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"Microsoft" news, interviews, and features

Features about Microsoft

  • Windows Phone 7 offers superior business smartphone

    Microsoft used its annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington, DC this week to reveal more details about the impending Windows Phone 7 smartphone platform. While Microsoft's smartphone market share has been plummeting, Windows Phone 7 could emerge as the best smartphone platform for businesses, and help Microsoft regain ground it has lost to RIM, Apple, and Google.

  • Build a private Azure cloud with new Microsoft appliance

    Companies interested in taking advantage of what cloud computing has to offer, but reluctant to trust sensitive information off-site now have a new alternative with Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform appliance. Microsoft has teamed up with strategic hardware partners to develop an appliance-based approach allowing businesses to deploy and control their own cloud.

  • Windows Phone Live details emerge: What we know so far

    The Windows Phone 7 operating system won't arrive for a few more months (expect a splashy debut as the holiday season nears) and Microsoft is using the extra time to dole out morsels of information about its upcoming mobile OS--one with the unfortunate task of competing with Apple's iPhone and a bumper crop of Google Android-based phones.

  • Microsoft's Steve Ballmer as emoticons

    It's not often hard to guess what Steve Ballmer is feeling. The Microsoft CEO has one of the most recognized, and photographed, faces in the IT industry - and it's also one of the most expressive.

  • Five reasons it's time to switch to Windows 7

    Tomorrow is D-day for Windows XP SP2 users. Granted, Windows XP SP2 will still work, but tomorrow is the last Patch Tuesday for the venerable OS which means it will become more unstable and less secure as time goes on.

  • First look: Firefox 4 Beta 1 shines on HTML5

    While it's impossible to sum up the thousands of enhancements and bug fixes both big and small, the Firefox 4 beta version brings the browser that much closer to taking over everything on the desktop. There are fewer reasons for anyone to interact with an extra plug-in or the operating system. Remember when people cared about whether a machine was Windows or Mac or a Commodore 64? Remember when software needed to be written in native code? Those days are fading away quickly as the browser is more able than ever before to deliver most of the content we might want.

  • The best Windows 7 downloads

    Not quite happy with the way Windows 7 works, or looking to get more out of the operating system? You've come to the right place. We're big fans of Microsoft's latest OS, but we're also big fans of making Windows better. In this article, we've rounded up the best Windows 7 downloads. They'll let you customize it in any way possible, give it features that Microsoft removed or neglected to include, and more. So get ready to download--you're about to take Windows 7 to a new level.

  • Goodbye Kin, Sidekick and 'social phones'

    If there's any correlation between the recently killed Kin and discontinued T-Mobile Sidekick -- aside from Microsoft having a hand in both discontinued phones -- it's that they tried to distinguish themselves from both high-powered smartphones and simpler feature phones.

  • Windows 8 rumored features: Your PC, your way

    Microsoft has some big plans for the future of the PC if alleged Windows 8-related documents recently leaked online are correct. Nearly 18 documents--supposedly confidential internal Microsoft plans--have surfaced, including one called "Modern Form Factors" that shows that Microsoft may be looking at three broad PC categories for the future: Lap PC, Workhorse PC, and Family Hub PC.

  • The pros and cons of Windows 7 security

    Businesses are eyeing a transition to Microsoft Windows 7, and with a wealth of security features that are part of it, it's worth figuring out the good and bad about each of them, says Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald, who notes in some cases, third-party security products might be the better fit.

  • Bigger is not always better with hard drive storage

    Seagate announced a breakthrough in hard drive storage -- blowing past the previous 2.2 Terabyte limitation to develop the first 3Tb hard drive. While that is impressive from a technology standpoint, 3Tb is a lot of data to entrust to a single device. It may not be wise for businesses to place all of their data 'eggs' in a single 3Tb (or larger) 'basket'.