Hey, the PC market is somewhat less bad than it used to be! This has to be good news, right? That full economic recovery must be right around the corner...right?
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/20/20100 comments
Finally, an honest-to-goodness, basically full-featured, legitimate online version of Microsoft Office is in beta. It's competitively priced and aimed squarely at the right market -- small and tiny businesses. And, fortunately, Microsoft decided to drop one of the worst and most hilarious product names of all time -- BPOS -- and give the service a decent moniker, Office 365. Although we are worried that Xbox 360 might get jealous at some point...
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/20/20100 comments
Before you start reading this entry, click on this link and read Scott Bekker's take on Ray Ozzie's "retirement." Seriously, just do it. Go back right now and click it. Your editor won't be offended. Bekker nailed this thing, and you're better off reading his blog post than you are reading what follows here.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 10/20/20100 comments
We've had the X-Men, the X Files, OS X, Generation X, even the movie Malcolm X...and now Adobe has given us Acrobat X. Oh, sure, we know that some of those X's are actually tens in Roman numerals, but we're trying to work with a theme here...
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/18/20100 comments
If you had a billion dollars to spend, how would you spend it? Would you advertise your new mobile operating system and motion-controller game peripheral? No?
Well, that's how Microsoft is about to spend a cool bil. The combined advertising budgets of Windows Phone 7 and the Kinect game add-on (what is it with Microsoft and the word "kin," anyway?) will amount to one billion dollars.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 10/18/20101 comments
It's a shame that Microsoft can't come up with a catchier name for this product because it's very popular and very useful. SCCM doesn't even really spell anything, and if it does, that's a word we'd rather not have to pronounce.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/18/20102 comments
The storage giant's recent acquisition has -- here it comes -- borne fruit.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/14/20100 comments
We've written so much about the cloud here recently that we don't even remember which post John was responding to when he sent us an e-mail on Microsoft's cloud efforts. Nevertheless, his thoughts are germane:
"Having worked very closely with Microsoft over the years, I've been becoming more and more frustrated with them and their attitudes to both the customer base and their partners. My background in hosting has seen the evolution of Windows hosting from a nebulous desire and hope of Scott Guthrie's through iterations of 'Solutions' and heavy, and successful, partner involvement on all levels to today's sorry state of affairs where they seem to be paying the partners lip service with vague reseller (actually referral) agreements and the injunction to 'create a new eco system' in support of BPOS / MOS <insert this months acronym here>. The grand statement of 'We're all in' is fine, but unfortunately the reality is that the organization is still very fragmented, and the alignment of products and their metrics is not following this grand scheme."
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Posted by Lee Pender on 10/14/20101 comments
How will Microsoft's new mobile operating system fare in the market? And is it any good? RCP's Jeff Schwartz offers some excellent observations (but only tepid enthusiasm) on the matter following his live coverage of the Windows Phone 7 launch event.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/14/20100 comments
We do a lot of reflecting here at RCPU. And we're not just talking about contemplation here. We try as best we can to be something of a mirror on the industry, particularly where Microsoft partners are concerned. That is to say that we try to consolidate and present in this space various observers' views -- as well as our own, of course -- on different topics.
That's why we're surprised at a lot of the reaction to Windows Phone 7, which Microsoft launched Monday on a semi-holiday here in the U.S. that RCPU actually had off of work. We had read over and over (and we had mentioned more than a few times) that the popular perception of Windows 7 among supposed experts was that it would be a dud the day it came out, woefully behind the iPhone and Android operating systems. That sounded totally plausible to us given Microsoft's recent history in the mobile market, so we bought into that view.
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Posted by Lee Pender on 10/13/20105 comments
Here's one for RCPU's Christmas list: a car that drives itself. It's Google's idea, of course, because it makes total sense that a software and search company should be developing and road-testing cars. Anyway, as a long-time Boston driver who still can't find Fenway Park without a GPS, your editor is completely in favor of this development.
But while these cars have apparently navigated some streets in San Francisco and highways in California, can they make it through the one-way streets of Cambridge, Mass., in September when students' moving vans are double-parked all over town? That'll be the real test for these machines. Chapeau, by the way, to your editor's brother-in-law, who sent this article over the weekend.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/13/20101 comments
We're not totally sure how to digest this bit of information -- hence the brevity of this entry -- but rumors continue to pop up regarding Microsoft making a move to buy Adobe. In case you hadn't heard by now, apparently the two companies were in secret talks that are now not so secret. The market is all excited about this, as you might imagine. But remember, Microsoft buying Yahoo was once a done deal, too, until it wasn't.
Posted by Lee Pender on 10/13/20100 comments