Microsoft a few canicule ago appear a name change for its Windows Live artefact alternation which we accept covered actuality on Everything Microsoft. When you attending at the new names for the products, you will apprehension that they accept been simplified beyond the board. Instead of logging in with your Windows Live ID or Passport, you apperceive log in with your Microsoft account. This is aloof one of the examples, and I advance you analysis out Robert’s commodity on the change for a abounding overview.
Yesterday black Microsoft started to email Azure barter about addition accessible name change.
Dear Customer,
In the coming weeks, we will update the Windows Azure Service names that appear in the usage records you download. These are only name changes – your prices for Windows Azure are not impacted. The table below summarizes the changes:
Prior Service Name
New Service Name
Windows Azure Compute
Cloud Services
Windows Azure Platform – All Services
All Services
Windows Azure CDN
CDN
Windows Azure Storage
Storage
Windows Azure Traffic Manager
Traffic Manager
Windows Azure Virtual Network
Virtual Network
AppFabric Cache
Cache
AppFabric Service Bus
Service Bus
AppFabric Access Control
Access Control
SQL Azure
SQL Database
SQL Azure Reporting Service
SQL Reporting
It basically states that Microsoft will drop the Azure name from the product line, again simplifying the product line in the progress. For the majority of Azure products, you simply remove Windows Azure from the name to end up with the new name, and the same is true for AppFabric product names.
It is likely that this will be causing some confusion in the beginning. According to Microsoft, everything else product-related remains as is.
Microsoft ruled the PC market for decades with utter dominance. But today, as the future shifts toward mobile devices, things are not looking good for Microsoft. It’s not that it’s not trying: Microsoft is spending a lot of money and effort on cracking the mobile market, now in lockstep with Nokia, its top partner. But there’s no indication yet that it’s having any real success.
Losing Users
One adverse sign: Even now, added than a year afterwards Microsoft started shipment Windows Phone 7 devices, U.S. adaptable barter are accepting rid of Microsoft accessories faster than they’re affairs new ones.
In the three months catastrophe in February, Microsoft’s allotment of U.S. smartphone subscribers was 3.9%, according to comScore. That’s down from 5.2% endure November and 7.7% endure February.
Longer term, Microsoft’s allotment has been in a freefall: comScore had it at 18% at the end of 2009, and 36% in backward 2007, the year Apple alien the iPhone. (See blueprint above.) Since then, Apple and Google accept gobbled up the lion’s allotment of the smartphone market, with added than 80% of U.S. smartphones in comScore’s latest stats.
The agitation is that Microsoft’s phones – admitting appropriate – just aren’t acceptable abundant to appeal attention. They’re absolutely bigger now than they acclimated to be – abnormally the new Lumia alternation from Nokia – but that isn’t enough. To could cause any absolute accident to Apple or Google, Microsoft’s phones would accept to be badly bigger than the competition, and they just aren’t.
When Steve Jobs described the iPhone as “a leapfrog product that is WAY smarter than any mobile device has ever been,” he wasn’t just bragging. The iPhone completely changed the mobile industry in one day. Microsoft and its partners just aren’t changing anything or making anyone nervous.
How To Win
There are two means to accomplish in today’s smartphone market. You can either accomplish a absolutely amazing artefact that wows consumers and gets them to seek it out by name – the iPhone way.
Or you can become the next-best thing: Something that the adaptable carriers can abuse to their affection and boost in peoples’ faces, and advertise phones that way.
Operators still ascendancy a huge allotment of smartphone distribution, and that’s how abounding (most?) Android accessories accept been sold: as alternatives to humans who either can’t or won’t buy an iPhone, based on their carrier best or added logic. Recall that Android didn’t absolutely yield off in the U.S. until Verizon bare to aftermath the Droid alternation as its iPhone alternative.
Microsoft hasn’t done either of these. The new Nokia Lumia 900 is nice enough, but no one’s lining up en masse to canal their iPhone for it. And you don’t apprehend annihilation from AT&T or any added carrier about Windows Phones acceptable their acknowledged devices, either.
Sure, operators like Verizon Wireless may say they want Windows to succeed as an alternative to Apple and Google - of course they’d like to see today’s platform leaders, their suppliers, less powerful. But carriers don’t seem to be doing anything to make that happen.
There just isn’t a real reason for people to buy Windows phones instead of iPhones, or even Android phones – features, design, price, services, anything. And until there is, the Windows phone platform isn’t going to do well.
The Long Haul
The acceptable account is that Microsoft has two things – money and backbone – that could advice it eventually accomplish in mobile. (And adaptable is too important to the approaching of technology for Microsoft to sit it out.) Windows wasn’t a huge brief hit, and it took the Xbox a connected time to accomplish any absolute money. Bing still isn’t demography annihilation abroad from Google in the seek industry. Recall that afore the iPhone came along, Symbian and Palm were advised smartphone leaders. Now they’re both gone. Things can change rapidly in this world.
In theory, the barrage of Windows 8 after this year, and Microsoft’s connected success with the Xbox, could be apparent as accessible articulation credibility for Windows phone. There should be some allowances to accepting a computer/console and adaptable accessory active the aforementioned belvedere – Apple has exploited these, to an extent, with the Mac and iOS devices, and maybe Microsoft will, too, eventually.
But it will, again, accept to be so amazing that humans and/or carriers will absolutely yield apprehension and carefully about-face their allegiance. And the allowance of that happening, based on Microsoft’s clue almanac in mobile, are slim. If, in a year, we’re still searching at mid-single-digit bazaar allotment stats for Windows Phone, Microsoft will accept to do something added affecting and/or big-ticket to amount in mobile. And even then, it ability be too backward or ability not work.
But for now, this comeback is not looking great.
This story was originally published by ReadWriteWeb.
If a store opened across the street from Target, same relative inventory, same service, only difference everything was free, would Target survive?
Unlikely.
Yet in software…
“Payware” = “Freeware” (open source)
————————————–
Windows = Linux
Oracle = MySQL
MS Office = OpenOffice
Ultra Edit = PSPad
…the current reality is that payware and freeware compete in the marketplace head to head.
In fact, the “for pay” software continues to thrive in the marketplace despite free software that is in many cases just as good (some might claim better).
Why is this?
When you buy a pair of jeans at the store the total cost is paid in full at the time of the purchase. There are no additional costs involved that directly pertain to the manufacturer. Of course there is the on-going cost of maintaining the pants through washing. This is a totally different market that is wholly agnostic to the brand of jeans. In other words, Tide washes Wrangler’s the same as Levi’s.
With software the game is different. Only a small percentage of the total cost of software can be attributed to its development. Support and maintenance make up a sizeable chunk of the cost. The larger one scales the software the higher these costs go. There is no singular solution like Tide to deal with both Windows or Linux. Sure you copy files in both, and make directories, but the means of doing so is very different and not interchangeable like your detergent. My trivial example has not even exposed the tip of the iceberg!
So this leaves us with the issue of market share. When you have a commodity that requires so much additional and continuing service/support, market share becomes a very important factor.
Support and service for free software is anything but free. Microsoft loves to tell us (and rightly so) that TCO (total cost of ownership) between Windows and Linux is in the same ballpark. They even claim that Linux costs more, all factors considered. But the geeks at Redmond can’t have it both ways. Open Source software that can be obtained for free does not represent communism (Remember Mr. Balmer declaring this?). Communism to my understanding was never a sustaining and growing multi-billion dollar business.
If we look back as to how Microsoft dominated the market we tend to forget some key points.
* The mainframe market viewed Microsoft as a passing fad.
[The CEO of DEC wondered why in the world anyone would every want to own a computer.]
*Microsoft was the only real game in town when it came to PC operating systems.
[Any attempts by others (DR Dos, OS2) were summarily squashed.]
*Microsoft gave away IE in order to squash then leader Netscape.
[Who?]
*Microsoft sold early versions of Office for $99.00 to gain market share.
[Other players at the time were selling there office suites for 3+ times that amount. Microsoft bought market share by thinking long term. After all, changing your word processor and spreadsheet are a bit dicier than changing your undies. Also, think of all of us who make a living off these products.]
While many software vendors have come and gone, it is the open source, “here it is for free” Cowboys and Cowgirls that are here to stay and threaten the very world of “for pay” software. But what the hey, we developers are typically more enthralled by creating things than making money. I know of no other profession on the planet where not taking and reusing other peoples work is considered the sane way of doing ones job. I believe in journalism they call it plagiarism?
From Windows 3.1 to Windows Vista, the Windows operating system has taken many giant leaps. And while Vista received a lukewarm reception from some users, Windows 7 is likely to be remembered for addressing those criticisms.
In fact, there aren’t many changes to the overall look of Windows 7 when compared to Windows Vista. Instead, Microsoft seems to have paid attention to the feedback it received and created an OS that is not only stable, but also very capable.
So what is new in Windows 7? Here are 18 cool things Windows 7 does that Vista doesn’t.
1. Shake ‘em away
Ever had 10 Notepad, two Powerpoint and 50 Outlook windows open? Want to minimise all of them except the most important one? In Windows 7, you can grab the top of the window and shake it about to scare away all of the other open windows. Simple.
2. Jumplists
Jumplists are a new feature that give you the option to view a list of recently accessed files by application, even when the application isn’t open, by right-clicking on the application’s icon in the taskbar. It also allows you to quickly access a favourite playlist without opening your media player. Jumplists can also be found integrated into the Start Menu.
TIME-SAVER: The Jumplist for Windows Explorer – pretty useful
START HERE:A Jumplist integrated into the Start Menu
3. A step forward in previewing
In Vista, hovering over a minimised window on the taskbar would provide a preview of the window. In Windows 7, a similar preview pops up which also gives the option to close a window (within the preview), along with a full-size ‘peek’. You can also press Win + T to scroll along previews in the taskbar.
PREVIEW PLUS:A smaller preview, along with a full-size ‘peek’ with the ability to close the window
4. Snap into place
Simply drag your window to the left or right edge of the desktop to snap and resize the window to one half of the screen. Drag the window to the top to maximise it. A pretty neat idea made neater by the use of the keyboard shortcuts (Win + respective arrow keys). No longer do you have to frustratingly position the mouse at the edge of the window to resize it.
5. XP Mode
This time, you do not have to slap your head that same way when Vista would not run an XP application. For those XP applications that do not work under Windows 7, you can download XP Mode free from the Microsoft website and run XP applications in an emulated XP environment in Windows 7. Imagine Parallels on Mac OS X without the need to fish out money on an extra OS.
6. An easier and quicker way to adjust multiple displays
Do you constantly connect your computer to different external monitors or projectors, especially at work? Try Win + P, and duplicating or extending your display to the other monitor takes just a second. Win + P presents you with an Alt + Tab style menu, which is ideal if you give a lot of presentations at work on your laptop.
7. A personalised Stage for your device
With the new ‘Device and Printers’ button on the Start Menu, devices which are connected to your computer can have their own Stage. This Device Stage presents supported devices with a photo-realistic render and a link to the vendor’s website, along with other updates and useful information (such as firmware updates and manuals).
8. (Almost) eliminate the notification area!
What, I can even get rid of the clock and volume icons? Yes. Click the arrow that gives access to the overflow icons in the notification area and click ‘customise’. Select each icon and click ‘hide icon and notifications’ to remove it. Clean.
QUIETER: Stop all those notifications – but you might want to keep the clock there
9. Problem Steps Recorder
The ‘Problem Steps Recorder’ lets you record a particular problem you are having with your PC so you can send it to someone who may be able to help. Click ‘Record’, and a screenshot is taken with every mouse click, allowing comments to be added in between if required. These screenshots (and comments, if any) are placed in a well-formatted HTML document that is placed inside a zipped folder on your desktop – ideal to be attached to an email.
A PROBLEM HALVED: Simple, yet so effective. Send this to tech savvy friends or even manufacturers
More and more Windows 7 users are enjoying the world wide web via Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 browser, the latest report from Net Applications shows.
In the United States, almost 50% of those who own a Windows 7-based PC are using IE9 to navigate the Internet, said data unveils.
The browser gained almost one percentage point in usage in the country during March, which helped it strengthen its leading position.
Moreover, the browser is benefiting from growth in usage in other markets around the world as well. At the moment, it accounts for 35 percent usage on the Windows 7 platform worldwide.
“With a gain of .99% last month and a net gain of 1.2% global usage share over the last five months, Internet Explorer has stabilized and even reversed its usage share declines of the last few years,” Net Applications notes.
IE9’s increase in share helped Internet Explorer gain some more market share globally. Overall, the different versions of Microsoft’s browser grow one percentage point.
“All up, IE usage this month grew as well worldwide. We saw IE gains of almost a full point bringing our worldwide share for the month of March to 53.8.%,” Roger Capriotti, Director, Internet Explorer Product Marketing.
Microsoft has been hard at work with the marketing of Internet Explorer 9, their true modern browser when compared to previous releases of the application.
The company ran a new advertising campaign for the browser, called The Browser You Loved to Hate, and also partnered with Lionsgate for the release of their latest blockbuster, The Hunger Games.
In Microsoft’s vision, IE9 can deliver a more beautiful web for all users, and has a lot of appealing features to offer to all of them when running on computers based on Windows 7.
More and more Windows 7 users are enjoying the world wide web via Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 browser, the latest report from Net Applications shows.