While Microsoft is tooting its own horn over having the first console to sell 10 million units in the US market, Nintendo's own isn't far behind and is still gaining on the Xbox.
The Xbox 360 has been out for a full year longer than its two rivals, Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3. The milestone 10 millionth sale was reached apparently this week.
"History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry," Interactive entertainment chief Don Mattrick said.
Microsoft is looking at alternatives to ultra-low-cost laptops in the drive to arm people in developing nations with a way
to communicate and access the Internet, and the company is turning its sights on cheaper devices that can give people a start
in computing, such as smartphones and shared computing.
The world's largest software maker has a few projects in the making, including a push to use mobile phones in computing and
microfinance. Mobile phones have already made an impact in nations across the developing world, from India to Zimbabwe, enabling
people such as farmers and fishermen to find better markets and prices. Handsets also give a person a way to be reached for
jobs.
Bill Gates may be about to retire from the day to day activities of Microsoft, the company he co-founded 33 years ago, but he's still a card carrying tech visionary and since he's still the chairman of the board and the largest stockholder, he can spout off about new products and technologies as much as he wants.
After all, what are they going to do? Fire him? That has been the case a couple of times recently when Gates pulled the curtain aside slightly to let his audiences see what's coming next ? and that is Windows 7. The only problem was that he didn't show much leg above the knees.
Putting the PlayStation 2 on a diet worked for Sony, but Microsoft Wednesday squashed rumors that it was planning to shed a few pounds off the Xbox 360's bulk in 2009.
Late Tuesday night, TG Daily said an "Xbox 540" or sorts would arrive in 2009 to reinvigorate the Xbox line, much like the slim versions of the PS2 and PSP had done for those systems.Microsoft, however, moved quickly Wednesday morning with an outright -- albeit strangely worded -- denial.
"While we don't normally comment on rumors like this, we can tell you that we have no plans to release a new console in 2009," a rep said.
On Monday Microsoft released the Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 beta bits for public download.
In addition to the usual performance enhancements, bug fixes and stability improvements, the SP1 betas offer widely anticipated data access technologies.
The .NET 3.5 service pack includes key components promised by Microsoft, namely the ADO.NET Entity Framework 1.0 and ADO.NET Data Services 1.0 (formerly code-named Astoria), a framework for building on-premise REST-based data services.
Microsoft on Tuesday said Office 2008 for the Mac is the hottest selling version of the productivity suite in nearly 20 years.
In announcing the soaring sales, the software maker also released Service Pack 1 of Office for the Mac. SP1 in general improves the suite's stability, security, and performance. The company also gave a peek of the product's roadmap by saying it would have Visual Basic for Applications in the next version.
VBA is an implementation of Microsoft's Visual Basic programming language that's built into Office applications. By embedding the VBA integrated development environment into software, Microsoft provides a familiar tool for developers customizing the suite.
Microsoft's answer to Web 2.0 - technologies such as wikis, blogs and social networks - can be found in SharePoint, the software platform tied to the Microsoft Office suite that the vendor hopes will become the one-stop destination application for enterprise collaboration.
While analysts say the social software in SharePoint lacks the functionality and usability of competitor products, its tight integration with existing Microsoft systems such as Exchange and Office makes it an attractive buy for IT departments looking to capitalize on the Web 2.0 movement while still utilizing the technology tools they already have inside their companies.
Microsoft on Tuesday released an inspiring new tool for investigating space using imagery from the best ground- and space-based observatories around the world. Dubbed WorldWide Telescope, this new tool is free and combines Web services with a local Windows application to provide an amazing experience.
"The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe," says Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. "By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space.
Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates spent a lot of time today talking about "empowering the workers" at the Microsoft's 12th annual CEO Summit 2008 in Redmond, Wash., where he gave a keynote speech. However, Gates wasn't talking about political revolutions or even pay raises for office workers before the CEO crowd. Instead, he was referring to new software technologies that can better enable collaboration, social networking and decision-making on the job.
Much of Gates' talk focused on Microsoft's current research and development efforts, which amount to a $7 billion investment just for this year.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is expected to show off new technology on Wednesday that is designed for the board room and
is a spin-off of Microsoft's Surface computer.
TouchWall, a prototype device developed by Microsoft Research and Office Labs, is a vertical representation of Surface, the
multitouch tabletop computer from Microsoft. TouchWall could be used by business people to give presentations. They can touch
the panel that would hang on the wall to drag, scroll and enlarge documents, photos or videos on the screen.