Ever since Steve Ballmer made that surprise announcement at CES 2011, there has been a lot of speculation about just how Microsoft would be bringing Windows to the ARM architecture. Would it be a whole separate line? Would it be compatible with old applications? Would it be cheaper?
Many of these questions have been answered in a long and technical post on the Building Windows 8 blog today, as Steven Sinofsky explains how they developed (re-developed, really) Windows On ARM, or WOA, and why they made the choices they made.
Some major points, for those unwilling to read: WOA will be totally incompatible with x86/x64-based applications; it will include a desktop only for Office apps and file management; it will be focused on portability, battery life, and “integrated quality.” → Read More
Microsoft announced this morning a new agreement with 24/7 Inc. , a company that designs intuitive customer experiences. As a part of the deal, Microsoft will merge its interactive self-service assets (meaning people, clients and technologies), into 24/7 Inc. The deal also includes an R&D partnership, long-term IP licensing and Microsoft taking an equity stake in 24/7, Inc.
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Deep in the skunk works of its Research and Labs divisions, secreted around the Seattle area, Microsoft is working on totally reinventing the way people interact with their computers. Very little is out in the open or in more than a prototype form, but the work is unquestionably being done.
Last week it transpired that Microsoft is working on building Kinect into the bezels of laptops, and after that, presumably, tablets and eventually mobile phones. But it’s not just about building out the install base for Dance Central 3. It’s enabling the next generation of awareness in our electronics. The iPhone ushered in an era where our devices know when we touch them. Microsoft is working on the next one, in which our devices will simply know us. → Read More
A video detailing the new features of Windows Phone 8 Apollo — originally intended for Microsoft’s smartphone partners — has leaked into the hands of PocketNow editors.
Yay!
In my opinion, Windows Phone Mango is a solid platform that’s quicker and smoother than anything I’ve seen on Android. Still, when looking at devices from Microsoft, Apple, and Google side-by-side, the Windows Phone always seems to lose in the spec department. That said, WinPho boss Joe Belfiore has plenty in store for us come Q4 2012 (the rumored release date of Apollo). → Read More
We’ve known for some time that Microsoft would be bringing official Kinect support to Windows this week, but one thing they kept quiet was the fact that they’d be debuting a new version of the hardware as well.
It’s not tiny, as some hoped, or built into the bezel of a laptop, as we know it will be eventually, but it does improve on the original in a few ways. → Read More
Microsoft and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) are teaming up today on the public release of BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365, a name which surely Microsoft itself had a hand in creating. The new service will allow corporate customers to manage their deployed BlackBerry devices using Exchange Online, the hosted version of Microsoft’s messaging platform.
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Microsoft’s quarterly earnings statement didn’t have any big surprises. It was generally good news: record total revenue, growth in many key sectors, big sales in Xbox, 525 million total Windows 7 licenses sold, and they even seem to be losing a little less money in the Online Services area. But all that is a side show. 2011 was a big one for Microsoft in mobile (at least, big in that they took major actions), but for their core businesses it has been a hold-steady year. 2012 will be an adventure.
Windows 8 is Microsoft’s next big thing. And trends suggest that by the time Windows 9 comes around, things in the personal computing industry may look a lot different. The way they handle this next phase will set the stage for the inevitable “post-PC era” changes. → Read More
Microsoft just reported its second quarter 2012 earnings with record revenues of $20.9 billion, an 5% increase from the same period of the prior year. The previous record, as far as I can Bing Google, was 19.95 billion in quarter 2 of 2011 (another holiday season).
Microsoft’s operating income, net income, and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $7.99 billion, $6.62 billion, and $0.78 per share, compared with $8.17 billion, $6.63 billion and $0.77 last year. → Read More
The Surface has been around since 2007, but the new and improved SUR40 is a much more usable device. Microsoft and Samsung were showing off the new touch-capable table in NYC today, and I was lucky enough to get up close and personal with it.
The specs in and of themselves are impressive: 40-inch 50-point multitouch screen with a 1080×1920 resolution, AMD processors, 1GB of memory dedicated entirely to graphics, a 4-inch profile, and a host of USB/HDMI ports. It’s the computer you always wanted, save for the fact that it looks like a kitchen table and costs about $9,000.
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If you’re wondering why we didn’t stop by to test out the Samsung SUR40 touch-table, AKA the Surface 2.0, during CES, there’s a good reason: we did that last year. The device, while impressive, isn’t exactly new. But as it has little in the way of competition — the Surface is the nonpareil of touch tables — they probably didn’t feel they needed to get it out in any kind of hurry.
The device, which costs $8400 and ships this month, must be quite a bit more attractive than the original to companies eager to spruce up their public spaces. The old Surface was kind of a chunk, and the limited resolution was no help, either. Oh, and the price. The new Surface beats it handily in every respect. It’s flatter, lighter, wall-mountable, and 1080p. → Read More
This may seem a bit of inside baseball, but it’s a fairly interesting fact for folks looking forward to thin-and-light Win8 devices running ARM chips rather than Intel. According Computer World, devices running ARM versions of Win8 will not be able to run other OSes, like Android, thanks to something called Secure Boot.
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Microsoft this morning announced that it has signed a patent licensing agreement with Android device manufacturer LG, its eleventh deal of the kind.
Microsoft says effectively 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the United States today are covered under its patent portfolio, not mentioning the fact that they’re also suing Motorola Mobility and NOOK maker Barnes & Noble over their Android devices.
Continuing a tradition that we hope will stand the test of time, Microsoft’s head of communications, Frank Shaw, took to Twitter to taunt Google. → Read More
Microsoft has signed a patent licensing agreement with LG, maker of tablets, phones and other consumer electronics devices running Android or Chrome OS.
This marks the 11th deal with a device manufacturer leveraging Google’s operating system software; other major agreements were struck with the likes of HTC, Samsung and Acer, among others. → Read More
Over at WindowsITPro, Paul Thurott outlines some details of Microsoft/Nokia’s (purported) marketing plans for Windows Phone in 2012. Amongst them: a $10 to $15 commission for retail sales people who sell Windows Phone handsets over Android or iOS.
In turn, John Gruber asks: “If this strategy was on the table, why didn’t Microsoft start this a year ago?”
Here’s why: because it’s an admission of failure. → Read More
Analysts at Credit Suisse are forecasting slower growth in mobile phone shipments worldwide for this year, at a growth rate of 2%. The increase is higher than previous forecasts but is down from the 12% growth it had projected for 2011, according to this Reuters report.
According to the firm, they’re expecting to see 1.85 billion handset sales in 2012, up from the 2011 forecast of 1.82 billion. They’re also surprisingly bullish on Nokia’s fate in the new year. → Read More
Windows Phones, like Android phones, are hard to review. The operating system is obviously the same across the board and so the real question is “How does the hardware stand up to competitors?” The most important thing to consider here then is whether this phone stands a chance against similarly-priced Android feature phones and whether or not Nokia’s big gamble on WinPho has paid off? I’m leaning towards “Yes.” → Read More
Mobile industry watcher Eldar Murtazin took to Twitter today, claiming that Microsoft and Nokia executives will be meeting each other shortly to discuss the possibility and terms of a deal involving the sale of the Finnish phone maker’s smartphone division (including “one or two” manufacturing plants).
Such an agreement between the two tech giants, which Murtazin says could be finalized in the second half of 2012, would leave Nokia with nothing but its ‘dumbphone’ or feature phone business, mapping services subsidiary Navteq and Nokia Siemens Networks, the flailing networking and telecom equipment company (a joint-venture with Siemens).
Murtazin also asserts that current Nokia head honcho Stephen Elop will resign from his chief executive role in the course of this year (possibly to return to Microsoft, where he used to run the Business Division?). Furthermore, Windows smartphones would no longer be branded ‘Nokia’. → Read More
In the gaming world, there are gamers, there are hardcore gamers… and then there are flight sim players. These guys exist on a plane of dedication that they reside on almost exclusively, with a degree of commitment matched only by their spiritual brothers: the train sim players.
Alas, no level of dedication can pay to keep the lights on if the fan base simply isn’t big enough… hence the layoff of Microsoft’s entire Flight Simulator team back in 2009. Looking to start afresh and bring new blood (and new wallets) into the fan base, Microsoft’s taking a different approach with their latest game, Flight: it’s going freemium. → Read More
If you’re not a Windows fan, then these next few months may not be too pleasant for you. WinSupersite’s Paul Thurrott reports that Microsoft and OEM friends like Nokia and Samsung will be spending around $200 million in order give Windows Phone a big marketing push in early 2012. → Read More
Internet Explorer 6 — long a thorn in the side of many web developers because of its quirks, limited feature support, and cockroach-like resistance to extinction —is finally on its last legs in the United States. And Microsoft is celebrating.
In a post on the Windows Team blog, Roger Capriotti, Director of Internet Explorer Marketing, writes that Internet Explorer 6 is now down to less than 1% market share in the United States according to the most recent data from Net Applications. It’s far from the first country to reach that milestone — Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway have done it already — but it also had far more Internet users to convert. Alongside the US, Microsoft also notes that the Czech Republic, Mexico, Ukraine, Portugal and the Philippines have all dipped below the 1% mark as well.
And while it might sound a bit odd to hear about Microsoft celebrating the demise of software it built long ago, this isn’t a change of heart for the tech giant — the company has been doing its part to help IE6 die for quite a while. → Read More
