The demise of the tablet seems inevitable, as shipments percentage dropped in double digits for the first time ever. Market intelligence provider TrendForce reported that in 2015 a total of 168.5 million units were shipped, representing a 12.2 percent drop year-over-year.

Notebook analyst for TrendForce, Anita Wang, confirmed what we all already knew -- smartphones, phablets and two-in-one devices were interfering too much with the tablet market, and with the devices having a somewhat longer lifespan, the results are a decrease in new shipments.

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Cloud storage is everywhere these days, with many big players in the game. Despite that Microsoft runs its own service, OneDrive, which fully integrates with Office, that doesn't mean the company isn't open to allowing its customers to use a service of their choosing.

One of those options is Box, which has worked with Office for some time, but now the two pals are getting a bit closer by expanding the integration.

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For Windows Insiders, the Fast ring used to be something of a misnomer, with new Windows 10 preview builds trickling out on a rather infrequent basis. Microsoft promised to change that in the new year, and it’s already been as good as its word. Six days after the last new build, there’s already another available to install.

There’s a big jump in build numbers too. Last week’s release was Build 11102, and the new version is 14251. That might signify a major leap forward, with loads of changes and new features, but don’t get too excited.

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Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows XP on April 14th 2009 and extended support came to a halt on April 8th 2014. Windows Vista faced a similar fate, only the dates were different -- April 10th 2012 for mainstream support, while extended support has an end date set for April 11th 2017.

Most products have ended support already, though many continue to work on both operating systems. Now one program is calling it quits on the antiquated Microsoft platforms.

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The current perceptions of Microsoft by some home users can be quite negative. This is likely due to privacy concerns with Windows 10, which is a legitimate issue. With that said, the company is still the darling of the enterprise. After all, Windows 7 and Office are integral tools for many successful businesses.

Windows and Office aside, another wildly popular business tool from Microsoft is Azure. This cloud platform is great, but some companies wisely prefer an on-premises solution. Enter Azure Stack. Today, Microsoft announces that the first Technical Preview of its hybrid cloud/datacenter product is coming this week. Bigger news, arguably, is that Canonical's operating system, Ubuntu Linux, will play a key role. Once again, Microsoft is leveraging open source -- noticing a trend here, folks?

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Joe Belfiore is now on a break from his job at Microsoft, taking an "educational trip" across the globe with his family. Given that Belfiore "runs the team building Phone/Tablet/PC versions of Windows" you might expect him to use a Windows phone to share updates with his followers as, after all, most are Windows enthusiasts.

However, Belfiore is publicly using an iPhone, and he expects his fans to be OK with it. You do not see Jony Ive, for instance, rocking an Android smartphone or a Windows 10 Mobile device, because that would not make the iPhone look like the best smartphone there is. So why would it be fine for Belfiore to use a rival's device?

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Microsoft has decided to let Mac users participate in its Office Insider program. It gives users running the popular suite on an Apple computer the opportunity to test new features earlier than the general public.

Windows and Android users have been able to be a part of the Office Insider program for some time now, and Mac users are finally getting their chance to try it out.

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Brace yourselves: I'm about to stick up for Microsoft. While I'm happy to criticize the company for its failings (and maybe kick it when it's down from time to time), complaints that cropped up over the weekend seem completely unjustified. I'm talking about this weekend's NFL playoffs.

I'm far from being a football (or indeed sport of any description) fan, but my news timeline has been filled with headlines about how Microsoft suffered embarrassment when its Surface tablets (now famously used on the sidelines and mistakenly referred to as iPads) failed during the Broncos-Patriots game. Except the problems that led to an information blackout was absolutely not the fault of Microsoft, or its Surfaces.

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Microsoft Edge is deeply integrated in Windows 10, but while it’s a reasonable browser it still has a long way to go before it even comes close to rivaling the likes of Google Chrome or Firefox.

If you don’t use Edge, and I don’t, then its presence in Windows 10 might be a bit of an annoyance, especially when it sets (and occasionally resets) itself to not only be the default browser, but the default PDF reader too. Fortunately, you can block the browser, so you don’t need to ever worry about it again.

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Windows 8.1 is old, Windows 7 is all but decrepit, and Microsoft is now all about Windows 10. The somewhat aggressive pushing of Windows 10 to consumers has been criticized, and this reached something of a head last week when Microsoft announced that nextgen CPUs will only support Windows 10.

Building on this announcement, Microsoft has published a list of more than 100 Skylake systems that will offer Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 support -- until July 17, 2017, that is. In spite of Microsoft's eagerness to push consumers and businesses to Windows 10, there are still dozens of systems from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and NEC that can be configured with the older operating systems.

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Secunia Research at Flexera Software has published a report covering the fourth quarter of 2015 for 14 countries, regarding vulnerable software, applications and PCs.

Turns out we’re not really good at keeping our computers safe, and our software up to date.

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One of the features that an app store must absolutely get right is search. Users have to be able to find what they are looking for and discover titles that meet their needs. At the same time, developers who spend time creating apps need to have their titles easily available to potential customers. If one, or both, of these requirements is not met, that creates a serious problem.

Windows Store is in this exact situation, according to multiple developer reports. Microsoft has been unable, or, worse, unwilling, to make the search functionality as useful as users and developers might like, at a time when Windows Store is already being penalized by its pitiful selection of top-tier and quality apps.

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If you’re thinking of buying either Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book, there’s quite a few variations in the range to consider, with different capacities for different budgets.

Today Microsoft launches the most powerful versions yet of both devices, and also introduces a new Gold Surface Pen for people looking to make a "bold statement" (Microsoft’s words, not ours).

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Microsoft is a curious company sometimes. Quite often, it offers wonderful products, but then fails to truly focus on the details. A great example is Skype. On paper, it sounds great -- a cross-platform communication solution. Sadly, the Windows clients are quite ugly, and overall, it can feel half-baked. The company really needs to dedicate some resources to improving the user experience, but I digress.

The largest oversight with Skype, however, is that it can expose your IP address. Sure, there may be situations where you might want to share this, but for many users, it is simply a security and privacy faux pas. Today, Microsoft finally rights this terrible wrong, and will be hiding the IP by default. Better late than never, eh?

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Microsoft promised late last year that it would be speeding up the rate that new Windows 10 preview builds arrived on the Fast ring in 2016, and (so far) it’s been as good as its word. A mere week after Build 11099 was pushed out to insiders, there’s a new build ready to install.

Build 11099 was rather unexciting for the most part, as it simply introduced structural improvements to OneCore, the core that Windows 10 shares across devices. Build 11102 is a little more interesting and introduces one welcome new feature for Microsoft Edge.

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