April, 2014

Does “One Microsoft” include Nokia, Xbox apps?

Last Friday, Microsoft and Nokia made it official, and now the Nokia devices and services businesses (apart from HERE Maps and location services) are now part of Microsoft. This morning, in a live blog session on the Nokia Conversations

That thing about acquisitions

Yesterday Apple released its 2nd quarter earnings, and in the earnings call Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that Apple has acquired some 24 companies in the last 18 months, and plans to keep looking for opportunities. Seemingly every …

The new, faster, responsive Microsoft… or is it?

Another day, another report of how the new, post Ballmer Microsoft is speeding up its cadence on delivering Windows, this time with Mary Jo Foley reporting that there may be another update to Windows 8.1 as early as this August. …

Microsoft to officially acquire Nokia Devices and Services business this Friday.

Microsoft made it official today, in a blog post on the Official Microsoft Blog by General Counsel Brad Smith, and will be completing the acquisition and “officially welcome the Nokia Devices and Services business as part of the Microsoft family” …

Cortana begins her move into the desktop with Bing personalized cards

Cortana, the Bing powered personal assistant now (sorta) available for Windows Phones (if you’ve installed the Windows Phone Developer Preview and upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1), has already begun to move more broadly into Bing products, including the Bing homepage …

One of the last vestiges of Windows Live, Admin Center, stumbles to the deadpool

It was bound to happen. The little used and almost never promoted but very useful Windows Live service, Admin Center (it started its life as Custom Domains, and was renamed back in November of 2007), is finally reaching end …

Enabling the Bing Knowledge Widget

One of the ways Bing is seeking to differentiate itself, and make the service more useful in more types of scenarios, is by the use of “entities” and their relationships, driven by what Microsoft calls “Sartori” (a Japanese …

Key takeaways from the Build Day One keynote

Today in San Francisco Microsoft opened the 2014 version of its Build developer’s conference with a three hour keynote featuring Cortana, Universal Windows Apps, appearances by Stephen Elop and Satya Nadella, and a few surprise announcements, including Windows for the …