Posts Tagged ‘Windows’

Microsoft already has an idea how the Windows operating system may evolve after Windows 8. A patent filing entitled “Fast Machine Booting Through Streaming Storage” describes a chain of storage devices with different priorities that would boot the operating system through remote storage.

It would not be accurate to say that Larry Page is wasting time in his new and old position of the company he co-founded. He is leading an empire that has a solid business foundation, massive resources as well as deep pockets to reach well beyond its core market. Page’s management changes set new incentives are clearly designed to keep its top leadership hungry. Google’s eyes appear to be laser-focused on Microsoft. Is Google strong enough to bring Microsoft down to its knees?

At CES this week, Microsoft dropped a bomb when it announced that the next generation of Windows would work on both x86 and ARM processor architectures. The effect? Microsoft started a race between a bunch of new vendors initially including Nvidia, Qualcomm, and TI to become the Next Intel. Clearly, AMD is going to want a big piece of the action and Intel isn’t going to surrender what the own without a fight.

It was an inevitable move for Microsoft: To compete with Apple and Google, Windows would have to support ARM, an architecture that reaches now more than 1 billion devices every quarter. It’s not just Wintel anymore. Its Winarm now as well.

If you ask Microsoft directly whether it believes it is losing overall Windows market share, you will get a very direct “no” as an answer. However, there are few left who doubt that the software environment will get much more challenging for Microsoft and researchers now say that Microsoft will simply have to accept that there are other players out there.

Microsoft in the Netherlands blogged that it will take about 2 years before Windows 8 will come to market.

Apple’s iOS operating system that is currently running on iPhones, iPads and the iPad Touch has surpassed Linux in market share. However, data also suggests that Blackberry OS has surpassed iOS market share in the U.S. last month.

Microsoft just received confirmation of a patent that hands the company the intellectual property of shutting an operating system down.

Microsoft has been talking up Windows Azure as the future of computing since 2008, but this week’s launch of the Azure platform appliance at Microsoft’s annual Partner Conference and related plans by significant vendors and customers ratcheted the energy behind Azure to a new level. Along with Microsoft OEMs Dell, Fujitsu and HP, eBay said it will use the Azure platform appliance to manage and deliver customer services for its signature auction site. That’s a big deal, considering the company’s high profile, robust needs and volume of users. By virtually any measure, eBay’s endorsement of Windows Azure qualifies as a major Microsoft win.

Microsoft today said that it has sold 150 million copies of its latest operating system, Windows 7, in just nine months. That comes down to about seven copies sold every second or roughly 16.6 million units every month. That is a pretty substantial number, but it is only a fraction of what Microsoft intended to sell originally. The question really is: Is Windows 7 selling fast enough?

MessageLabs has released a new issue of its monthly intelligence report, which reveals interesting statistics of spam originating from client computers that are infected by botnets. Not surprisingly, most spam comes from Windows users, but Linux systems are five times more likely to be sending spam than Windows. And: There is virtually no spam that is sent from Apple Mac computers.

If you are running Windows Vista you may want to check whether your operating system is up to date. Microsoft announced that it has ended support for Windows Vista RTM without service packs installed.