Tag Archives: microsoft

Windows laptop sales sink — but that’s just part of the problem

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Windows 8 PC sales aren’t trending well, according to a new report. And consumers’ addiction to low cost may be a factor.

A blurb on Friday from the NPD Group said Windows 8 holiday sales continue to not impress.

“The launch of Windows 8…did little to boost holiday sales or improve the yearlong Windows notebook sales decline,” NPD said.

More specifically, Windows laptop “holiday unit sales” were down 11 percent year-to-year, the market researcher said.

Want more deets? The average selling price of a Windows laptop rose a hair — $2 to $420, according to NPD.

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Meanwhile, the average selling price of a MacBook rose almost $100 to $1,419 on a sales drop of 6 percent.

via news.cnet.com

Steve Ballmer’s Nightmare Is Coming True

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Almost one year ago today, we laid out the nightmare scenario for Microsoft that could lead to its business collapsing.

After laying it all out, we concluded, “Fortunately for Microsoft, none of this is going to happen.”

We were wrong.

A lot changed in the last year.

Microsoft’s nightmare scenario is actually starting to take hold. We’re revisiting our slideshow from last year to see how things have played out.

via businessinsider.com

And Forbes writes, “Microsoft Is Fast Turning Into A Sideshow.”

Nobody ever got fired…

Microsoft to enable Linux on its Windows Azure cloud in 2012

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Summary: Microsoft is preparing to launch a new persistent virtual machine feature on its Azure cloud platform, enabling customers to host Linux, SharePoint and SQL Server there.

This headline is not an error. I didn’t have one too many craft brews over the New Year’s weekend.

Microsoft is poised to enable customers to make virtual machines (VMs) persistent on Windows Azure, I’ve heard from a handful of my contacts who’ve asked not to be identified.

What does this mean? Customers who want to run Windows or Linux “durably” (i.e., without losing state) in VMs on Microsoft’s Azure platform-as-a-service platform will be able to do so.

via ZDNet

 

Wow.

Microsoft upgrades Xbox Live with 40 entertainment services, live TV, and Kinect voice control | VentureBeat

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Calling it the future of TV, Microsoft is unveiling of a user interface for the Xbox 360 console???s dashboard; it is also unveiling dozens of new options for watching movies and TV on the game box. And Microsoft has improved the quality of using voice commands to move from one choice to another on the box or to search through all of the entertainment options at your disposal in an instant.

via venturebeat.com

If it’s the future, it isn’t television.