PC shipments are briskly growing again, in yet another small sign that economic recovery is possible. Today, Gartner and IDC both released preliminary shipments for first quarter. Gartner put shipment growth at 27.4 percent year over year, while IDC growth figures came in a little lower at 24 percent.
But double-digit sales growth wasn't the big takeaway, particularly for Microsoft. After more than 18 months of sluggish sales, businesses are finally beginning to buy PCs again. For Microsoft, the news likely means an increase in sales of higherer-margin professional Windows. During the worst of the global economic crisis and the 2008-09 surge in netbook shipments, the sales percentage dramatically shifted to lower-margin consumer Windows.
Microsoft is ready with the final versions of its Visual Studio 2010 developer tools software and Silverlight 4, as well as version 4 of the .Net Framework.
The company is announcing the launch of the three products on Monday at a Visual Studio developer conference in Las Vegas. Visual Studio 2010 and the updated .Net Framework are now broadly available, Microsoft said, while Silverlight 4 will be made available for download later this week.
Java co-creator James Gosling is saying good-bye to Oracle just a few months after the company acquired his longtime employer, Sun Microsystems.
Gosling made the announcement on his blog, saying he resigned from the company on April 2.
Gosling didn't give any reason for his departure. Instead, he wrote, "Just about anything I could say that would be accurate and honest would do more harm than good." As for what he'll do next, Gosling said he doesn't know--just that he'll take some time off before starting his job search.
Microsoft is expected on Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific time to introduce two new slider phones codenamed Turtle and Pure during a special Microsoft event in San Francisco. The new feature phones are said to be the successors to the popular Sidekick line up, which were developed by Danger, a company that Microsoft acquired almost two years ago.
Turtle and Pure rumors have been consistently popping up for about a year, and are yet another part of a rejuvenated Microsoft product lineup that already includes Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, the Bing search engine, and Microsoft Office 2010.
Microsoft announced two new phones Monday, the Kin 1 and 2, aimed at the sub-25-year-old demographic that spends much of their time on Facebook, swapping text messages, and sharing images snapped on their phones. The Kin handsets pick up right where the Sidekick left off with full QWERTY keyboards and a variety of social networking and media features. Both will be available from Verizon starting in May. Pricing has not been announced.
The Kin 1 and 2 run a special version of the Windows Phone OS--not Windows Phone 7 or even version 6.5--so many of the core Windows Phone features aren't available in the Kin OS.
If you believe Mid-March job postings, Microsoft is preparing to launch two new retail stores, in Denver and San Diego, bringing the count to four. That's not exactly rapid expansion, given two other stores opened in October -- Mission Viejo, Calif. and Scottsdale, Arizona. Microsoft has to move more aggressively into retail, if it's going to rebuild its brand image and establish an appealing digital lifestyle for the twenty-tens.
Microsoft is apparently circulating invitations to a mysterious event in San Francisco next week. Engadget has an image of the invite itself, which came in a tube-like contraption and features the vaguely ominous tagline, "It's Time to Share."
Paul Thurrott, over at Windows Phone Secrets, predicts, "This is the Pink phone announcement. I have not been invited to this specifically, but they are gearing up to launch this new side business, basically a texting/social networking phone platform for teenagers ('Pink'). It is not Courier."
Microsoft has some good news for consumers who buy a new PC with Windows 7 pre-installed and look to upgrade to a higher-end version of the operating system.
The company has said that participating retailers are to begin offering discounted pricing for Windows 7 Anytime Updates.
Datamation takes a look at the promotion.
In a move that may help buoy sales of Windows 7 during the final quarter of its fiscal year, Microsoft said that participating retailers will offer steep discounts on Anytime Upgrades starting Sunday.
Continuing its fast adoption pace, Windows 7 made up more than 10 percent of devices accessing the Web for all of March, according to new figures from NetMarketShare. The operating system topped 10 percent usage on a weekend day in February, but March marked the first full month where its use cracked that milestone. For March, Windows 7 made up 10.2 percent of Net-accessing devices, up from an 8.9 percent share in February.
However, that gain came from a drop in older versions of Windows, not from users switching from the Mac. Windows XP usage declined a full percentage point, from 65.5 percent to 64.5 percent of the market, while Vista's share dropped half a percentage point, to 16 percent.
Microsoft has a new plan to make more money from Office: give it away. With Office 2010, one of the biggest changes is how many ways there are to get Microsoft's most profitable software program for free.
In addition to the free, browser-based Office Web Apps, Microsoft is also offering PC makers the ability to install a basic version of Office on new computers. The new program, Office Starter, includes a stripped-down version of Word and Excel. PC makers, retailers and Microsoft can all make money if the PC buyer later upgrades to a paid version of Office.