Articles about Microsoft

We all know software vendors have vested interests that sway some of the decisions they make. When I heard that Microsoft was the real driving force behind a sly K-12 school privacy bill making the rounds in Massachusetts, I immediately smelled something rotten. While the public purpose behind the bill aims squarely at protecting student privacy, it's not hard to connect the dots back to Redmond, Wash.

Even though it's easy to see why Microsoft would prop up such a bill (to ease Google Apps' rise in the K-12 educational market), I question the long-term business sense of such dirty grandstanding. Microsoft's Office 365 for Education is already free for students and staff of any qualifying school district (just like Google Apps), and the suite is pretty darn good competition for Google on technical and functional merit alone. So what's the sense in playing dirty just to sign on a few more seats here or there based on misinformation?

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Thirteenth in a series. If you ever wondered about the real story behind the IBM PC, this chapter of Robert X. Cringely's 1991 classic is the one for you.

I live in California in a house that I can’t really afford in a neighborhood filled with blue-haired widows and with two-earner couples who have already made the jump from BMW to Acura and in their hearts are flirting with voting Republican.

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If you're the sort of person deeply rooted in Google services, at first glance migrating to Windows Phone 8 from either Android or iOS can be a total drag. The information giant has released a single app so far, which can be used to search the web, but nothing else. Luckily, there are plenty of third-party alternatives to choose from that offer decent and sometimes superior experience for Google users.

But finding the right replacements can be tricky, as the Windows Phone store features more than 130,000 apps and a simple search query returns many results of variable quality -- some great, some not so great. To make your job easier, I've prepared a list of Windows Phone 8 alternatives to traditional Google apps, ranging from Google+ to Google Maps, Google Reader and even YouTube.

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I nearly hurled coffee onto Nexus 10 this morning -- seriously had to choke back -- when seeing this ridiculous ZDNet headline: "Will 90 percent of users always hate Windows 8?" I immediately thought that someone must have done a shocking and provocative survey. But, no-o-o-o-o, writer Matt Baxter-Reynolds pulls the figure from his bee hind. He surmises this sensational figure based on absolutely nothing.

Coincidentally, I conducted two polls over the weekend designed to gauge Windows 8 sentiments -- what you really think about Microsoft's flagship operating system. I asked: "If Microsoft sold Window Vista, 7, and 8 side by side and you could buy the one you wanted most, which would you choose?" and "Is Windows 8 a failure?" We have a split decision on the latter, from good sample sizes -- more than 1,500 for the longer question and exceeding 1,300 for the other.

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This morning, with no fanfare, Microsoft rolled out its Lync 2013 app for Windows Phone. Lync is a Skype-like product that is bundled with some versions of Office, but is geared towards an enterprise audience. Corporations can run a Lync server to keep better control over the service, but users can also communicate with outside people by using Skype from within Lync, as the two services are becoming better integrated.

The new Windows Phone 8 app offers VOIP, messaging and other communication features. Lync had previously been available for Windows Phone, but was not supported in the new Microsoft mobile operating system until today.

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Microsoft rolled out its Windows 8 version of Bing Desktop in late 2012 and brought with it the cool wallpapers that are a part of the search engine's home page. Now, the company has quietly updated the app with another major feature -- Facebook integration. Without any announcement, version 1.2.113.0 launched, but has yet to find its way to all users.

The app is not all about the wallpaper, though that was my main reason for installing it upon original release. Bing Desktop also lets you conduct searches right from the desktop without opening any browser, as well allowing access to the top news stories, images, video and other popular content.

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That's the question on my mind today, as an executive from yet another PC manufacturer disses the operating system. Yesterday, Jun Dong-soo, who heads Samsung’s memory chip operation, told Korea Times: "Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform". Remember, Microsoft gave developers Samsung slates in autumn 2008 to test Windows 8. Samsung shipped touchscreen models for the previous operating system, when few other OEMs did. So the slap is no small one, and worse: "MS’s rollout of its Windows Surface tablet is seeing lackluster demand", Dong-soo asserts.

I don't agree with him, by the way. On Monday I explained: "How I came to love Windows again". Two words: Surface Pro. I find Windows 8 to be remarkably efficient and fun to use on the touchscreen tablet convertible. Modern UI really is modern, trendsetting. But I'll be first to concede that users won't get the same kind of experience using just mouse and keyboard. Touch changes everything.

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Little over two weeks ago Microsoft took down the "opening soon" digital cardboard sign and officially introduced Outlook.com into the wild as a stable product. And if you're already a user or if you have seen the commercials, then you already know that the email service delivers Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter integration, among other supported cloud services.

But there's one that is still missing, and a very important product integration at that -- Skype. In mid-May 2011 Microsoft purchased the popular voice, video and text chatting service for $8.5 billion, a not so small chunk of change by any means. Naturally, in the cloud-connected era, integration with the software giant's cloud products is the next logical step, especially in the midst of heavy competition from Google which, for instance, includes Google Talk integration with Gmail.

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Windows 8 has several annoyances, but perhaps one of the most notable is its requirement to run apps full screen, or in an ugly 2/3, 1/3 mode. When you’re used to being able to position and arrange application windows just as you like, this seems like a significant backward step: we have far less choice then we did before.

But ModernMix, the latest release from Stardock, changes all that. Because this simple $4.99 program allows you to run Windows 8 apps in a resizable window on your desktop, just like anything else.

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See, if enough people complain and bloggers and journalists write enough misinformed, sensational stories, image-conscious Microsoft goes into public relations damage control. That's the case with Office 2013, which gets new licensing terms that grant you the right to move the software to another PC.

Under the old agreement, Microsoft used activation technology to bind the productivity suite to one computer. The software couldn't be transferred. The restriction comes with another nick, which isn't changed: With this version, Microsoft takes away generous multi-PC rights available with older versions. Like I expressed in late January, "Microsoft really doesn't want you to buy Office 2013" but subscribe with Office 365 instead. Nothing is changed, there. Today's concession is all PR blush.

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On Tuesday, Microsoft detailed another update addressed to Windows Azure, the software giant's cloud platform, aimed at fending off the attack from Amazon S3, Google Cloud Platform and other major competitors. One of the most noteworthy new features is support for developing native Android Apps in Windows Azure Mobile Services.

Microsoft has released the Android Client SDK (Software Development Kit) through GitHub, under the Apache 2.0 license. Windows Azure Mobile Services also features support for Android push notifications, which can be enabled by registering for Google Cloud Messaging, getting the API key and pasting it in the corresponding "Push" tab.

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Wow. You don’t mess with the EU antitrust regulators. This is something Microsoft has discovered to its cost after being landed with a 561 million euros ($731 million) fine for failing to promote a range of other browsers to Windows users in the European Union (EU).

As part of a settlement that followed an EU antitrust investigation back in 2009, Microsoft agreed to offer a Browser Choice Screen pop-up to European customers which would allow them to choose which browser they wanted to use -- rather than simply just forcing Internet Explorer on them. This followed an investigation triggered when Norwegian browser maker Opera complained that by bundling IE with Windows Microsoft was effectively killing the competition.

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We all know the dangers of living on the darker side (or the wrong side) of the InterWebs -- malware is waiting at every corner to ruin the "joy" that some may have by saving some money through pirated software. We know that. The real question is whether that is brainwashing caused by large software corporations or a real threat to our safety that people knowingly ignore?

Microsoft, one of the most popular companies around when it comes to having its software pirated shortly after or even before a product is released, has commissioned a new study to inform consumers and businesses of the dangers involved in using pirated software. The study is conducted by IDC which has analyzed 270 websites, P2P (Peer-to-Peer) networks, 108 software downloads and 155 CDs or DVDs, and interviewed 268 IT managers or CIOs (Chief Information Officer) and 2,077 respondents (1,104 consumers and 973 businesses) from various locations around the globe.

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Switching from Android to Windows Phone 8 seems just about the worst decision that I have ever made in my entire tech life. It's sort of like trading a boring but solid marriage for a great one-night stand that has turned into a bad relationship not much further down the road. Granted, it all boils down to personal preference but right now I'd much rather have a spouse that I can rely on (Android) rather than someone that I can't stand anymore (Windows Phone 8).

Windows Phone 8 is all about trying to silence every voice in my head that says "You miss Android" and replace it with the "I can make it work if I try hard enough" broken record instead. Hope and blind faith is what keeps me going as I place my trust in Microsoft and developers to improve upon the operating system and its ecosystem in an update or app that never seems to come. Sadly, this mindset has failure written all over it. And I've reached the boiling point as every day there has to be something off with the Windows Phone 8 endeavor that makes me think "Why did I buy the HTC Windows Phone 8X in the first place?"

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Twelfth in a series. No look at the rise of the personal computing industry would be complete without a hard look at Bill Gates. Microsoft's cofounder set out to put a PC on every desktop, and pretty much succeeded. "How?" is the question.

Chapter 6 of Robert X. Cringely's 1991 classic Accidental Empires is fascinating reading in context of where Gates and Microsoft are today and what their success might foreshadow for companies leading the charge into the next computing era.

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