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לקט
חדשות נבחר
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Last Updated:
[E] 29/01/2012 12:09
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בן הקשישה שנדרסה: שהמשטרה תציל את כבודה
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| חיה וינברג מחוסרת הכרה מאז שנפגעה אמש במעבר חצייה בתל אביב, כנראה על ידי נהג מונית שברח. "היא כנראה חזרה מחברה או ממשחק ברידג'", סיפר בנה. "אמא אשה חזקה שעברה את השואה". החיפושים נמשכים |
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המל"ט הענק של חיל האוויר התרסק ליד גדרה
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| לא היו נפגעים, ייבדק אם ניתן להציל משרידי ה"איתן", כלי הטיס הבלתי מאויש הגדול ביותר בצה"ל, שאמור להפוך מבצעי בקרוב. "ראיתי מין מטוס שהחל לצלול בלי שליטה", סיפר ל-ynet עד ראייה. "כנף אחת נפלה, הוא התרסק והייתה להבה ענקית" |
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תלמידי י"ב בבתי הספר: איפה השוויון בגיוס?
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| עשרות מוסדות חינוך מקיימים דיונים על חוק טל, במטרה "לחזק את ההבנה של בני הנוער בנושא", ובעקבות המחאה שהתעוררה בניסיון לבטל את החוק. עשרות מפגינים בירושלים: "על הממשלה לדאוג גם לנו" |
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טיפה בים: מפלס הכנרת עלה ב-8.5 ס"מ
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| המערכת החורפית שפקדה אותנו בסוף השבוע הוסיפה לאגם הלאומי, אך המפלס עודו נמוך ב-19 סנטימטרים מהקו האדום התחתון. בגליל העליון ירדו כ-50 מ"מ בסוף השבוע |
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דו"ח אסון הכרמל: "ישי ושטייניץ אחראים אישית"
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| מבקר המדינה צפוי להטיל בדו"ח החמור אחריות מסוג חדש על שר הפנים, שלא עשה הכול להכין את מערך הכיבוי, וגם על שר האוצר, שלא העביר תקציבים. גורם משפטי בכיר: לינדנשטראוס מצפה ללחץ ציבורי שיגרום לנתניהו להדיח אותם |
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Last Updated:
18/09/2011 22:58
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אתר הארץ החדש
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| The new Haaretz.co.il site has changed its RSS feed links. Please visit http://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/rss to find the updated link to the RSS you are looking for. |
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Last Updated:
[E] 29/01/2012 12:29
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Last Updated:
29/01/2012 12:09
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Last Updated:
29/01/2012 12:08
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Last Updated:
[E] 29/01/2012 12:14
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WP7 - Sync multiple Google calendars, search more Gmail
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If you plan your days using Google Calendar, you’ll be happy to know that the company’s Sync team has now made it possible to show appointments from multiple calendars on your Windows Phone 7.5 (thanks, fellas!). To add them, just go to m.google.com/sync on your phone. Once you’ve logged in, select your device and the calendars you want to sync (you can choose up to 25—if you’re really that organized). Tap Save and you’re done! Note that your new calendars won’t show up until your phone’s next sync with Google’s servers—every 30 minutes by default. To make them show up sooner, you’ll need to do a manual sync. We’ve put together some detailed instructions here. Continue At Source
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Security Compliance Manager 2.5 Beta
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The latest version the Microsoft Security Compliance Manager (SCM) tool—version 2.5—is now available for beta download and review! NEW baselines include: - Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Security Baseline
- Exchange Server 2010 SP2 Security Baseline
- Updated client product baselines include:
- Windows 7 SP1 Security Compliance Baseline
- Windows Vista SP2 Security Compliance Baseline
- Windows XP SP3 Security Compliance Baseline
- Office 2010 SP1 Security Baseline
- Internet Explorer 8 Security Compliance Baseline
SCM 2.5 enables you to quickly configure and manage your desktops and laptops, traditional data center, and private cloud using Group Policy and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager. Get the beta download from Microsoft Connect at https://connect.microsoft.com/site715/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=40885. After you download and become familiar with updates in SCM 2.5, please provide us with your feedback.Your opinion is very important to us. We would especially appreciate your feedback in the following areas: - Relevance.How relevant is the information for your organization?
- Usefulness.How will you use these product baselines? How does the SCM 2.5 tool provide value?
- Usability. Is the baseline configuration information easy to follow? Can you easily find key content?
- Consistency. Is the content in the security guides consistent with the setting recommendations and vulnerability information?
- General Quality. Please provide us with your opinion on the general quality of the product baseline content. Would you recommend SCM 2.5 to colleagues?
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No Mix 2012
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At the beginning of each year, many of us assess how we (and our developer community) might want to invest our respective time and resources for the year ahead, and we’ve devoted some of that energy in the past few months toward thinking about the various developer conferences we host. As part of that reflection, we have decided to merge MIX, our spring web conference for developers and designers, into our next major developer conference, which we will host sometime in the coming year. I know a number of folks were wondering about MIX, given the time of year, so we wanted to make sure there’s no ambiguity, and be very clear… there will be no MIX 2012. For context, the idea to create MIX was conceived in the fall of 2005, literally as the PDC05 main stage was being disassembled after the final keynote. While we reflected on that PDC, there was a lot of discussion around our engagement with the web community, and how we needed a more focused effort around our upcoming plans for Internet Explorer, the roadmap for our web platform, the work we were starting on web standards (we were shipping IE6 at the time), and so on. MIX06 was held about four months later in Las Vegas, and has been there ever since. A lot of great things subsequently happened in and around MIX in the six years that followed, but there have been a couple of slow and steady trends that have brought us to this point. Full Story At Source
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Microsoft SQL Server 2012 launch March 7th
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On March 7th, 2012 this online event will allow you to immerse yourself in the exciting New World of Data with SQL Server 2012. Engage not only Microsoft product teams, but with our partners and our most ground breaking customers. SQL Server 2012 is part of the broadest Data Platforms in technology today. Discover how it enables mission critical confidence, blazing fast performance, and stunning interactive data visualizations. Join us on March 7, 2012 and be a part of the SQL Server 2012 Virtual Launch Event. You will have access to over 30+ sessions to learn about the new capabilities of SQL Server 2012 at your own pace, in your own schedule. This event brings together a who’s who of industry experts and executives to tell the SQL Server 2012 story in this unique online launch event. You will also “meet” with partners, experts, and peers in a virtual “Expo Hall” to discuss SQL Server 2012 one-on-one. Register Here Continue At Source
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System Center 2012 Orchestrator Integration Pack for HP Service Manager- Beta
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The Integration Pack for HP Service Manager is an add-on for System Center 2012 Orchestrator that enables you to retrieve, create, update and monitor tickets in HP Service Manager. The Integration Pack for HP Service Manager is an add-on for System Center 2012 Orchestrator that enables you to retrieve, create, update and monitor tickets in HP Service Manager.
This integration pack adds the HP Service Manager category to the Activity pane in the Runbook Designer. This category contains the following activities: - Close Entry
- Create Entry
- Get Entry
- Monitor Entry
- Update Entry
After you download the integration pack file, you must register it with the Orchestrator management server and then deploy it to runbook servers and Runbook Designers. For how to install integration packs, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh420346.aspx System_Center_2012_Orchestrator_Integration_pack_for_HP_Service_Manager.exe
Download 699 KB
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New version Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook and 64 bit
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Connect your Facebook account to the Outlook Social Connector and stay up to the minute with the people in your network by accessing everything from e-mail threads to status updates in one single, centralized view. The Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook allows you to connect your Facebook account to the Outlook Social Connector and obtain information about your friends and colleagues. You can see status updates and recently posted items from your Facebook contacts.
You can also use Outlook Social Connector to display a quick view of related Outlook content when you click on an email from a contact, such as recent e-mail conversations, meetings, and shared attachments to help you easily track your communications NOTE: The Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider requires Microsoft Outlook Social Connector and the related update (KB983403) to be installed. If these components are not already installed on your machine, the Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook will download and install the necessary updates from the Microsoft Download Center before completing the provider installation. Download Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook - Microsoft Download Center
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System Center 2012 Release Candidates
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A Microsoft private cloud dramatically changes the way your business produces and consumes IT services by creating a layer of abstraction over your pooled IT resources. This allows your datacenter to offer true infrastructure service capability as well as optimally managed application services. Microsoft private cloud solutions are built on System Center and Windows Server. System Center 2012 Release Candidate empowers you with a common management toolset for your private and public cloud applications and services. System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a Service for your business. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (optional download) will give you improved powerful virtualization capabilities that can transform how you deliver IT services to your end users and enable you to lay the foundation of a private cloud infrastructure. Please Note: Many Microsoft private cloud scenarios require Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. If you are using an older version, we highly recommend upgrading to experience the full Microsoft private cloud evaluation.
Need more information? See the product details page. Register to access technical product resources at the Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Resource Page. The Microsoft private cloud evaluation includes: System Center 2012 Release Candidate
Available in these languages: English - System Center 2012 Unified Installer is a utility designed to perform new, clean installations of System Center 2012 for testing and evaluation purposes only. If you want to upgrade from an existing System Center installation or choose set up options such as high availability or multi-server component installs, please refer instead to the System Center 2012 component installation guides located on the Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Resource Page.
User's Guide >> - System Center 2012 App Controller provides a common self-service experience across private and public clouds that can help you empower application owners to easily build, configure, deploy, and manage new services.
- System Center 2012 Configuration Manager provides comprehensive configuration management for the Microsoft platform that can help you empower users with the devices and applications they need to be productive while maintaining corporate compliance and control.
- System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager provides unified data protection for Windows servers and clients that can help you deliver scalable, manageable, and cost-effective protection and restore scenarios from disk, tape, and off premise.
- System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection, built on System Center Configuration Manager, provides industry-leading threat detection of malware and exploits as part of a unified infrastructure for managing client security and compliance that can help you simplify and improve endpoint protection.
- System Center 2012 Operations Manager provides deep application diagnostics and infrastructure monitoring that can help you ensure the predictable performance and availability of vital applications and offers a comprehensive view of your datacenter, private, and public clouds.
- System Center 2012 Orchestrator provides orchestration, integration, and automation of IT processes through the creation of runbooks that can help you to define and standardize best practices and improve operational efficiency.
- System Center 2012 Service Manager provides flexible self-service experiences and standardized datacenter processes that can help you integrate people, workflows, and knowledge across enterprise infrastructure and applications.
- System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager provides virtual machine management and services deployment with support for multi-hypervisor environments that can help you deliver a flexible and cost effective private cloud environment.
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (optional download)
Available in these languages: Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish - Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is designed to help you increase control, availability, and flexibility of your datacenter and desktop infrastructure while helping reduce costs.
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System Center 2012 Gets Generous Licensing Changes
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The soon to be released System Center 2012 product suite will get a huge licensing overhaul. Where the current System Center 2010 suite contains 110(!) licensing items, SC 2012 will only have 2, yep that’s right only 2 choices of SKU’s and that is for the whole suite of SC products! That’s not all, these licenses also include SQL licenses if a SC 2012 component requires it. That is still not all, besides Opalis and AVICode now being fully integrated in 2012 a new SC product is included in 2012: App Controller and….. Forefront endpoint protection (anti-malware)! So that is 8 System Center products included in 2 license forms: 
An OSE is Operating System Environment. Each license is for a dual processor machine, that is 2 physical processors, not cores. So maybe use the term socket to avoid the proc/core confusion  . Standard SKU 1,300 USD per 2 proc Datacenter SKU 3,600 USD per 2 proc (socket), includes SQL runtime 
And there is still more, the licensing transition plan is also very generous! 
Also available in combination of the ECI licensing, with minimum of 25 initial purchase. Now compare the new licensing with Vmware: 
Some examples which license is most economical 
More system center 2012 news later this week.
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Building the next generation file system for Windows 8: ReFS
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Another extensive blogpoost on the Building Windows 8 blog:
ReFS, has been designed from the ground up to meet a broad set of customer requirements, both today’s and tomorrow’s, for all the different ways that Windows is deployed. The key goals of ReFS are: - Maintain a high degree of compatibility with a subset of NTFS features that are widely adopted while deprecating others that provide limited value at the cost of system complexity and footprint.
- Verify and auto-correct data. Data can get corrupted due to a number of reasons and therefore must be verified and, when possible, corrected automatically. Metadata must not be written in place to avoid the possibility of “torn writes,” which we will talk about in more detail below.
- Optimize for extreme scale. Use scalable structures for everything. Don’t assume that disk-checking algorithms, in particular, can scale to the size of the entire file system.
- Never take the file system offline. Assume that in the event of corruptions, it is advantageous to isolate the fault while allowing access to the rest of the volume. This is done while salvaging the maximum amount of data possible, all done live.
- Provide a full end-to-end resiliency architecture when used in conjunction with the Storage Spaces feature, which was co-designed and built in conjunction with ReFS.
The key features of ReFS are as follows (note that some of these features are provided in conjunction with Storage Spaces). - Metadata integrity with checksums
- Integrity streams providing optional user data integrity
- Allocate on write transactional model for robust disk updates (also known as copy on write)
- Large volume, file and directory sizes
- Storage pooling and virtualization makes file system creation and management easy
- Data striping for performance (bandwidth can be managed) and redundancy for fault tolerance
- Disk scrubbing for protection against latent disk errors
- Resiliency to corruptions with "salvage" for maximum volume availability in all cases
- Shared storage pools across machines for additional failure tolerance and load balancing
In addition, ReFS inherits the features and semantics from NTFS including BitLocker encryption, access-control lists for security, USN journal, change notifications, symbolic links, junction points, mount points, reparse points, volume snapshots, file IDs, and oplocks. And of course, data stored on ReFS is accessible through the same file access APIs on clients that are used on any operating system that can access today’s NTFS volumes. 
Continue at source!! MSDN Blogs
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Webcast: Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud
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I recommend you to attend this webcast tomorrow. Also keep checking bink.nu tomorrow for some nice announcements. The definition, business value, and technology benefits of the “the cloud” have been hotly debated in recent months. Most agree that cloud computing can accelerate innovation, reduce costs, and increase business agility in the market. In 2012, cloud computing will transition from hype and discussion, to part of every enterprise’s reality, and IT is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation and help business reap the benefits of cloud computing. Join us for a virtual event designed to help you explore your cloud options. It’s your chance to interact with Microsoft experts and with IT leaders like yourself, who have been putting cloud technology to work in their own organizations. You’ll be among the first to hear the latest private cloud news from Microsoft. Register Now for the virtual event Tuesday, January 17th
8:30 AM PST | 16:30 UTC - Hear from other senior IT professionals about how cloud computing can help you gain maximum competitive advantage with minimal risk.
- Learn about Microsoft cloud offerings, including private, public, and hybrid cloud models.
- Experience Microsoft private cloud solutions through the Microsoft Technology Center.
| Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud | Start Time | Private cloud discussion with Microsoft executives: Insights and news
- Satya Nadella, President, Server and Tools Business, Microsoft
- Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President, Management and Security Division, Microsoft
| 8:30AM PST | 16:30 UTC | Executive panel and Q&A: Guidance and best practices
- Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President, Management and Security Division, Microsoft
- Jacky Wright, Vice President, IT Strategic Services, Microsoft IT
- Rand Morimoto, Chief Executive Officer, Convergent Computing
| 9:00AM PST | 17:00 UTC | | Envisioning Your Private Cloud: A scenario based demonstration from the Microsoft Technology Center in Redmond, WA. | 9:30AM PST | 17:30 UTC | 
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ASP.net out of band Security Update released
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| A security issue has been identified that could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to compromise your system and gain control over it.
Not that other vendors’web frameworks are also affected!
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Advanced Notification for out-of-band release to address Security Advisory 2659883
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MSRC Blog: Today we’re providing advance notification for an out-of-band security update to address the publicly disclosed issue described in Security Advisory 2659883. The release is scheduled for tomorrow, December 29, at approximately 10 a.m. PST. The bulletin has a severity rating of Critical and addresses a publicly disclosed vulnerability in ASP.NET that affects all versions of the .NET Framework. While we’re currently unaware of any attacks targeting ASP.NET, we encourage all customers to test and deploy the update when it is available. We will also hold a special edition webcast on Thursday, December 29 at 1 p.m. PST. Click here to register. For all the latest information, you can also follow the MSRC team on Twitter at @MSFTSecResponse.
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Last Updated:
[E] 29/01/2012 12:24
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Last Updated:
[E] 29/01/2012 12:19
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Last Updated:
[E] 29/01/2012 12:22
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30 software downloads you need this week
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| We’ve reached the end of the first month of 2012 and this has been another busy week for software releases. If it seemed a little quiet on the browser updates recently, things changed this week with the release of Opera 11.61 FINAL as well as Opera Portable 11.61. Fans of cutting edge software may be more interested in Opera Next 12.00 build 1256, which is the first update to the beta channel of Opera for quite some time. When browsing the Internet, speed is often the most important consideration, and Pale Moon is a speed optimized version of Firefox that includes support for extensions. This… [Continue Reading] |
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Apple, the enterprise, and the marginalization of the cultists
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| For a company left for dead a little over a decade ago, Apple's return to relevancy and in some cases supremacy is stunning. Love or hate the company, few others have accomplished a similar feat. Now one of the last dominoes left to fall -- the enterprise sector -- is set to embrace the platform. Forrester Research finds that one out of every five IT employees use one or more Apple products at work. This is not completely by their own request: half of all corporations of 1,000 employees or more now issue Macs to at least some of their… [Continue Reading] |
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That's a wrap: Jon Rubinstein leaves HP, Palm, webOS
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| According to a number of reports on Friday, the head of HP's mobile efforts, Jon Rubinstein, has left the company. Hewlett-Packard acquired Palm in 2010 as a move to advance in the smartphone business. But after a little more than one year and a just a few new mobile devices, HP killed the Palm brand, dissolved its mobile business unit, and turned webOS into an open source project. So after four years championing webOS as the savior of Palm, then as the key to the mobile kingdom for HP, Rubinstein is returning to the sidelines. He has announced no plans… [Continue Reading] |
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Suddenly 37M iPhones isn't so many
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| My reaction mirrored many others this week. Apple's big iPhone holiday quarter seemed simply unbelievable -- 37 million, up 128 percent year over year. But Samsung was close. Real close: 36.5 million smartphones, according to Strategy Analytics. Together, the two companies accounted for 47 percent of fourth-quarter smartphone shipments. The horse race between the companies sours Apple apologist arguments about iPhone vs Android. Staunch iPhone defenders blow off Android competition as one against many. But on the one-to-one comparison, Apple isn't so high and mighty. Samsung is keeping pace just fine. Apple was market leader for the quarter -- 23.9… [Continue Reading] |
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Manage Windows apps with Stardock Tiles
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| If the Windows Start bar doesn’t suit your application management needs then there are plenty of alternatives around. And the latest, Stardock’s Tiles, provides an intelligent sidebar that works as a program launcher and a tool for managing your running programs. To get started you might say, launch an Internet Explorer window, then hold down Shift as you drag that window’s title bar, and drop it onto the Tiles sidebar. What you’ll then see is an active tile, a live thumbnail of the contents of that window, which updates as you browse from one site to the next. And if you… [Continue Reading] |
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Don't miss the end-of-January software sale
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| You can find plenty of bargains at Downloadcrew Software Store, but there have been even greater savings to be had this month. If you’re thinking about investing in some new software, now is the time to do so -- these special offers will end when we reach the end of January. The holiday season is now a month behind us, so it’s time to think about organizing all of those photos you took during family get togethers. CyberLink PhotoDirector 2011 may be just what you’ve been looking for. This is a seriously powerful photo editing tool that includes support for RAW images… [Continue Reading] |
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Twitter updates policies, will censor tweets on demand
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| World-famous microblogging service Twitter has changed its policies and will "reactively withhold" (read: censor) tweets deemed illegal or harmful in countries with laws concerning such things. On Thursday, the policy change was announced in the official Twitter blog, where it said: As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi… [Continue Reading] |
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Sync multiple Google calendars to Windows Phone 7.5
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| I don't really use Google Calendar and don't have Windows Phone (sigh, on the latter). If you do, here's a tip. Google has enabled multiple-calendar sync with Windows Phone 7.5. It's now possible to select among the calendars and sync up to 25 of them. Gasp, who has two dozen plus one? "Just navigate to m.google.com/sync on your phone’s browser and configure the calendars you would like to see", Li Yin, with the Google Sync Team, posts to Google+. "From that page, you can also configure which addresses you send mail as if you have custom addresses in Gmail. We’ve… [Continue Reading] |
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Who's doing what on that shared PC? History Viewer can tell you
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| Normally it’s best to allow everyone their privacy when using a PC. But there may be occasional exceptions. You might legitimately be concerned about the content your kids are accessing online, for instance, or want to confirm that a work PC really is being used for work purposes;d History Viewer may be able to help. Launch the program and it’ll provide easy access to your various histories for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. You’re able to view cookies, URL histories, download details, maybe even form history in some cases, more than enough to give you a very good idea how the browser… [Continue Reading] |
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Microsoft invests $1 billion to sell a million Nokia Windows Phones
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| At face value, Nokia's results for Windows Phone are solid. One million Lumia devices sold in just its first quarter of availability. The sales add a bright spot to an otherwise gloomy Nokia calendar fourth-quarter earnings report, where smartphone sales slid 31 percent amid a 21 percent year-over-year drop in revenues. The real story here though is the cost to Microsoft to ensure that success. Microsoft agreed to pay Nokia $1 billion to abandon Symbian as primary operating system for Windows Phone, according to reports soon after the deal was announced in February 2011. The Redmond, Wash.-based company paid Nokia… [Continue Reading] |
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Last Updated:
[E] 29/01/2012 12:02
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Daily Reviews Summary 01/28/12
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| Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles, including Prolimatech Lynx CPU Cooler Review, 12 Things You Should Know About Facebook Timeline, and Cyborg M.M.O. 7 Gaming Mouse Review |
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Daily Reviews Summary 01/27/12
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| Here a roundup of today's reviews, including ]JLab B-Flex X-Bass USB Laptop Speaker Review, Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6670, and NZXT HALE82 750-watt Power Supply Review |
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Last Updated:
[E] 29/01/2012 12:03
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Leaked Windows Phone Road Map Traces Future Updates
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| Now here's something you don't see every day: a leaked road map for Windows Phone's evolution through the end of 2012. That purported road map comes courtesy of WMPoweruser, which included a screen cap of it in a Dec. 27 posting. The blog also declined to mention its source for the information, which (at least in broad strokes) jibes with past data from other places. Supposedly, the second quarter of 2012 will see the arrival of a "Tango" update, which according to the road map's handy bullet points will feature "products with the best prices." This likely means Windows Phones aimed at the midmarket, with a possible stripped-down user interface to match the lower cost. In the fourth quarter of that year would come "Apollo," aimed at both the "superphone" (i.e., higher-end specifications) and "business" categories. A road map bullet point also suggests "increase overall volume," which could mean Microsoft anticipates more Windows Phone units in users' hands by the end of 2012, or else it is hoping that smartphones loaded with some sort of Apollo software update will kick off a higher volume of sales. Despite the Microsoft brand name and phones from several manufacturers, Windows Phone failed to gain much traction with consumers in 2011. During his July 11 keynote speech at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, CEO Steve Ballmer described Windows Phone's market presence as "very small." Tango and Apollo rumors have floated for some time. Back in August, Mary-Jo Foley posted on her All About Microsoft blog that she'd heard of "two Tango releases on tap," with the first aiming to expand "the Windows Phone footprint into new markets" while the second "will be targeted at low-cost devices and include fixes and new features." Meanwhile, Apollo had already been tagged (by Slashgear and other sources) as Microsoft's next big code update. However, possible features remain unclear. In any case, if this road map is accurate, it shows that Microsoft has robust update plans to accompany a hard Windows Phone push by Nokia and some other manufacturers. Follow me on Twitter
 
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Microsoft, CEA Take Different Views on CES Pullout
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| Microsoft sparked a tech-world furor Dec. 21 with the announcement that, starting in 2013, it will decline to provide a keynote speech or booth at the Consumer Electronics Show. "We have decided that this coming January will be our last keynote presentation and booth at CES," Frank Shaw, Microsoft's corporate vice president of corporate communications, wrote in a posting that day on The Official Microsoft Blog. "We won't have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don't align with the show's January timing." Microsoft will continue to participate in CES, he added, "as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries." Indeed, CES doesn't always coincide with Microsoft's timing for its more high-profile releases. For example, at the 2011 edition of the show, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used his keynote to hint at Microsoft's movement into tablets with Windows 8, but the company nonetheless chose to wait for several more months before providing a glimpse of the operating system at work. However, executives at the Consumer Electronics Association, which runs CES, seem to dispute Microsoft's pullout as unilateral. Jason Oxman, the CEA's senior vice president of industry affairs, told The New York Times Dec. 21 that Microsoft's ending its show presence was more of a mutual decision. "From our standpoint, it was the right decision as well." According to Oxman, the CEA wanted a new company for that opening keynote slot long held by Microsoft. The newspaper paraphrased him as saying the split with Microsoft "had not been acrimonious." For its part, Microsoft could use Ballmer's 2012 CES keynote (if not its significant presence on the show floor) to show off some of the Windows 8 tablets in development. But after that, it seems, all such announcements and unveilings will come on Microsoft's terms. Whether that dampens the ability of CES to draw industry buzz remains to be seen. Follow me on Twitter
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Microsoft, Nokia Considered RIM Takeover: Report
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| Microsoft and Nokia apparently toyed with partnering up for a Research In Motion takeover. That bit of news comes from The Wall Street Journal, itself quoting the ever-popular "people familiar with the matter." Those sources described the status of the talks as "unclear." Given its age and prominence in the mobile industry, RIM almost certainly has an immense library of patents, which could prove valuable to any Nokias and Microsofts in search of a little more intellectual-property protection in these litigious times. With RIM's stock performance of late, the Canadian mobile device maker is arguably even more of a bargain than it was six months or two years ago, when similar acquisition rumors also surfaced. But Microsoft has scored a number of significant legal victories against Android of late, between its campaign of cornering Android manufacturers into licensing agreements, and its minor win against Motorola Mobility with the ITC this week. Any RIM deal would have come with significant drawbacks for both Microsoft and Nokia. For starters, both the latter companies are firmly bonded to Windows Phone, and Microsoft is planning (along with its manufacturing partners) a series of tablets with the upcoming Windows 8. That sort of ecosystem doesn't exactly merge seamlessly with RIM's, which is in the middle of transitioning from BlackBerry 7 to QNX-based BlackBerry 10. Nor could Microsoft and Nokia have made a play for RIM in order to secure the latter's hardware, considering a.) Microsoft and manufacturing partners, and Nokia, already have their own hardware portfolios and proprietary design language, thank you very much, and b.) the majority of RIM's portfolio is centered on devices with a physical QWERTY keyboard, which doesn't exactly fit with Windows Phone. Would Microsoft and Nokia have bought RIM for its corporate business and cloud services? Again, Microsoft is already making its own great strides in the business cloud, and has a significant business audience. At most, Microsoft and Nokia were just performing their due diligence by sniffing around a little. Buying RIM wouldn't be a good move. Follow me on Twitter
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Windows 8 App Store Promises Apple App Store Battle
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| Microsoft has pushed back the curtain from the app store it plans on integrating into Windows 8, in the process kicking off what will surely be a vicious competition with Apple and its own app storefront for Mac OS X Lion. Unlike Windows Phone, whose own app store is growing at a relatively slow rate (and whose total number of apps on offer lags well behind that of Apple's App Store for iOS), Windows comes with a sizable user base. Third-party developers will want to leverage those hundreds of millions of potential customers for profit, and will thus scramble to build "Metro"-style apps to fill the Windows 8 app store. At least, that's how Microsoft hopes the process will unfold. In order to sweeten the deal for developers, Microsoft will give them 80 percent of every dollar generated off an app's sale, provided the app in question earns more than $25,000. Less than that, and Microsoft will pay out 70 percent, a ratio that has become something of an industry standard. Microsoft is also designing the store with businesses in mind. "Enterprise developers have been asking about their path to market with Metro style apps," Ted Dworkin, partner program manager for the Windows Store, wrote in a Dec. 6 posting on the new Windows Store blog. "And, in turn, IT administrators have been asking about deployment and management scenarios, such as compliance and security." Microsoft's way of fulfilling those enterprise needs, apparently, centers on giving businesses direct control over app deployment. "Enterprises can choose to limit access to the Windows Store catalog by their employees, or allow access but restrict certain apps," he wrote. "In addition, enterprises can choose to deploy Metro style apps directly to PCs, without going through the Store infrastructure." Windows 8 beta will arrive in February 2012, with the final release later that year. Unlike previous versions of the operating system with their desktop-style interface, the upcoming operating system's start screen centers on a set of colorful, touchable tiles linked to applications--the better to port it onto tablets and other touch-centric form factors. Follow me on Twitter
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Microsoft Preps Xbox Dashboard Revamp
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| At some point soon, Microsoft is going to deliver a radical revamp to the Xbox's Live Dashboard, one that positions the gaming console as more of a home-entertainment center. It's just a question of when, apparently. "We are still working to get the release out," Larry Hyrb, a member of Microsoft's Xbox team, wrote in a Dec. 6 Tweet, followed a few others later by another: "No new information to report yet. My earlier update is still the most current." Those with the Kinect hands-free controller linked to their Xbox will have the ability to navigate through an array of programming via voice and gesture command. New options such as HBO will join old stalwarts like Netflix. Presumably, Microsoft is negotiating to bring additional shows to the platform, although I'm sure the associated rights issues are a veritable hornet's nest of conflicting interests. Meanwhile, the revamped Xbox interface embraces the same tile-centric "Metro" theme already present in Windows Phone, and soon in Windows 8. Branding-wise, it's a smart move to integrate the same design cues into all your company's major products. Thanks to millions of Xbox Live subscribers, a robust and content-heavy Xbox dashboard is a challenge to both Google TV and Apple TV, neither of which let you gun down a couple dozen zombies after concluding another episode of "Boardwalk Empire." Apple is heavily rumored to be entering the television-set business sometime in 2012, but actual details remain scarce; it is Cupertino, after all, which rivals the CIA for keeping its secrets locked down. Microsoft has made no secret about its designs for control of the living room. Now it's about to take one giant step closer to accomplishing that goal. It'll be interesting to see how rivals like Google and Apple respond in the short term. Follow me on Twitter
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Salesforce CEO Benioff Slams Microsoft
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| Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff used a high-profile company event in New York City to engage in one of his favorite activities: swiping at competitors such as Microsoft. "I think they've lost their relevancy," was how he described Microsoft during a Nov. 30 question-and-answer session, following his company's unveiling of its Social Marketing Cloud. "I just don't think they matter anymore." He was dismissive of the upcoming Windows 8, suggesting that that the "Windows Everywhere" paradigm was terminally outdated. Microsoft and Salesforce have made a sport of lunging at each other's throats. On the product side, Salesforce.com's browser-based CRM competes with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. On the lawsuit side, the two companies have engaged in tit-for-tat patent battles, the latest of which ended in August 2010 with Salesforce agreeing to pay Microsoft an unspecified amount. In the wake of that lawsuit, the companies' respective spokespeople took a somewhat conciliatory tone, with Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft (not to mention the bête noire of Google Android), describing the endpoint agreement as "an example of how companies can compete vigorously in the marketplace while respecting each other's intellectual property rights." But that doesn't stop Benioff from doing his best to rip into Microsoft seemingly at every opportunity. There's a method to his madness: Salesforce products like the new Social Marketing Cloud (a suite of cloud-based analytics and engagement tools built atop Radian6 software) fully embrace the idea of browser-based software as an increasingly important business platform, one whose flexibility and scalability eclipses traditional on-premises software (and associated hardware). Meanwhile, Microsoft is powering toward the cloud as fast as it can, with products like Office 365, but its revenues are still largely tethered to traditional software such as Office and Windows, which it continues to heavily promote. Benioff needs to cast his company as the way of the future, and Microsoft as struggling to catch up. The flip side is that Microsoft has billions of dollars and thousands of very smart people at its disposal. That means the company can do things like burn through hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter on developing online services. It can also afford to play a much longer game, strategy-wise, than many of its competitors. In other words, it's a dangerous opponent. So Benioff slams them as outdated, and Microsoft's people fire back, and the game continues. Follow me on Twitter
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Microsoft Bing's Most-Searched Terms Include Bieber, Xbox
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| Microsoft has unveiled Bing's top-searched terms for 2011, a list that harbors absolutely no surprises. Topping the list of most-searched people is Justin Bieber, which suggests a lot of tweens are using Microsoft's search engine for their teen-idol needs. No. 1 in the category of consumer electronics was Xbox/Kinect, followed by the Kindle, then PlayStation. Top news stories searched out on Bing include the Casey Anthony trial, Osama bin Laden's death, and Hurricane Irene. Top finance queries included real estate agents, "cheap" and "coupons." Vegas ended up the most-searched world destination, and the upcoming "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" the most-hunted movie. The complete list is available here, for anyone with a burning desire to find out, say, which reality star or morning show topped Bing's search list. Microsoft accounted for 14.8 percent of the U.S. search engine market in October, according to research firm comScore, compared with Google at 65.6 percent. Although Yahoo racked up 15.2 percent of that market, its back-end search is powered by Bing, which for all purposes folds its share into that of Microsoft. In essence, Microsoft holds a third of the domestic search market. From its inception, the company has tried to differentiate itself from Google in a number of ways, most notably its subdivision of search into a series of subject-specific verticals, including "Shopping" and "Travel." In contrast to the Google search page's famous blank background, Bing also refreshes daily with a new image. In addition, Microsoft's partnership with Facebook has allowed Bing to take things a step deeper, layering search with social data such as the ability to see which friends "Liked" a particular Website. Despite the steady stream of new features, though, Microsoft's gains against Google have come in a decidedly gradual game, and the company's online division costs it millions of dollars per quarter in losses. Nonetheless, as Microsoft moves increasingly toward the cloud and mobility, Bing plays an ever-greater role as both a collector of aggregate user data and as a branding tool. That's more than enough reason (aside from giving Bieber-ites their all-important fix) for the company to continue pouring money into the effort. Follow me on Twitter
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Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL Partner on Advertising
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| In a bid to counter some of the Internet's larger ad giants--most notably Google and Facebook--Microsoft has joined in an advertising partnership with AOL and Yahoo. However, Microsoft isn't framing the agreement as a response to its competitors in that arena. "Other players in the industry are welcome to join us," Rik van der Kooi, corporate vice president of Microsoft Advertising Business Group, told Reuters Nov. 8. "This is not in response to anybody in particular." Under the terms of the agreement, each of the three companies can sell premium display ads belonging to the other two. That will allow the trifecta to more efficiently unload premium advertising inventory, although their competition over advertiser spending and other segments will continue apace. Facebook and Google continue to battle for their own significant shares of the online advertising pie. Although Microsoft's product portfolio gives it diverse streams of revenue (in contrast to Google, for example, which depends on advertising for an overwhelming percentage of its bottom line), its recent emphasis on Web and cloud services makes advertising a more prominent concern. Greater ad revenues would also allow Microsoft to absorb some of the massive losses its online division accrues on a quarterly basis. Microsoft is already in partnership with Facebook. A number of the latter's features, including the "Like" button, feed social data into Bing, Microsoft's search engine. That wouldn't stop Microsoft from making a more aggressive play for the same advertising-dollar pool that feeds Facebook, of course, and nor would that stop AOL or Yahoo, which presumably view Facebook as more of an existential threat. Follow me on Twitter
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Bing for Mobile Embraces HTML5 for Android, iOS
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| Microsoft has updated its Bing for Mobile app for iPhone and Android, adding some new features and bringing the experience more in line with the experience offered on Windows Phone. "Today's update uses HTML5 to blend the mobile browse experience with the app experience so you get a consistent and fast mobile search experience," read a Nov. 2 posting on the Bing Community blog, "whether you're using m.bing.com from your browser or the Bing app." Microsoft's Windows Phone tightly bakes Bing's search engine into the interface, blurring the line between traditional browser-based search and the platform's "Metro" interface. Evidently, Microsoft seems interested in extending aspects of that experience to other smartphone platforms. "Rather than tightly binding functions into a mobile client, we want to embrace the drive towards exposing our functions via an HTML5 experience," the blog post added. "Using HTML5, our goal is to build a mobile experience that leverages the unique capabilities" of platforms such as camera support and voice search, while "making the functions the apps can provide consistent across the platforms." In addition, this app update also includes Deals, which the blog describes as "one-stop deal shopping and convenient mobile phone access for local deals from more than 100 deal providers across the United States." It makes Bing's video domain, launched in October on m.bing, available on the iPhone. The Android version of the app offers a combination of real-time transit routing and news. And the Maps/List Split View allows users to synchronize a list, such as directions, into a single view alongside a map. Microsoft is apparently aiming to release the same experience for Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices at some unnamed point in the future. For the moment, the Android and iOS apps are available on their respective app stores. Follow me on Twitter
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Windows 8, Bill Gates Killed Courier Tablet: Report
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| Microsoft's innovative "Courier" tablet prototype--which, if produced, would have offered two touch-screens bonded together in a book-style format--now has a cause of death: crushed with extreme prejudice by Windows 8. According to CNET's Jay Greene, who interviewed a number of unnamed executives with knowledge of the company's tablet deliberations, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had a choice to make: either support Courier, which executive J Allard (famous for helping conceive and push the Xbox) touted as a complementary device to PCs and smartphones, or wait until Windows and Windows Live division President Steven Sinofsky could build a version of Windows capable of running on tablets. The latter would take substantial time. Ballmer went to former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, who in turn focused his laser intellect on the dilemma. And Gates had one big issue with Courier: namely, it wasn't intended to run Exchange or Outlook, instead pulling down email via the browser. "The device wasn't intended to be a computer replacement," Greene wrote. "The key to Courier, Allard's team argued, was its focus on content creation." Gates, according to an unnamed Courier worker quoted in the article, had an "allergic reaction" to the concept. After all, Microsoft has grown on the concept of supplying an integrated ecosystem of software products, portable across a wide variety of form factors. Something that operates outside that matrix, well, is an outlier. Within weeks, according to Greene's sources, "Courier was cancelled because the product didn't clearly align with the company's Windows and Office franchises." Microsoft has now placed all its tablet chips on Windows 8. The operating system, due for arrival sometime in 2012, offers a Start screen loaded with colorful tiles linked to applications, and meant to operate equally well with traditional PCs and touch-centric devices. It also allows users to switch to a "regular" desktop interface. Tablet interoperability will place Windows 8 in a head-on vector with Apple's iPad, which currently dominates the tablet space. Other touch-screen competitors, including a variety of Google Android tablets and Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad, have crashed and burned in their attempts to seize their own portion of the tablet market. That's either a portent or an opening for Microsoft, depending on how you look at it; certainly, the company intends Windows 8 to offer a robust "no compromises" experience on tablets, which could boost its appeal with the same business users who already constitute a significant portion of Microsoft's core audience. All that being said, I can't help but feel a little twinge of sadness over Courier's premature death. It was a cool concept, even if it never saw the light of day. Follow me on Twitter
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Nokia's Windows Phones: The Games Begin
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| Last week Nokia unveiled a pair of Windows Phone devices, the Lumia 710 and 800. They'll arrive in the United States sometime in early 2012, according to the Finnish manufacturer. "Lumia is the first real Windows Phone," Nokia CEO Stephen Elop told the audience during a London keynote Oct. 26. "We are signaling our intent right now to be today's leaders in smartphone design and craftsmanship, no question about it." Let the games begin. The Lumia 800 represents the high end of Nokia's smartphone plans, and features a 1.4GHz processor, hardware acceleration and graphics processor, and an 8-megapixel camera that uses Carl Zeiss optics. Design-wise, there's a 3.7-inch active-matrix organic LED (AMOLED) ClearBlack curved display integrated into a body rendered from a single piece of polycarbonate. I played with it during a Nokia presentation last week in New York City; it's pretty. In a play toward the midmarket, Nokia is also offering the cheaper Lumia 710, also with a 1.4GHz processor, and a 5-megapixel camera. It's pretty, too. To say that Nokia needs both these devices to succeed is something of an understatement, considering how it's abandoned its other operating systems in favor of Windows Phone. In order to sweeten the deal for consumers, Nokia has installed some exclusive apps with its phones, including Nokia Drive (with turn-by-turn navigation and voice-activated control) and Nokia Maps, which offers up points of interest around the user's location. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, Microsoft wants to push Windows Phone more toward the midmarket, and the Lumia 710 seems a big step in that direction. "We are dramatically broadening the set of price points in Mango-related phones that we can reach," Andy Lees, president of Microsoft's Windows Phone division, told the audience during the Asia D conference Oct. 19. "That's particularly important because going lower down in price point opens up more addressable market." But it'll still be some months until we know whether Nokia's succeeding in its all-or-nothing effort.
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Steve Jobs Biography Criticizes Microsoft, Ballmer
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| A good chunk of Walter Isaacson's new biography of Steve Jobs focuses on Microsoft and Bill Gates. In the book, he characterizes former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates as "a business person" but not someone who necessarily made great products: "He ended up the wealthiest guy around, and if that was his goal, then he achieved it. But it's never been my goal, and I wonder, in the end, if it was his goal." In the same passage, he also discussed Microsoft as a company. "They've clearly fallen from their dominance," he said. "They've become mostly irrelevant. And yet I appreciate what they did and how hard it was. They were very good at the business side of things. They were never as ambitious product-wise as they should have been." Microsoft, of course, would strenuously disagree with those assertions. The latest edition of Windows has sold more than 450 million licenses, and the company continues to maintain a dominant position in business software. While the jury's still out with regard to its cloud efforts as revenue generators, platforms such as Office 365 are making inroads against Google and other companies in that area. But Apple has framed itself as primarily a mobility company, with products such as the tablet and smartphone, and that area has also proven troublesome for Microsoft. Windows Phone has attracted critical praise but not enough sales to dent either the Apple iPhone or the growing family of Google Android devices; and Microsoft remains largely absent from the tablet game until the launch of Windows 8 sometime in 2012. Jobs also had some things to say about current Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "When the sales guys run the company, the product guys don't matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off," he said. "It happened at Apple when Sculley came in, which was my fault, and it happened when Ballmer took over at Microsoft." As a consequence, "I don't think anything will change at Microsoft as long as Ballmer is running it." Microsoft's efforts with Windows 8 (particularly when it comes to tablets) and its revamped Windows Phone strategy (which involves a host of new manufacturing partners, including Nokia, in conjunction with the wide-ranging "Mango" software update) will determine whether Jobs' prophecy plays out. If those efforts succeed in a big way, then Microsoft could have a turnaround story in mobility to rival Apple's own. If they fail, then Redmond has some very serious problems.
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Windows Phone Will Target Smartphone Midmarket
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| Next up for Windows Phone: attacking the middle range of the market. "We are dramatically broadening the set of price points in Mango-related phones that we can reach," Andy Lees, president of Microsoft's Windows Phone division, told the audience during the Asia D conference Oct. 19. "That's particularly important because going lower down in price point opens up more addressable market." Until this point, Microsoft had positioned Windows Phone as more of a competitor to high-end devices such as Apple's iPhone and the Motorola Droid. But Microsoft's traditional aim with any of its products has been to capture as big an audience as possible, so a thrust toward the smartphone midmarket is perhaps inevitable. For a couple of months, rumors have circulated about a stripped-down Windows Phone OS code-named Tango, aimed at lower-cost hardware and developing markets such as India and China. Back in August, Mary Jo Foley wrote on her All About Microsoft blog about two new Tango releases that could expand Windows Phone into new markets and load onto those cheaper devices. At the moment, Microsoft is mostly concerned with pushing Mango, a wide-ranging update with some 500 tweaks and features, onto Windows Phone. That's happening in conjunction with a host of new manufacturers, including Nokia and Samsung, prepping a host of new Windows Phone devices. Although outside research firms generally place Windows Phone's share of the smartphone market far behind that of the iPhone and Android, Microsoft hopes that the combination of boosted software and new manufacturing partners can give the platform the momentum it needs to seize a bigger portion for itself. One of those partners, Nokia, reportedly plans to show off its first Windows Phone devices at Nokia World in London, due to start Oct. 26. That information also came from Lees, who told the Asia D conference Oct. 19: "Next week it's going to be Nokia World, where they're going to announce their phones and how they're going to make the most out of the Windows Phone opportunity." It'll be interesting to see what rolls out. By tossing out homegrown mobile operating systems such as Symbian in favor of Windows Phone, Nokia is betting its existence on Microsoft software allowing it to push back against Android and other competitors. I'll bet anything that Nokia's push will eventually involve Windows Phone devices targeted at that midrange. The only question is when Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will try to make that happen. Follow me on Twitter
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Microsoft's Ballmer Swipes at Google
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| We can learn at least one thing from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's talk at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco: When it comes to smartphone competition, Microsoft sees Android as a bigger threat than Apple. I'm basing that solely on the vitriol that Ballmer leveled at Android (and Google in general) while leaving Apple relatively unscathed. Indeed, he offered faint praise for the iPhone, grouping it along with Windows Phone as a device that feels "good in your hand." His most damning criticism was that the iPhone offers "seas of icons," versus Windows Phone's goal of placing "information front and center." But he launched an attack on Android. First he said, "You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone," as if you somehow need a Ph.D to use an Android-based device. Then he added, "It is very hard to be excited, for me, about the Android phones," which, well, is exactly what you'd expect the CEO of Microsoft to say under such circumstances. It makes sense that Ballmer would reserve the bulk of his fire for Android, considering that both Microsoft and Google are following roughly the same strategy in smartphones: Persuade hardware manufacturers to load your software onto as many devices as possible, in a bid to saturate the market. But Android's a dominating platform while Windows Phone, roughly a year after its release, is still struggling for adoption. At the same time, though, maybe Ballmer should curb some of that ire: The more Android devices sold, the more Microsoft gets paid, thanks to a series of patent-licensing agreements with Android manufacturers. That Android strategy (Microsoft's alternative for Android manufacturers who refuse to enter into a licensing agreement: an intellectual property lawsuit) is just one piece of Microsoft's larger competitive thrust against Google. During his talk, Ballmer also insisted that, with the release of Office 365 and other cloud-productivity platforms, Microsoft was making more progress against Google in the cloud. "Our ramp rate of sold seats, it's got a nice trajectory," he said, "We've got a highly functional product that's highly available." He also painted Microsoft as gaining search-engine traction with users despite Google's dominance of the search space. Bing's progress was good "not just for share but for having enough data to continue to improve the product," he said, according to a video of the talk posted on YouTube, "to make search more than just 10 blue links." He sidestepped a moderator question about whether Microsoft would create its own social platform along the lines of Google Plus, suggesting instead that "we're adding what we would call connectivity to our products." In other words, don't expect this battle to end any time soon. Follow me on Twitter
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Microsoft's Windows Phone Needs Different Strategy: Analyst
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| Analyst Horace Dediu thinks Microsoft sold around 1.4 million Windows Phone units in the platform's first year of release. As he points out, that lowballs an earlier estimate from research firm Gartner, which plugged Microsoft's total number of smartphones sold in 2011 at 1.723 million, including both Windows Phone and the now-antiquated Windows Mobile. The more interesting (at least to me) part of Dediu's Oct. 12 posting on his Asymco Website, though, was his analysis of Microsoft's marketing strategy for Windows Phone. "The dependence on a complex value network means that products do not reach users quickly enough and when they do the marketing message is weak, even when backed by large budgets," he wrote. "The real problem with Microsoft's approach is that it's neither viral like Android (because it has a price and a contract associated with it) nor is it focused and agile like Apple's." In other words, he added, "it seems to suffer from the worst aspects of modularity (market lag) without benefitting from the control over the ecosystem and end user experience that differentiates it." Microsoft has been rather upfront lately about Windows Phone's market performance, although they still regularly decline to offer any sort of hard sales data. "It was under a year ago that we launched the first Windows Phone," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told an audience of media and executives at this year's financial analyst meeting. "We haven't sold quite as many probably as I would have hoped in the first year." The company hopes its upcoming push, centered on the extensive "Mango" software update, will help it compete on a more equal level against Google Android and iOS. In coming months, new Windows Phones preloaded with Mango will arrive on the market from Nokia, Samsung and others. Microsoft likely hopes that this new effort will make up for the old.
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webOS daddy Jon Rubinstein exits HP
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Enough is enough: 'I'm gonna go for a swim, have a little lunch..."
Jon Rubinstein, late of NeXT, FirePower, Apple, and Palm, has resigned from his position at HP, where he endured the mismanagement and eventual overboarding of Palm's webOS mobile operating system.… |
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Students busted for hacking computers, changing grades
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'Very bright kids' too bright for their own good
Three high school juniors have been arrested after they devised a sophisticated hacking scheme to up their grades and make money selling quiz answers to their classmates.… |
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GaleForce control freak paints clouds KVM red
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Spanning more devices and hypervisors
Gale Technologies, one of the many companies that wants to manage your private and public clouds, has revved up its GaleForce cloud control freak to 6.0, and is improving its support for XenServer-based clouds and adding KVM to the mix.… |
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Polish lawmakers don Guy Fawkes masks to protest ACTA
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Thousands roil Polish streets – more protests planned
Over 30 Polish lawmakers held up paper replicas of the Guy Fawkes mask, made famous by both Anoymous hacktivists and the Occupy movement, during a protest in parliament of their country's signing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the EU's highly controversial online-piracy legislation.… 
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Quantum shares plunge after results
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Turning the corner
Revenues for the third quarter of fy2012 were $173m, 2 per cent down on the $176m of a year ago. Net income was $3.94m, down from the $5.8m recorded a year ago. These earnings exceeded the Street's expectations so why did investors decide to sell the shares?… |
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[E] 29/01/2012 12:28
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[E] 29/01/2012 12:09
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[E] 29/01/2012 12:30
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News: Google launches "Features, Not Products" initiative
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Sergey Brin is telling employees to stop making old products and start improving new ones. "For example, said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, Google plans to combine its spreadsheet, calendar and word-processing programs into one suite of Web-based applications." |
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Launch: Google running AdWords in newspapers
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Google is buying the leftover ad space in the _Chicago Sun-Times_ and filling it with AdWords ads related to the rest of the content. I wonder how they're going to charge advertisers. The domains posted are the real domains, so it can't exactly be pay-per-click. |
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[E] 29/01/2012 12:06
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Duplicate Remover
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| Outlook Duplicate Remover allows you to find and remove Outlook duplicates in just one click. Search duplicate items and merge Outlook duplicates automatically. Remove Outlook duplicates, such as duplicate Email, duplicate Contacts and Calendar events. It is an automatic software add-in for Microsoft Outlook without any settings to configure. Compatible with latest Outlook 2010 as well as Outlook 2007/2003/2002, Exchange Server and Public Folders. |
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CodeTwo Move & Delete Watchdog
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| CodeTwo Move & Delete Watchdog warns about unintentional moving or deleting folders in Microsoft Outlook. Whenever you move a folder in Outlook’s navigation pane or are about to delete something from the Outlook folder tree, a popup dialog appears asking for your confirmation. You can configure it to notify you when you move a folder, delete it, or in both of these cases. Free. |
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Save As PDF
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| Sperry Software is now beta testing a new add-in, Save As PDF. This add-in for Microsoft Outlook saves emails and their attachments as PDF files. Useful for project or case backups, legal discovery, and more, the add-in can convert emails, Word docs, Excel files, and many more formats without the need of a PDF printer driver. This new tool is only for Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 (either 32-bit or 64-bit). |
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Rotate Photos Attached to an Outlook Message and Save the Changes
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| A lot of photos are being sent by email this week but for many recipients, the attached images need to be rotated to be viewed correctly. In addition, the recipients want to save the rotated image back to the message in Outlook, so it won't need rotated again. In order to save the rotated image, you need to complete specific steps: open the message, rotate the image, save the image, save the message. We have the complete steps and video tutorials available for Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010. |
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[E] 29/01/2012 11:31
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MAME 0.144u2
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MAME 0.144u2 is now posted to the
Latest Updates page.
Many drivers have been modified on this round, so please give some testing to them and report anything wrong with them to MAMEtesters
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