microsoft

Holding a 55 per cent share of the overall operating system (OS) market, Microsoft's Windows XP continues to be the world's most popular OS. But, Microsoft's newest web browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), won't run on XP -- a fact that has been the ... point of criticism for many industry experts. Nevertheless, Microsoft continues to stand by its decision to leave XP behind. Abandoning XP Users: a Deliberate Decision "It was a very deliberate decision," said Senior Director of Microsoft's Internet Explorer division, Ryan Gavin, in a recent interview. "You simply can't build on something that is ... (view more)

It's safe to say that, so far, Windows Phone 7 (WP7) is not off to the record-breaking start that Microsoft had hoped for. It's a fact that the Windows Phone 7 mobile platform has barely made a dent in the overall market share and the focus ... continues to be on Android, BlackBerry and Apple's iOS operating systems. Furthermore, updates for the system have been slow in reaching users, and for that, a Microsoft executive is apologizing to all Windows Phone 7 adopters. Speaking out on the issue is Joe Belfiore, Microsoft's vice president for the Windows Phone division. He admits that updates to ... (view more)

In three days after its launch, Apple sold 500,000 units of its iPad 2 tablet computer. To most people, that number would seem impressive. But Microsoft's Craig Mundie is not most people. In a recent interview with Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, ... Microsoft global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie had this to say about what appears to be a rapidly emerging tablet market: "I don't know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not... Personally I don't know whether that space will be a persistent one or not." (Source: huffingtonpost.com ) Tablet ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced that it won't be sending out Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) by automated update until the end of June this year. Originally, the plan was to send the Internet Explorer 9 update as an automatic download, providing the Windows ... Automatic Updates feature was enabled. The timeline for the automated update was to be scheduled for March 21, but that has since changed because Microsoft says the delay is a necessity due to its widespread corporate use. (Source: zdnet.com ) Internet Explorer 9 Rollout Cause of Delay Two-Fold There are two reasons being given for the June timetable. ... (view more)

A new book by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen reveals a lot about the company and the people who ran it during those heady days in the early 1980s. Some of the most fascinating content focuses on Allen's impressions of Microsoft's 'wunderkind' ... leader, Bill Gates -- and not all of it is complimentary. Along with Gates, Allen helped found Microsoft in 1975, though the latter left the company in 1983 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a form of cancer. Allen beat the disease but never formally returned to Microsoft, instead pursuing a number of other ventures with his newfound ... (view more)

To the surprise of many, Microsoft finished well in a recent World's Most Ethical Companies award list, recently unveiled by the Ethisphere Institute. Ethisphere is a think tank whose mandate is to improve standards for business ethics. It looked at ... 110 different companies, some being nominated by the Institute and others applying for nomination. A number of the firms included in the list are from the software industry, including Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec, Teradata Corp and Salesforce.com. Hitachi Data Systems was a winner in the computer hardware category, with other notable mentions ... (view more)

Microsoft looks to be working on an interactive television product, likely in the form of a set-top box. That would put it in direct competition with rivals Apple and Google. Speculation about the move has been spurred by the fact that a Microsoft ... executive's company bio has been revised. Tom Gibbons, who'd previously worked in Microsoft's general hardware and mobile devices divisions, is now listed as the company's "corporate vice president of TV & Service Business". Given his background, it does seem logical that he'd be working on physical devices in the new role. According ... (view more)

Hoping to entice new users to make the switch from Google, Microsoft has invested a great deal of time and resources in the promotion of their Bing search engine. It now appears that all of the strenuous efforts are finally paying off, as Microsoft ... (via Bing) has become the second-most popular online video site in the US. February's comScore Video Metrix statistics indicate that Microsoft's Bing is now in second place, surpassing such established competitors as Yahoo! and AOL. Even Facebook, given its sheer appeal and the number of user accounts it continues to retain, pales in comparison to ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced that Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) supports two separate technologies for restricting access to information related to a user's online activity. One of the privacy features was recently prompted by the Federal Trade Commission ... (FTC). Both technologies involve the way websites share data with third-parties. The most prominent example is with advertisements that appear on a page; for example, rather than simply linking ads to the page content (such as a newspaper site running golf equipment ads alongside a golf match report), a site might pass on details of all the pages a ... (view more)

Microsoft has launched a special feature in its Bing search engine intended to help users find bargains. To much surprise of many users, however, the mobile edition isn't available on Windows-based phones. Bing Deals to Partnership with Groupon The ... service, dubbed 'Bing Deals', doesn't bring any original offers, meaning it's not like Groupon or Living Social. Indeed, Microsoft says it's made a deliberate decision not to compete against such sites and instead plans to work in partnership with them. (Source: pcmag.com ) It's likely a smart decision. Services such as Groupon work by arranging ... (view more)