Windows Azure SDK 2.0 for .NET is now available
Microsoft is on an update streak with Windows Azure, introducing significant new features at a steady pace. For the past couple of months we have witnessed an overwhelming number of changes meant to improve the company's cloud platform, including the Iaas (Infrastructure as a Service) support announced two weeks ago.
Microsoft's latest move in this never-ending chess game with its rivals is the Windows Azure SDK (Software Development Kit) 2.0 for .NET which now features improvements for websites, cloud services, storage, service bus and PowerShell automation. Let's take a look at what's new.
Microsoft Windows sales are so good, they're scary
The "Microsoft's dead" meme is one of the most popular among tech bloggers and arm-chair pundit commenters. Posts are everywhere the last 30 days or so, fed this month by reports of record-weak PC shipments. After market close yesterday, with fiscal Q3 results, Microsoft proved critics wrong and showed just how much strength remains in the Windows franchise. More significantly, a dramatic change is underway, regarding which buyers generate more revenues.
IDC says that PC shipments fell 13.9 percent during calendar first quarter (Microsoft's fiscal third), and there was reasonable expectation Windows license sales would see similar fall off. Instead, when removing a one-time $1.085 billion deferral, Windows & Windows Live division revenue was flat ($4.62 billion) year over year. Given the sorry state of the PC market, flat isn't just good but great.
Microsoft Q3 2013 by the numbers: $20.49B revenue, 72 cents EPS
Today, after the closing bell, Microsoft revealed what might be the closest-watched quarterly results in 11 years. Fiscal third quarter, like the one in 2002, marks a time of record-low PC shipments, with blame falling on the newest operating system. In recent weeks, every idiot arm-chair pundit imaginable has taken to the web to proclaim Windows 8 a failure and prophesying Microsoft's doom. Not so fast. This company is still a money machine.
For fiscal Q3, ended March 31, Microsoft revenue reached $20.49 billion. Operating income: $7.61 billion and net income was $6.06 billion, or 72 cents a share.
Windows Blue leaks (again) -- build 9369 arrives with new features
Little over three weeks after the first Windows Blue leak, another build makes its way onto the interwebs. Windows Blue build 9369 is now available (we will not tell you where, but you can easily find it). But are you really surprised? Every time there's a new version of Windows in development a leaked build somehow surfaces in the darker corners of the Internet. We can almost say that it's tradition and just a matter of time before the next one arrives.
Unlike the previous leak, Windows Blue build 9369 is only available in a 64 bit trim as far as I can tell and, depending on who is behind the leak, comes in at around 3.2 GB or 3.6 GB. There are also no telltale signs that Microsoft will name Windows Blue as Windows 8.1 further down the road, as was previously rumored. What we know, based on actual sources, is that the final name is not Windows Blue.
Microsoft announces general availability of IaaS support for Windows Azure
Microsoft has announced the general availability of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) support for Windows Azure. The software giant also unveiled a couple of new features for IaaS meant to beef up the company's cloud platform. Timing is interesting --Amazon's AWS (Amazon Web Services) Summit kicks off in New York tomorrow.
Windows Azure's IaaS support introduces the Virtual Machine and Virtual Network features, and "is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production apps", according to Microsoft's Scott Guthrie.
Wishing Windows well in its new role
"The era of PC dominance with Windows as the single platform will be replaced with a post-PC era where Windows is one of a variety of environments that IT will need to support", Van Baker, Gartner research vice president, says. The days of Windows as the applications and device hub are over.
The implications are huge for businesses, which must adapt to something else, too. While native mobile apps are all the rage today, their future is uncertain. Gartner forecasts that by 2016, more than half of those deployed will be hybrid, and that's good for any platform favoring HTML5, including Windows.
Windows 8 is the new XP
Microsoft's newest and oldest supported PC operating systems share some strange similarities. Windows 8 and XP launched during times of tepid computer sales, forecasts of low adoption and initially weak sales. Neither lifted PC shipments during the launch quarter. Yet the older software went on to be such a workhorse, as much as 40 percent of the install base clings to the OS -- nearly 12 years after launch. That's the future I see. Windows 8 isn't the new Vista, as so many pundits proclaim, but the new XP.
I am quite vocal about the changing of computer eras, a position taken up before Apple started selling iPhone in early summer 2007. But the change is a process gradual at first that accelerates over time. In the case of Windows or the typical personal computer set against cloud-connected devices there can be redefinition, and, with it, renewed relevance. No one should underestimate Microsoft or ignore the past when evaluating present trends. The PC and Windows died before and resurrected.
Does Patch Tuesday make your Windows 7 computer endlessly reboot?
For the most part Microsoft's Windows updates, known as Patch Tuesday, aim to fix problems as opposed to causing them. That is not always the case, and the most recent update, which took place this week, is a shining example of what happens when good intentions go bad.
On April 9th Microsoft released two "critical" security updates and seven others rated as "important" for both Windows and Internet Explorer as part of its latest round of updates, collectively covering 14 issues. However one of those fixes, labeled KB2823324 and aimed at the Windows 7 file system kernel-mode driver, went badly for some customers. The result was reports of blue screens of death (BSOD) and also infinite reboots.
Don't blame Windows 8 for weak PC shipments
Well, well, perhaps Windows 8 isn't cause for all the PC market's woes, as IDC strongly stated yesterday. Gartner's first-quarter assessment is grim but no reaper. The analyst firm lays blame partly on consumers unwillingness to pay more for touchscreen models and asserts that the business market actually grows. Also, the firms released contradictory data, with Apple showing glaring and shocking differences.
Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst, doesn't blame Windows 8: "Consumers are migrating content consumption from PCs to other connected devices, such as tablets and smartphones". The first factor pulling down PC shipments, which by Gartner estimates fell 11.2 percent globally during Q1, is tablet competition, then. Not Windows 8.
Microsoft beats Windows XP users into submission
What shameless exploitation. I know PC sales are slow, with Windows 8 giving no lift. So Microsoft resorts to this? Today, Stephen Rose issues an ultimatum: Windows XP support ends in 365 days. From April 8, 2014, there will be no more patches and updates for you.
How outrageous! Microsoft cuts off XP users thirteen-and-a-half years after releasing the operating system. My leather jacket is older, and the clothier who made it isn't forcing me to buy a new one. Nor does Texas Instruments demand I upgrade from the calculator purchased in college. If users want to run Windows XP forever, Microsoft should let them. Instead, it's compute at their own risks or upgrade.
Support for Windows XP ends a year from now, should you care?
In exactly 365 days Microsoft will stop offering support for its still widely used but venerable operating system. XP has certainly had a good run. Microsoft will have supported the OS for 12 years, which shows how incredibly popular it was (its success also perhaps speaks volumes about how much better than its successors it was perceived to be, I’m looking at you in particular Vista).
But now Microsoft is dropping extended support for XP, so what does that actually mean for consumers and businesses who are still using the OS?
Microsoft wins, even if the PC loses
I am simply stunned by the ridiculous number of "Microsoft will be dead in four years" stories, following Gartner's grim PC forecast three days ago. I offered brief analysis then and promised something later, and this is it. Yesterday, colleague Alan Buckingham posted first: "Microsoft is nowhere near death's door" -- and he absolutely is right.
Throw a rock, and you can't miss a doom-and-gloom armchair analysis. Among the many are "Gartner: Microsoft is dead, Windows has expired, Office has ceased to be" (Computerworld); "How long can Microsoft go on like this?" (InfoWorld); "Apple's ultimate victory over Microsoft" (Motley Fool); and "Gartner may be too scared to say it, but the PC is dead" (ReadWrite). For the most part, all these armchair pundits are mistaken. Hugely.
Gartner says the PC has no future
Today, Gartner offers grim prognostications for the PC's future, which is not surprising. That the analyst firm took so long disturbs and reveals much about how all these consultants seek to preserve client contracts before anything else. I've warned for years that connected-devices would diminish the personal computer's relevance, much like the mainframe's decline three decades ago. The PC era is over, as I asserted here 26 months ago. On Halloween 2008, I asked in a Microsoft Watch post: "Will your next PC be a smartphone?" What took Gartner so long? The "new device religion" analysis still misses the mark, too.
Following IDC's lead, Gartner now combines PCs, smartphones and tablets into a single forecast. By that measure, in 2012, Android worldwide device shipments (497 million) exceeded Windows (346.5 million) and will more than double (to 1.07 billion) by 2014. Analysts warn the operating system that defined the PC era will struggle with Apple iOS and OS X to be the second dominant platform. By many measures, the circumstance looks grim for Microsoft and Windows, and that's already the popular sentiment today among blog posts and news stories about Gartner's forecast. Don't believe them.
The next Windows won't be called Blue
Microsoft knows something about cool codenames, but little on how to name actual products. Whistler, Longhorn, Cougar, Blackcomb, Vienna and even Blue all sound great, resounding and promising, but that impression goes away fast when Microsoft baptizes its creations: XP, Vista or 7. The guy with the cool names went on a bathroom break, and all the boring suits took over.
That's the very same impression I get after reading about Microsoft's "Looking Back and Springing Ahead" blog post, which touts a number of apparently impressive achievements and future plans that the company has. Lo and behold, there's even a strategy in place to raise the pace for "updates and innovations" -- that's the "new normal across Microsoft", according to the company. But then I notice the Windows Blue reference.
Better late than never, Free Studio 2013 v6.1 supports Windows XP
DVDVideoSoft Ltd has released Free Studio 2013 v6.1, a minor update for its freeware media tools bundle for Windows PCs. The tool, which provides a front end of no less than 48 different tools for recording, downloading, converting and editing both audio and video, comes with the promise of unspecified improvements and new features.
Notable changes include adding Windows XP support to the recently released Free Video Call Recorder for Skype, which is now also available in additional 12 languages, including Chinese, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
Recent Headlines
Most Commented Stories
BetaNews, your source for breaking tech news, reviews, and in-depth reporting since 1998.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.