microsoft articles
It’s hardly fair to group all Android OS tablets together and compare to Apple’s iPad. It is like 100 against 1, and as we used to say as children, “That’ not fair!” Nevertheless, Apple creams the whole bunch of Android hooligans whichever way you pick to look at it. You can talk about apps, profits, market share, or whatever, but Apple is leaps and bounds ahead of the whole pack of wolves.
That having been said, Strategy Analytics revealed that Android OS tablets accounted for 39 percent of the market share in the fourth quarter of 2011. Apple still is hard to catch up with, at 58 percent, down 10 percent from the previous year.
Global tablet shipments, not including over-the-counter sales, according to Peter King, Strategy Analytics’ research director, rocketed 150 percent, from 10.7 to 26.8 million between the fourth quarters of 2010 and 2011. +Continue Reading
Nokia may have slumped by $19 million in 2011 market value, but its first attempt at selling their new phones with the Microsoft operating system boosted investor confidence enough. In the final two months of 2011, Nokia sold 1.3 million Lumia handsets worldwide, or so a group of Bloomberg assembled analysts claim. They were unclear about the precise numbers, but between the 22 analysts gathered, all but one agreed that the figure was greater than 1 million. And so, Nokia Lumia sales passed 1 million handsets.
Espen Fumes, a fund manager for Storebrand Asset Management, which manages more than $60 billion, including Nokia and Apple, admitted that Nokia must maintain and even surpass 1 million in order to restore its credibility and regain investors confidence.
The move that put Nokia in a pinch was made by CEO Stephen Elop last year, when he dumped the Symbian and MeeGo phones and announced the coming Microsoft only line of smartphones. The estimates are significant, because there was low confidence that the Nokia-Microsoft team could provide adequate competition against the iPhone and Android devices. +Continue Reading
At the CES earlier this month Windows unveiled a few demo aspects about their new Store experience and it looked impressive. Now they are finally taking the liberty of describing the entire Store customer experience from simple browsing to searching the catalog and even updating/roaming apps.
The Windows Store was built on the idea that customer experience was the key. They wanted to ensure that people could find apps easily and acquire them just as easily. With that in mind they took that simple goal and applied it to a massive and diverse catalog that encompassed the entire Windows Store. As you continue reading you will learn more about each various aspect of the Windows Store User Experience. +Continue Reading
Some say that the fact that you can access your PC’s computing power remotely via mobile devices, that the PC already has one foot in the grave. Let me tell you, that the PC started smelling like road kill around 2005. It is long past burying.
There will always be a need for PC’s in certain industries, but that has little relevance to the consumer world of computing devices as a whole. It is thought that the iPhone started the plummet of the popularity of the PC, but the iPhone was created because of the shift; it did not create the shift. Steve Jobs made the decision in light of the shift that was already happening. The iPhone simply gave the shove that gave it momentum. +Continue Reading
Windows has taken the brunt of attacks from hackers over the decades. No one will argue against that statement. Very few, however, in the Open world give Microsoft credit from not locking down the hardware Mac-style. This liberal mindset has allowed alternatives to flourish, particularly in the Linux world. The bell may be cracked however, in this ringing of liberty and it may all soon come to an end.
Microsoft has developed a newer tradition of requiring hardware manufacturers to meet certain requirements in order to be able to advertise themselves as “Designed for Windows”. Typically these requirements have not interfered with the user customizing their own system. After all, “The PC” is short for what used to be called the “IBM Compatible PC” and designated a modular, interchangeable and basically open system, customizable by the owner. Microsoft began changing this when made their licenses a lease of the operating system, essentially retaining full ownership of your copy of their software. This was the first step toward the closed universe, and many technicians were prophesying such. +Continue Reading
Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs announced at the Consumer Electronics Show Tuesday that the S4 processor, their latest creation, will be loaded later in 2012 into notebooks, smart TVs, and smartphones, and digital media adapters. They are not joking either. There are more than 70 devices designed around this new chip, from more than 20 manufacturers. Qualcomm is even working together with Microsoft on LTE solutions, utilizing S4 chips. The S4 chips have integrated Wi-Fi and high performance built-in graphics adapters.
A 1.5 GHz quad-core is the main feature of the Snapdragon S4 MPQ8064 processor. Both the graphics and audio are built-in, based on Qualcomm’s Krait micro-architecture-Adreno™ 320 graphics and advanced audio/video capabilities. This reduces power consumption and increases the performance in the mobile computing experience. +Continue Reading
Microsoft is giving up on the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The company will not longer sign as an exhibitor, starting next year. Frank Shaw, head of corporate communications at the Redmond company, revealed, “January will mark our final keynote presentation and booth at CES.”
The first keynote given by Bill Gates was back in 1994, his last 2008. Steve Ballmer replaced him for the past two years, but January 9, 2012 will be his last. They claim that their product milestones are out of sync with the January schedule of the CES.
Microsoft recognizes that it already utilizes many other avenues for addressing their customers. Local Microsoft retail stores, website, social media (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) and home-grown events are just some of them. +Continue Reading
It’s hardly fair to group all Android OS tablets together and compare to Apple’s iPad. It is like 100 against 1, and as we used to say as children, “That’ not fair!” Nevertheless, Apple creams the whole bunch of Android hooligans whichever way you pick to look at it. You can talk about apps, profits, market share, or whatever, but Apple is leaps and bounds ahead of the whole pack of wolves.
