By Paul Thurrott, 02/26/2010
An often irreverent look at some of this week's other news, including Intel's Windows 7 migration, a silly XP downgrade case that went south, Windows Server domination, Google ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/25/2010
After years of allowing Google to trample intellectual property and privacy laws, antitrust regulators in the European Union (EU) are finally beginning to examine the online giant.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/25/2010
Microsoft this week won a court order allowing it to shut down a so-called botnet that was distributing malicious software and spam.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/24/2010
Microprocessor giant Intel said this week that it, too, was the victim of a sophisticated, China-based cyber-attack in January. But the company isn't sure if the attack is related ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/23/2010
Microsoft and online retailer Amazon.com announced a sweeping patent cross-licensing deal that includes the technology behind the popular Kindle e-book reader.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/23/2010
Microsoft on Monday released new versions of some key Windows 7 deployment tools, signaling to enterprise customers that now is the time to begin rolling out the software giant's ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/21/2010
Antitrust regulators from the United States and Europe approved Microsoft's proposed Internet search deal with Yahoo!, removing the final hurdle facing the creation of a new ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/19/2010
An often irreverent look at some of this week's other news, including a week in Florida, Windows Phone 7 elation, Microsoft/Yahoo search deal OK'd, stupid non-story about Windows ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/18/2010
This week, Microsoft updated its plans to add social networking services integration with Outlook, its premier email and personal information management client.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/17/2010
Microsoft's Hotmail email service suffered a temporary outage Tuesday related to problems with the Windows Live ID user authentication technologies.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/16/2010
Industry giant Nokia, which has been hemorrhaging market share to rivals like Apple, Google, and RIM, is creating an entirely new mobile platform.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/15/2010
At a jam packed press conference at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft finally announced its next generation Windows Phones 7 platform.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/12/2010
An often irreverent look at some of this week's other news, including some first Windows 8 (excuse me, Windows Next) stirrings, a visual look at Microsoft's profits, Office 2011 ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/11/2010
While competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo! have elected to partner surging social networking heavyweights like Twitter and Facebook, online giant Google this week jumped into the ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/10/2010
The US smart phone market is undergoing some interesting changes, with Google's Android system showing strong gains and Apple's popular iPhone starting to cool.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/09/2010
Microsoft warned that this year will see three out-of-date Windows versions slip into retirement.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/08/2010
While Microsoft is still investigating a notebook battery life issue that was supposedly caused by Windows 7, some interesting trends have emerged.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/08/2010
Microsoft on Monday issued a lengthy statement about the recent Windows 7 battery controversy, echoing my assessment from earlier in the day, but backing it up with hard, cold ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/05/2010
An often irreverent look at some of this week's other news, including some interesting he-said/she-said moments between Microsoft and an ex-executive and between Apple CEO Steve ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/04/2010
Microsoft this week dropped the price of its Zune HD personal media player, improving the device's pricing edge over the Apple iPod touch.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/03/2010
Echoing an economic reality that also hampers its Xbox video gaming business, Microsoft's Bing search engine has cost the company over $5 billion over the past several years.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/03/2010
Responding to complaints in its support forums, Microsoft said this week that it was investigating laptop battery issues that are allegedly caused by Windows 7.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/02/2010
As expected, Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud computing platform went live this morning after a free month of availability to customers that had previously tested pre-release ...
By Paul Thurrott, 02/02/2010
Microsoft this week began warning users of the Release Candidate (RC) version of Windows 7 that the free preview version of its latest OS will begin winding down soon.
By Paul Thurrott, 02/01/2010
Amazon.com has dominated the eBook market with its innovative Kindle devices, but with the dawn of the iPad, the eBook pricing structure is about to change.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/29/2010
An often irreverent look at some of this week's other news, including Windows 7 sales records and Microsoft's other lagging businesses, iPad comedy and serious questions for the ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/28/2010
Microsoft announced record revenues for the quarter ending December 31, 2009, thanks to blockbuster sales of Windows 7.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/27/2010
As expected, Apple on Wednesday announced its tablet device, the iPad, which resembles an oversized iPod touch. In fact, that the iPad is pretty much exactly as expected is the ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/27/2010
Microsoft quietly unveiled a minor upgrade to its little-used Zune PC software.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/26/2010
These days, Apple is better known for its best-selling iPod devices and popular iPhone smartphones, but in the most recent quarter, it was the all-but-forgotten Macintosh that was ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/25/2010
Microsoft quietly made some organizational changes to its Entertainment and Devices business unit (E&D), which is responsible for such lackluster performers as Windows Mobile, ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/22/2010
An often irreverent look at some of this week's other news, including an emergency fix for an overblown IE issue, Ballmer vs. China on the Google attack, Clinton vs. China, Google ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/21/2010
It's hard to overstate the hold that Apple--or, really, marketing master Steve Jobs--has on the tech industry and, increasingly on average consumers.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/20/2010
Facing a firestorm of controversy, Microsoft said it would patch its Internet Explorer (IE) web browser before next month's regularly scheduled security patch release.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/19/2010
Microsoft on Tuesday said that it would change the data retention policy of its Bing search service fairly dramatically and called on market leader Google to do the same.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/15/2010
An often irreverent look at some of this week's other news, including much more on the Google cyberattack from China, including some blame for IE, Intel's rise out of recession, ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/14/2010
While Apple routinely crows about its heady Mac sales growth numbers, the Cupertino computer maker also conveniently ignores one important fact: It has never exceeded 4 percent ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/13/2010
Google revealed late Tuesday that it has withstood a "highly sophisticated" cyber-attack emanating from China.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/13/2010
Virtualization giant VMware announced that it would purchase the Zimbra cloud computing office productivity suite from ailing online giant Yahoo! for an undisclosed sum.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/12/2010
To meet the requirements of a court ruling, Microsoft made its Office productivity suite unavailable to customers from its online store, MSDN and TechNet services, and the ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/08/2010
An often irreverent look at some of this week's other 2010 CES news, including Lenovo's best-of-show hybrid notebook, a live Windows Weekly event, netbooks vs. smartbooks, the ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/07/2010
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer opened the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) almost 30 minutes late Wednesday night in Las Vegas after a small power outage wreaked havoc with the ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/06/2010
On the eve of CES, online giant Google unveiled its own branded smartphone, the Nexus One.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/05/2010
On Tuesday morning, Microsoft revealed the retail pricing for the various versions of the Office 2010 productivity suite that will launch by mid-year.
By Paul Thurrott, 01/05/2010
Tonight, I'll be flying to Las Vegas for the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the largest trade show in North America with more than 120,000 attendees and the on-site ...
By Paul Thurrott, 01/04/2010
Just 15 months after its initial release, Google Chrome is now the number three web browser in the world, behind Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox but ahead of Apple ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/31/2009
An often irreverent look at some of this short week's other news, including 15 years of WinInfo, Xbox Live on Windows Mobile, Office 2010 on netbooks, a major IE vulnerability, an ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/30/2009
One company is the entrenched market leader, still powerful and in command, but losing share regularly to an upstart and media darling that is again challenging the status quo to ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/29/2009
Microsoft has begun rolling out a patch for its popular Word application that removes a little-used feature of the software in accordance with a recent court ruling. The patch, ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/28/2009
Online retailing giant Amazon.com published the results from its holiday 2009 selling season over the weekend and it came with an unexpected surprise: The most popular item on the ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/23/2009
An often irreverent look at some of this half-week's other news, including a holiday weekend break for WinInfo, a Word appeal lost, a cybersecurity czar, a Yahoo! shutdown, ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/22/2009
When Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell announced recently that he was leaving Microsoft, he noted that he would "expand his career beyond being a chief financial officer."
By Paul Thurrott, 12/21/2009
Intel on Monday unveiled its next-generation family of Atom microprocessors, adding three new chips and a new chipset to the line.
By Paul Thurrott, 12/21/2009
A French court has found Google guilty of copyright infringement for its ongoing efforts to scan books and put the content online.
By Paul Thurrott, 12/18/2009
An often irreverent look at some of this half-week's other news, including Microsoft's illogical EU settlement and a possible reason why they did it, the true measure of Windows ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/16/2009
Microsoft this week delivered a new mobile version of its Bing search service, and among the offerings was a little surprise for iPhone users: An actual Bing app for the iPhone.
By Paul Thurrott, 12/16/2009
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today sued Intel, alleging that the microprocessor giant has "stifled competition" and "strengthened its monopoly" by making deals with PC ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/16/2009
As expected, the European Union this week dropped its years-old antitrust investigation into Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser after agreeing to a deal with the software ...
By Paul Thurrott, 12/15/2009
This week, database giant Oracle made some minor concessions to EU regulators that appear to have cleared the way for the company to purchase Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion.
By Paul Thurrott, 12/15/2009
Microsoft this week found itself in another intellectual property theft snafu after a Chinese joint venture with MSN branding was found to have plagiarized the design and ...