Microsoft Windows 8 lags predecessor in first-year sales

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 system has racked up more than 200 million license sales since its launch 15 months ago, according to Tami Reller, its head of marketing, lagging Windows 7 which sold 240 million within its first year.

The latest Windows 8 sales figure, announced by Reller at a Goldman Sachs technology conference on Thursday, is the first that Microsoft has made public for more than six months.

The relatively slow sales of Windows 8, and its latest incarnation Windows 8.1, reflect a steady two-year decline in personal computer sales, as smartphones and tablet sales explode. Sales of tablets are set to overtake PCs worldwide next year.

Windows 8 was designed as a flexible new system that would work equally well on desktops PCs and touchscreen tablets, but it ended up alienating many traditional users, while the company’s Surface tablet has not won over many Apple Inc iPad users.

More worryingly for Microsoft, the number of people actually using Windows 8 is persistently low. While many businesses technically have purchased Windows 8 licenses, few have installed the system on office machines.

According to tech statistics firm NetMarketShare, only about 11 percent of PC users worldwide are using Windows 8 or 8.1. Meanwhile, 48 percent are sticking with Windows 7 and 29 percent are still running Windows XP, which is more than a decade old.

Windows 7, helped by the fact that it replaced the generally unpopular Windows Vista, is Microsoft’s most successful operating system to date, selling more than 450 million licenses.

source: interaksyon.com

New Windows operating system sent to computer makers

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft on Tuesday began sending a revamped version of Windows to makers of computers, smartphones or tablets powered by the software.

“We’ve hit an important milestone for Microsoft,” Windows team executive Antoine Leblond said in a blog post.

“In many ways, this marks a new day for Microsoft, reflecting a number of rapid-release firsts.”

Developers of applications tailored to run on Windows devices were irked, however, to find out that they will not get their hands on the finished version of Windows 8.1 until it hits the market in October.


In the past, developers had early access to new versions of Windows to allow time to make sure their applications work with the software.

“Seriously, has Microsoft fallen off its rocker?” a developer asked rhetorically in a chat forum below Leblond’s blog post.

“This decision is yet another that leaves me questioning the judgment of Microsoft’s current management.”

Microsoft in June provided developers with a preview version of the “re-blended” Windows 8 operating system released late last year.

Windows 8.1 incorporated feedback from users and developers, and came with the promise that the US software giant was speeding up its release cycle to adapt to the dizzying pace of innovation in consumer technology.

“Windows 8.1 is a significant update,” Leblond said.

“As we consider the code we just handed off, and the new intuitive and fluid computing experience it provides — anytime, anywhere, across all devices — we’re confident we made the right bet.”

Windows 8.1 remains true to the vision of an operating system tuned for touch-screen controls and multi-gadget lifestyles increasingly revolving around tablets and smartphones, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft is under pressure to adapt to a huge shift in how people engage with computers.

Smartphones and tablets have vanquished the days when people devoted the bulk of computer time to Windows-powered desktop or laptop machines.

The overhauled Windows 8 operating system released in November was designed to power the array Internet-linked devices.

Better adapting to the shifting Internet landscape is believed to be among the reasons behind the unexpected announcement last week that Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer will retire within 12 months.

“There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time,” Ballmer said Friday in a written release.

“My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction.”

Ballmer took over as CEO in 2000 from co-founder Bill Gates, a classmate and friend from their days at Harvard University in the 1970s.

While its Windows software is used on the vast majority of personal computers, Microsoft has had little impact in the fast-growing segments of tablets and smartphones.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft to Offer Windows 8 Pro Upgrade to Students for $70

Microsoft has announced the details of a new special offer for students, which will be able to purchase the Windows 8 Pro upgrade edition online for $69.99.

The offer starts Feb. 1 in the U.S., and will also become available in 49 additional countries by March 19.

On Feb 21, the offer will become available in 22 new countries, including Canada, the UK, France, Germany and Spain. Eleven more countries will follow on March 7, and 16 more on March 19. See the full list of countries where this offer will be available over at Microsoft's official blog.

Microsoft will also start its Windows Campus Tour on Feb 18, visiting over 150 university campuses across the U.S. A team of experts will be showing students the advantages of Windows 8, as well as the latest Windows-touting tablets and PCs.

source: mashable.com

Samsung to ship 19 million Windows 8 computers this year: executive

NEW DELHI — Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will ship 19 million laptop computers and tablets operating on Microsoft Corp’s new Windows 8 operating system this year, said Jin Park, vice president of the IT solutions business at Samsung.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, launched its new-look, touch-friendly Windows 8 earlier this year to grip customers’ imagination, as it looks to regain ground lost to Apple Inc and Google Inc in mobile computing and shake up the moribund PC market.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft pushes new Windows to developers

SEATTLE — Days after launching Windows 8, Microsoft Corp is mounting a strong campaign to win over the software developers it needs to kick-start its new operating system.

A lack of apps is Microsoft’s Achilles heel as it attempts to catch Apple Inc and Google Inc in the rush toward mobile computing.

Windows 8, the new Surface tablet and a range of Windows-based phones – all unveiled in the past week – are designed to close that gap, but the world’s largest software company still needs to convince developers to recreate the thriving ‘ecosystem’ that made PCs so successful.

“Please go out and write lots of applications,” Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer pleaded with 2,000 developers on Tuesday, kicking off an annual, four-day meeting at its campus near Seattle.

The event, called ‘Build,’ is the equivalent of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference and Google’s I/O event.

Microsoft gave each paying attendee one of its Surface tablets and 100 gigabytes of free space on its SkyDrive online storage service. On top of that, handset partner Nokia threw in a free Lumia 920 smartphone running Windows Phone 8.

The unprecedentedly generous give-away signals the intent of what Microsoft openly calls “evangelism.” Most developers at the meeting, who paid up to $2,000 to attend, are already converted to the Windows religion. But this year there is a feeling that Microsoft can re-establish itself as a relevant platform for developers.

“The sessions are overflowing. Everybody wants to learn,” said Greg Lutz, product manager at development tools company ComponentOne, who is attending the conference.

“The Surface is really exciting. It’s been interesting to see people that would normally be critics of Microsoft surprised to see how good it is,” said Lutz, whose company makes features that developers can use in apps, such as calendars or charts.

Microsoft recognizes it needs apps to flesh out its new online Windows Store and make Windows 8 machines more attractive to users, said Russ Whitman, chief strategy officer at Ratio Interactive, a design agency that helps companies create apps.

“The catalog (of apps) is where they are weak, there’s no doubt,” he said. “But if Microsoft stays focused on quality not quantity, they can win.”

Developer doubts

When Windows 8 launched on Friday, some major content providers had prominent apps in the Windows store, such as Netflix Inc, the New York Times and Rovio’s Angry Birds Space. But big names such as Facebook and Twitter were missing.

Twitter moved to rectify that on Tuesday, announcing that a native Windows app would be rolled out “in the months ahead.” Dropbox, a fast-growing cloud storage service, also announced it would soon have a Windows app, as did online payment firm PayPal and sports network ESPN.

But Facebook, which now has more than 1 billion users, has not yet made public any plans for a Windows app, despite the fact Microsoft is a minor shareholder.

And Microsoft still has to overcome indifference from many developers who do not see demand from users or simply do not have the resources to build Windows apps alongside iOS and Android.

“Windows 8 is getting good reviews and the tile user interface is a great fit with our geo-visual content,” said Jason Karas, CEO at website Trover, where users can share photos of interesting discoveries. “It’s on the roadmap for Trover, but we are still a very lean team, so we’re hesitant to support a third platform until we have all the innovations we want to see in iPhone and Android in place.”

Microsoft has yet to persuade other influential online services, for example car-rental firm Zipcar or real estate information firm Zillow, to develop for Windows 8.

To get more developers on board, Microsoft is spending this week demonstrating how it is making it easier to develop apps for Windows and get them into the real world.

A key part of that is a new set of tools tying in its Azure cloud service, which allows Windows apps to easily harness data stored in remote servers.

“Some of the new changes are pretty incredible and are going to make developing, especially some of the mobile apps, much easier,” said Mike Cousins, a software developer following the conference by webcast from Calgary, Canada.

“It just makes it super-easy to integrate mobile clients into your application,” said Cousins, who is developing Shuttr, a site for photographers to display and sell their work. “It’s been reduced from probably a week’s work to minutes.”

400 million new machines

Microsoft’s best argument to developers is the sheer size of the Windows user base.

Microsoft sold 4 million upgrades to Windows 8 in its first four days, a mere fraction of the 670 million or so machines running Windows 7. Ballmer said there would be 400 million new devices running Windows next year, including PCs, tablets and phones, and the company would be marketing heavily to consumers.

That is an attractive audience for developers, and Whitman at Ratio Interactive said he saw many new faces at Microsoft’s event this week who previously were more interested in web-based apps and other platforms.

“There’s a new generation of developers that can build on Windows 8 that have been building using JavaScript and HTML,” he said. “Seeing some of those developers show up and talk about building apps using other languages is pretty cool. It’s a whole different group than Microsoft has traditionally been able to court.”

One Wall Street analyst said developers may even be tempted to switch back to Microsoft after working with Apple’s iOS platform.

“There does seem to be some excitement about the new operating system and many of the new devices that are coming to market,” said Jason Maynard, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. “We have heard some developers talk about ‘re-Microsofting’ and moving from their Macs for app development.”

Cousins said that once developers see the user base for Windows 8 grow, the momentum will start to have an effect.

“All the new PCs people buy will be Windows 8, and people will start demanding Windows 8 apps from companies, and then they will start making them,” he said. “I think we’ll see a wave of apps coming out pretty soon.”

source: interaksyon.com

Nokia to ship new Windows Phone 8 Lumia smartphones this week

HELSINKI — Nokia late on Monday said its high-end Lumia 820 and 920 phones, which will run on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 software, will this week reach first operators and retail outlets in France and Britain and later in Russia and Germany as well as other select markets.

In the United States, AT&T will start selling the devices in early November. Verizon Wireless will begin selling Lumia 822 and T-Mobile will offer Lumia 810, Nokia said.

source: interaksyon.com

Tech focus now on Microsoft Windows 8, Surface tablet

SEATTLE — Firm sales numbers for Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 and its new Surface tablet will not be available for three months, but it may be clear long before then if it has a hit on its hands.

“We can definitely gauge it by chatter,” said Emily Chan, an analyst at Bernstein Research. “There is a slight learning curve, so I don’t think we will see that big pop that iPad saw.”

Microsoft is desperate for the new-look, touch-friendly Windows 8 to grip customers’ imaginations, as it looks to regain ground lost to Apple Inc and Google Inc in mobile computing and shake up the moribund PC market.

Perhaps more important is its new own-brand tablet called the Surface, available only through its own stores and website, which will challenge Apple’s iPad head on.

“I’d want to know the sales – and return rate – of the Surface,” said Sarah Rotman Epps at tech research firm Forrester. “But those numbers will be hard to get since Microsoft is the only retailer.”

Early reviews of the Surface have been mixed, generally praising the slick hardware, but faulting battery life and the limited software and applications available.

Some worry that the first Surface model, which runs on a stripped-down version of Windows 8 called RT that is not compatible with old Windows programs, will cause some confusion and dissatisfaction among customers.

The three models for sale on Microsoft’s U.S. website are already on back order, suggesting strong demand, but it is not known how many Surfaces Microsoft has manufactured.

“The fact it’s back ordered is indicative that there’s consumer interest,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner. “How Microsoft introduces it, evangelizes it and explains it will determine long term success.”

Ballmer noise

Microsoft has not said if it will reveal sales figures for Windows 8 or of the Surface before its next scheduled earnings on January 24. The company tends to trumpet good news and stay silent otherwise.

After the launch of Windows 7 three years ago, CEO Steve Ballmer waited only a month to announce strong sales. A year later, he waited only 10 days to report record-breaking sales of the Kinect, the motion-sensing add-on for the Xbox. But Microsoft has never shared the sales of Windows-powered phones, which have a lowly 3 percent of the market.

If Ballmer stays silent about Windows 8 sales, it might indicate a less than stellar performance.

“I would definitely take it a sign that it’s not super, super strong, but I won’t take it as something negative,” said Chan at Bernstein, who is expecting 8.3 million Surface sales by the middle of next year.

That averages out at about 1 million a month, a third the rate of the iPad, which notched up its first million sales in 28 days and has now sold more than 100 million units, averaging about 3.2 million a month.

Gartner forecasts that Surface and other tablets running Windows RT will sell about 2.3 million units this year and 9.3 million next year, grabbing about 2 percent and 5 percent of the worldwide tablet market, respectively.

Door-busters

Retail activity will be closely watched. Microsoft will have more than 60 brick and mortar stores open for the release of Windows 8 on Friday, half of them ‘pop-up’ stores that will stay open for the holiday shopping season.

Third-party retailers are cautiously optimistic.

“We have seen pretty good response to our pre-orders for Windows 8,” said Best Buy Co Inc spokesman Jeff Haydock. “Quite honestly, I don’t know what to expect from Friday. I don’t know if there will be lines or not. My sense is it will take some time for people to kind of come into the stores and check it out.”

Best Buy may give some color on how PC sales are going when it reports earnings on November 20.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the No. 1 U.S. retailer, said U.S. pre-orders for Windows 8 PCs “have been better than expected.”

Online retailers Amazon.com Inc, Newegg Inc and TigerDirect Inc have been silent on Windows 8 pre-orders.

The full impact of PC sales on retailers will not be evident until chains report same-store sales for November.

Quick reaction

One early indicator of Windows 8′s success will be the contents of the online Windows Store. Microsoft has had a harder time drumming up interest among developers for Windows 8, given the risk that there will be fewer users than competing platforms.

Microsoft will not disclose numbers, but there are expected to be 5,000 or so third-party apps available to U.S. users, in comparison with the iPad’s 275,000. Some big names such as Facebook Inc will be missing.

In social media, the tenor of comments on the Twitter hashtags #Windows8 and #Surface will give an indication of their reception after Ballmer unveils them both on Thursday.

Many users likely will be shocked by the new design, which dispenses with the Start button and features square tiles for apps.

“Public reaction to the new UI will depend how well Microsoft explains why ‘different’ is better and teaches how the new experience works,” said Gartenberg. “That all starts on Thursday.”

By the numbers

The ultimate test for Windows 8 will be PC sales.

Industry trackers are expecting a bump for PC sales in the last two months of the year, but not enough to rescue the whole year, which is forecast to dip for the first time since 2001.

Some analysts had expected an uptick in production of laptops ahead of the Windows 8 launch, but PC makers facing an uncertain global economy have been wary about committing.

Chip maker Intel Corp, which is a good gauge of future PC demand due to its position early in the production process, expects the PC business to grow at only half the normal seasonal rate in the fourth quarter.

Chief Executive Paul Otellini recently told analysts he expects to have a better understanding of the success of Windows 8 in 90 days.

Stephen Baker, an analyst at retail research firm NPD Group, is expecting a 10 percent jump in PC sales for November and December over last year, but said comparisons will be difficult given a profusion of new devices and the volatility of year-ago data.

Fourth-quarter PC shipment numbers from research firms Gartner and IDC will not be published until early January, although analysts say PC makers might start to drop hints about demand before then.

“There will likely be many milestones, but very few will ultimately be decisive. The key point is will PC sales continue to shrink or will they experience a boost,” said Al Hilwa at research firm IDC. “We can probably begin to properly judge that with some ambiguity in January.”

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft profit slips as PCs fizzle; Windows 8 awaited

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp’s quarterly profit fell a greater-than-expected 22 percent, as sales of computers running its Windows operating system dipped and some revenue was deferred ahead of upcoming releases of its core Windows and Office products.

The sharp decline surprised investors, who had underestimated the effect of weak personal computer sales, sending Microsoft’s shares down 1.3 percent in after-hours trading.

“To us it seems like the macro conditions certainly deteriorated and no tech company will be immune to it,” said Trip Chowdhry, analyst at Global Equities Research.

Earlier on Thursday Google Inc reported sharply lower profit amid slowing advertising, following downbeat reports from Intel Corp and International Business Machines Corp this week.

Sales of PCs are expected to fall this year for the first time since 2001, according to research firm IHS, due to the weak economy and inability of the latest crop of lightweight laptops to compete with Apple Inc’s iPad.

Microsoft is betting the release of touch-friendly Windows 8 will rev up sales of PCs, laptops and Windows-compatible tablets as soon as it launches next week, and break Microsoft’s heavy reliance on PC sales for profit.

“I don’t control the macro-environment, but there’s a huge opportunity in the explosion of devices,” Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein said in an interview. “There’s demand for compelling devices and a connected set of cloud experiences. That’s what Windows 8 is all about.”

Steep dip

Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, said fiscal first quarter profit fell to $4.47 billion, or 53 cents per share, from $5.74 billion, or 68 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Wall Street had expected earnings of 56 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales fell 8 percent to $16.01 billion, largely caused by the dip in demand for personal computers running Windows, as consumers held off new purchases in the tight economy or opted to buy tablet devices instead.

The revenue decline was exaggerated by Microsoft’s deferral of some $1.36 billion in revenue, chiefly from its Windows unit, which it will regain next quarter after Windows 8 is launched.

Analysts, anticipating the dip in PC sales and accounting for the deferred revenue, had called for sales of $16.4 billion.

On the positive side for Microsoft, its fast-growing server and tools business – whose datacenter ‘cloud’ services are in high demand – posted a 12 percent jump in operating profit to $1.75 billion. Its perennially money-losing online services unit – containing the Bing search engine and MSN portal – narrowed its quarterly operating loss by 29 percent to $364 million, as it increased its share of the search advertising market and cut costs.

“Investors were not expecting a home run. All expectations are on the launch of Windows 8 and the entrance into the tablet market,” said Daniel Ives, analyst at FBR Capital Markets. “In light of the environment, the macro and PC situation, these are respectable numbers.”

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft launching news operation, new MSN

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp is launching its own news operation as part of its new-look MSN website when Windows 8 launches later this month.

The world’s largest software company is making a “big, multi-million dollar investment” to create a “decent-sized media operation,” said Bob Visse, general manager, MSN Product Management Group.

Microsoft sold its 50 percent stake in news website MSNBC.com in July to longtime partner NBCUniversal, now majority-owned by Comcast Corp.

MSNBC’s newsroom at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington is being wound down, while MSN builds up a news team at its nearby Bellevue offices.

MSN will chiefly aggregate news from sources such as Reuters, a unit of Thomson Reuters Corp, the Associated Press and NBC, but it will also produce its own content, Visse said. He did not say how many journalists the news site would employ.

Microsoft’s flagship website, which gets about 480 million visitors per month worldwide, is one of the biggest portals on the Internet, alongside Yahoo and AOL, and serves as the gateway to other Microsoft online services such as Outlook mail and Skype online calling.

The site is being radically overhauled for Microsoft’s touch-optimized Windows 8 system and Internet Explorer 10, which will be launched on October 26. The new look is designed to appeal to tablet and touch-screen PC users, who can manipulate large icons across the screen and tap on items they want to read.

For the first time, the site will have a uniform look across all its sections, from news and sports to money and job listings.

Microsoft’s foray into news reflects the company’s growing interest in creating its own content. Last month it hired a former CBS Corp executive to run a new studio creating original entertainment for the Xbox gaming console.

source: interaksyon.com

Nokia unveils new Windows Phone 8-powered Lumia phones

MANILA, Philippines — Finnish phone manufacturer Nokia on Wednesday unveiled its latest bid at regaining smartphone market share bannered by the Lumia 920, one of the two phones powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system.
In unveiling its latest flagship phone, Nokia underscored its need to differentiate in a quickly saturating smartphone market worldwide, as it pins its future on two key areas: photography and navigation.
The new Lumia 920, which features a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and 4.5-inch display, will come packed with an 8-megapixel camera sporting Nokia’s proprietary PureView technology, which Nokia claims takes better photos and videos than any competitor smartphone.
PureView, which debuted along with the Symbian Belle-powered Nokia 808 PureView this year, is a technology developed in-house by Nokia that purportedly takes better images, even in low-light conditions.
Nokia is claiming the PureView image sensor included in the Lumia 920 captures “between five to ten times” of light than any other smartphone, comparable to most dSLRs today.
On the navigation front, Nokia announced the availability of City Lens, an augmented-reality application that shows overlaid details on places as viewed through the phone’s camera.
The augmented reality feature extends to the popular Nokia Maps application, where the user would simply hold up the phone at eye level to see an overlay of map directions.
The new phones also come with wireless charging capabilities.
The Lumia 920 will come pre-packed with Windows Phone 8 (WP8), which is a re-worked version of WP7 that ties in the core development kernels of Microsoft’s next-generation PC operating system, Windows 8, set to be launched in late October.

Meanwhile, Nokia’s Lumia 820 features a 4-inch display encased in a polycarbonate body, and a first for Nokia’s Lumia devices, a removable back cover that gives access to the 1,650mAh battery and optional microSD storage.
It will be powered by a capable 1.5GHz dual-core processor paired with 1GB of RAM. It also comes with an 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss optics and a VGA front-facing camera.
The new phones come with wireless charging capabilities, although the feature is available on the Lumia 820 only via an optional detachable shell accessory.
They will come pre-packed with Windows Phone 8 (WP8), which is a re-worked version of WP7 that ties in the core development kernels of Microsoft’s next-generation PC operating system, Windows 8, set to be launched in late October.
The new Lumia phones will reportedly enter the market by the last quarter of the year, in time for Microsoft’s launch of Windows 8. Pricing details, meanwhile, have yet to be announced.

Nokia reportedly sold 7 million Lumia phones in 54 countries since it launched last year, with more than half of it being sold in the last quarter.

source: interaksyon.com

Windows 8 signals the end of Windows as we know it, analyst says

MANILA, Philippines — The impending release of Microsoft’s new operating system Windows 8 will bring forth such tectonic changes in user computing that will lessen the relevance of desktop-based computing and applications, according to analyst firm Gartner.

The shift, according to Gartner analysts, is underpinned by Microsoft’s decision to support a common core development platform for its desktop, phone, tablet and server flavors, also known as WinRT (Windows Runtime).

Microsoft announced the gist of that move last week for its next-generation Windows Phone 8 mobile OS, as well as the revelation that the software giant will soon ship its own tablet called Surface.

“Windows 8 is the start of Microsoft’s effort to respond to market demands and competitors, as it provides a common interface and programming API set from phones to servers,” said Michael Silver, vice president and analyst at Gartner, who pointed out that Microsoft will still continue support for Win32 applications but “will encourage developers to write more manageable and engaging applications using WinRT.”

Gartner said such a move is Microsoft’s response to intensifying demand from consumers for more mobile and flexible computing options, qualities found mostly among smartphones and tablets today.

More than a major upgrade, Windows 8 has been touted by the analyst firm as a major “technology shift,” similar to Microsoft’s move from DOS-based computing to Windows NT technology in the early 90′s.

“The user computing world is changing. PCs, although still critical components of the computing landscape, are no longer the only devices for delivering services and applications to users,” stressed Steve Kleynhans, vice president for client and mobile computing at Gartner.

Could enterprises keep up?

Consumers, in general, are quick to adapt to such changes and are relatively accepting of major technology shifts. It’s the enterprise segment, Gartner said, who should be keeping a close watch of developments within Microsoft, particularly its push for a Metro-style user interface, which uses a tiled design and a full-screen app-like experience in place of windows.

That said, the analyst firm predicts that most users and organizations will continue to run legacy applications for 10 or more years, but stressed that “the Windows Desktop and legacy Windows applications will decline in importance in future Windows client releases.”

It added that Metro-style apps will only gain significant traction in user-facing enterprise apps in at least five years’ time, adding that firms will take many years to move their applications to the new model, with many running Win32 apps and the desktop browser through 2015 even if they have already upgraded to Windows 8.

The turning point, Gartner said, for Metro-style apps to gain foothold in the enterprise would be by 2020, when it predicts that enterprise users would spend less than 10 percent of their time running Win32 applications.

“Organizations planning to develop new Win32 applications should switch to Metro for all new user-facing applications beginning in 2013 and should focus on external apps first and internal apps later,” it suggested.

source: interaksyon.com

Talk of Microsoft tablet resurfaces

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp is gearing up to unveil its own tablet to boost its new Windows 8 operating system and counter Apple Inc’s hot-selling iPad, according to media reports on Friday.

Such an effort, which the company has not confirmed, would be a departure from its usual focus on software and potentially throw Microsoft into direct competition with its closest hardware partners such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Hewlett-Packard Co.

The world’s largest software company has invited media to a “major” announcement in Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, but has not provided any details.

In the absence of information, talk is swirling that Microsoft will introduce its own tablet, according to anonymously sourced reports in the New York Times and the AllThingsD tech blog. Microsoft declined to comment on the subject and those reports.

It is not the first time such talk has surfaced, as Microsoft looks for a way to make an impact with its new tablet-friendly Windows 8 operating system and put the best product it can in the market to counter Apple’s iPad.

Apple, which makes both hardware and software for greater control over the performance of the final product, has revolutionized mobile markets with its smooth, seamless phones and tablets. Rival Google Inc may experiment with a similar approach after buying phone maker Motorola Mobility this year.

“Anything is possible if they don’t feel their partners are doing it right,” said Michael Silver, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner. “But it’s hard to compete with companies that sell your stuff and still have a great relationship with them.”

Other analysts suggested an own-branded tablet may be chiefly aimed at kick-starting the market for Windows tablets working on ARM Holdings Plc microprocessors – a new venture for Microsoft, which has traditionally relied on Intel Corp chips.

Microsoft charges hardware makers $50 or more to incorporate its software in machines and analysts suggest that hardware makers are struggling to produce tablets at a low enough price to challenge the iPad. By making its own tablets, Microsoft would presumably use its software for free, bringing down the overall price.

“It suggests to me that they’ve struggled to get OEMs on board to bring the prices down, so they feel they have to subsidize these products to get them out of the door, at least in the first iteration,” said Al Hilwa, an analyst at tech research firm IDC.

Making its own hardware for such an important product would be a departure for Microsoft, which based its success on licensing its software to other manufacturers, stressing the importance of “partners” and the Windows “ecosystem.”

When it has ventured into hardware, the Redmond, Washington-based company has a mixed record.

Apart from keyboards and mice, the Xbox game console was its first foray into major manufacturing. That is now a successful business, but only after billions of dollars of investment and overcoming problems with high rates of faulty units – a problem which was nicknamed the “red ring of death” by gamers.

The company’s Microsoft-branded Zune music player, a late rival to Apple’s iPod, was not a success and its unpopular Kin phone was taken off the market shortly after introduction.

Microsoft has tried hard to generate the type of excitement Apple gets for its secretive product launches, but usually disappoints. Talk was rife at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2010 that Microsoft would pre-empt Apple’s iPad with a slate of its own devising, but it never materialized.

The company killed off a two-screen, slate-style prototype called Courier later that year, saying the technology might emerge in another form later on.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft sees 'rebirth' with new Windows 8 system

SEOUL — Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 series—featuring an upgraded cloud computing service—marks a “rebirth” of its operating systems, chief executive Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday.

Ballmer described Windows 8 as the “deepest, broadest and most impactful” Windows software ever created by the US tech giant, after the current Windows 7 sold at unprecedented rates to businesses.

“It’s really, in some senses, a dawning of the rebirth of MS Windows… It’s certainly the most important piece of work we’ve done,” he said in a speech to the Seoul Digital Forum.

Windows 8, whose preview version will be released in June, allows users readily to store and share personal data among various devices under the “SkyDrive” cloud computing service. Rival Apple already offers such a service.

The new Microsoft system will support a wider range of devices, including touch- and stylus-based smartphones and tablet PCs as well as desktop and laptop machines, Ballmer said.

The software giant has been trying to expand its presence in the booming software market for smartphones and tablets, which is currently dominated by Apple and Google.

Ballmer predicted that the cloud computing market would become dominated by a few big players.

“The number of core (cloud) platforms, around which software developers will do their innovation, is not ever-broadening,” he said.

“It’s really a quite smaller and focused number—Windows, various forms of Linux, the Apple ecosystem.”

In three to five years from now, “there will be just a few ecosystems that really can get the critical mass”, he said.

Ballmer estimated up to 500 million users will have Windows 8 next year, promising the “best economic opportunity” for device makers and app developers who adopt the new system.

Microsoft will also soon introduce Skype powered by Windows 8, Ballmer said. His company last year bought the leading Internet video and voice-calling service for $8.5 billion.

source: japantoday.com