Businessweek:
Microsoft today began taking orders for its new game console from online retailer JD.com Inc. (JD:US) via Tencent Holdings Ltd.âs (700) mobile-messaging applications. The pair of Chinese Internet companies hold exclusive rights to pre-sell the locally made Xbox One until July 30, JD.com said in a news release. The console is slated to ship nationwide in September.
Important market expansion for Microsoft and the Xbox team.
The company reported diluted EPS of 55 cents, but that figure included three cents worth of one-time charges. The 58-cent figure compares to analysts’ estimate of 60 cents a share, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
So much volatility, it’s hard to get any sense of direction from Redmond. A big part of this instability is the Nokia acquisition and pending layoffs.
For perspective, Microsoft has 125,000 employees and just brought 25,000 new employees on from Nokia.
Thoughts from InformationWeek on Apple’s existing success in enterprise and the difficulties faced by Team Android and Microsoft.
The reductions — which may be unveiled as soon as this week — will probably be in areas such as Nokia and divisions of Microsoft that overlap with that business, as well as marketing and engineering, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The restructuring may end up being the biggest in Microsoft history, topping the 5,800 jobs cut in 2009, two of the people said.
Sad for the people who lose their jobs, but good news for Microsoft if it helps get their ship back on course.
From Apple Insider:
Last July, a U.S. Government report titled “Threats to Mobile Devices Using the Android OS” warned that Android “continues to be a primary target for malware attacks due to its market share and open source architecture,” and stated that this “makes it more important than ever to keep mobile OS patched and up-to-date.”
A year later, Google still reports that more than 53.4 percent of active Android users accessing Google Play are still using an “Ice Cream Sandwich,” “Gingerbread” or other editions of Android prior to 4.2 that still “have a number of security vulnerabilities that were fixed in later versions.”
A good read with lots of follow-up links.
James Kendrick writes for ZDNet. He is currently using an Android phone and writes about the logic behind his decision to by pass the Windows Phone, which he was considering, and move to whatever phone Apple releases next.
What took you guys so long?
Microsoft has overhauled their master Microsoft Services Agreement (MSA) that covers Bing, MSN, Outlook.com/Hotmail, etc., and sent out a mass emailing to let folks know how serious they are. There’s good mixed with bad here.
An agency sent Michael Arrington an email praising his “aesthetic and blogging style” and offering him the chance to spread the word on the new Internet Explore in a “cool visual way” with compensation clearly implied.
Farhad Manjoo:
For the better part of a month, I’ve been trying to replace the laptop that I use for my daily work, an Apple MacBook Pro, with Microsoft’s new tablet computer, the Surface Pro 3. I say “trying” because that’s what it has felt like; this is a machine that I’ve had to put a lot of work into adjusting to, in the hope that, at some point, I’d get used to it and see some kind of payoff.
Microsoft had an interesting idea with the Surface tablet, but I believe they failed to adequately build the infrastructure necessary to make the tablet successful. I have maintained from the beginning that desktop apps are not a good fit for a touchscreen device. I still believe that to be true.
Microsoft VP Nick Parker:
“We’ll reach price points that are very industry competitive for 7, 8, 10-inch devices,” Parker said, speaking to reporters after his keynote at Computex, Asia’s largest computing show. “They will really surprise you. Last year, we were in the 3s, 4s, 500 dollars. This year, we’ll be 1s, 2s, 3s.”
Not sure if this is a move to move inventory through the pipeline or an attack to build market share from the low end.
The LA Times is the paper of record in Steve Ballmer’s new business center and about-to-be-adopted home town. This is their take on Ballmer’s legacy.
[VIDEO] Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg kicked off the annual Code Conference by interviewing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. I found the interview both fascinating and revealing. Fascinating because of the tidbits that Swisher and Mossberg crowbarred out of Nadella, and revealing in that I really didn’t get a sense of vision from Nadella. To me, he had a great opportunity to lay out his grand vision for his company, to pontificate a bit, but instead, he looked clenched, close-mouthed, and a bit uncomfortable. See the video embedded in our original post for highlights.
I also enjoyed this article about Gwyneth Paltrow’s speech at Code.
Her topic — which she had talked about with Re/code earlier, as well — was the “objectification and dehumanization” of anonymous Internet comments. Or, she said, how it feels to be “a person in the culture that people want to harm.”
“We can momentarily anesthetize ourselves by focusing on someone else’s life, get a nice hot shot of schadenfreude and keep going, but how does this serve us?”
Like a nagging, loose tooth, I can’t seem to stop paying attention to Steve Ballmer.
Reuters:
The Central Government Procurement Center issued the ban on installing Windows 8 on government computers as part of a notice on the use of energy-saving products, posted on its website last week.
The official Xinhua news agency said the ban was to ensure computer security after Microsoft ended support for its Windows XP operating system, which was widely used in China.
Not clear exactly what prompted this, but it is a big deal to Microsoft.
Gates is selling his shares on a regular basis, is on track to sell his last shares in about 4 years.
Bloomberg:
Nokia named Rajeev Suri chief executive officer, picking the head of its networks division to chart the company’s future and forecasting a return to sales growth after selling the mobile-phone business to Microsoft Corp.
Sounds to me like this is a very large exploit (impacts IE version 6 through 11) that is currently active, being used in attacks. If you use Windows, the quickest fix is to switch to another browser, at least until … Continued
Follow the headline link for a wealth of data on app sales from the iOS and Mac App Stores, Google Play, Amazon, Windows Phone and PC. For eBooks, there are numbers for Apple iBooks and Kindle. This data has been available for years and is well known in the developer community, but not so well known in the general tech community.
First Google announced their price cuts, then Amazon followed suit. Took a while, but that third domino finally fell.
Satya Nadella formally names Scott Guthrie as EVP of Cloud and Enterprise, Phil Spencer boss of all things Xbox, and Stephen Elop, former Nokia CEO, as EVP Microsoft Devices Group.
Qi Lu is an Executive Vice President at Microsoft and runs Bing Search, Skype, and Office. Office for iPad was the result of his group’s efforts. This interview was interesting, but I thought the real value was to get to know him.
An interesting take on the release of Office for iPad.
See the post for details. Can’t beat free!
While one of the big holdups for Office for iPad was getting the software just right, another was Apple’s policy that apps that sell things — including subscriptions — use Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism and hand over 30 percent of that revenue to Apple.
This had been a big sticking point historically, so it was one of the key question marks looming over this launch.
Indeed, Microsoft does offer Office 365 subscriptions within the just-released Word for iPad and the other Office apps and, yes, it is paying the 30 percent cut, Apple confirmed to Re/code. Microsoft declined to comment on the matter.
Wonder if that was the real sticking point that kept iPad versions of Office in the can? Maybe the previous regime refused to budge, newer thinking prevailed? Just a thought.
Bonnie Cha takes the new Office suite for a spin.
Follow the headline link to watch Satya Nadella discuss Microsoft’s cloud and mobile strategy and, more importantly, watch the rollout of Microsoft Office for iPad.
I have to say, I find Nadella likable. Certainly more likable than that last guy.
As promised in their press briefing today, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word went live in the App Store at 11a PST today.
Ever consider subscribing to Office 365? Here’s how Microsoft handles things when you let your subscription lapse. Interesting.