Microsoft Windows 8 update will be free when it comes later this year

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  Oct. 25, 2012: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gives his presentation at the launch of Microsoft Windows 8 in New York.AP Photo/Richard Drew

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  Oct. 25, 2012:fSteven Sinofsky, then-president of the Microsoft Windows group, delivers his presentation at the launch of Microsoft Windows 8, in New York.AP Photo/Richard Drew

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NEW YORK –  A planned Windows 8 update to address complaints and confusion with Microsoft's new operating system will be made available for free this year, the company said Tuesday.

Microsoft also announced a name for the update: Windows 8.1.

Not charging extra for Windows 8.1 is consistent with the company's practice of offering "decimal point" updates to operating systems for free. However, when Microsoft Corp. announced the update last week, it didn't say that it would be free. The company also hadn't disclosed the system's formal name, leaving open the possibility that it would be a larger update, perhaps to Windows 9. The update had been known simply by its code name, Blue.

Tami Reller, the marketing and financial chief for Microsoft's Windows business, said the company wants to assure customers that they can buy Windows 8 now and still get the benefits of Windows 8.1 later.

Microsoft overhauled its operating system with the release of Windows 8 in October. The changes are meant to address the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet devices, which are siphoning sales from desktops and laptops -- traditional strongholds for Microsoft. The company designed Windows 8 to work with touch-screen controls popular on mobile devices, while also allowing people to use mouse and keyboard commands.

However, Windows 8 has confused a lot of users. Gone is the familiar start button that gave people quick access to programs and settings. To change settings, people must pull out a drawer of icons from the side, using a different maneuver depending on whether the control is through touch or a mouse. Windows 8 offers a new start screen filled with tiles that link to frequently used programs, but some programs work only in a desktop mode that resemble older versions of Windows -- but without the start button. Windows 8 doesn't let people automatically start in that desktop mode.

One leading research firm, International Data Corp., said Windows 8 contributed to a 14 percent decline in worldwide PC sales during the first three months of the year -- the biggest year-over-year drop ever.

Reller offered few details about Windows 8.1, but she reiterated that it will be better suited for smaller, less expensive tablets with 7- and 8-inch display screens. That could allow Windows 8 devices to compete with Apple's iPad Mini and similar-size tablets from Amazon.com Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and Google Inc.

Reller said the company will make it easy for consumers to get the update from the start screen. She said the company also hopes some devices will have Windows 8.1 already installed by the time the update is ready. The company didn't offer a specific date, but the update is expected in time for the holiday season. Microsoft plans to make a preview version available next month for anyone to download.

Microsoft said it has sold more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses so far. Most of those are to PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. to ship with new machines sold to individuals and businesses. Microsoft also sold upgrades from previous versions. Current prices start at $120, though some customers had been eligible for $15 upgrades.

Microsoft, which has its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., made the announcement at JP Morgan's Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston on Tuesday. Microsoft's stock rose 45 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $33.25 in midday trading Tuesday.

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Windows: It's over, tech site declares

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  Screenshot of the Windows 8 Start screen, as shown at the D9 Conference in 2011.Microsoft

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  The new Windows 8 Start screen.Microsoft Corp.

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  Microsoft demonstrated for the first time the next generation of Windows, internally code-named "Windows 8," at the D9 conference. The company calls it a "reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface."YouTube

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Calling the latest operating system a “failure” and Microsoft’s leaders “idiots,” a top tech website has proclaimed the PC era over. Windows is coming to a dead end, they say.

PC shipments collapsed in the last quarter by almost 14 percent, analysts with IDC said last week, marking the biggest drop in sales since the firm started tracking them 19 years ago. The problem, said ZDNet’s well respected Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, isn’t the designs from the likes of HP and Dell or the size of consumer’s wallets. It’s Microsoft.

'Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed.'

- ZDNet writer Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols

“Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed,” Vaughn-Nichols wrote in an essay on the site. “Microsoft is betting all its chips on the silly notion that Metro will be the one true interface for its entire PC and device line.”

“Idiots,” he wrote.

While Vaugh-Nichols is clearly opinionated, his perspective was supported by IDC analyst Jay Chou, who told The Wall Street Journal a similar story last week: “The reaction to Windows 8 is real.”

Windows 8, released Oct. 25, 2012, transformed the traditional computer interface to reflect a growing dependence on tablet computers and touch interface. It wraps the “desktop” metaphor that most people have grown comfortable in a blanket of multicolored tiles that shift and twinkle, revealing bits of information and inviting the user to poke at them.

The problem: the vast majority of laptop and desktop users have no way to poke. Most users will find this new interface language as shocking (and hard to work with) as a bucket of cold water the face.

Vaugh-Nichols argued that users have responded to an operating system they simply don’t want by not buying PCs, turning instead to tablets. And Windows 8 tablets have yet to catch on in the market.

“Windows tablets don’t even rate a blip in the $64 billion tablet market,” he said.

Microsoft is likely to respond to the growing frustration of users this summer when the company releases “Windows Blue,” the first major upgrade to the OS, which is likely to become “Windows 8.1.”

An a developer event scheduled for June 26-28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the Redmond, Wash.-based company will unveil what’s next for Windows.

Enthusiasts familiar with unreleased early versions of that software say there is a “direct to desktop” mode that bypasses the new Start screen, an especially touch-focused part of the new operating system that has drawn the focus of unhappy users.

But that’s hardly enough for the likes of Vaugh-Nichols.

“Microsoft could continue to dominate the important, but no longer growing, desktop market for years, even decades to come,” he wrote.

“However, I don't think they will.”

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Windows: It’s over, tech site declares

• 

  Screenshot of the Windows 8 Start screen, as shown at the D9 Conference in 2011.Microsoft

• 

  The new Windows 8 Start screen.Microsoft Corp.

• 

  Microsoft demonstrated for the first time the next generation of Windows, internally code-named "Windows 8," at the D9 conference. The company calls it a "reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface."YouTube

Next Slide Previous Slide

Calling the latest operating system a “failure” and Microsoft’s leaders “idiots,” a top tech website has proclaimed the PC era over. Windows is coming to a dead end, they say.

PC shipments collapsed in the last quarter by almost 14 percent, analysts with IDC said last week, marking the biggest drop in sales since the firm started tracking them 19 years ago. The problem, said ZDNet’s well respected Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, isn’t the designs from the likes of HP and Dell or the size of consumer’s wallets. It’s Microsoft.

'Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed.'

- ZDNet writer Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols

“Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed,” Vaughn-Nichols wrote in an essay on the site. “Microsoft is betting all its chips on the silly notion that Metro will be the one true interface for its entire PC and device line.”

“Idiots,” he wrote.

While Vaugh-Nichols is clearly opinionated, his perspective was supported by IDC analyst Jay Chou, who told The Wall Street Journal a similar story last week: “The reaction to Windows 8 is real.”

Windows 8, released Oct. 25, 2012, transformed the traditional computer interface to reflect a growing dependence on tablet computers and touch interface. It wraps the “desktop” metaphor that most people have grown comfortable in a blanket of multicolored tiles that shift and twinkle, revealing bits of information and inviting the user to poke at them.

The problem: the vast majority of laptop and desktop users have no way to poke. Most users will find this new interface language as shocking (and hard to work with) as a bucket of cold water the face.

Vaugh-Nichols argued that users have responded to an operating system they simply don’t want by not buying PCs, turning instead to tablets. And Windows 8 tablets have yet to catch on in the market.

“Windows tablets don’t even rate a blip in the $64 billion tablet market,” he said.

Microsoft is likely to respond to the growing frustration of users this summer when the company releases “Windows Blue,” the first major upgrade to the OS, which is likely to become “Windows 8.1.”

An a developer event scheduled for June 26-28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the Redmond, Wash.-based company will unveil what’s next for Windows.

Enthusiasts familiar with unreleased early versions of that software say there is a “direct to desktop” mode that bypasses the new Start screen, an especially touch-focused part of the new operating system that has drawn the focus of unhappy users.

But that’s hardly enough for the likes of Vaugh-Nichols.

“Microsoft could continue to dominate the important, but no longer growing, desktop market for years, even decades to come,” he wrote.

“However, I don't think they will.”

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Windows 8 update coming this summer

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  March 26, 2013: A screenshot of the website for Build 2013, a Microsoft developer conference where the Windows giant is likely to unveil the latest version of its operating system.FoxNews.com / Microsoft

A new tablet computer and Windows 8.1: The marriage of the summer?

Like a blushing fiancé eager to step up to the altar, Microsoft picked a date and sent out invitations Tuesday for the Build 2013 conference, where the software giant is likely to announce early availability of an update to the Windows 8 operating system.

The company first unveiled the tablet-centric Windows 8 OS at a Build conference on Sept. 11, 2011. At the upcoming event, scheduled for June 26-28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the company will discuss the future of the software, said one Microsoft veep.

“At Build, we’ll share updates and talk about what’s next for Windows,” wrote Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft's corporate vice president and chief evangelist, in a blog post announcing the event. Guggenhiemer did not go into detail about what the next version of the software will do or how it will address criticism that the software is too touch-focused and sometimes counterintuitive.

But In a separate blog post, another Microsoft executive mentioned one word that offers clues and is sure to tantalize technology fans: blue.

“Product leaders across Microsoft are working together on plans to advance our devices and services, a set of plans referred to internally as Blue,” wrote Frank X. Shaw, corporate vice president of corporate communications.

“Chances of products being named thusly are slim to none,” he added with a wink.

Over the weekend, a leaked version of “Windows Blue” was widely described on tech websites, sporting a number of features that may address that criticism. It includes features like the resizable tiles already present in Windows Phone 8, as well as features that will make it more usable on touch tablets, such as the ability to customize the Start Screen without having to use the Desktop Control Panel.

Mary Jo Foley, who covers Microsoft technology for ZDNet, detailed some additional changes.

“There's also a new snap view which allows two windows to be snapped side-by-side so that each takes up half the size of the display, as well as an option to have four apps displayed simultaneously. (If that four-app view ends up making it into Blue, I'll be very happy, as I really miss real windowing in Windows 8.)”

The company is supposedly aiming to release the software this summer, Foley wrote.

We'll see if the engagement holds. In the meantime, don’t buy that wedding gift just yet.

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Microsoft poised to send out Internet Explorer 10 in automatic updates to Windows 7 machines

REDMOND, Wash. –  Microsoft is escalating its efforts to bring the latest version of Internet Explorer to more than 700 million personal computers in an attempt to re-establish the software maker's browser as the best way to surf the Web.

Tuesday's release of Internet Explorer 10 is aimed at PCs running on Windows 7, the most used version of Microsoft Corp.'s flagship operating system for PCs. A preview version of Internet Explorer 10 has been available for Windows 7 machines since mid-November. The final version of Internet Explorer 10 will be automatically sent to all Windows 7 computers set up to get updates.

Internet Explorer 10 is primarily designed for tablet computers and other devices responsive to touch, including a new breed of PCs. Even though relatively few Windows 7 PCs can be controlled with fingers on a display screen, Microsoft is confident Internet Explorer 10 will still have widespread appeal because it loads websites 20 percent faster than its predecessor, said Ryan Gavin, Microsoft's general manager for the browser.

"Tens of millions" of people downloaded the preview mode on Windows 7, Gavin said.

About 90 percent of Windows PCs have been programmed to get the automatic updates, Gavin said. It could take several weeks before the Internet Explorer 10 updates are sent to all those computers. Internet 10 doesn't work on XP, Vista or other older versions of Windows. Internet Explorer 10 already comes with machines running Windows 8, a dramatic makeover of the operating system that came out four months ago.

More than 670 million PCs rely on Windows 7. In addition, more than 60 million PCs and other devices have licensed Windows 8.

Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, is counting on Internet Explorer 10 to reverse recent trends in the Web browser market. By some estimates, Google Inc.'s Chrome browser has supplanted Internet Explorer as the world's most popular browser. Other research firms still assert that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used, although all measures show it has been losing market share to Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox and Apple Inc.'s Safari.

The new Web browser is the latest in a procession of products that Microsoft has unveiled in the past four months. Besides Windows 8, Microsoft has released a tablet computer called Surface, an update to its Office suite of programs and an overhaul of its Web mail service, which is now called Outlook.com.

Microsoft believes the barrage of new products will prove it remains on the cutting edge of the latest technology trends, 38 years after the company's founding. The push hasn't swayed Microsoft's stock, which is hovering around the same price as when Windows 8 came out in late October.

Microsoft's stock gained 18 cents to $27.55 in morning trading Tuesday.

View the original article here