Microsoft Support & Discussions

By Paul Thurrott In the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, Leo, Mary Jo and I discuss HP’s blockbuster decision to kill webOS and sell/spin off its dominant PC business, the Google/Motorola deal and what it really means, Steven Sinofsky starts blogging about Windows 8 and carefully reveals a few morsels of real information, we’re holding a BUILD Blogger Bash, Microsoft’s living room bet is all Xbox (and not Windows or Zune), BPOS to Office 365 migrations, Scott Adams and Windows Phone, Windows Azure pricing, and Paul’s trip this week to Petaluma. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott HP has killed webOS and the TouchPad along with it. And while one might choose to mourn its passing, as I do--webOS really was something special, even though it never caught on with consumers--don’t be fooled by the Crazy Eddie pricing you’re seeing out there as retailers dump their remaining stock of TouchPads at fire sale prices. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott In the wake of HP’s blockbuster decision to kill off its Palm webOS platform for smart phones and tablets, Microsoft’s Brandon Watson has come to the rescue: He’s offering stranded webOS developers free training on Windows Phone, the mobile platform that both IDC and Gartner feel will be number two in the market, ahead of iPhone, by 2015. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft’s patent infringement case, filed with the U.S. ITC against Motorola Mobility, kicks off next week. Here’s what you need to know about what’s at stake. Source: All About Microsoft

Microsoft is informing customers hit by its Office 365 cloud outage this week that a “networking interruption” caused the problem, and that the company is planning to offer them a 25 percent credit for their trouble. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott An often irreverent look at some of this week’s other news, including a reminder about the Build Blogger Bash, how HP’s PC exit will impact Microsoft (maybe), a wake-up call about the Windows 8 app store, Microsoft’s Turkey tablet bid, Office 365’s first outage, an unintentionally comic tech news headline, Apple’s attempt to strangle Samsung in the EU, and the Xbox 360’s inability to compete in Japan. Source: Win Super Site

The biggest PC vendor, HP, is getting out of the PC business. What’s this mean, if anything, about the future of Windows? Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott In a set of shocking developments that could send the entire PC industry reeling, Hewlett-Packard today revealed that it will kill off its Palm webOS mobile system and devices and explore its options for selling off the business. But it gets worse: HP isn’t stopping with webOS. The company plans to follow IBM and sell or perhaps spin off its PC business as well. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Back when Windows 7 was still in beta, I offered up a set of Windows 7 themes around such topics as Paris, Washington D.C., and coffee, and I wrote a Feature Focus article about this technology. I’ve gotten some requests recently to re-post those themes, and I may do so in the near future. But this got me talking with a photographer friend recently, and I figured some of her pictures would make for great Windows desktop backgrounds, and great themes. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott In the wake of Brandon Watson’s $1000 challenge to Dilbert creator Scott Adams, Mr. Adams has rendered his verdict. And in his words, Windows Phone is "the best choice," beating out Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android. I couldn’t agree more. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft revealed its plans for bridging the living room/technology gap and unlike its strategy of the past decade, Windows and Zune no longer seem to be part of the plan. Instead, Microsoft appears to be going all-in with Xbox, via the Xbox 360 and a coming set of Xbox-oriented services that will bring television content to the living room via its video game console. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott There are two major types of digital video services available today, a la carte offerings like iTunes Store that offer movies and TV shows for purchases and rentals, and video streaming services like Netflix. Interestingly, only Amazon offers a truly viable alternative in both markets, and this week the online retailing giant announced an improvement to its selections in both areas. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft CRM Online and Office 365 users were hit with outages to their cloud services on August 17. Microsoft has yet to respond as to what’s going on. Source: All About Microsoft

Microsoft has 35 different feature teams building Windows 8. The list provides some new official confirmation and additional clues on what to expect with the next Windows release. Source: All About Microsoft

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft announced today the availability of the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit (August 2011) add-on for Visual Studio, a set of controls that developers can use to take advantage of new Windows Phone 7.5 ("Mango") features. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott We’re going to be reading between the lines every time Steven Sinofsky and others on the Windows team post to the Building Windows 8 blog ahead of BUILD. But today’s "meet and greet" post, in which he introduces the various feature teams working on Windows 8, doesn’t really require that much thought. Here, for the first time, is a peek at some general Windows 8 features, including such things like App Store, Hyper-V, and Windows Online. Source: Win Super Site