, allowing quick sharing of info, in the very near future.

Flash is still not installed by default, but you can go to the Android Market and install Flash from there. Once installed, Flash content performs well in the default browser.

If you’re like me, your phone doesn’t have enough space for all of the applications that you want. Android 2.2 solves this problem by allowing you to install applications directly onto a SD card, which is upgradable and often swappable. Note: not all applications are compatible with these install options, but newer apps increasingly implement this capability.

The search bar has also been given an upgrade. With Froyo, there is now a drop-down that allows you to search from a customized list of dynamic sources.  Once configured, you can search for content on Google, in your tweets, in your email or calendar, or practically anywhere else on your phone from one single search box.

“Update All”  is a new feature that allows you to update all applications (if there is an update available) at once.  This is similar to the popular updating functionality of the iPhone.

Finally, Wi-Fi tethering is built into 2.2. –  making your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot. Not all carriers allow this feature, but it is super cool to be able to have your own network in your pocket in a pinch.

There are also some other updates in this release, including updated camera features and an updated Gmail app.  For a full rundown, check out the press release from Android at their developer site .

On Tuesday Microsoft announced the debut of Office 365, which will be a combination of the online versions of Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Lync.  The Redmond giant has launched a beta release of the cloud-based Office suite in 13 countries. They’re branding this new product as the “next generation in cloud productivity”.

What does this mean for mobile business? It means the same functionality that has made Microsoft Office the gold standard of business computing without being tethered to our PCs. It’s Office when you are out of the office.  New collaboration features allow groups to work on projects in a simple and secure way.

Kurt DelBene, president of the Office Division at Microsoft said:

“Office 365 is the best of everything we know about productivity, all in a single cloud service. With Office 365, your local bakery can get enterprise-caliber software and services for the first time, while a multinational pharmaceutical company can reduce costs and more easily stay current with the latest innovations. People can focus on their business, while we and our partners take care of the technology.”

The Office 365 site went live earlier this week.  Those interested can use the site to register to participate in the beta program. Microsoft has not announced the date of the public release of Office 365, although they have said that the suite would be widely available in 40 countries by next year. Full press release here.

Sitting in a meeting today, pen and pad in front of me, I was taking notes as usual.  As the meeting wrapped up a co-worker asked, ‘“can someone send out notes from this meeting?”  I volunteered, but before I could say the words another co-worker announced “done”.  I honestly thought he’d been texting or checking his emails, but apparently he had been taking meeting notes on his iPhone with Evernote.

I went back to my desk and immediately downloaded the app to my phone, and it seemed to work pretty well overall. There are versions for the desktop, mobiles phone and web browser. However, a notable difference exists in the app from platform to platform; the functionality is basically the same cross-platform, but the look-and-feel is different depending on the device used.

While taking notes with Evernote, you can use  your phone to automatically upload your snapshots to the app’s server. The most innovative feature is “OCR” (Optical Character Recognition), which allows you to search archived pics by searching for text appearing in the photos. This is great for folks like me that like to write on a whiteboard during meetings, since you can easily snap a picture of the whiteboard and file it away for later use.  This feature could also be handy when taking pictures of products or ads for later research.  You could even use it to take pictures of people with name tags at conferences. The idea is that it can really easy to ‘remember everything’ (as their slogan goes).

Projects on your phone, computer, or tablet are synchronized automatically to your Evernote web account. Since it synchronizes regularly, reinstalling the application or losing data because of a crash isn’t as big a tragedy as it could be.

For Android: Evernote is offering a preview at the 2.0 release of their Android capture client, and it looks promising. According to their release announcement virtually all aspects of the app have been improved. There’s a more intuitive search function, and capturing new notes is smoother.  Read the announcement for the full list of new features and improvements.