Joe Wilcox

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made absolutely clear today why the company continues to invest in search, even though it's a money-losing business and Google's market share is so big (and not really declining). He described Bing as a "fundamental set of core technologies" that Microsoft plans to leverage seemingly everywhere.

Earlier in the day, during the BUILD developer conference Day 2 keynote, Server and Tools President Satya Nadella gave several examples how developers can incorporate Bing datasets into their applications development. Bing isn't just about search, but about information made available for third-party applications and services and for software development.

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Make no mistake. Microsoft's big development push this week is around Windows, but Office and supporting software, such as SharePoint, are more important at the bottom line. During today's Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting, COO Kevin Turner said that the Business division "is 32 percent of the company". Windows is 27 percent and Server and Tools is 24 percent.

Microsoft typically holds FAM during July, within weeks of closing its fiscal year on June 30. But this year Ballmer and his team delayed the annual event until this week's BUILD developer conference. That's smart, because Wall Street analysts have a chance to see some new Microsoft's products, Windows 8 in particular.

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"We still have a long ways to go with Windows 8", Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told BUILD developer conference attendees today. "We've got a lot of work to do". But the work is off to a good start, as he announced 500,000 downloads of the developer preview released last night at 11 p.m. ET.

Yesterday, Steven Sinofsky, Windows & Windows Live president, described the "re-imaging" of Windows. Today, Ballmer went further, calling the strategy bigger -- the re-imaging of Microsoft. "We're all in. We're retooling all that we do" around all Microsoft's platforms.

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Today, Microsoft dropped the other ball during the second big BUILD developer conference keynote. The company is releasing Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview and Windows Server 8 Developer Preview. The software will be available for MSDN subscribers.

Yesterday, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows & Windows Live division, formally unveiled Windows 8, which is available in a developer preview you can download now. Today, Jason Zander, vice president for the Visual Studio team, connected the dots to developing apps supporting Azure services also connected to Windows Phone 7.5. He created the Windows 8 Metro-style game pictured above.

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Don't laugh. I'm quite serious.

Yesterday during the Day 1 BUILD developer conference keynote, Steven Sinofsky delivered one of the most inspiring new Windows introductions ever. He was energetic and engaging. He honed in on key product benefits -- and that's tough to do with Windows because of the breadth of supporting third-party products and connection to Microsoft stuff like Windows Phone 7.5 or Live services. He spoke aspirationally and convincingly about Windows 8's benefits to developers and their customers. Apple Chairman Steve Jobs couldn't have done better. Whereas, Jobs casts the so-called "reality distortion field", Sinofsky brought reality into focus.

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Microsoft is handing out 5,000 Samsung-manufactured tablets running Windows 8 Developer Preview here at BUILD, the company's developer conference. I spent some quality time with one this afternoon. While my overall impressions are good, I must say that Windows 8 demos better than using it. Perhaps I'd feel differently having used the Windows 8 slate for a longer time.

Earlier today, Steven Sinofsky, Windows & Windows Live president, and several top lieutenants gave one of the best operating system demos ever. Not even Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in younger and healthier days, could have evoked such energy and enthusiasm as Sinofsky did today. It was infectious and aspirational in all the right ways.

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LIVE BLOG

Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft's president of the Windows & Windows Live division, walked on the stage like a rock star this morning. "I'd like to invite everyone to Windows 8" Sinofsky says. He said that later this week, consumer usage of Windows 7 would exceed XP. Microsoft has sold nearly 450 million Windows 7 licenses. More than 500 million use Windows Live services.

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This morning before the keynote started here at Microsoft's BUILD developer conference, I got a chance to handle a tablet running Windows 8.

There you see it. Move over Apple and iPad. Microsoft has got a fluid and lively user interface, and Apple won't be suing Microsoft for patent infringement like it is seemingly everyone else.

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Close to 50 percent of respondents to a recent Betanews poll said they will buy Samsung's flagship smartphone within 6 months. But the majority -- 40.72 percent -- want the S2 sooner, opting to buy within 3 months. They won't wait much longer. Sprint's Galaxy S II version goes on sale September 16 and AT&T's two days later. I must admit to being tempted to buy myself.

But I'm not enthused with the poll results, just 307 respondents as I post; so the poll is back for new readers to have their say about the other hotly-anticipated smartphone (see, there is mobile life other than iPhone 5). :) I'd like to see a bigger sample before making any grand predictions about who is going to buy this heaping beauty -- 4.3-inch display from AT&T and 4.5-incher from Sprint.

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Damn, if only some analyst firm other than IDC supported my long-standing position about cloud-connected mobile devices displacing PCs. After all, I dissed IDC's crazy forecast about Windows Phone being No. 2 smartphone OS in 2015. Now the firm is back with another 2015 prediction, which I must agree with.

Spurred on by smartphone and media tablet adoption, more US Net users will access the Internet through wireless mobile devices than those wired to PCs; within four years. IDC predicts stagnation and then decline in number wired Internet users. Stated another way: Decline of the PC, since -- c`mon -- who really uses one without the Internet.

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Today, around the globe, people are, sadly, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In posting my remembrance, I got to thinking how much has changed technologically and how much circumstances could have been different that day if the resources we take for granted now were available then.

Advanced communications technology of the day was the cell phone, which people trapped in the Twin Towers used to reach family and friends. The cell phone helped warn passengers of United Airlines 93 about the other hijackings. The heroes of that flight sacrificed their lives to save many others. That couldn't have been possible without the cell phone. But what if the people living in 2001 could have used social services widely available today to warn others or offer dramatic, first-hand accounts, photos and videos of events as they unfolded. The historical record -- and tribute to the lives lost that tragic day -- would be much different.

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Ten years ago this morning, my wife remarked about the perfect fall day. Clear skies, low humidity and freshness in the air. Washington, DC hadn't seen such a refreshing day in months. The sweltering heat and humidity gave way to autumn's charms.

Around 9:20 a.m. ET, I checked the headlines at Washington Post. I had been online for hours, but not looking at local news. I was writing a news story for CNET. Across the top of the page was a one liner about an airplane striking the World Trade Center. We naturally assumed a small plane had struck one of the towers. While I looked for more details online, Anne checked CNN and gasped in the living room. I walked out to see video of both towers aflame. This was no small plane incident.

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Can you hear it? Can you hear it coming? Microsoft's Windows developer conference is almost here. BUILD kicks off September 13 in Anaheim, Calif., and it's going to be big, big, BIG. Microsoft will give Windows 8 its formal unveiling -- everything else before was just movie previews. No new Windows version is really official until Microsoft presents it to developers.

But there's more. Microsoft moved its annual Financial Analyst Meeting from July to September, coinciding with BUILD. It's a colossally smart move. Wall Street geeks and technophobes will have chance to get caught up in the energy and enthusiasm of Windows 8 -- and Windows Phone "Mango", too. Microsoft really needs to energize analysts about these products and how they're not so much the past but vital forces for the so-called post-PC era.

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What happens when there's no Internet?

Yesterday, afternoon I feverishly worked on a commentary about Florian Mueller's ridiculous commentary (it doesn't qualify as analysis) on Google actions in relationship to Android OEMs, based on documents from a lawsuit with Oracle. I had real writing flow, likening Mueller to Santa Claus bringing Apple Fanclubbers and their anti-Google kin a heap load of presents. They've been blogging, tweeting and sharing about how evil is Google; they're giddy as can be. But I explained the bag contained nothing but coal, and that Mueller had cast a spell over them, as they were trying to do to others. I never finished that missive, and won't now. At 3:38 p.m. PDT, the electricity went out. The outage was massive -- parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Northern Mexico, all of San Diego County and sections of Orange County, which is just south of Los Angeles.

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Mozilla has decided that once broken trust isn't easily restored. Today, the open-source developer of Firefox issued an ultimatum to certificate authorities, in wake of the spreading damage caused by the DigiNor hack. Certificates like those DigiNor and other CAs issue are the backbone of Internet trust. That lock you see in the browser represents security and trust in the website where transactions occur. But third-parties issue the certificates, presumably being more trustworthy than your local bank or other online service.

The hacker claiming to have broken into DigiNor, who goes by handle COMODOHACKER, also claims to have breached four other CAs and issued at least 531 rogue certificates. Major browser developers -- Microsoft among them have banned DigiNor and dispatched updates to block rogue certificates.

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