Displaying items by tag: Microsoft

Microsoft has actually come clean on plans for Windows 8 on ARM. It seems that despite some earlier concerns that Microsoft would cripple the OS for non-X86/64 systems it will indeed release Windows 8 with support for Office. However, before you starting thinking about Office 2007 or 2010 on that Windows 8 ARM tablet you might want to know that the Office support will only be in Office 15 (Office 2007 is Version 12 and 2010 is Office 14 Microsoft skipped over Office version 13).

Microsoft is once again betting on a losing horse. After failed attempted to form HDCP (High-Definition Content Protection) into every aspect of the Desktop with Windows Vista and failing to motivate people to buy the OS they are now pushing a UI that has failed to capture the markets imagination. The funny thing is that they are admitting to this and still cannot see what they are doing. As we have told you before, Microsoft tends to ignore what the public actually wants and seems to make business decisions based on what they think “should” work.

So Microsoft is talking up their ARM based version of Windows 8 again. This is the operating system that some think will supplant both Android and iOS. Until a few weeks ago I actually felt the same way, unfortunately unless Microsoft makes some rather drastic changes to their policy I think they are going to miss the boat once again.

Is Microsoft Changing its mind about Windows on ARM? That is the question that many people would like to know now. After hearing that Microsoft was committed to Windows 8 on the ARM platform due to consumer desire for a Windows based tablet (and after they have pretty much designed a tablet OS) many were under the impression that Microsoft would follow suit with other desktop products for the new mobile platform. However, after some new information was conveyed by a Microsoft Executive this might not be the case.

There is a rumor (according to CNET) that says Microsoft might release a version of their popular Office Suite for the iPad. Before you start slamming Microsoft or make the comment that Apple’s iWork suite is better/ just as good, let’s take a quick look at why Microsoft would even entertain this idea.

There are times when you have to wonder what people are thinking. With the SOPA act we wondered that ourselves; especially after a rash of articles came out linking the BSA (Business Software Alliance) to SOPA and by proxy to any member of that group. Now we have never been one to make leaps like that unless we have additional confirmation, but it was enough for use to try and find out what was going on.

Despite a good deal of negative criticism for Windows 8 Microsoft is still trying to promote it to new users. In their “Building Windows 8” Blog they are now covering the issue of installation time. This little issue is something that is near and dear to the DIY crowd, but not nearly as much to the average consumer that buys their hardware all packaged up in a box from Dell, HP or another PC maker. So why the push on Windows 8 Installation when it will only interest about 30% of the PC buyers?

In the legal world there are always interesting things going on. This is even more true when you talk about the massive number of law suits that are brought against technology companies on a daily basis. Now, it is not the actual cases that are the truly interesting thing (although some of them are). No it is the rulings and how they shape the laws that are sometimes the most fun.

For example in a recent (and ridiculous) law suit brought against Apple by a woman who wanted $5,000 for every person that had their iPhone bricked by the IO4 update the judge set something of a legal precedent.  The woman (named Bianca Wofford) lost the suit, but she lost is because the judge ruled that Software was not a service or a good (as well as the fact that a free upgrade cannot be held to sale or lease laws). This point is very interesting and will play heavily in future litigation.

If software is not a service or a good what exactly is it? If on the one hand it is excluded from sale or lease laws then there is no possibility of theft as there is no monetary value to it and possess no real-world value. This little precedent might be interesting to watch in future copyright and IP based litigation. Now someone can argue that as software is not a good or service and it cannot be sold or leased (as anything that can, must be held to sale and lease laws) then there is no crime committed in the free and open use of any software available.

Of course I would not run out and start downloading all of the software out there as this legal loophole will quickly be sown up by the companies that are dependent on software-as-a-service revenue. It does illustrate something that is wrong with the legal system and technology in general though and ties in with the SOPA movement in a way that many might miss. What we have is a lack up a clear definition of the items that are in dispute. What IS software, what constitutes theft of un-real property? The laws on this are so vague that you could (under the current system) be guilty of IP theft for having a copyrighted work on display in a picture of you taken by someone else, or for a YouTube video that has music playing in the background on the radio.

Until the laws are defined (and right now it is in the interest of the media and software companies to have it vague) or the judges and lawmakers are educated in the way technology works the legal system will continue to be abused by corporations while the consumers are left holding the bag.  At least in this case a definition will need to be put in place as the current one is not beneficial to any company trying to sell their software.

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Well color me impressed! After talking about all of the things that Microsoft has done wrong with Windows Phone I am finally seeing them do something right. It seems they have convinced Samsung’s Vice President of consumer and enterprise services, Gavin Kim, to leave the mobile device giant and come over to the Microsoft fold.  

According to Kim he feels that Microsoft has the talent and the tools (meaning the right OS) to push forward and become a favored choice for consumers saying ““Each time a consumer goes to buy a smartphone from a carrier or retail store, Windows Phone has to be on their short list”. Kim also said that he feels that the team he will be joining has a considerable amount of talent and is looking forward to not lonely leading them but learning from them. In fact he likened joining any team to dating, indicating that if the compatibility is not there then things are not going to work.

We hope that this new couple does have a bright future ahead, but we think that their relationship will be a tad stormy. Gavin Kim is a smart choice for Microsoft as Kim has had his hand in more than a few successes from Samsung. The problem is that Windows Phone does not have the right infrastructure or a large customer base. This will make gaining consumer acceptance difficult to say the least. Unless Kim comes in and manages to shake things up (which we really are hoping) Window Phone will still fail to impress the average consumer in the face of the iPhone or the Flagship Android products.

The next 6-10 months will be interesting to watch for the mobile market. Android 4.0 will launch, iOS 5.0.x will hit (hopefully with some fixes) and Microsoft might actually have someone leading their mobile market that actually “gets” the market.

Source BGR.Com
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I love a good conspiracy theory on a Monday morning; they can be entertaining, enlightening and also very funny. The one I am talking about is the miss-quoting of Eric Schmidt during Google’s Anti-Trust senate hearings last week. During this hearing he made the statement “Apple's Siri is a significant development--a voice-activated means of accessing answers through iPhones that demonstrates the innovations in search,” He followed this up with this statement “Google has many strong competitors and we sometimes fail to anticipate the competitive threat posed by new methods of accessing information.”

Now I have not been able to determine what order these things were said or what was said in between these two quotes. However, these two items have been used to bolster the idea that Siri is a “threat” to Google’s search empire. In fact at least one media outlet used that as a direct headline.  Now I do think that Google is keeping an eye on Siri as it is now owned wholly by Apple, but I do not think they view it as any type of real “threat”.

The problem comes from that fact (yes it is a fact) that Apple has no search engine framework. Siri takes the voice commands and compares them to internal commands. If it is not something that is part of its internal command structure it then looks it up through Apples authorization servers (which parse Google, Bing, Wolfram Alfa, Yelp etc.) The results that are returned are filtered and controlled by Apple’s servers (just as they are by most other search companies). Now this may sound just like Google or Bing etc., but it is not. The thing is that Apple is using other companies’ search indexing and processing power and then selecting their own results. They also (according to some source) lean heavily toward the Yelp service (for entertainment and restaurants). So while Siri is an interesting tool for Apple (one that they bought from another company) it is not a search engine or search framework. It is nothing more than filtered results from other search engines and services.

The second thing to consider is that this was Eric Schmidt testifying to Congress and trying to show that Google is not in violation of the US Anti-Trust laws. Can you really take these comments as “fact”? At the point you are in front of the Senate Committee you are likely to say anything that will make you look less guilty. His comment also never mentioned Siri as a “threat”. He said, “Apple's Siri is a significant development” which is true and something that no one (other than Andy Rubin at Microsoft) has denied. But Siri is not the only voice command service out there. Just take a quick look through the Android market and you will find quite a few that were in existence before Siri and you will also find that Siri was around as an App long before Apple bought them and then limited the App to just the iPhone 4S through the use of their internal servers.

This one conspiracy theory seems to be a lot more like spin than real fact to me. Siri is an important development, and one that will continue to grow, but there are competitors to Siri already in place and the market is far from Apple controlled. Yes, the search game is changing; but believe me Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others are perfectly safe from Siri.

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