HP has given us a $300 coupon for our viewers who are interested in the HP Discover Conference, June 4-7, in Las Vegas. The code is "BLOG" and you can register at this unique URL: http://bit.ly/KWda69

This is HP's largest global conference for customers and partners attracting 10,000 IT executives, managers, architects, engineers, and solution experts from around the world. Join them to network and explore pivotal technology developments, best practices, and strategies. HP Discover 2012 features keynotes by IT thought leaders, the HP Discover Zone, and 800+ business and technical sessions.

At HP Discover 2012 you'll be part of things as HP:

The entertainment for HP's largest customer conference has always been something special, and the 2012 Thursday evening celebration upholds that tradition. This year's gathering features not one headliner, but two, beginning with Sheryl Crow followed by the legendary founding member of the Eagles, Don Henley.

Microsoft is informing customers of its Windows Azure cloud that it is rebranding many, if not all, of the component services in a way that eliminates the “Azure” name on its billing portal. “Windows Azure Compute” will now be known simply as “Cloud Services,” according to the Microsoft officials. SQL Azure is now known as “SQL Database.”

When Steve Jobs came back to run Apple in summer 1997, he famously told Apple's Mac fans "we need to get away from this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose." He then announced a $150 million investment in the then-struggling Apple by Microsoft - with Bill Gates joining the Macworld Expo announcement via satellite - and a commitment by Microsoft to keep Office for Mac on the market and at parity with the Windows version. That investment went a long way toward calming investor fears and set the stage for Jobs and team to reinvent and reinvigorate the Mac, then create the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad over the next decade. Fifteen years later, it appears that Microsoft has concluded that for Windows to survive, the iPad has to lose.

I’ll always remember my friends’ faces, when, nearly 7 years ago I announced I was moving to Seattle to go work for Microsoft. I was leaving Apple to be part of the nascent Microsoft Business Intelligence team and for someone who had spent his career in the Silicon Valley, the move was counterintuitive. As I am now getting ready to leave Microsoft for a Silicon Valley Start-up, I look back on my time in Seattle and I’m thankful for the things I’ve learned at the number one software company in the world. Below is a reflection of my personal views. While I realize others might have had different experiences, readers should know there is a lot to learn from this company, its culture and its people.

Microsoft is pitting its SkyDrive cloud storage against Apple’s iCloud and makes many valid points. However, cloud services aren’t a zero sum game. The software giant has launched a SkyDrive vs. iCloud comparison and makes a bevy of good points. As far as marketing SkyDrive goes, Microsoft’s effort is good for awareness.

Beginning in fiscal year 2013 (which starts this July 1), Microsoft will be carbon neutral across all our direct operations including data centers, software development labs, air travel, and office buildings. We recognize that we are not the first company to commit to carbon neutrality, but we are hopeful that our decision will encourage other companies large and small to look at what they can do to address this important issue.

The problem with sponsoring a horse at one of America’s most high profile races is what happens after the race. If you put a regular bet on a horse, all you lose is your money. Put the Microsoft name and a bit of PR effort behind the runner and you risk a lot more. So Windows Phone’s sponsoring of ‘Hansen’ at the Kentucky Derby was always going to be a risky move. There are far too many metaphors around horse racing for writers and editors to resist, especially when the favoured horse loses. Throw in a weekend with little hard news or popular software titles being updated in the Windows Marketplace… and you’ll get some classics.

Microsoft is pitching itself as the new best friend of American manufacturing in a campaign aimed at convincing state and federal authorities to crack down on software piracy. The company's argument: foreign manufacturers are slashing costs by ripping off software, giving them a competitive advantage over Americans playing by the rules.

News that Microsoft Windows 8 will ship without Media Center installed or a means of DVD playback has left users searching for alternatives. Most of the techie blogs seem to recommend VLC Media Player. This is a program many people will be familiar with as it has been around for a while. It started as an academic project developed by students in 1996 to stream video across the campus of the Ecole Centrale in Paris.

The Kinect for Windows SDK enables developers to create applications that support gesture and voice recognition, using Kinect sensor technology on computers running Windows 7, Windows 8 developer preview (desktop apps only), and Windows Embedded-based devices.

System Center 2012 - Virtual Machine Manager delivers industry leading fabric managment, virtual machine management and services deployment in private cloud environments.

Be sure to follow @ActiveWin on Twitter as we live tweet the HP Proliant Gen8 Techday at HP's Headquarters in Houston today and tomorrow. Track #Gen8 and #HPTechDay.

ActiveWin.com is at the HP Gen8 Event today in Houston. After two years of research and hundreds of millions in R&D investment, HP reveals its next initiative, HP ProLiant Gen8, also known as Project Voyager, which aims to redefine the economics and expectations of IT operations in the cloud era.

Microsoft's top Windows executive today said that the company will ship an almost-complete version of Windows 8 the first week of June. Stephen Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live division, announced the timing Tuesday at a developers event in Tokyo, according to a Twitter message by the company. Although Microsoft has traditionally dubbed such milestones "release candidate," or RC, to describe nearly-finished software, the Windows 8 build will be labeled "Release Preview," a nod to the naming of the earlier editions, Developer Preview and Consumer Preview.

There's been a wild rumor going around the business press that Facebook might buy Bing from Microsoft. The rumor, which started as a prediction in an e-book written by an "anonymous" marketing executive trying to cash in on Facebook's IPO, turns out to be truer than anyone could have guessed.

In response to an analyst question about the possibility of convergence between the tablet and the PC — a main selling point of touch-friendly Windows 8 — Cook said that he’s not interested in convergence for its own sake.

Our home media PC is getting a little long in the tooth. It’s always been a bit of a problem because we bought a horizontal case that would look pretty in our media room, rather than one optimized for holding PC hardware. Right now, the machine is just about three years old, hasn’t had a Windows reinstall in all that time, and has developed its own set of quirks. It’s getting near that time. It’s getting near that time when either a Windows reinstall is necessary, or its general crotchetiness will give us an excuse to build a spiffy, new machine. And that has had me thinking about whether we’ll just put our trusty copy of 64-bit Windows 7 on it, or hold out for Windows 8. That has had me thinking about whether I even want to run Windows 8, and that got me thinking about what it would take to make Windows 8 a real, acknowledged, indisputable success in the marketplace.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 Update 1 is the latest supported version of MDT, formerly known as Business Desktop Deployment (BDD). MDT 2010 Update 1 replaces all prior versions of MDT and BDD. It provides support for deployment of Windows 7, Office 2010, and Windows Server 2008 R2. MDT 2010 Update 1 is the upgrade path for users of older versions

Over the last year we’ve been hard at work building SkyDrive alongside Windows 8, setting out a unique approach to designing personal cloud storage for billions of people by bringing together the best aspects of file, app, and device clouds. Meanwhile, we’ve made our file cloud more accessible with HTML5 and mobile apps, improved integration with Office and 3rd party apps, and built a device cloud for Windows and Windows Phone. Today, we’re excited to take another big step towards our vision by making SkyDrive far more powerful. There are new storage options, apps that connect your devices to SkyDrive, and a more powerful device cloud that lets you “fetch” any file from a Windows PC. Taken together with access from popular mobile phones and a browser, you can now take your SkyDrive with you anywhere, connect it to any app that works with files and folders, and get all the storage you need—making SkyDrive the most powerful personal cloud storage service available.

The System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SDK provides information applicable to administrators who want to automate Configuration Manager through script and to developers adding features and extensions to base Configuration Manager functionality.

The Microsoft Camera Codec Pack enables the viewing of a variety of device-specific file formats in Window Live Photo Gallery as well as other software that is based in Windows Imaging Codecs (WIC). Installing this package will allow supported RAW camera files to be viewable in Windows Explorer.

The Microsoft Enterprise Library Integration Pack for Windows Azure is an extension to the Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0 that can be used with Windows Azure. It includes the Autoscaling Application Block, the Transient Fault Handling Application Block, a protected configuration provider and the Blob configuration source.

The Web Deployment Tool simplifies the migration, management and deployment of IIS Web servers, Web applications and Web sites. Administrators can use command-line scripting with the Web Deployment Tool to synchronize IIS 6.0, IIS 7.0 and IIS 8.0 servers or to migrate an IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0 servers to IIS 8.0. The Web Deployment Tool also enables administrators and delegated users to use IIS Manager to deploy ASP.NET and PHP applications to an IIS 7.0 and later servers.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up-to-date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so you’re free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times. Before installing Microsoft Security Essentials, we recommend that you uninstall other antivirus software already running on your PC. Running more than one antivirus program at the same time can potentially cause conflicts that affect PC performance.

When installed with Office applications, this converter allows you to be able to open, edit, and save files in the Works Word Processor file format supported by the Works versions 6, 7, 8, and 9.

John has posted his comprehensive review of Apple's new iPad 3. Here is an excerpt:

Since my last review, the applications have gotten better. Many applications have gotten better, fully supporting iPad screen natively, in a single app built for both the iPad and IPHONE platforms.Companies like Microsoft finally brought out an OneNote client for iPad, and it is a step forward. They still need some work on the app to bring it to where it needs to be for a tablet application. Other applications that I use Teamveiwer, LogMeIn, Blackboard for College, NetFlix, iTunes University,iBooks, IMO.IM, DropBox, Dragon Dictation, and several PMP apps, MobileRSS and EC Council apps. Maturity in the app market has definitely come, with room to grow. Microsoft Office for the iPad is still something that is highly desired and wanted, by many including me. I still have not spent anything on any apps, I am getting close to purchasing one, but not there yet. A minor issue is the App updates, sometimes there are 2-5 a day every day, and sometimes twice a day. I thought it was bad in the early days with MS updates, but it seams every time I look there are updates to install.

Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha pulled off one of the most difficult things to do in the technology industry: He surprised people at a press conference.

When Jha took the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 and revealed the Motorola Atrix smartphone and the "Lapdock" that made it act like a laptop computer, it sent reporters scrambling.

Computerworld - Microsoft last Friday pulled an Office for Mac 2011 major update from its upgrade servers, acknowledging bugs that have corrupted the Outlook database on some machines.

Microsoft has kicked off what it calls a "two-year countdown" to the death of Windows XP and the Office 2003 productivity suite.

Separately, Microsoft announced that Windows Vista, the problem-plagued operating system that never really took hold among customers, exited mainstream support on April 10.

We hope you’ll take a look at these new features in Windows Intune and consider how they can help you in your business. For those of you interested, we’re offering a limited opportunity to try out some key features coming in the next release, including the self-service Company Portal. To learn about the new features, see What’s New in Windows Intune. I also encourage you to check out and test the current version of Windows Intune and see what it can do for your business – you can sign up for a free 30 day trial or purchase the service and receive updates to the next release when it becomes commercially available.

Microsoft is officially taking the wraps off the next version of its Windows Intune PC management and security service on April 18 at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 show. I blogged earlier this week about the expected feature set for the coming Windows Intune release, which Microsoft has confirmed in an April 18 blog post. As of today, Microsoft is allowing interested testers to sign up for the beta (or, as it is known in its documentation, “the April pre-release,” of its PC management and security service) to testers.

Follow us on Twitter for photos and coverage of the Microsoft Management Summit 2012 Keynote, Day 2.

Microsoft has now cleared up at least one mystery about Windows 8 with the announcement that only two versions will be available for conventional desktop and notebook PCs. (The third edition, Windows RT, is only for ARM-powered devices that are still months away from entering the market.) New PCs sold through consumer channels will mostly come with Windows 8. No fancy marketing label, nothing to say it’s a home or consumer edition. It’s a base—perfectly useful for most consumers and small businesses. What’s especially refreshing is that the list of features available in the Pro edition is short and to the point. There’s no need for complex matrixes to explain what’s in each edition (for Vista I needed two separate posts, and for Windows 7 it took me six pages, although the breakdown was more rational than in Vista).

Identifying potential keywords and determining bids can be a daunting and time-consuming task for advertisers - Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (MAI) is a keyword research and optimization tool that improves ROI by taking the time, pain and guesswork out of the process. MAI helps users expand their keyword lists with relevant keywords, and set bids that are more likely to win auctions and increase relevant traffic. MAI operates seamlessly within Microsoft Office Excel, allowing users to manipulate data using their favorite familiar Excel tools – like pivot tables, filters, sorts and graphs. Keyword data provided is based on Bing and Yahoo! owned and operated sites, as well as search syndicated partners.

On April 16, Microsoft officials unsurprisingly revealed that the final name of Windows 8 on most PCs and tablets would be “Windows 8.” The name of Windows 8 on ARM tablets, surprisingly, is Windows RT — not to be confused (ha!) with the WinRT Windows Runtime which is the crux of the Windows 8 Metro-Style development platform. On April 17, Microsoft officials said during the opening keynote of the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2012 in Las Vegas that the final name of Windows Server 8 will be “Windows Server 2012.”

Since the Microsoft codename “Agave” first leaked last month via The Verge, I’ve been looking for more information about what this coming Office 15 technology will do. Ironically, my search led me back to an article I wrote in August 2011 about coming Web extensions for Office 15. These HTML5 and JavaScript add-ons for extending Office 15 applications are what are currently known among Office 15 testers as “Agaves.”

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 is the newest version of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, a Solution Accelerator for operating system and application deployment. MDT 2012 supports deployment of Windows 7, Office 2010 and 365, and Windows Server 2008 R2 in addition to deployment of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP.

The countdown has begun for the landmark entertainment event millions of fans worldwide have been anticipating for more than four years. “Halo 4,” the hotly anticipated sequel to the iconic franchise that has shaped entertainment history, will launch worldwide on Nov. 6, 2012. “Halo 4” marks the return of legendary hero Master Chief, named by Fast Company as “one of the most popular characters in gaming history,”1 and aims to set a new standard for blockbuster interactive entertainment with the launch. Set four years after the events in “Halo 3,” Master Chief returns to confront his destiny and face an ancient evil that threatens the fate of the entire universe. Developed by 343 Industries, “Halo 4” marks a new beginning for the landmark entertainment franchise that has sold more than 40 million games worldwide and inspired multiple New York Times best-selling novels, live-action shorts, comic books, action figures and apparel.

Watch the Keynotes LIVE Brad Anderson, CVP Management and Security Division will be presenting: Microsoft Private Cloud. Built for the Future. Ready Now. April 17 | 8:30AM - 9:45AM

Last week, Tony Scott was in Pittsburgh and was gracious enough to spend some time with ActiveWin.com to highlight his role as CIO at Microsoft, as well as to discuss some recent internal IT success, among other things. Here is an excerpt:

ActiveWin.com (Bob Stein): Being a software company, Microsoft is always in the spotlight for its products. As CIO, how do you leverage Microsoft's own products for the company's internal IT? Do you have access to all the latest and greatest?

Tony Scott: We eat our own “dogfood” long before our enterprise customers taste it. Internally, the program is called “Microsoft’s First & Best Customer” because Microsoft IT is the first customer of Microsoft’s enterprise products. We run alpha and beta versions of products and services in production environments to help improve product quality and test enterprise scenarios for the product teams. Then we later publish our experiences with the products and services in the form of white papers and videos as part of Microsoft IT Showcase. Your readers can BING it – Microsoft IT Showcase. As an example, we run a very large SAP ERP system, a single instance that has been running on Beta software of SQL Server 2012 since November 2011. To give another example, we have over 23,000 systems and 19,000 employees using Windows 8, testing new features and new hardware. We recently completed a couple of Big Data demonstrations, using Hadoop running on Windows Server. This demonstration was the proving ground for investment in this area, to start generating business insight from user behavior data on a much larger scale than we have been able to do before.

Microsoft and Google aren't going head to head just over Internet search, office productivity suites and cloud-based applications and services. Their next looming battle is over who will own the living room, and the outcome will have surprising implications for IT as well.

What do Kourtney Kardashian, Vernon Davis, and Stephanie Izard have in common: They're all shilling for Microsoft as part of an usual marketing stunt running today only, Monday, April 9, to frame recently launched Windows Phones like the Nokia Lumia 900 as simpler and faster than the competition.

The global gold rush in technology patents gained speed on Monday when Microsoft agreed to pay more than $1 billion for 800 patents held by AOL.

Microsoft yesterday kicked off what it called a "two-year countdown" to the death of Windows XP, its longest-lived operating system. Windows XP and the business productivity suite Office 2003 both exit all support on April 8, 2014, a company spokeswoman said in a Monday blog post.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which has lost considerable market share in recent quarters to rival browsers, halted its decline, at least temporarily, as it gained market share against Google Chrome and Firefox in March, according to the latest data.

The company, which once portrayed the open-source OS kernel as a form of cancer, has been ranked 17th on a tally of the largest code contributors to Linux.

called Citibank in January pretending to be Allen and changed the address on one of Allen's accounts from Seattle to Pittsburgh, then called back three days later to say he had lost his debit card and asked for a new one to be sent to him, an FBI investigator wrote in a criminal complaint filed in February. The card sent to Allen's address was used to attempt a $15,000 Western Union transaction and make a $658.81 payment on the Armed Forces Bank loan account the day it was activated, according to the complaint. Surveillance footage also captured him attempting purchases at a video game store and a dollar store, authorities alleged.

Microsoft has updated this idea for the 21st century, with "Project Detroit" - a 2012 Ford Mustang with a 1967 fastback body, multiple touch screens, a wireless network, a heads-up display with telemetry and maps, an Xbox 360 with Kinect, a rear-windshield projector screen, Kinect cameras providing a live feed of people and objects in front of and behind the car, external speakers, customizable car-horn "ringtones" and the ability to remotely find, unlock and start the car using Windows Phone apps.

The same is true of Apple and Google with iOS and Android, respectively. Both smartphone platform progenitors offer goods and services that are only available to their respective smartphones-and that's the way it should be. Take iTunes in the cloud, for example. iTunes is Apple's cash cow, so why would it want to make that available to Google? Same goes for Google.

Microsoft seemingly has released to manufacturing its systems-management suite of products, known as System Center 2012, and is making them available for download by its volume-license customers as of this past weekend. Microsoft made available a release candidate of the handful of System Center 2012 products it is integrating into a single deliverable back in late January 2012. Company officials have declined to say since then when the family would be released to manufacturing. I’ve asked company officials when System Center 2012 RTM’d and when non-volume licensees can get access to the products. No word back so far.

Apple's 1997 "Think Different" marketing campaign was one of its most memorable ever. Billboards and banners featured huge black-and-white portraits of performers, artists, scientists, and political leaders whose outsider ideas eventually became mainstream. The implicit message was that Apple's "insanely great" products were for quirky rebels who would one day dominate the world. The photo of Steve Jobs on the cover of his posthumous biography would have fit right in. The Apple of today is turning its back on that creative class. Apple no longer designs for creators of digital media, who tend to be very demanding about product quality. Instead, Apple builds for consumers—in both senses of the word: people who spend their own money, rather than their companies', and people who consume digital media, as opposed to people who produce it. Focusing on digital consumption has made Apple wildly profitable, but the company's products have trended downwards in quality, flexibility, and even reliability.

Whether it’s Windows on their office PC, an Xbox 360 powering their video games and entertainment, Hotmail for their email or some collaboration platform helping their work projects, Microsoft’s software products permeate many aspects of people’s lives. Given that, it’s often tempting to think you might know everything about one of the world’s most prominent companies. However, Microsoft still has the capacity to surprise people who haven’t necessarily followed it closely.

FiftyThree Inc. — the developer of a new content-creation app for the iPad called Paper — is led by a roster of former Microsoft Courier and Xbox designers and developers. Another new Courier-like app launched this week from Tapose, a company backed by former Microsoft Courier champion J Allard.

Microsoft and Motorola Mobility are nearing two key decisions on patent infringement. But the software giant might have just played an important card to keep its products on store shelves.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Microsoft has announced its upcoming Kinect for Windows update will support more languages including regional English variations

Microsoft's Kinect for Windows was released earlier this year with the firm wanting developers to use its Kinect sensor array and software development kit to build industrial applications. Microsoft's second version of the software will be available by the end of May and will support several more languages, including extensive regionalised support for English.

Microsoft has acknowledged that someone managed to beat it at its own game in a mobile promotion that no one was supposed to win.

The software giant has been running a contest where, at certain Microsoft Store locations, it challenges people with an Android phone or iPhone to beat a Windows Phone-toting Microsoft employee in a specific challenge

Microsoft has announced it is open sourcing more of its ASP.NET programming-framework technologies — and that it will allow developers outside of Microsoft to submit patches and code contributions for potential inclusion in these products.

Microsoft killed the Courier tablet concept in favor of Windows 8 tablets, but the idea behind it has now found a new home, as an iPad app. After four months of reviewing the app, Apple approved Taposé, an app that mimics the functionality seen in the concept videos for the now defunct Microsoft Courier tablet project.

Andre has posted another how-to article on Windows 8, this one specifically on using remote desktop step-by-step following along with 12 screenshots.

Andre has posted his second how-to article, this time on organizing tiles in the Windows 8 start screen. Andre goes step-by-step, with ten screenshots, describing how it is down. Check it out!

iSCSI Software Target is an optional Windows Server component that provides centralized, software-based and hardware-independent iSCSI disk subsystems in storage area networks (SANs).

You can get specific information about this update in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Office Proofing Tools 2007 (KB2526293).

I've been playing around with the Windows 8 preview for several weeks. I loaded it onto a several-year old Dell laptop, in part because that's what I had available and in part to see what users of traditional PCs can expect from the new software. I hope to eventually test out the software on a tablet. My conclusion: For PC users, Windows 8 is a major misstep

The Microsoft Drivers 3.0 for SQL Server for PHP are PHP 5 extensions that allows for the reading and writing of SQL Server data from within PHP scripts. The SQLSRV extension provides a procedural interface while the PDO_SQLSRV extension implements PDO for accessing data in all editions of SQL Server 2005 and later

Microsoft’s getting into the Hadoop game, and people are skeptical. Can Microsoft really embrace open source technology? And if it can, will it end up co-opting it somehow, or will it truly play nice? Would you even want to run Hadoop on the Windows operating system? Why bother? Why care?

Microsoft said it is building support for multiple screen resolutions into its new Windows 8 operating system, including support for resolutions that will match the new iPad screen's sharpness and clarity.

Although many view Apple as a leading pioneer of mainstream computing innovation, it would still be rather difficult to imagine a world as technologically advanced as ours without the efforts of its long-standing rival Microsoft. Now one of the co-founders of the Redmond, Washington software giant, Paul Allen, has announced plans to commit $300 million to blaze a new trail in another vital area of research: understanding how the brain works.

I saw something cool this week at Microsoft’s Convergence user conference that convinced me that anyone who thinks Microsoft isn’t a player against Apple’s IOS and Google’s Android needs to think twice. Make that three times. Trying out Windows 8 on a Samsung tablet and a Lenovo laptop/tablet hybrid made me wish I could justify adding one more techy toy to my collection.

Why would anyone want to do that? "To learn more about the business opportunity of Windows 8, see Selling Apps," the posting says early on. Ultimately that leads to a site with this enticement: "With successful apps on Windows, you'll make more money than the industry standard, earning 80% of every customer dollar, after an app makes more than 25,000 USD in sales. For the first 25,000 USD of an app's sales, you get the industry-standard 70%."

"Project Detroit," a concept car created to inspire developers to think about building apps and automotive technologies of the future. The car incorporates Microsoft technologies such as Kinect for Xbox 360, Xbox 360, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Windows Azure, Bing, Ford Sync and more.

Microsoft this week outlined a clear plan to deliver its Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) software as cloud-delivered services. Microsoft has some credibility here, drawing on its experience delivering Dynamics CRM Online. But is it moving fast enough with its cloud strategy, and will the company really change its Microsoft-biased ways? These were questions many Dynamics customers had in mind before attending this week's Microsoft Business Solutions Convergence Conference in Houston, Texas. They were reassured, for the most part, as Microsoft laid out a sensible and fairly aggressive roadmap for its various ERP software products (GP, NAV, and AX) and its Dynamics CRM application. Microsoft also vowed it would have "multi-platform, multi-device" mobile support. This must mean Apple iOS and Android OS tablets and smartphones, but top Microsoft executives including COO Kevin Turner and Microsoft Business Solutions president Kirill Tatarinov couldn't bring themselves to name names.

Putting Windows 8 on sale in October would allow Microsoft to take advantage of the busy holiday season. Presumably, that could give retailers selling Windows 8 devices a nice marketing boost. That’s a good thing if you consider how depressed the current PC market is right now.

“In a nutshell, if you’ve got more than four physical cores in each processor, you’re going to pay more to deploy 2012 than you would have to deploy SQL Server 2008 R2 on the same system,” Miller said. Final figures will vary to some degree, given a user’s volume-licensing agreement terms, he added. On a system with eight or more cores, SQL Server 2012 Enterprise now costs more (by just a few dollars) than the same system running SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter, Miller said. At every point a server running Enterprise edition of 2012 is licensed with 8 cores per processor, it now costs more than Datacenter did in the old per-processor model with 2008 R2. This could be why Microsoft eliminated the Datacenter SKU with the 2012 release, he said, since per-core helps Microsoft adjust the licensing to finally charge for systems with core-dense processors.

"Some people are trying the new Internet Explorer and actually liking it. Not that they would say that out loud. Curious? It's a new browser"

Windows 8 delivers the opportunity for you to create engaging games that reach the broadest audience, and run across a wide range of devices. In this session, learn the essentials of the new Windows 8 game development and application environment, including the Windows Runtime, CoreWindow, DirectX 11.1, Process Lifetime Management, asynchronous execution, and C++/Cx. We will also demonstrate Visual Studio capabilities for debugging 3D applications, managing code and basic content types like shaders, textures, and meshes in both design-time and run-time formats. Each key step will be illustrated with code from a Windows 8 SDK sample app such as MarbleMaze or Simple3DGame.

•Windows Live Essentials includes Windows Live Messenger, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Writer, Family Safety, Windows Live Mesh, Bing Bar, Messenger Companion, Microsoft Silverlight, and Outlook Connector Pack (Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector and Social Connector Provider for Windows Live Messenger). You can install just a few of these programs or all of Windows Live Essentials.

System Center 2012 CTP for Windows Server "8" Beta - Virtual Machine Manager delivers industry leading fabric managment, virtual machine management and services deployment in private cloud environments through the Virtual Machine Manager component.

Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server is the latest update of AppFabric, a set of integrated technologies that make it easier to build, scale, and manage Web and composite applications that run on IIS.

Andre has posted his review of the powerhouse workstation HP has sent us to review, the Z210 SFF. Here is an excerpt:

A few years ago I made a vow to myself that I would not invest in another desktop because the tradeoffs they required such as desktop real estate, weight, separate keyboard, mouse and of course a monitor were becoming too much. My belief at the time was and still is, laptops are getting more powerful each year and even some models from major brands such as HP could make a good desktop replacement. There is just one area laptops have not caught up and that is raw power. Desktops remain a good choice because of the choice components used and a little thing called expandability. This review takes a look at a system unit from Hewlett Packard, the Z210 Workstation which out of the box packs a punch in a sleek slim line unit that not only is perfect for cramped spaces but offers little compromise allowing you to easily add and upgrade components with its easy to open chassis. Let’s take a look at the specifications:

"Friends, the final and complete version of Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2012, by Ross Mistry (@RossMistry) and Stacia Misner (@StaciaMisner), is now ready as a free download!"

This DVD5 ISO image file contains the security updates for Windows released on Windows Update on March 13, 2012. The image does not contain security updates for other Microsoft products. This DVD5 ISO image is intended for administrators that need to download multiple individual language versions of each security update and that do not use an automated solution such as Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). You can use this ISO image to download multiple updates in all languages at the same time.

Provides a visual reference for understanding key Hyper-V technologies in Windows Server “8” Beta and focuses on Hyper-V Replica, networking, virtual machine mobility (live migration), storage, failover clustering, and scalability.

"Yes, I'm going on a rant here. And, yes, this time it's personal. I'm sort of amazed I need to communicate this. After all, you're a power user, right? But I am distressed at the absolute lack of sophistication I see here. And it needs to stop. All I'm looking for is a little common sense: Either test the Windows 8 Consumer Preview or don't. But if you're intent on using it as if it were Windows 7, please, I'm begging you. Stop wasting your time. And stop wasting mine. "

The Metro part is cool, clean, fast, and -as we heard a zillion times in Microsoft's Consumer Preview release presentation - fluid. The legacy desktop looks every inch like Windows 7 and, with a few infuriating exceptions and some amazing improvements, works much the same way. How will Windows-savvy users respond to the new touchy-feely OS? In my experience, with rare exceptions, longtime Windows users don't like Windows 8. There's too much change, and it isn't at all clear that the adjustments benefit people who've grown accustomed to mice and "legacy" programs. I've been living and breathing Windows 8 for months now, and I'm still not used to the jarring switch between Metro and legacy modes. It doesn't help that the Metro Start screen has only one level of organization.

Microsoft Kinect ditched the game controller. Now, "Beamtron" is threatening the screen. Over the past couple of weeks, Microsoft researchers have showed off several innovations, including Beamtron, that further blur the line between real and virtual. Beamtron uses a pan-tilt unit, such as those often found attached to spotlights in dance clubs, Microsoft researcher Andy Wilson explained in a video (posted above). "What we've done is replace the spotlight with a projector and a Kinect camera."

The bad news? Microsoft's upcoming IE10 browser for Windows 8 will come in two flavors-one a streamlined, "Metro-style" program designed to resemble a smartphone or tablet app, the other a more standard desktop browser. In other words, everyone who wants to use IE10 will have to choose which flavor they want-and could even end up switching from one to the other mid-task. Microsoft is clearly thumbing the scales toward the Metro version of the browser, although it knows that some, possibly many, users will still prefer a more familiar and more fully fledged desktop version.

Andre has posted up an article on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, on how to search step-by-step with 12 screenshots. "If you have a lot of data stored on your Windows 8 PC’s search can be a lifesaver when looking for that one needle in your haystack. Thanks to the many search improvements in both Windows 7 and Vista, searching for files is easier than ever. Windows 8 harnesses those benefits by bringing search enhancements to this new release. With the new Start Screen, there are some added improvements for finding just what you want. "

Intel's launch Tuesday of the latest model Xeon server processors featured testimonials from several early adopters of the E5-2600 line, who lauded the performance and security of systems powered by the new processors.

Arguably the most ringing endorsement, however, came from Expedient Communications systems engineering and product development vice president Alex Rodriguez. The cloud executive said that improved AES-NI technology in the Intel processors allowed his company to implement robust encryption and handle workloads from clients with high security requirements without compromising performance.

The Base ImageX Server is a virtual machine that can be hosted in Hyper-V that allows a user to test out the latest Business Intelligence features of SQL Server 2012 – RC0. The virtual machine has been configured to support the use of PowerView reports, PowerPivot Excel documents and various content packs allowing the user to explore the capabilities of SQL Server 2012. Working with the demos that can be installed on the ImageX server the user will have a clear picture of how the SQL Server 2012, Office and SharePoint tools support and enhance the self-service business intelligence environment.

IIS 8.0 Express enhances your ability to develop and test web applications on Windows by combining the power of IIS 8.0 with the convenience of a lightweight web server like the ASP.NET Development Server (also known as Cassini). IIS Express 8.0 is included with Microsoft WebMatrix, an integrated suite of tools designed to make developing web applications on Windows simple and seamless. IIS 8.0 Express can also be used with Visual Studio 2010 and later as a powerful alternative to Cassini.

Asynchronous, event-driven "reactive" programming is way too hard in today's world of development tools and frameworks. The huge amount of manual and error-prone plumbing leads to incomprehensible and hard to maintain code. As we reach out to services in the cloud, asynchronous programming is the way of life, requiring a fresh look on the problems imposed by reactive programming. Centered around the concept of observable data sequences, Reactive Extensions (Rx) provides a framework that takes care of the hard parts of reactive event stream programming. Instead of getting lost in the jungle of asynchrony complexity, you now can start dreaming about the endless possibilities of composing queries over asynchronous data sources.

Download SQL Server 2012 Data Mining Add-ins for Office 2010. This package includes two add-ins for Microsoft Office Excel 2010 (Table Analysis Tools and Data Mining Client) and one add-in for Microsoft Office Visio 2010 (Data Mining Templates).

A lot can happen in 10 years, and that's an understatement when it comes to malware: According to new data released by Microsoft this week, the number of malware variants went from 1,000 in 1991 to millions in 2011. In celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the launch of its Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft published a special edition of its Security Intelligence Report (SIR). "What we wanted to do from the Security Intelligence Report was look at the past 10 years and how the threat landscape" has evolved, said Tim Rains, director of Microsoft's TwC. "A lot of these samples were new variants of a same family."

Microsoft is currently testing a Technical Preview version of Office 15, its next-generation office productivity suite. A small number of third-party partners, OEMs, and businesses have access to the code, but Microsoft is staying mum on the exact features of its next release. We previously took a closer look at Office 15 with detailed screenshots of its new Metro inspired interface, showing off the clean and simple look for the future of Office. Today we are able to share details on a number of new and improved features in each of the core applications for Office 15, thanks to several people with access to the early Technical Preview code. From Touch and Reading Mode to a Weather Bar feature in Outlook 15, we have exclusive details on Microsoft's plans — read on to find out more.

Microsoft may have been caught flat-footed by the explosion of new consumer technologies, but it’s using its continuing strength among business customers to try to recover its position. Specifically, Microsoft believes in a blurred line between tablets and personal computers that will be good for businesses, said Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner in a speech at the CeBIT trade show here. And Microsoft believes that Windows 8 will help companies welcome, not reject, the fact that employees bring their own technology into the office.

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8 Consumer Preview enables IT administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on computers that are running Windows Server "8" Beta from a remote computer that is running Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0 is a free, embedded database that software developers can use for building ASP.NET websites and Windows desktop applications. SQL Server Compact 4.0 has a small footprint and supports private deployment of its binaries within the application folder, easy application development in Visual Studio and WebMatrix, and seamless migration of schema and data to SQL Server.

Microsoft DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant (DCA) 2.0 Beta can be used by computers running Windows 7 when connecting to internal corporate networks with DirectAccess in Windows 8 Server Beta. DCA 2.0 Beta improves the DirectAccess connection experience for these clients, and helps organizations reduce the cost of supporting DirectAccess users.

Domain Specific Languages (DSL Tools) and Architecture Tools SDK for Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Beta. This SDK provides tools and templates for building Domain Specific Language designers, extending UML and Layer designers and the build tasks for code indexing. You can build your own graphical or form-based designers for Visual Studio 11 Beta and extend existing tools.

The Windows Azure SDK for Java provides client libraries and tools to allow Java developers to quickly and easily create applications that run on Windows Azure or leverage Windows Azure services such as Windows Azure Storage or Service Bus. This page compiles information about some of the resources available for Java developers. For more information about Windows Azure and the Windows Azure SDK for Java, see the Windows Azure Java Developer Center.

IIS 7.5 Express enhances your ability to develop and test web applications on Windows by combining the power of IIS 7.5 with the convenience of a lightweight web server like the ASP.NET Development Server (also known as Cassini). IIS 7.5 Express is included withMicrosoft WebMatrix, an integrated suite of tools designed to make developing web applications on Windows simple and seamless.

This software is a pre-release version. Features and behavior are likely to change before the final release. This preview release is designed to enable the community to experience and review the preliminary designs and direction of key features in Windows PowerShell 3.0 and to solicit feedback before features are finalized. Please download and read the release notes for important information related to changes in behavior from Windows PowerShell 2.0 and a list of known issues with this release. Bugs and Suggestions may be logged through Microsoft Connect. Windows Management Framework 3.0 makes some updated management functionality available to be installed on Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 & Windows Server 2008 SP2. Windows Management Framework 3.0 contains Windows PowerShell 3.0, WMI & WinRM.

The Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 Beta is a highly compatible, in-place update to the .NET Framework 4. By using the .NET Framework 4.5 Beta together with the C# or Visual Basic programming languages, you can write Windows Metro style apps. The .NET Framework 4.5 Beta includes significant language and framework enhancements for C# and Visual Basic so that you can harness asynchrony, the blending of control flow in synchronous code, a responsive UI, and web app scalability. The .NET Framework 4.5 Beta adds substantial improvements to other functional areas such as ASP.NET, Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), and Windows Identity Foundation (WIF). The .NET Framework 4.5 Beta delivers better performance, reliability, and security.

This new service, in technical preview availability, will also allow customers to utilize the AWS Storage Gateway, a software appliance with cloud-based storage using Amazon's Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), to asynchronously write customer data bi-directionally between the SunGard Enterprise Cloud and AWS's storage infrastructure, providing customers an added layer of data protection for their data. The service will be architected by SunGard and will utilize both SunGard and AWS technologies.

Check out the video on their cloud services.

Bill Lang: The beta of Windows Server “8” is now available for IT professionals and software developers around the world to download, to evaluate, and to give us feedback on. In September we introduced Windows Server “8” with a preview to help developers and hardware partners prepare new and existing applications, systems and devices. The response from that community, along with hundreds of customers in our early adopters program, has been incredibly positive. A common theme of feedback has been how broad and deep the new capabilities are. Now is the time for you, IT professionals in organizations of all sizes, to get your hands on this new release, discover the new capabilities and contribute to the development of what we call the cloud-optimized OS. I’ll highlight in this post just a few examples of new capabilities that you’ll want to explore

Ten years ago things looked bleak for Microsoft. It was in the aftermath of an antitrust clubbing and faced other legal actions across the globe. As bad as things were, its products still remained dominant in the market. One big problem Microsoft had, which they decided to 'fess up about and address squarely, was security. Bill Gates wrote one of his strategic memos to the company outlining a vision. In 10 years, Gates said, computing would be involved in just about everything we do. Microsoft had been delinquent in assuring the security of its products and this had to change, including the embracing of security throughout the development cycle. January 12 was the 10th anniversary of this memo.

The Azure service health dashboard showed only one problem at 3 p.m. GMT, a "performance degradation" in the south-central U.S. Compute zone. "Our recovery efforts to restore compute service to impacted customers in this sub-region are complete," Microsoft said in a message on the site. However, "a small number of customers in this sub-region may face long delays during service management operations," it added. Azure's service management component fared the worst during the outage, going out worldwide starting at 1:45 a.m. GMT on Wednesday. The dashboard showed the service management system running normally at 3 p.m. GMT on Thursday, as were other previously affected pieces of the Azure platform, including Reporting, Marketplace and Access Control 2.0.

Business sales are important to the hardware makers for other reasons too. Apple does not yet dominate that market. Windows 8 will matter to Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo and other makers of personal computers. Dell and H.P., in particular, have recently seen sharply lower sales, both to businesses and consumers. A great new operating system could drive lots of sales, and not just for PCs. Companies often make new operating systems a reason for system-wide upgrades of their computers. Windows Vista, which was poorly received, was a disaster for hardware makers.

Unlike Windows 8 on Intel or AMD chips–and every prior version of Windows–there will be no version of the WOA software that users can buy separate from computers. Nor can users install apps in any way but by downloading them from Microsoft’s app store (they will be able to upgrade the OS through that mechanism, too).

For two reasons. First, because Windows 8 works fluidly and briskly on touch screens; it’s a natural fit. And second, it attains that success through a design that’s all Microsoft’s own. This business of the tiles is not at all what Apple designed for iOS, or that Google copied in Android.

The Solution Accelerators team is pleased to announce Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 RC1 is available for download on Connect now. New features and enhancements make large-scale desktop and server deployments smoother than ever!

With IE10 in Windows 8, we reimagined the browser. We designed and built IE10 to be the best way to experience the Web on Windows. Consumers can now enjoy more touch-friendly and beautiful, fast and fluid Web applications with the updated IE10 engine included in the Windows Consumer Preview. This fifth Platform Preview of IE10 delivers improved performance and support for more HTML5.

We just posted 30+ screenshots of the new Windows 8 Consumer Preview released today, build 8250. Check them out to see if your time is worth spending to download and install, or stay tuned for our comprehensive preview from Andre Da Costa.

The wait is over. Get Visual Studio 11 Beta today and start preparing for the next generation of development. You can’t predict the future, but you can get there first.

A modern computing device must do certain things, right out of the box. It must connect you to the web and to social networks. It must enable communications with your friends and family and co-workers. It must play music and video. It must provide a framework for extending its capabilities with apps that are easy to discover and install. Those capabilities require a blend of hardware, software, and services that collectively add up to an experience, which is much more than a list of features or a page of specs or a collection of screenshots.

Windows Server “8” offers businesses and hosting providers a scalable, dynamic, and multitenant-aware, cloud-optimized infrastructure. It securely connects across premises and allows IT Professionals to respond to business needs faster and more efficiently. Windows Server “8” offers developers a broad, scalable, and elastic server platform. Using a common set of languages and tools, it provides the flexibility to build and deploy applications and websites on-premises, in the cloud and in a hybrid environment.

Through Windows Server "8" Beta we've brought our cloud experience to you—from building and operating public clouds to delivering the most dynamic, available, and cost-effective server platform for the private cloud. It provides solutions to help you cloud optimize your IT so you can fully meet your organization's unique needs.

Here are answers to some common questions about Windows 8 Consumer Preview. We'll update this list with more questions and answers, so check back later.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO files (.iso) are provided as an alternative to using Windows 8 Consumer Preview Setup. If you are on a PC running Windows and want to install the consumer preview on another partition, another PC, or a virtual machine, we recommend you download Windows 8 Consumer Preview Setup and use the built-in tools for converting an ISO image into installation media, such as a DVD or USB bootable flash drive. You can find additional information, including a list of supported upgrades, in the FAQ.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview Setup will check to see if your PC can run Windows 8 Consumer Preview and select the right download. Setup also features a compatibility report and upgrade assistance. Built-in tools for creating an ISO or bootable flash drive are available for some previous versions of Windows (excluding Windows XP and earlier). You can find system requirements and additional information in the FAQ and in the links on this page.

The sky's the limit! Now anyone can enjoy the fun, freedom and adventure of flight. Feel the power at your fingertips as you take to the skies and launch into thrilling missions and exciting challenges over the free-to-play Big Island of Hawaii. Take off today and fly into the ever-expanding world of Microsoft Flight.*

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8 Consumer Preview includes Server Manager, Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins, consoles, Windows PowerShell cmdlets and providers, and command-line tools for managing roles and features that run on Windows Server "8" Beta. In limited cases, the tools can be used to manage roles and features that are running on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008. Some of the tools work for managing roles and features on Windows Server 2003.

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview Product Guide for Business provides a detailed look at the many new and improved features in Windows 8. The guide is designed as an accurate source of information that can help businesses understand how Windows 8 enables users to be ready and productive practically anywhere, allows for a personalized user experience, and provides IT with more secure, easy-to-manage intelligent infrastructure.

All indications are that "Windows Live" won't be part of the Windows 8 lexicon. Microsoft seems to be re-(re-re-re)-branding the ragtag collection of applications formerly known as Windows Live-something, gussying up some of them, assigning them shorter monikers, and casting them center stage for the Metro part of Windows 8. For those of you who depend on one or more of the current Windows Live lineup, you may find yourself stuck with orphaned apps - which, given the status of the "legacy" Windows 7 desktop in Windows 8, shouldn't come as a huge surprise.

It was only a few days after the agreement had been announced in London. But the need for the deal had been so urgent that Nokia and Microsoft, grasping for a foothold in a mobile computing industry that was quickly slipping away from them, had gone public without a definitive legal agreement, just a handshake and a promise to work together, somehow.

On that day, in Barcelona, Sinofsky will preside over the public test release of the Windows 8 operating system, the most important new version of Microsoft's cornerstone product in a decade. Optimized for touch computing and low-power microprocessors, Windows 8 will run on tablets as well as desktops and laptops - and maybe even on phones in the future

After a Wall Street Journal story last week about Google bypassing the privacy settings on Apple’s Safari Web browser, Microsoft has written a blog post accusing Google of doing similar things on Internet Explorer. But what is happening on IE is a bit different, and it involves a problem that has been known about for some time by Microsoft and privacy researchers. Here’s what’s going on: By default, IE is designed to block little files called “cookies” if they come from tracking companies. But the way it does this is fairly complicated.

Back to the documentation I unearthed, there are plenty of similar revision notes from the same time frame that do not list these Windows 8 SKUs, and if anyone would be privy to Windows 8 SKU information at this point, it would be HP. Is this our first glimpse of some finalized Windows 8 SKUs, or is this just documentation filler? If the latter, then why not simply copy the Windows 7 SKUs as a quick, simple template, then replace all the 7s with 8s?

The Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update provides additional functionality to the existing Windows Phone SDK 7.1 software to enable mobile developers to better target applications for 256MB Windows Phone devices. This update includes an updated 512MB emulator, as well as a new 256MB emulator image, and Intellisense support to communicate device targeting preferences. Once installed, the WP SDK 7.1.1 update allows you to decide which emulator you would like to deploy your app to.

Windows Server App Certification Kit (SCK) is designed to help improve compatibility of Server Applications. Developers can use SCK to verify compatibility and Security issues with Server applications designed for Windows Server “8” SCK is also a recommended tool for Customers to evaluate third party applications and for testing Line of business applications. Testing with this tool is required to participate in the Windows Server Application Certification program. SCK is a fully automated, wizard style tool that implements technical requirements described in the Technical requirements document for Windows Server “8” Application Certification.

While Microsoft officials seem intent on playing up all consumer focused news all the time with Windows Phone, business users aren’t completely outside the Redmondians’ radar. The proof? Microsoft has cemented a deal with Good Technology to bring encrypted email to Windows Phones. Microsoft and Good announced on February 27 a “strategic application partnership to enable the use of the Good for Enterprise solution on Windows Phone devices,” according to a Microsoft press release. Good’s technology will provide FIPS-certified 192-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) level encryption for Windows Phones.

But will that focus come at the expense of Microsoft's traditional stronghold — businesses? There's no doubt that Microsoft needs to make a major push to get into consumers' head space. With the notable exceptions of its Xbox gaming console and Kinect motion sensor, Microsoft has not done so well among consumers. Windows Phone is scrabbling for traction, the Zune music player was killed last year, and the company is way behind on tablets. Windows 8 — designed from the bottom up to work on both touch-sensitive tablets and mouse-and-keyboard desktops and laptops and featuring a new, boldly designed, tile-based user interface — aims to capture more of the consumer market, especially the tablet market. But what about Microsoft's bread and butter — the businesses that have bought so many Microsoft products and services, helping the company reach record revenue even in a down economy?

This year is shaping up to be a repeat of 2009, when Microsoft and Apple last faced off with rival operating system upgrades. Three years ago, Microsoft rolled out Windows 7, while Apple launched Snow Leopard, also known as Mac OS X 10.6. Earlier this month, to the surprise of many observers, Apple shipped a developers preview of Mac OS X 10.8, or Mountain Lion, and said it would ship the final code in "late summer 2012."

Microsoft wants to be known as the people's smartphone company. The software giant said today that it had lowered the minimum requirements to build a Windows Phone, a move that allows vendors to construct less expensive devices that can appeal to more budget-conscious customers and first-time smartphone buyers. The shift represents an attempt to expand Microsoft's addressable market, vital to the company's bid to regain a measure of relevancy in the smartphone business. The company had previously maintained a strict list of specifications that vendors had to follow, which at the time made the devices fairly high end. The move comes asAndroid's momentum in a variety of markets, high and low, continues to gain ground.

SOFTWARE REDEVELOPER Microsoft has shown off Visual Studio 11, the development name of what is expected to become Visual Studio 2012, ahead of a public beta.

Microsoft's Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE) is getting a new lick of paint as the firm prepares to try to help developers build applications that take advantage of new features in Windows 8. Microsoft said it will release its Visual Studio 11 beta on 29 February along with the beta version of its .Net 4.5 framework Source: The Inquirer (http://s.tt/15PEe)

It looks like Office 15 client apps are going to get more touchy, but in a way that won’t force touch on users who don’t want or need it.

One of the big questions many Microsoft watchers have had is how Microsoft plans to make its next-generation Office client apps more touch-friendly, so that they’ll be optimized to work on tablets and PCs running the touch-optimized Windows 8 operating system.

Google's Google TV software, available on set-top boxes and TVs from the likes of Sony, Samsung, LG and Vizio, includes a feature to search the Web using voice commands spoken into a Google TV app found on handsets running Google's Android operating system or Apple's iPhone. At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this January, Samsung and LG showed off motion-sensing remote controls that feature built-in microphones for voice search that will arrive in stores later this year. But for now, Google's voice input is limited to searching the Web and not changing the channel. But that, too, is likely to change soon.

Even the Windows logo itself hasn't escaped Microsoft's need for change. As expected, critics have weighed in on Microsoft's decision to adopt a more Metro-themed design for the Windows 8 logo instead of the traditional four-color, curvy boxes found in previous Windows logos.

Since its introduction in Windows 2000, Multilingual User Interface technology, or MUI, has allowed customers to install additional display languages on their Windows PCs and to switch between them. But for the majority of users, the language you got when you booted up your Windows PC for the first time was likely the one you were stuck with. For Windows 8, we have reimagined the display language experience, focusing on making additional display languages available to all Windows users, making them super easy to find and install, and allowing users to switch between them. This blog entry unveils the changes we’ve been making in Windows to achieve this.

Many folks reading this blog are active users of SkyDrive and Mesh, both part of the broad set of Windows Live services (like Hotmail), and the Windows Live Essentials programs (Messenger, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, and more). With their introduction and with Windows 7, we have talked about how these services really complete the Windows experience. As we developed Windows 8, we thought deeply about how these services can take an even more active role in completing the experience—offering a cloud service for each and every Windows 8 customer and all their PCs (and phones), should you choose to use it. In previous posts (Signing in to Windows 8 with a Windows Live ID and Extending "Windows 8" apps to the cloud with SkyDrive) we kicked off talking about cloud services, how you can automatically roam your settings to multiple PCs, and how applications can take advantage of this roaming. In this post, we will show you three cool things that you will get by choosing to sign up and use SkyDrive with Windows 8.

"We think what people want in personal cloud storage is a single drive that's available across all of their devices, tailored to the experiences they're using, providing instant, secure, and private access to their files," said SkyDrive group program managers Mike Torres and Omar Shahine, in a blog post Monday.

A Microsoft spokesperson told the New York Times: "The Daily story is based on inaccurate rumors and speculation. We have no further comment." She added that an image with The Daily's article depicting an Office product for iPad was "... not Microsoft's software," she said. As PC World's Ian Paul notes, Microsoft has been slow to release the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint suite on non-Windows platforms. Based on comments, our readers would love to get Office on the iPad, but there are a couple reasons why we should chalk this situation up to wishful thinking.

The new logo reflects the sleek, modern “Metro” design language first introduced by Microsoft in its Windows 7 phones. Metro is based on the design principles of the Swiss International Style, with clean lines, shapes and typography and bold, flat colors. One guideline of Metro is that the graphic or interface must appear “authentically digital” – that is, it should not appear to be material or three-dimensional using gradients or effects. The new identity suggests dimensionality using the classic principle of perspective: lines receding into space.

The perspective drawing is based on classical perspective drawing, not computerized perspective. The cross bar stays the same size no matter the height of the logo, which means it has to be redrawn for each time it increases in size, like classic typography.

The perspective analogy is apt because the whole point of Microsoft products is that they are tools for someone to achieve their goals from their own perspective. The window here is a neutral tool for a user to achieve whatever they can, based on their own initiative. The logo design is deliberately neutral so that it can function effectively in a myriad of uses, especially motion. The old logo was flat and drawn in motion; the new logo is a neutral container that can convey actual motion, becoming a more active and effective brand.

"We have said that Windows 8 is a complete reimagination of the Windows operating system. Nothing has been left unexplored, including the Windows logo, to evaluate how it held up to modern PC sensibilities. The Windows logo is a strong and widely recognized mark but when we stepped back and analyzed it, we realized an evolution of our logo would better reflect our Metro style design principles and we also felt there was an opportunity to reconnect with some of the powerful characteristics of previous incarnations. We had a very short list of agencies that we wanted to work with on the redesign of the logo and were thrilled when Pentagram agreed to join us in the project. Pentagram’s illustrious history speaks for itself, but we were particularly attracted to their sense of classic graphic design which fit well with our Metro design principles. "

Windows 8 is a product we design for an incredibly broad spectrum of people around the world. One of the areas where we have worked to deliver an even greater level of innovation is in ensuring that Windows 8, particularly the new Metro style experience, is accessible to everyone regardless of their physical abilities. In this post we will talk about the engineering work that goes into the features we refer to as “accessibility” – though as you will see, many of these features are broadly applicable and just make the product better for everyone. If you are interested in Microsoft’s overall efforts in accessibility and related topics, please be sure to check out www.microsoft.com/enable. This post is especially important for developers building Metro style apps for inclusion in the Windows Store, as we are asking you to test the accessibility of your application prior to submission. I encourage folks who have never seen these tools in action to learn about them through the video. The upcoming beta will be a great chance for everyone to experience the product.

Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 customers.

This DVD5 ISO image file contains the security updates for Windows released on Windows Update on February 14, 2012. The image does not contain security updates for other Microsoft products. This DVD5 ISO image is intended for administrators that need to download multiple individual language versions of each security update and that do not use an automated solution such as Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). You can use this ISO image to download multiple updates in all languages at the same time.

ASP.NET MVC 4 is a framework for developing highly testable and maintainable Web applications that follow the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. The framework encourages you to maintain a clear separation of concerns— views for UI, controllers for handling user input, and models for domain logic. ASP.NET MVC applications are particularly suited for unit testing and using test-driven development (TDD) techniques. ASP.NET MVC 4 makes it easy to write applications for the mobile web through adaptive rendering and device specific display modes.

Peter Klein told the audience at a Goldman Sachs technology conference in San Francisco that Microsoft gave developers a preview of the new operating system in fall and will add consumers to the audience with a so-called “consumer release” later this month. The staged introduction will allow users to “absorb what is new in Windows 8 and why it really builds on traditional value,” Mr. Klein said. Windows 8, which isn’t expected to go into commercial release until late this year, is designed to position Microsoft in the fast-growing tablet market dominated by Apple Inc.’s iPad and devices that run Google Inc.’s Android software. Windows 8 is critical to Microsoft’s mobile future, and insiders say it represents the most dramatic overhaul of the operating system since the release of Windows 95, 16 years ago.

One of the perennial questions about Windows 8 — and one that many Microsoft watchers asked yet again last week after Microsoft’s latest disclosures on Windows on ARM — is what the Softies think they have to one-up the iPad. Many believe Office will be Microsoft’s trump card, especially given Microsoft’s plan to “include” four Office 15 apps on Windows 8 ARM tablets and PCs. But if Microsoft ends up fielding Office for iPad, as rumored, that advantage may be moot.

msnNOW is a new way to stay in the know on the topics people are talking about, searching for, and sharing the most.