Posts Tagged with ‘redmond’

This recurring subject of the Windows-Internet Explorer bundle’s anti-competitive behavior, as was recently reported once more by the BBC, is, I must say, a very tired one.
Yes, it is true that Microsoft packages its Internet browser with its operating systems sold both off the shelf and as partially-subsidized software for most new PCs. And no, that is not the ideal scenario other software manufacturers – Mozilla and Opera, to name just a couple – favor. They would, generally [...]

The subject of the Web search wars is almost entirely spent. Google is el leadero supremo. No getting around that. It is what it is. The company’s been live and kickin’ for about a decade, and in that time, it’s shown all other market participants that it’s the biggest swinging you-know-what around. It’s proven itself year after year to be an unrelenting force, achieving goals most anyone wouldn’t have predicted that it’d lay claim to. One might even wonder [...]

Here’s something to chew on: Microsoft wants to spend the next three to five years growing its online advertising market share by more than 300%.
What can you really say to such seemingly irrational ambition? Good luck, I suppose.
But really, if we’re honest, would it be right to expect any less pompous a plan to spew forth from Redmond? Considering the company’s history of public statements and prognostications, this memo seems like the kind of the thing they reflexively [...]

Well, it’s happened. Microsoft has made its investment in Facebook. 240 million bucks’ worth.
That translates to about a 1.6% stake for MSFT in the popular social network – if the $15 billion valuation of the company is anything of a solid number. Yes, Redmond’s got 1.6%, and Google and Yahoo! have: 0. Booyah, Larry, Serg, and Yang! Gates’ gang so showed you guys up.
Or something like that. Today, The New York Times report on the news opened with [...]

The Skype “outage” experienced late last week wouldn’t have been as newsworthy an item if it weren’t for the fact that millions use the service on a continual basis. (By the way, the servers are back up and running.)
In other words, Skype’s an essential component in the world of telephony, one that many, many, many people simple can’t do without. Yet they were forced to put their oh-so-cheap calls on hiatus for a day and a half. Why [...]

Just last week, Microsoft executives let known the company’s plan to introduce a number of Web-based applications in the months and years ahead. Already, there’s mention that an office suite may be coming down the pipeline.
If you read the headlines about Microsoft’s new Works suite (a sort of “dumbed-down” Office equivalent) that have hit the Web in the past few days, you most certainly noticed the keywords “free” and “ad-supported”. And perhaps you thought the day had come that it [...]

Microsoft executives met with financial analysts yesterday, as they do regularly. They wanted let the market folk know after many seasons of shrugs and grumblings that they do in fact notice Google, among other competitors, making significant inroads to supply businesses and individual consumers alike with feature-rich Web-based products and that they intend to transition a number of their own solutions to the Web, as well as offer new services which complement existing localized utilities like those found in [...]

What was originally generally known as Microsoft IPTV has had its label altered. It is now to be referred to as Mediaroom. Yep. Big news, huh?
In all seriousness, the announcement of Mediaroom is quite weighty, if only because Microsoft’s ties to content providers and distributors in the realm of IPTV are relationships with considerable value. Plus, with the name change come a few software updates, which include “in-home personal music and video sharing, dynamic picture-in-picture capabilities and digital terrestrial [...]