Microsoft’s ‘Gemini’ project will be the Windows Blue of Office
Even as Microsoft has publicly acknowledged the existence of Windows "Blue," the much-buzzed-about Service Pack reworking of Windows 8 due later this year, the rumor mill is already churning with rumblings about a similar update project underway for Office 2013.
According to Redmond-watcher Mary-Jo Foley's sources, that project is codenamed "Gemini" and it will take the form of "a wave of Office releases" – or more like several waves – that will appear over the next two years.
Foley says we can expect the first wave of Gemini to arrive timed to coincide with Blue, and that it will include updated versions of the core Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Read more...
With Windows ‘Blue’ rumored, the Windows 8 fire sale begins
The mainstream media has picked up Mary Jo Foley's report about a public preview of Windows "Blue" -- the next version of Windows -- arriving soon. Foley quotes the Chinese-language Win8China site (which has consistently provided good insider information about Windows 8), saying RTM for Windows Blue is planned for June 7, with retail availability in August. She also quotes the site as saying the next Windows Blue milestone will include a public preview -- "MP" for Milestone Preview -- in the coming months. Read more...
You’ve made an app for Android, iOS, Windows – what about the user interface?
Cross-platform development is a big deal, and will continue to be so until a day comes when everyone uses the same platform. Android? HTML? WebKit? iOS? Windows?
Maybe one day, but for now the world is multi-platform, and unless you can afford to ignore all platforms but one, or to develop independent projects for each platform, some kind of cross-platform approach makes sense, especially in mobile.
Sometimes I hear it said that there are essentially two approaches to cross-platform mobile apps. You can either use an embedded browser control and write a web app wrapped as a native app, as in Adobe PhoneGap/Cordova or the similar approach taken by Sencha, or you can use a cross-platform tool that creates native apps, such as Xamarin Studio, Appcelerator Titanium, or Embarcardero FireMonkey. Read more...
Windows Server 2012 embraces the data center
Microsoft has taken its server OS a giant step forward with Tuesday's release of Windows Server 2012, making this version the first that can be controlled remotely so it is more suitable for data centers.
"Microsoft has delivered on the promise of an operating system that can be completely managed from the command line," said Don Jones, an author of a series of Windows 2012 instructional videos that have been released by the training firm CBT Nuggets. "The technologies are in place to manage 100 servers as easily as you can manage one server."
The first major upgrade since 2009 features a bevy of new features, most designed to make it more suitable for large-scale data-center deployments. Satya Nadella, Microsoft president for Server and Tools, has touted this release as Microsoft's "Cloud OS." Read more...
Apple breezes to PC sales’ top spot as Windows share decays
Apple sold more PCs worldwide last quarter -- 21 million -- than any rival, retaking the lead it lost the quarter before, U.K.-based Canalys said yesterday. And because Microsoft lacks a tablet operating system, sales of Windows-powered PCs fell to an all-time low as a percentage of total sales.
Unlike other research firms, Canalys counts tablets 7 inches or larger as PCs, figuring that they're used for many of the same purposes as a notebook or even a desktop. Using that definition, Apple, which sold 17 million iPads and 4 million Macs during the period that ended June 30 -- shot to the top of the chart.
Apple regained the No. 1 position in the second quarter after ceding it in the first to Hewlett-Packard. The Cupertino, Calif., maker of Macs and iPads had last been the world's top-selling PC seller in the fourth quarter of 2011. Read more...
Microsoft acknowledges Surface may trigger OEM hostility
Microsoft yesterday confirmed what most analysts and company watchers had concluded last month when the firm unveiled its own tablet, that it risks alienating the computer makers which account for the bulk of Windows sales.
In a document submitted Thursday to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft acknowledged the potential problem. "Our Surface devices will compete with products made by our OEM partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform," Microsoft said in the 10-K filed for the second calendar quarter of 2012.
The New York Times' Bits blog first reported on Microsoft's SEC filing. Read more...
Mac malware Crisis as Apple lets slip its Mountain Lion
Miscreants have developed a sophisticated multi-platform attack dog designed to maul Windows and Mac OS X computers.
The malware comes bundled in an Java Archive file which pretends to be Adobe Flash Player, named AdobeFlashPlayer.jar. Inside the malicious archive is a .class file named WebEnhancer, and two files named win and mac. The WebEnhancer applet decides if a user opening the file is running either Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS X before pushing the corresponding software nastie.
If run on an OS X system the malware drops multiple components, reconfigures system settings and installs a backdoor and rootkit combination onto infected machines. The Mac OS X component of the malware – called Crisis or Morcut – arrives on the eve of Apple's release of Mac OS X Mountain Lion, but this is probably a coincidence. The new operating system build goes on sale today. Read more...
Windows Metro Maoist cadres reach desktop, pound it flat
The revolutionary dogma of Metro is sweeping through the old Windows desktop, too, a new leak of Window 8 confirms. The leaked build, newer than the public release of a fortnight ago, abandons the 3D design elements introduced into Windows in 1990 for a resolutely two-dimensional world. The 'legacy' desktop in Windows 8 is denuded of anything that takes advantage of human depth perception, such as window shadows, gradients or sculpted controls. It's a flat, flat world. Read more...
Windows Server 2012′s release candidate is now available
Hot on the heels of the big Windows 8 news, the Windows Server team was not to be outdone, and today put out the release candidate of Windows Server 2012. According to Microsoft, the beta of the product attracted nearly 300,000 downloads.
You can snag the code here. Known before as Windows Server 8, Windows Server 2012 has quite a bit to it. From our previous coverage, here’s what’s in the product: Read more...
Samsung launches low-end Windows Phone with 4-inch display
Samsung Electronics Friday unveiled the Samsung Omnia M, a Windows Phone with a 4-inch Super AMOLED display that will first become available in Europe.
Samsung isn't providing any pricing, but the phone's specification suggests it will compete with Nokia's low-end phone, the Lumia 610.
The Omnia M has 384MB of RAM, less than the 512MB found in most Windows Phones. The Lumia 610 has 256MB. Read more...
Mozilla and Google blast IE-only Windows on ARM
Mozilla and Google are crying foul over Microsoft restrictions blocking rivals from Windows 8 on ARM, due later this year.
Firefox-shop Mozilla has branded Microsoft's restrictions a return to the digital dark ages "where users and developers didn't have browser choices".
Harvey Anderson, Mozilla general counsel, accused Microsoft of restricting user choice, reducing competition and chilling innovation by only allowing Internet Explorer to run on Windows RT – unveiled last month by Microsoft as the new name for Windows on ARM (WOA). He said:
Only Internet Explorer will be able to perform many of the advanced computing functions vital to modern browsers in terms of speed, stability, and security to which users have grown accustomed. Given that IE can run in Windows on ARM, there is no technical reason to conclude other browsers can't do the same. Read more...
Adobe preps silent Flash updates for Macs
Adobe last week released a new beta of Flash Player that includes silent updates for Macs.
Adobe first included silent updates for OS X in the Flash Player beta a month ago; the version shipped Friday was tagged as "Beta 3."
Adobe introduced silent updates for Flash Player on Windows in late March. At the time, the company committed to creating the same feature on OS X, but did not set a timetable. Read more...
IE ‘silent’ upgrade helps put newest browser on Windows
Microsoft's decision late last year to switch on "silent" upgrades for Internet Explorer (IE) has moved some Windows users to newer versions, but has had little, if any, impact on the oldest editions, IE6 and IE7, according to usage statistics.
In December 2011, Microsoft announced it would start automatically upgrading IE so that users ran the newest version suitable for their copy of Windows.
Under the plan, Windows XP users still on IE6 or IE7 would be updated to IE8, while Windows Vista or Windows 7 users running IE7 or IE8 would be pushed to IE9. Read more...
Microsoft acquires 20 new Windows security ideas for $13,400 each
Microsoft has received 20 submissions in the $268,000 contest it hopes will result in new security technologies being baked into Windows, a company security strategist said Tuesday.
The "BlueHat Prize" contest, which debuted in August 2011, offers $200,000 as a first prize, $50,000 for second, and a subscription to Microsoft's developer network for third place. The three winners will be flown to Las Vegas this July, when Microsoft will announce the results at the Black Hat security conference.
Microsoft collected 20 entries before the April 1 deadline, said Katie Moussouris, a senior security strategist lead at Microsoft, on a company blog yesterday. Read more...