Underwhelming Sales For WP7

Posted on November 10, 2010 by sophieparker

Windows Phone 7 was released on Monday in the US, but it?s sales have not been as strong as Microsoft had hoped.

Thestreet has reported that Microsoft sold 40,000 units in the day it was released through AT&T and T-mobile in the US. A market research source who tracks phone sales has come up with the numbers. Microsoft however, estimated that they would sell 3.5 million devices in the last quarter of this year but the current numbers are far from on track for this.

In the US the sales seem to be almost as weak as the sales were for the Microsoft Kin, which only sold 10,000 units. However these sales figures don?t include the 87,000 units allocated to every Microsoft employee or the 25,000 that Dell are swapping their Blackberry?s for.

It might not be a great first day, but there?s still time and Christmas is hurtling towards us. Plus the US has Black Friday to come. But with claims from Google that they sell 200,000 Androids a day and that Apple sell 260,000 iPhones a day, Microsoft have allot of catching up to do.

Just Three Days After Release, Kinect Gets Hacked

Posted on November 9, 2010 by sophieparker

It was reported late last week, that Adafruit Industries, a New-York based company, was offering $2000 for an open source Kinect driver hack that would allow the technology to be used on platforms outside of the Xbox360.

Ont he 7th of November it was announced that Kinect had been successfully hacked. It was inevitable that a hack would eventually be found. But no one really banked on it being found so soon, just three days after it?s release in the US.

Microsoft was disgruntled to say the least when they learned Adafruit was offering a reward. A reward that was raised from $1000 to $2000 in response to Microsoft’s negative reaction. Microsoft said, when speaking with CNET that: ?Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products, With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant."

Senior editor for Make magazine and a part investor in the reward, Phillip Torrone said the reason for putting up a reward is because "Its amazing hardware that shouldn’t just be locked up for Xbox 360. Its ‘radar camera’ being able to get video and distance as a sensor input from commodity hardware is huge."

As with the Wii remote, Torrone believes the Kinect could offer allot to education and robotics.

A YouTube post shows the desktop control of Kinect, though it shows control of the motor which is said to be the easiest component to control. So, what will Microsoft do now.

Ballmer Sell 12% Of Own Shares

Posted on November 8, 2010 by sophieparker

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, has sold 49.3 million shares in Microsoft stocks. That?s 12% of his own shares and is worth about $1.3 billion. Ballmer is Microsoft?s top executive, he?s got rid of part of his stake in the company and is apparently planning on dropping more.

Reuters.com reported that Ballmer plan?s to sell as much as 75 million shares before the end of the year. Could this be an indication of a plan to leave Microsoft?

Ballmer has denied the rumours that he may be leaving in a quote on Microsoft’s website: "I am excited about our new products and the potential for our technology to change people’s lives, and I remain fully committed to Microsoft and its success."

Even after Friday?s whopping sale, Ballmer still holds about 359 million shares in the company. Which is about 4.2%, his stocks are currently worth about $9.6 billion at $26.85 each. This is the first time in 7 years that Ballmer has sold any stocks, and he plans to sell up to 18% by the end of the year.

Executives of public companies can not sell their stocks before or after quarterly earning announcements, all sales must also be publicly disclosed. Ballmer insists that this is a purely financial move, which sghould save him $100 million in taxes this year.

It would be a huge blow to Microsoft if Ballmer were to leave, but may open the way to Steven Sinofsky.

WP7 Is 20% More Efficient According To Microsoft

Posted on November 4, 2010 by sophieparker

Microsoft hasn?t been modest when comparing it?s products to that of competitors. A video that was recently released by them, claimed that open office was actually costing businesses money. It was pulled soon after.

According to computerworld.com Microsoft now claim that Windows Phone 7 "requires up to 20% fewer steps to perform common tasks," which is based on internal research. This claim backs up the concept that WP7 platform is a "glance and go" OS, not a "stop and stare".

So, you can see where the will be going with their advertising campaign for WP7. WP7, the most efficient mobile OS out there. With a budget of nearly $500 million, we can expect a WP7 battering from the media.

Strong Demand For Windows Phone 7 In UK

Posted on November 3, 2010 by sophieparker

It?s been nearly two weeks since the launch of WP7 in the UK. A report from Yahoo indicates that early sales are good. A host of different companies such as, Samsung and HTC launched WP7 devices on the 21st of October despite rumours of low stocks. LG?s device took a few more days to drop but is now selling across a number of carriers including Vodafone.

According to the report, Orange has had to turn away customers wanting to buy a WP7 device. They even gave some customer money off vouchers if they couldn?t get their hands on one. But some reports suggest that this is due to low stock levels, not high demand.

There didn?t seem to be much buzz around the launch of Windows Phone 7 in the UK. This was probably due to the lack of advertising is stores. But, recently, this has begun to change. There have been a host of adverts and TV and in magazines for Windows Phone 7. There was even some prime time advertising when Microsoft made sure their ?Really? advert was shown during an X-Factor break on Saturday night.

Windows Phone 7 devices won?t drop in the US until November the 8th.

IE9 Aces HTML5 Conformance Test

Posted on November 2, 2010 by sophieparker

The results of the first HTML5 conformance test has been released and IE9 preview 6 has come out on top. HTML5 isn?t yet finalized, but it?s good to see Microsoft have stepped up their game in the last few months.

IE9 P6 is pretty much IE9 but without the UI, it isn?t out in beta yet and is already pretty much beating the competition hands down. Google Chrome came in a fairly close second with Firefox, Opera, and Safari falling way behind.

html5table

W3C tests only covered attributes, audio, canvas, getElementsByClassName, foreigncontent, video and xhtml5. The results for the CSS3 test and other non-HTML5 related test can be found on W3C?s website.

The release candidate of IE9 is expected to launch in the next few months. This will bypass a beta 2 release.

Microsoft Makes A Bid To Protect Non-profit Orgs From Anti-piracy Laws

Posted on October 18, 2010 by sophieparker

Microsoft has started an effort to prevent governments from using anti piracy laws to take down non-profit organizations that may not see eye to eye with their governments. This effort spans 12 countries, including Russia and China.

In these countries software piracy inquiries are used in order to gain access to and take down non-profits organizations. Microsoft plans to give free licences to these to these organisations, so that governments have no legal reason to take action against them and exploit the anti-piracy laws.

The majority of organisations that are being targeted reside in Russia or former Soviet republics. China has had fewer cases of this abuse, but Microsoft wants to protect all it can.

Non-profit organisations would be given free licenses the software that they already have. This would make any pirated copies become legitimate legal copies. Preventing Governments from shutting organisations down for piracy violations. Apparently Microsoft already provides free software to some non-profit groups, but this policy is not that well known and there fore not used.

After several raids on organisations last month, Microsoft failed to clarify anti-piracy laws, making matters worse. Later apologising, Microsoft vowed to protect non-profit organisation in the future. It never intended to aid in the take down of these organisations and so came up with the idea of giving free licenses. It?s hope are to make it harder for controlling governments to exploit these laws to take down opposing organisations, as they have been doing.

The Unstoppable Botnet Army Has Taken Over The US

Posted on October 14, 2010 by sophieparker

The BBC has brought to light a pretty lengthy report published by Microsoft. The 240 page document, called the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, has been compiled with data collected during the first half of this year. The report has found that the US has the highest number of machines infected with a virus that makes them part of a botnet.

According to the study over two million machines in the US have been infected with a botnet virus. In second place is Brazil, which had around 550,000 infected machines. Microsoft collected this data using reports from their Malicious Software Removal Tool.

Although the US had the largest number of infected machines, South Korea had the highest percentage. Of every 1000 computers 14.6 are infected and part of a botnet. The US tallies at 5.2 for every 1000.

head of security and identity at Microsoft UK, Cliff Evans, Said the following:

?The research was undertaken to alert people to the growing danger from the malicious networks. Most people have this idea of a virus and how it used to announce itself. Few people know about botnets. Once they have control of the machine they have the potential to put any kind of malicious code on there. It becomes a distributed computing resource they then sell on to others.?

To avoid your PC from becoming a part of the botnet army always keep you anti virus up to date. If you have Microsoft?s Malicious Software Removal Tool you can run that too by typing MRT in your search or Run box.

Windows Phone 7 Devices Announced

Posted on October 12, 2010 by sophieparker

Yesteday Microsoft announced 10 new Windows Phone 7 handsets for various different mobile providers world wide.

Launching on the 21st of October in Europe/Asia and the 8th of November in the US. There will be a good selection for those wanting a WP7 device in time for Christmas. The list of devices mobile carriers and prices are as follows::

    In North America:
    AT&T
    HTC Surround, United States – $199.99 on 24-month plan
    Samsung Focus, United States – $199.99 on 24-month plan
    LG Quantum, United States – $199.99 on 24-month plan
    T-Mobile USA
    HTC HD7, United States – N/A
    Dell Venue Pro, United States – N/A
    TELUS
    HTC 7 Surround, Canada – N/A
    LG Optimus 7, Canada – N/A
    Am?rica M?vil
    LG Optimus 7, Mexico – N/A
    In Europe:
    O2
    HTC HD7, United Kingdom, Germany – ?0 on 24-month plan or ?379 (?435) on "Pay & Go"
    Orange
    HTC 7 Mozart, including France, United Kingdom – ?0 on 24-month plan
    Samsung OMNIA 7, including France, United Kingdom – ?0 on 24-month plan
    SFR
    HTC 7 Trophy, France – ?99,90 (with a ?98,90 rebate) on a 24-month plan
    Samsung OMNIA 7, France -  ?149,90 (with a ?100 rebate) on a 24-month plan
    Movistar
    LG Optimus 7, Spain – N/A
    HTC HD7, Spain – N/A
    Samsung OMNIA 7, Spain – N/A
    Deutsche Telekom AG
    HTC 7 Mozart, Germany – ?1 on a Deutsche Telekom Complete Mobil rate plan
    Samsung OMNIA 7, Germany – N/A
    Vodafone
    HTC 7 Trophy, including Germany, Spain, United Kingdom – ?0 on a 24-month plan
    LG Optimus 7, including Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom – ?0 on a 24-month plan

    In Asia Pacific:
    SingTel
    HTC HD 7, Singapore – $0 on a 24-month plan
    LG Optimus 7, Singapore – N/A
    Telstra
    HTC 7 Mozart, Australia – $0 on a 24-month plan
    LG Optimus 7Q, Australia – $0 on a 24-month plan
    Vodafone
    HTC 7 Trophy, Australia – $0 on a 24-month plan

Portal For Windows Phone 7 Now Live

Posted on October 12, 2010 by sophieparker

Microsoft?s Windows Phone Portal was launched yesterday. It?s all about WP7 and gives loads of content to potential buyers. Well actually, there?s a bit of 6.5 on there The portal has launched much earlier than expected considering that Microsoft has only just be announced the availability of Windows Phone 7 yesterday.

Discover

The design of the portal reflects the Metro UI used on WP7 devices, lots of squares, rectangle and the Segoe font. There are 4 main areas within the portal for both WP7 and 6.5, which are ?discover?, ?buy?, ?how-to? and ?applications?.

The discover page provides video tutorials fro Windows Phone 7, focusing on the live tiles and hubs that aren?t featured on other mobile platforms. There are also tutorials for e-mail, calendar, searching, maps and the windows live service that uses Find My Phone.

The buy section of the site hasn?t been populated yet, but probably will be after today?s events in New York and London.

The how to part of the portal is so extensive, Microsoft really has gone all out with it. There are about 20 different help topics for each hub as well as many basic getting started help areas. There are also several videos that delve a bit deeper into how to customise your device. Also ?featured topics? and ?popular topics? will be provided to highlight the key areas on the mobile OS for users.

Help%20and%20how-to

The final area of the portal is about the apps that you?ll be able to get on Windows Phone 7. But at the moment, there?s not too much info on here. There is some info on the Xbox live games for WP7, but more can be found on the Xbox site. Links to help and how-to topics can also be found on this page.

Apps

There are some showcase pages on the site too, for key applications such as office. The Office page has blurbs about all five applications with corresponding help and how-to pages documenting many of the features.

The portal has also brought to light the fact that you can now download Zune from outside of the US. This is only Zune 4.2 however not 4.7, which will be needed to sync with WP7. It looks like Office will also have it?s own site office.com/mobile. Which may be a way to access documents stored in the cloud for mobile devices or just an informational site, it?s purpose is not quite known yet.

It certainly looks like Microsoft have geared this portal up to providing any information a WP7 user may need and then some.