Microsoft’s Windows 8 on Tablets a Necessity: Analyst
Microsoft’s Windows 8 on tablets is more than a sideline or gimmick, according to an analyst. Instead, it’s a necessity for the Windows franchise.
Microsoft Windows 8 Will Succeed, Says Acer President
When Microsoft (MSFT) finally enters the tablet business later this year with Windows 8, it may find itself shut out of a market ruled by Apple’s (AAPL) iPad and Google (GOOG) Android devices.
12/18/2011
— Filed under: Internet
Tags: Microsoft, Windows 8
Microsoft’s decision to exit electronics shows leaves cloud
Microsoft’s recent decision to end its run at the International Consumer Electronics Show has left a cloud over the world’s largest gathering of gadget geeks.
Microsoft Prepping for Linux on Windows Azure: Report
According to published reports, Microsoft is working on delivering a capability to run Linux on its Windows Azure cloud platform.
12/13/2011
— Filed under: Markets,Software
Tags: Linux, Microsoft
Microsoft could charge for Skype video archiving and authenticationussions.
Microsoft may charge business users for Skype video archiving and authentication, but keep the base consumer video service free, according to one high-ranking company executive.
Microsoft Replaces Don Conyer as Project Lead for Xbox 720
Conyer is credited for helping launch both the Xbox and Xbox 360.
11/29/2011
— Filed under: Games,Hardware
Tags: Microsoft, Xbox
Microsoft Rumoured To Launch Two Versions Of Xbox In 2013
With Xbox being one of the most selling gaming consoles around the world, the rumours of its successor has been around the web for quite a while. The latest one suggests that there will be two versions of the next generation Xbox for the 2013 launch during the autumn. One of them could be a low cost set top box type console capable of streaming games and other media directly from the web and the other being a regular full size console with all the latest hardwares like the storage drives, optical drives and will be capable of playing the Xbox 360 line up of games.
11/16/2011
— Filed under: Gadgets,Markets
Tags: Microsoft, Xbox
Microsoft aims to reduce Windows Update restarts
Microsoft is tweaking its Windows Update service with Windows 8, and is trying to limit the number of restarts for consumers and small business users to one per month. Also, instead of the current 15-minute warning that a reboot is required, users will have three days to choose the most convenient time to update their PCs. In businesses, where IT administrators set group policies to prevent automatic restarts, users will get a notification on their log-on screen to tell them that a restart is required. This notification will remain until a restart is performed.
11/8/2011
— Filed under: Internet,Software
Tags: Microsoft, Windows Update
Microsoft Hopes Skype Will Continue Business Software’s Success
Microsoft said Thursday that it is in the process of integrating Skype across many of its business and consumer communications platforms, even as those platforms helped drive record revenues.
Microsoft and Oracle part ways over multitenancy in the cloud
Summary: Microsoft and Oracle are on opposite sides when it comes to the importance of multitenancy support to their respective public-cloud platforms.
After years of ridiculing the idea of cloud computing, Oracle is officially «all in» as of last week’s Oracle Open World show. At the confab, CEO Larry Ellison took the wraps off Oracle’s public cloud platform and strategy.
Oracle’s public cloud is going to be a combination of platform as a service (PaaS) and applications/software as a service (SaaS), with the «glue» being Java Enterprise Edition. The five components comprising Oracle’s public cloud are Sun servers; Fusion Middleware, Oracle database; Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c; and Oracle’s Fusion Applications.A few pieces of the Oracle cloud (like CRM) are there now; most pieces seem to be coming «in the near future» (as is pricing, apparently).
Summary: Microsoft and Oracle are on opposite sides when it comes to the importance of multitenancy support to their respective public-cloud platforms.
After years of ridiculing the idea of cloud computing, Oracle is officially «all in» as of last week’s Oracle Open World show. At the confab, CEO Larry Ellison took the wraps off Oracle’s public cloud platform and strategy.
Oracle’s public cloud is going to be a combination of platform as a service (PaaS) and applications/software as a service (SaaS), with the «glue» being Java Enterprise Edition. The five components comprising Oracle’s public cloud are Sun servers; Fusion Middleware, Oracle database; Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c; and Oracle’s Fusion Applications.A few pieces of the Oracle cloud (like CRM) are there now; most pieces seem to be coming «in the near future» (as is pricing, apparently).
While Ellison aimed almost all of his barbs and rhetoric at Salesforce last week, Oracle has another big PaaS competitor out there: Microsoft. Windows Azure is Microsoft’s PaaS play, with its .Net «glue» and System Center management components. Office 365, SQL Azure, Windows Intune and other Microsoft-cloud enabled apps (like Dynamics CRM Online) are its SaaS play. So far, none of Microsoft’s cloud-enabled apps is running on Windows Azure; they’re running in Microsoft datacenters but not hosted on Microsoft’s own public-cloud platform.
The Java-.Net differentiator isn’t the only key one worth noting between Oracle’s and Microsoft’s public cloud platforms. Oracle officials claimed last week that a multitenant model isn’t the right one for Oracle’s cloud customers because of potential security issues — a rather vague claim that not just Oracle’s competitors have called into question.
Microsoft it taking the opposite stance. The Redmondians increasingly are channeling Office 365 users toward using the «Standard» (multitenant) SKUs and away from the «Dedicated» (single tenant) approach. Earlier this year, Office 365 officials told me that they believe in just a couple of years the vast majority of Office 365 users will be relying on the Standard/multitenant offerings, resulting in a phase-out of the Dedicated Microsoft cloud-apps.
I asked Microsoft for comment on how its public-cloud solutions compare to those announced by Oracle and was told no. (I guess the Softies are saving all their cloud-compete arrows for VMWare and Google Apps/Docs….)
Oracle wasn’t the only company launching more direct attacks on the Microsoft cloud platform last week. Google also unveiled a developer preview of Google Cloud SQL, a cloud database for the Google App Engine platform. The new offering is a MySQL database environment with JDBC support (for Java-based App Engine applications) and DB-API support (for Python-based App Engine applications). Google isn’t offering any guidance as to when it will make a final version of Google Cloud SQL available.
Microsoft officials also declined to comment on how Google Cloud SQL stacks up against SQL Azure.
09/21/2011
— Filed under: Internet,Markets
Tags: cloud, Microsoft, Oracle
