Microsoft boosts its Electronic Frontier Foundation privacy rating

Microsoft is winning praise from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for taking stronger stands to protect the privacy of customers’ data that it stores in its cloud data centers.

In its annual “Who’s Got Your Back?” report the EFF singles out Microsoft for praise twice – for publishing the number of times it provided data to the government and for requiring warrants before turning over private messages to law enforcement.

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Foxconn pays Android license fees to Microsoft despite Google’s claim they’re unjustified

While Google insists that Microsoft doesn’t own intellectual property included in its Android operating system, manufacturers who make Android devices think its smarter to pay Microsoft royalties on disputed patents than to get entangled in court cases.

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Microsoft lures Windows XP business customers to Windows 8 with a 15% discount

Microsoft stops supporting Windows XP just about a year from now and perhaps not coincidentally it is offering a discount to customers who upgrade from XP to Windows 8.

The offer is aimed at businesses that use up to 249 licenses. Through June 30 they are eligible for a 15% discount off the price of upgrading from Windows SP Professional to Windows 8 Pro. The package includes Office Standard 2013 at a 15% discount as well.

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Microsoft Hotmail, Outlook, SkyDrive problems could hurt customer confidence

Microsoft paints a rosy picture of customers storing documents and other data in the cloud so they are accessible from any Internet-connected device, but yesterday’s outage of its mail and storage services should make anybody rethink the proposition.

These services are potentially great if the technology delivers on the features Microsoft promises, but availability is key. It’s no good to have email and files queued up and ready to go in a data center somewhere if there is no way to get them delivered.

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Microsoft seeks to capture a generation of Office 365 users

Microsoft is offering college students its cloud-based Office service free for six months, a move that could help solidify Office as a package they’ll want to keep using once they graduate.

The offer gives eligible students Office 365 for three months plus an additional three months if they share the offer on their Facebook pages.

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Microsoft could pay billions for running afoul in Europe

Microsoft faces stiff penalties in Europe for failing to give customers there an adequate choice of Web browsers in its Windows operating systems, and now it is being chased by the Danish tax authority as well.

The European Commission ruled last year that Microsoft failed to comply with an order to give customers a clear choice of using something other than Internet Explorer for their browser during setup of Windows machines.

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Should Azure customers worry about reliability?

It’s hard to stay on top of everything all the time so it’s understandable that something like renewing a security certificate could fall through the cracks as it did to Microsoft last week, grinding its Azure Cloud Service to a halt.

But if you provide a critical service to corporate customers,  routine updates -  like renewing certificates before they expire – ought to be just another routine part of doing business, details that gets taken care of in a routine way.

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Windows 8 guru names the top 8 trends at CES

The man who oversaw production of Windows 8 for Microsoft then quit still has admiration for what his former employer is up to, based on his latest blog about what he liked at CES 2013 last week.

The top eight trends Steven Sinofsky spotted at the show fall in line with what Microsoft has been touting with Windows 8, Surface tablets and new services that supplement the operating system.

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Windows 8 portables to get inexpensive, long-lived by Xmas 2013?

Wait until next Christmas to buy a Windows 8 ultrabook for $600, says Intel. Well, more or less.

The company predicts that by the end of the year PC makers will be cranking out low-powered portables with touchscreens based on new Intel chips that can support Windows 8 hardware specifications.

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‘Christmas gift for someone you hate: Windows 8’

That headline runs atop a blog by MIT researcher and instructor as well as serial entrepreneur Philip Greenspun who ran Windows 8 through its paces and found it wanting in several areas.

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Rumored follow-ons for Surface tablets; reduced orders for original Surface

The big Windows 8 rumors out today are that Microsoft has cut in half its order for Surface RT tablets even as the company is in the thick of work on the next generation of the products.

First, the cut in orders. That rumor comes from DigiTimes which says the order for Surface RT tablets has been cut from 4 million to 2 million. That’s based on unnamed sources.

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Microsoft buys a starring role for its Surface tablet on TV’s 'Suburgatory'

Last night Microsoft spent what must have been a healthy chunk of the rumored $1 billion marketing budget for its Windows 8 Surface tablets with one of the most comprehensive product placements ever seen in a TV sit-com.

The tablet was actually written into the script of ABC’s "Suburgatory" as the love interest for the lead character, Tessa, who at one point refers to the device as "sexy" and "the man in my life."

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Why is Steven Sinofsky really leaving Microsoft?

It’s hard to imagine why someone would walk away from one of the most powerful jobs within Microsoft just weeks after launching two products that its CEO says together rank among the top three events in the company’s storied history.

But that is just what Steven Sinofsky has done, stepping down as president of the Windows and Windows Live division where Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface tablets were spawned.

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Cracks in Microsoft's Surface RT

If people don’t like Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet-notebook fusion hardware for Windows 8, they should stick around for the enterprise-ready version coming out early next year, CEO Steve Ballmer says.

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Businesses will have to pay up if they want Office on BYOD iPads and Android tablets

The big Microsoft rumor is that the company is coming out next year with a version of Office for iOS and Android phones and tablets – sort of.

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Windows 8 launch is a non-event for businesses

Windows 8 is going to get hammered in the next few weeks as consumers try out the new operating system for the first time.

Their reactions will likely differ little from those of reviewers who found much to complain about. The bottom line is that Windows 8 – particularly on a tablet – does not behave much like any previous Windows PC operating system.

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Those Windows 8 TV ads? They’re real.

Microsoft copyright claims have forced the takedown of several purported Windows 8 TV ads that somehow leaked to the Web.

While Microsoft’s copyright protection could just be aimed at defending the Windows 8 name and not the actual commercials, the preponderance of evidence indicates the ads are real and they are what Microsoft wants to protect.

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Intel chief’s candor about Windows 8 could sabotage tablet event

Intel’s press event tomorrow in praise of upcoming Windows 8 machines could be awkward in the wake of news that the company’s CEO deems the new Microsoft operating system unready and in need of improvements.

Just about a month away from the Windows 8 launch, Intel  and executives from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE are going to tout new tablets and convertibles – just the type of gear for which Windows 8 was designed. 

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What Office for RT lacks

Microsoft is bundling a subset of Office applications with its power-pinching Windows 8 on ARM devices known as Windows RT, but the apps don’t do everything they can do on traditional PCs.

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Why Windows RT has a closed Windows 8 apps environment: power

Windows RT – the ARM-based Windows 8 devices with strict controls on what applications can be loaded – sets longer battery life as a top goal, which goes a long way to explain why Microsoft has placed tough requirements on application development.

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