By Stu on January 8th, 2009
Steve Ballmer introduced some new things at CES 2009.
- Windows 7 Beta will be available for consumer review Friday.
- Windows Live Essentials is out of beta and will be available for download.
- The Xbox 360 had a great 2008.
- Verizon and Sprint will be offering Live Search on their phones.
- Dell will be the first PC manufacturer pre-installing Live Search and Live Essentials on “most” of their new computers.
- 20 Million Windows Mobile phone sold in the last year.
- 30 Windows Mobile Phones brought to market last year.
By Stu on December 29th, 2008
For Christmas I got the family an Xbox 360. I agonized over the decision… Would it get the Red Ring of Death… Would it be better than the PS3… Will the Xbox be a good long term investment.
Even though I like Microsoft products in general (Office, Vista, Visual Studio), I am not convinced of there understanding of providing entertainment. I own a Zune, not because of the brand (good MP3 player), but I got it at a huge discount at Woot.com.
Entertainment is not what I associate Microsoft with… Great marketing yes, dominance you betcha! but entertainment?
By Stu on December 9th, 2008
With Microsoft SilverLight taking on Adobe Flash/Flex for the Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and Java having some issues of recent, it would make perfect sense for Google to get into the game and it will be interesting to see their approach. I have argued with friends that the PC is going nowhere soon and all these RIAs are just more proof the web/cloud is not ready for prime time.
Google is working on "Native Client" a RIA and the key issue is can they get developers to work against it. Microsoft is great at creating applications and technologies for developers. Google has to move to intercept Microsoft on the RIA front. SilverLight is moving forward nicely and is not tied strictly to Windows.
By Stu on November 17th, 2008
So I was reading CNET, which I normally regret doing, and came across an article about Microsoft suing WebXchange. Apparently WebXchange has sued several Visual Studio users (Dell, FedEx, AllState) for violating patents that WebXchange claims. The end-users have sought for Microsoft to indemnify them if WebXchange wins the law suit. You know, pay for the loose.
Microsoft‘s suit claims WebXchange patents are invalid and/or can not be enforce.
I am not sure how you can sue a user of a software that they bought in and did not develop, but apparently you can. I wonder how many Visual Studio users just shuddered at the potential law suit over the software they developed.
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By Stu on November 17th, 2008
So Jerry "What a Complete Yahoo!" Yang has resigned as Yahoo!‘s CEO. This opens up the possibility that Microsoft might look at Yahoo! again for acquisition, which in my opinion would be a good deal for both companies.
Outside of the technology issues, which would be huge, Yahoo! and Microsoft combined would be great. I would position Yahoo! for the consumer/open source world and Microsoft for the business applications and semi-open source world. Azure and Linux with intermixing products. It would also help drive .NET into the Linux environment (MONO Project), which would be great!
