Microsoft

Microsoft's fourth quarter had a bevy of moving parts, but the results set the company up for a series of product launches including the latest Windows and Office.

The company reported a fourth quarter loss of 6 cents a share on revenue of $18.06 billion. That sum includes a goodwill impairment charge from the acquisition of aQuantive as well as deferred revenue of $540 million due to Windows upgrade offers. Excluding those items, Microsoft reported non-GAAP earnings of 73 cents a share on revenue of $18.6 billion.

Wall Street was looking for fiscal fourth quarter earnings of … Read more

Microsoft has hired a new vice president with strong ties to Washington and public relations.

Mark Penn will join the company as corporate vice president for strategic and special projects. Leading a small team focused on "key consumer initiatives," Penn will report directly to CEO Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft will rely on its new hire's experience in "strategic development, branding, and positioning" to come up with "breakthrough" ideas designed to meet consumers' changing needs, the company said today.

Dubbed "one of the best-known political and campaign strategists in Washington" according to The … Read more

Still running XP or Vista and eyeing Office 2013? Sorry, you're out of luck.

Unveiled Monday, the upcoming new Office suite won't support Windows XP or Vista, meaning users who need or want Office 2013 will have to upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8.

Microsoft confirmed the tighter requirements on its Office 2013 Preview Technet page. Only Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2012 will be able to run the new suite.

Users will also need a PC with at least a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM for the 32-bit version (2GB … Read more

Microsoft is aiming Office 2013 at touch-screen devices as well as PCs. So the company is starting to pull out the stops to convince tablet users that the new Office is just right for them.

In a blog post yesterday, Clint Covington, a lead program manager for Microsoft's User Experience team, explained how touch works in the new suite. Products such as OneNote and Lync have been redesigned from the ground up to fully support touch. The other applications in Office have been "touch-enabled," which means they support certain touch features but remain true to their roots … Read more

EU antitrust regulators are looking into complaints by rival software makers that Microsoft is preventing them from installing their browsers on one version of Windows 8, Reuters reports.

Microsoft is accused of shutting out browser makers in favor of its own Internet Explorer on Windows RT, a tablet-centric version of the Windows 8 operating system designed for devices running ARM chips.

The EU watchdog is also investigating allegations that Microsoft does not provide rival browsers with access to complete APIs (application programming interfaces, which allow the OS and other programs to talk to each other) in Windows 8, according to … Read more

In case you missed it (which is likely), Fujitsu has entered the Windows 8-ready fray with a convertible "tablet PC."

You probably don't remember tablet PCs because they weren't big with consumers. Nor businesses for that matter.

But they've been around for at least a decade. For instance, there's the Compaq-branded Tablet PC TC1000 that Hewlett-Packard launched in 2002.

Or the more recent -- relatively speaking -- HP EliteBook Tablet PC series.

So now, in 2012, in the age of the svelte, 903g Microsoft Surface tablet, we have the 13-inch Fujitsu Lifebook T902 (PDF). … Read more

An ultrabook six months from now will make today's designs seem so last year. You can thank Windows 8 and the Metro interface for that.

The next Windows operating system -- which we now know is slated for release October 26 -- will bring touch screens to laptops. So, the standard ultrabook today sans a touch screen may seem a bit frumpy by comparison when new designs hit for the holiday season.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini said yesterday that "more than 40" touch-enabled Windows 8-based ultrabooks are in the pipeline. That would include designs like the Acer Aspire S7.… Read more

Microsoft is continuing to eke out the Windows 8 news.

The latest tidbit is Windows 8's exact availability date is going to be October 26. (The last we heard at the Microsoft Partner Conference a week ago is it would be in late October.)October 26 will be the date Windows 8 will be available preloaded on new PCs and also to those purchasing it through one of the upgrade programs Microsoft has announced recently.Microsoft officials shared the exact date on July 18 with the thousands of Microsoft salespeople attending the Microsoft Global Exchange Conference in Atlanta, according … Read more

He's back.

Indeed, it may well be that he never left. It may simply be that he's been traveling around, arresting the unsuspecting with his challenges, and then making them marvel at his skills.

Yes, Ben Rudolph, the man who can prove that your iPhone 3GS is so very out of date, has returned with more evidence of Windows Phone's ability to positively barbecue all opposition.

You might not yet be aware of Ben. You may, indeed, have been smoking a little too much yourself lately. Ben is the face and satisfied smile of "Smoked By Windows Phone,&… Read more