Microsoft

The audience at an Apple launch event was shocked to see a Microsoft executive on stage this week. It marks a closer collaboration between the former bitter rivals, centered on people using Microsoft Office on the move. The appearance came from Kirk ... Koenigsbauer, one of Microsoft's many corporate vice presidents. He's responsible for the various versions of Office 365, which allows users to have an ongoing subscription (plus all relevant updates) to Microsoft Office, rather than buy a particular edition outright. Koenigsbauer attended the event to show off how Office 365 will work on ... (view more)

Windows 10 has hit a five percent market share for desktop PCs. However, closer analysis suggests the boost from giving Windows 10 away free of charge may have already passed. The five percent figure comes from a company called Net Market Share, ... which combines visitor data from around 40,000 websites. The statistics refers solely on visits from desktop PCs, a category that also includes laptops as well, but not tablet computers. Windows 10 Adoption Far Ahead Of Windows 7 The figure gives several insights into the success of Windows 10. First, Windows 10 has reached the five percent mark ... (view more)

Microsoft says it may revise its policy of giving little to no information about the contents of updates to Windows 10. For now at least, any details would only go to business customers. As previously discussed, Windows 10 marks a departure from the ... traditional monthly release of updates , with the only exceptions being one-off security patches for serious bugs in the wild which are usually being exploited by hackers. Under the new system, Microsoft quietly sends out updates both for security fixes and enhancements to features, as and when they are ready. That's accompanied by a change in ... (view more)

Figures for August have led one site to suggest that Microsoft's new Edge browser is not that widely used. However, the difficulty of calculating such figures means it is far too early to call it a bust. The figures come from Statcounter, which is a ... professional service for website owners which tracks web visitors. As well as giving individual sites details of their visitors, Statcounter collates the data from all of its customers to come up with estimates for web use as a whole. It believes the number and variety of sites it tracks makes this a reasonably accurate estimate. Edge Figures ... (view more)

According to Microsoft, 75 million devices are already running Windows 10. That's an impressive total, though the company still has a long way to go to hit its target of one billion users within the first three years. The figures came in a series of ... Twitter posts by Yusuf Mehdi, the Microsoft executive responsible for marketing Windows. The 75 million figure comes just under a month after Windows 10's release, with 14 million downloads alone on launch day. (Source: windows.com ) It's hard to compare the Windows 10 early adoption rate with Microsoft's previous operating system. While ... (view more)

A newly published study suggests the vast majority of Windows 10 users "love" the system and most of its features. However, the methodology of the study is shaky to say the least. The figures come from Brandwatch, a company that tracks public ... sentiment about particular products and companies online. It claims its methods help find out what ordinary users are thinking, rather than rely on media reports. For this study, Brandwatch gathered together data from 7,000 people who had posted about Windows 10 on Twitter, Facebook, Internet forums and other online outlets. It then analyzed ... (view more)

Reports that Windows 10 stops Google's Chrome browser from running appear to be only partially correct. While the problem does exist, it only affects people running test editions of Windows 10 which are not available to everyone. The problem affects ... the version of Chrome designed for 64-bit PCs. If the problem strikes, the browser simply fails to show any page and instead displays the familiar "Aw Snap!" error message. It appears to affect all editions of 64-bit Chrome, from the standard edition through the various test editions, such as developer and Canary. (Source: ... (view more)

Microsoft's patch process for Windows 10 is going far from smoothly, with some PCs locked in a constant reboot. It's reawakened the debate about how the new Window 10 update system will work. With Windows 10 intended to be the final "brand new" ... edition of the operating system, Microsoft has ditched its traditional policy of a monthly 'Patch Tuesday' security update, including emergency patches in between when needed. Service Packs were also previously released once every year or so after gathering enough patches, along with offering a few new features. Instead the plan ... (view more)

Windows 10 is now available. While there's no immediate rush to get it (the upgrade is free for another year), here are some of the basics to know if you're thinking of trying out the new system. Can I get Windows 10 right away, or do I have to ... wait? Many users are still waiting for Windows 10 to download to their computer, even though they have reserved their free upgrade using the 'Get Windows 10' app via the tray bar. It is possible, however, to forcefully download Windows 10 directly from Microsoft's website as an in-place upgrade or as an .ISO, which is used to create a bootable ... (view more)

Software developed to hunt down bugs in programs for Windows has been adapted for stem cell research. Though the two tasks sound nothing alike, they both involve calculating the link between cause and effect. New Scientist reports that the software ... is known as the Reasoning Engine for Interaction Networks, or RE:IN. It's been made available through Microsoft's research unit to several scientists who specialize in stem cells. (Source: newscientist.com ) A stem cell is effectively the blank slate of cells in mammals. As well as dividing to produce more stem cells (meaning that the body ... (view more)