Articles about Microsoft

I had an old uncle who watched a lot of TV. If you tried to speak to him while he was concentrating on the screen he would politely nod and say "I’m listening" even though he patently wasn’t. Microsoft is the tech world equivalent of my uncle.

I knew when Windows division CFO Tami Reller discussed the Start button with The Verge a month ago and said: "We've really tried to understand what people are really asking for when they're asking for that", the end result would be something nobody had asked for, nor wanted. And of course, that’s exactly what the Windows 8.1 Start button is.

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Welcome to the cloud. Microsoft hopes it is not a dark and ominous one. The company is in competition with Amazon, Dropbox and others to get your business in today's growing storage market and is trying to get the upper hand by tightly integrating its SkyDrive service into the latest builds of Windows and Office.

Now the company announces further integration with new Pro apps for both Windows 8 and iOS. "We are pleased to announce that the SkyDrive Pro apps for Windows 8 and iOS are now available in the Windows Store and Apple Store respectively for SharePoint Online users in Office 365. After signing in to your Office 365 account, you can access, view, and upload your documents from anywhere", says senior product manager Mark Kashman.

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Microsoft has released Skype for iPhone 4.9 and Skype for iPad 4.9, minor updates for its pair of iOS apps. Both updates promise more reliable photo sharing, wider accessibility for video messaging and improved stability for audio and video calls.

Both updates are the first for iOS since Microsoft brought video messaging about of beta and made it universally available to all users.

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During day two's keynote at the Microsoft Build 2013 developer conference, Server and Tools Business President Satya Nadella talked about the SaaS (Software as a Service) applications Microsoft runs.

In particular he focused on the scale and diversity of the company’s daily work in the cloud, while a "Battle Tested" slide displayed the all-important numbers for Xbox Live, Skype, Outlook.com, Office 365, SkyDrive and Bing.

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Day two's keynote at the Microsoft Build 2013 developer conference focused on the company's commitment to the Windows Azure mobile development program.

Azure Mobile Services and Azure Web Sites move from preview to general availability status. Mobile Services makes it easier for developers to build connected, scalable apps for Windows, Android and iOS, whilst Web Sites makes it simple to create and run webpages. There were also previews of new Azure technologies including Auto Scale, offering the ability to adjust capacity according to customers' needs. Plus a preview of enhancements for Azure Active Directory.

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This is BUILD week -- the annual Microsoft tech show, and it kicked off with Windows 8.1 beta rolling out to the public, in non-leaked form. Yesterday was not all, though, as today the company debuts the Embedded version of its updated operating system -- the iteration intended to run in contained environments like ATM's, cash registers and other business-related tools.

"Microsoft extended its Windows 8.1 technologies to intelligent system solutions with the Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Release Preview. Developers, OEMs and enterprises can begin testing industry devices and solutions today" the company announces.

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Want more numbers thrown at you? The Microsoft beta release of its next-generation operating system, Windows 8.1, debuted yesterday and stole the news cycle. The aftermath continues today, as Netflix joins the party, announcing its latest offering to keep pace with market rivals Amazon Prime and Redbox Instant.

The company has plans to roll out video as extensions to modern browsers. "These extensions are the future of premium video on the web, since they allow playback of premium video directly in the browser without the need to install plugins", says the company.

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Shortly after Windows 8.1 Preview was announced at this year's Build conference, Microsoft made it available to install through the Windows Store. The ISO files took a while to appear (MSDN subscribers got to download them first, followed by anyone with access to BitTorrent) but they are finally available to download officially from here.

Because Windows 8.1 is a preview version, and far from the finished article, you may not want to upgrade your existing operating system just yet. Fortunately, you can try the Windows 8 refresh without risk by installing it in a virtualized environment using the free Oracle VM VirtualBox.

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Microsoft still wants everyone to use and love the Modern UI, but it accepts, finally, that a large portion of users aren’t interested in apps and the tiled interface. So it’s given desktop users the option to skip the Start screen on boot up, but then tucked it away, along with a bunch of other useful customization options.

If you want to have your own wallpaper displayed on the Start screen, or have Windows 8.1 show the Apps view when you hit the Windows key (or click the new Start button), that’s easily arranged at the same time.

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If you're an avid SkyDrive or Office 365 user who happens to leverage Office Web Apps, Microsoft let loose information on a round of updates that will be hitting the browser based suite quite "soon" according to an official Office 365 blog video.

The posting was part of Microsoft's informal "Garage Series" set of video-blogs aimed at IT professionals who support Office. I happened to stumble upon this week-old entry and was quite surprised at what Microsoft has in store -- namely, hitting Google Docs where Office Web Apps haven't been able to thus far: rich real time co-authoring and collaboration.

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Developers, developers, developers! No Microsoft did not forget you today during the kickoff of Build. Windows 8.1 may have been the headline, but those behind the real development were not left out from the proceedings. Microsoft today rolls out the 2013 edition of Visual Studio in Preview mode.

The IDE software is used by developers on a daily basis to create console and graphical user interface applications. The software debuted back in 1997 and has progressed ever since.

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Today, the Build 2013 developer conference kicks off and the highlight is the release of the first Windows 8.1 preview build. Excitement ensued, as my colleague Mihaita Bamburic, immediately installed it. However, I have some reservations regarding this move.

I generally do the same thing and, in fact, did so with every build of Windows 8, but I'm on the fence as Microsoft offered no upgrade path between Release Preview and RTM versions. Lesson learned.

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Microsoft wants -- and needs -- users to embrace apps. The problem is many PC users don’t really care about them, and even tablet users don’t seem too enthralled. It doesn’t help that a lot of the apps on offer through the Windows Store are third party knock-offs rather than official releases.

At Build today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the Windows Store has hit the 100,000 apps milestone (a figure which, incidentally, Keith Lorizio, Microsoft VP, U.S. Sales & Marketing promised to hit within 90 days of Windows 8’s launch) and that, finally, an official Facebook app is on its way to the Modern UI.

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The Xbox One comes with a new and seriously improved Kinect sensor. Windows users will be able to get their hands on the same sensor at some point in the future, but if you’re a developer you can register your interest now and get one in November, several months before it goes on sale to the general public.

The developer kit costs $399 (or the local equivalent) and comes with the sensor and all the tools you need to build your own applications. There’s limited availability so if you want to be among the first to have one you’ll need to apply now.

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On Wednesday, right after the start of the Build 2013 developer conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the Windows 8.1 preview is now available to download.

Early adopters can install the test build only by upgrading from Windows 8. Similar to Modern UI apps, the preview, which comes in at 2.44 GB, is installed though the Store. The software giant revealed that ISO files will also be offered, tomorrow, for those who wish to perform a clean install. Here's what you can expect from Windows 8.1.

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