Articles about Microsoft

In late November, Tami Reller, Windows and Windows Live Division chief marketing officer, revealed that Microsoft was planning to launch the Surface Pro tablet "in January" 2013. However, seeing as the second half of the month is already underway, that doesn't give the tech giant long to get its product out there.

Fortunately prospective purchasers will be pleased to know they won't have long to wait now. Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft Surface, tweeted yesterday that he was on his "way to the factory to check out Surface Pro", and that the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation will release the Windows 8 Pro tablet "in the coming weeks". Presumably that could mean either a late January or early February launch.

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What's the go-to app for testing internet data speeds on mobile devices? Undoubtedly Speedtest.net is one of the most obvious answers coming from Android and iOS users, but not from those rocking Windows Phone 8. For some time, Ookla, the company behind the app, has turned a blind eye to Microsoft's smartphone operating system but, starting Monday, Speedtest.net is finally available for those who prefer tiles to icon grids.

As you may expect, the app carries over much of the existing functionality from its Android and iOS siblings but, unlike them, Speedtest.net for Windows Phone 8 is dressed up in a much nicer looking package. The app displays ping (latency in miliseconds) as well as the internet connection download and upload speeds. Per the usual tradition, it continues to display the speedometer with the live indicator in the foreground.

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I jumped into Windows 8 way back at the first opportunity -- the Developer Preview. Then moved to the Consumer Preview and finally the Release Preview. But, because I’m something of a procrastinator, I haven’t yet got around to updating my computer to the full version, despite purchasing a copy of the new operating system as soon as it was released.

If you’re anything like me, and are still running the Release Preview, I’ve got some bad news. Today is the end of the line. All preview versions of Windows 8 expire on January 15, 2013. Worse, you will have to do a clean-installation because Microsoft has no upgrade path from the Release Preview to RTM. Note also that the final version of Windows 8 will not support upgrading from any prior Windows 8 Preview releases, though the migrate option will still be supported, according to Microsoft MVP Andre de Costa.

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The U.S. government, which usually is very slow to adopt new technologies, signed an agreement to move much of the Department of Defense to Windows 8. The three-year, $617 million deal for up to two million seats is a good proxy for where American business users are headed. Or is it? Microsoft of course hopes it is, but I think that’s far from a sure thing.

This isn’t just trading Windows XP for Windows 8. The U.S. Navy, which isn’t (yet) included in this deal, only recently signed its own agreement with Microsoft to take the fleet to Windows 7. But Windows 8, being touch-enabled and running all the way from smartphones to super-clusters, is something more. It represents the U.S. government’s best guess as to how it will embrace mobile.

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After its "non-appearance" at last weeks Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the company Microsoft is front-and-center at this week's National Retail Federation (NRF) Annual Convention & EXPO in New York to show off Windows Embedded 8 Handheld. The operating system a version designed with the retailers in mind.

According to Barb Edson, Microsoft's General Manager of Marketing and Business Development, the company is "introducing our device hardware partners, and showcasing the next generation of mobile line-of-business application experiences with one of our launch customers, showing how Windows Embedded 8 Handheld devices help them deliver on the promise of intelligent systems".

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Microsoft pulled out of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for 2013 and beyond. Maybe. Maybe not so much. The company was not entirely absent and some of the presence was not even stealthy. It started with CEO Steve Ballmer's surprise appearance on stage during the pre-show keynote address -- an event that Microsoft once owned, but this year belonged to Qualcomm.

In the middle of the presentation Ballmer walked on stage and proceeded to, not only endorse the Snapdragon chips, but to also show off some Windows Phone 8 devices and Windows 8 tablets. It may have seemed like a passing of the torch from the old guard to the new, but the Redmond, Wash.-based company did not stop there. Oh no.

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Jailbreaking Windows RT just got easy. Merely days after a complicated method to run unsigned apps on Microsoft's tablet operating system was uncovered, there is now an automated method available, dubbed RT Jailbreak Tool. No more messing around with debuggers and assembers.

Compared to the previous method, the RT Jailbreak Tool, dressed as a BAT file, overly simplifies the process such that even inexperienced users can jailbreak Windows RT devices. The prerequisites for running the automated hack are straightforward -- the user has to boot the tablet, log in and "sit on the desktop for about a minute" before opening the RT Jailbreak Tool.

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Windows Phone 8 is not the cure for Nokia's woes. Today the Finnish phone manufacturer released preliminary financial results for fourth quarter, managing to move just 4.4 million Lumia units.

Nokia, however, remains optimistic when it comes to sales that, at least theoretically judging by timing and product releases, should be much, much higher compared to actual preliminary numbers. The company states that "Devices & Services has exceeded expectations and achieved underlying profitability in the fourth quarter 2012", but fact is the most popular smartphone series comprises of Asha devices with 9.3 million units sold, and not Lumias. Basically the cheaper and more modest smartphones drive the "exceeded expectations" and "underlying profitability" at a first raw glance.

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The problem with making apps -- whether for smartphones, tablets or the Windows Store -- is getting enough people to sit up and take notice. Sure, if it’s good enough, word of mouth might propel it upwards, but the sad truth is a lot of great apps never get the traction they need to succeed.

If you have an idea for a Windows Store app, Microsoft’s Windows Startup Challenge could be just the boost your concept needs. The winner of the app design contest will get the chance to launch their creation at DEMO Mobile in San Francisco on 17 April.

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Microsoft may have pulled out of the Consumer Electronics Show in 2013 and going forward, but not stayed away. CEO Steve Ballmer still managed to find his way on stage for the big pre-show keynote and now the Research arm of the company has arrived in Las Vegas as well.

Eric Rudder, Microsoft’s Chief Technology Strategy Officer, made his way into the Samsung keynote earlier today to show off IllumiRoom.

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On Tuesday, even with all the CES 2013 madness, Microsoft introduced a host of new features addressed to the company's Windows Azure SDK for .NET. The latest version of the software development kit focuses on expanding support in roles, increasing productivity, making new tools available and delivering new and updated libraries.

The revised Windows Azure SDK for .NET allows users to run cloud service applications in Windows Server 2012, and provides access to more features in IIS 8 (Internet Information Services) and .NET 4.5 when the server operating system is selected. The updated software development kit also introduces support for Visual Studio tools, delivering improved tooling for Cache and Server Explorer for Storage and Service Bus, diminished context switching to portal as well as support for up to 25 management certificates per subscription.

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For those of you still using Microsoft's long-standing Instant Messaging service, bad news is on the horizon. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant revealed in early November last year, that it was planning to retire the aging Messenger and replace it with Skype "in the first quarter of 2013". Well, Microsoft is not backing down and just added the precise expiration date  -- March 15.

Microsoft sent an email detailing the process to what is most likely a considerable number of current as well as former Messenger users. I upgraded my Hotmail account to Outlook in August last year, and have not used the service in ages, yet Microsoft sent me one anyway probably emphasizing, "Hey, don't you think of using it anytime soon". There is some good news for Chinese users though -- Messenger will continue to be available in mainland China, likely due to high local demand.

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I can name more than a few tech executives who would kill to have this kind of failure. Despite weak PC sales, Microsoft manages to sell 60 million licenses of Windows 8, which nickname around the InterWebs is increasingly "disaster" and "flop". Oh, yeah. Such a tragedy. Has anyone got a hanky, because I'm gonna cry. Assuming 30 bucks a license (a number randomly chosen) that's what? One point eight billion dollars? Yes, such a failure.

But that has got to be much less dough than Windows 7 generated for about the same number of licenses. Microsoft slashed retail upgrade prices. Windows 8 Pro upgrade is $39.99 compared with $199.99 for its comparable predecessor. Yes, Microsoft did offer a Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade for $119.99 and limited-time three-license package for $149.99. You do the math. Windows 8 Pro upgrade still generates less revenue per retail copy and, presumably, OEM license, too. All things being equal, Windows 8 sales aren't anywhere as good as its predecessor, if Microsoft needs fire-sale pricing to generate similar license sales. So where's the handkerchief? My eyes are teary.

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I rarely quote press releases, but analyst missives are a rare exception because sometimes they make the point so much better than any paraphrasing. "Despite the hype, and hope, around the launch of Windows 8, the new operating system did little to boost holiday sales or improve the year-long Windows notebook sales decline", according to NPD. That's the dismal news for US holiday retail sales between Nov. 18 and Dec. 22, 2012. Windows 8 is a disaster, as I expressed when NPD released early sales data in late November. Matters are worse. This is no longer the Titanic sinking but a fleet of ships.

Gartner and IDC are about to drop global fourth-quarter PC shipment data, but in context of today's separate report from NPD DisplaySearch, expect blood in the water and post-PC sharks circling the victims. According to DisplaySearch, tablet shipments surpassed laptops in the United States last year. Stated bluntly: "increasing tablet PC adoption is stymieing notebook PC growth". Yikes!

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Yesterday I reported on a jailbreak method that allows Windows RT users to run unsigned apps on their tablets. And usually, after hacks are made public, large software companies promptly respond by issuing updates to reign in the rebels or release vague, almost standardized, PR statements to reassure customers. But that's not Microsoft's response. The Redmond, Wash.-based corporation actually commends "the folks" that uncovered the hack.

The developer that goes by the name "clrokr" says that the hack is only possible because Microsoft did not patch a vulnerability in the NT kernel, which was later carried over to Windows RT. The software giant, however, begs to differ and says that the documented jailbreak method does not represent a security vulnerability.

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