Microsoft wants to bring Surface home sooner
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CEO Steve Ballmer says the company has gotten a lot of pressure to build a home version of its tabletop PC.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is extending the time it will allow original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and retail outlets to sell PCs with Windows XP as customers continue to balk on upgrading to Windows Vista. Microsoft had planned to stop selling XP through OEMs and retailers on Jan. 31, 2008, while custom system builders have until Jan. 31, 2009, to pre-install XP on machines. But becauseÂ sales of VistaÂ PCs have not been as strong as expected, OEMs and retailers have asked Microsoft to extend XP's availability. OEMs and retailers will now have until June 30, 2008, to sell PCs with Vista pre-installed on machines, Microsoft said. Retailers also can sell XP out of the box until that time if they choose, the company said. "While we've been pleased with the positive response we've seen and heard from customers using Windows Vista, there are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista," Microsoft said in a press statement. Microsoft also is extending the life ofÂ Windows XP Starter Edition, the version of XP for emerging markets. The software will be available until June 30, 2010, so users in those markets can take advantage of low-cost, hardware-constrained PCs that Vista may not be compatible with. Vista requires hardware upgrades that most PCs running XP do not have. Per Microsoft's policy as of 2002, a new Windows OS would stay on the market about four years after its original availability date. But XP was released on Oct. 25, 2001, more than five years beforeÂ Vista limped out the door to consumers Jan. 31, 2007, after several delays and a major code overhaul. Microsoft had high expectations for customer adoption of Vista, and claimed the launch would be one of the most successful in Windows history. Unfortunately for the company, those predictions so far haven't panned out, and in July,Â Microsoft lowered its projections for customer adoption of Vista. The company had said the split between XP and Vista sales in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, would be 15 percent to 85 percent; now the company is saying the split will be 22 percent XP and 78 percent Vista. According to some, that may even be optimistic. Paul Ghysels, a custom system builder who owns the Neighborhood Computer Store in Moraga, California, said that Microsoft has "really blown Vista." He said he's not surprised Microsoft extended the availability of XP for OEMs. "I figured Microsoft would have to come up with something because Vista is so unprepared for the market right now," Ghysels said. He added that the extension likely won't affect his business much, since most of his customers come to him because they are already disillusioned with the major PC manufacturers and thus unlikely to want a name-brand PC pre-loaded with Vista. Vista Service Pack 1Â (SP1), a rollup of updates for the OS that Microsoft has said will be available in the first quarter of 2008, should make Vista more market-worthy. In fact, many consumers and businesses have said they would wait for the update before moving from XP to Vista.
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In an era when computers get ever smaller and more portable, it seems almost a throwback, but software giant Microsoft hopes a Â£5,000 coffee table bristling with technology could be the next big step forward.
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Microsoft has delayed the rollout of XP Service Pack Two (SP2) for home users, and some customers will not be able to download it until the end of the month. The new code was supposed to go out on Microsoft&#39;s Automatic Update service on ...
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Microsoft is making a major push to get home and business customers to embrace the security-focused overhaul to its Windows XP computer operating system.
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O is making a  renewed push this week to get its software into living rooms  with the launch of a new version of its Windows XP Media  Center, a personal computer designed for viewing movies,  listening to music and scrolling through digital pictures.
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After a nine-day postponement, Microsoft on Wednesday plans to start pushing out Windows XP Service Pack 2 to PCs running Windows XP Professional Edition.
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SAN JOSE, Calif.  -- Seeking to be more competitive with Microsoft Corp...
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Despite being released to manufacturing last week, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not being made available to all customers because Microsoft is trying to resolve an issue in which hardware devices may stop functioning after SP1 is installed.
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Microsoft Corp. has delayed automated distribution of a major security upgrade to its Windows XP operating system, citing a desire to give companies more time to test it.
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Microsoft plans to change the "Home" and "Pro" edition names with the next release of Windows, known as Longhorn. It may also ship a single product that combines the features in the Media Center and Tablet PC editions.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft's top executive outlined the company's plan to transition from a traditional software company to offering software plus services for the first time on Tuesday, giving some roadmap details for how the strategy will play out in the next year. In a keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shed more details on the plan other executives, such as Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, have been teasing out over the past year -- but not many more. He gave a time frame for the early part of the transition but mostly echoed what other executives have said about Microsoft's slow transition to adding hosted business services to its traditional software portfolio. "For software plus services, the time is now," Ballmer said, finishing off the first of a raft of keynotes on the first day of Microsoft's annual partner conference. He said that over the next year, Microsoft will continue to sell mostly on-premises software, but there will be more evidence of the transition to its hybrid model as the year goes on. Since Microsoft began talking about its plan to gradually transition to offering more hosted services last year in a speech by Ozzie at its TechEd Conference in Boston, many noted that the company had no choice. With such an entrenched business in enterprise and consumer desktop software, it would be impossible for Microsoft to be as nimble in offering hosted services as rivals like Google and Salesforce.com, which started their businesses as Web-based services providers. And a warmer reception for hosted services is clearly the direction the enterprise market is heading as businesses become more comfortable accessing Web-based services beyond the traditional consumer staples of e-mail and search that have been popular for years. The transition to providing more services will touch every part of Microsoft's business, but some changes will be more obvious than others, Ballmer said. The user interface will be an important place for innovation in this area, and Microsoft's Silverlight technology is the cornerstone of that, he said. Microsoft introduced Silverlight, a browser plug-in that allows for rich video and interactive media experience to be delivered within Web sites, in April. A solid services platform on which partners can build services and also that they can resell with Microsoft managing and hosting them also will be a clear sign of the transition, Ballmer said. Microsoft already is offering a combination of consumer-oriented services, such as Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Local Search, but will begin bulking up its portfolio of enterprise services as well, he said. Microsoft already has unveiled business services like Exchange Hosted Services for enterprise messaging and Office Live hosted service for small businesses. There will be new and expanded services like these as Microsoft progresses further with its software plus services strategy, Ballmer said.
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The Microsoft Corp. has decided to advance the timetable on its much-anticipated overhaul of Windows, the Financial Times reported Saturday.
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Microsoft plans to unveil a new computing device called Surface, featuring a 30-inch screen embedded in an acrylic tabletop.
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Microsoft and Intel are joining forces to conquer living rooms in the USA and make further inroads into the coveted consumer electronics space.
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Microsoft debuts a new touch-sensitive coffee table-shaped computer called "Surface".
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Changes aim to address Google antitrust concerns. Also: Redmond talks for first time about when service pack will arrive.