Microsoft Support & Discussions

By Paul Thurrott Google announced today that it intends to purchase ailing smartphone maker Motorola Mobility for a staggering $12.5 billion in order to obtain its mobile-related patent holdings and hardware business. According to Google, this move will accelerate the online giant’s Android ecosystem, which until now was made up largely of independent partners. But it’s sure to attract intense antitrust scrutiny as well. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott In my latest retrospective, I take a look back over a decade of Apple’s digital media products: the iPod, iTunes, and Apple TV. These are products I still use regularly, iTunes because I have to and the iPod touch and Apple TV because they’re still the best products in those respective markets. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott In the latest episode of the Windows Weekly podcast, Leo, Mary Jo and I discuss Windows Phone "Tango," smart phone market share, FTC’s investigation of Google, a class-action lawsuit against Apple, Windows 7 vs. Mac OS X security, the lack of new "Colorado" server hardware, TellMe integration into Microsoft’s many products, Hotmail and spam, and the Microsoft Touch Mouse. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Mobile device hackers this weekend began sharing what they claim is the final, shipping version of Windows Phone 7.5, the next version of Microsoft’s smart phone OS. However, even if this build is indeed the RTM ("release to manufacturing") build of Windows Phone 7.5--and there is evidence to suggest otherwise--it’s still not really the completed, final version of the OS, since it lacks the device- and platform-specific adaptations that will eventually be provided by the software giant’s partners. Source: Win Super Site

By Paul Thurrott Microsoft is dropping the glossy finish on the Xbox 360 S. My advice is to wait for the matte version if you’re in the market. It’s better looking, non-reflective (what you’re looking for in a living room device), and doesn’t pick up finger prints and other smudges easily. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul An often irreverent look at some of this week’s other news, including a BUILD Blogger Bash, the IBM turns 30 and doesn’t look a day over 40, why the future of the PC isn’t in cars or trucks but rather in hybrids, Google accuses Microsoft of leaking source code to witness, Gartner provides some interesting smartphone sales numbers which I break down, and Google adds native code capabilities to the web. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul I spent much of last week attending Big Nerd Ranch iOS developer training at Historic Banning Mills in Georgia. Here’s the story behind my trip, the class I took and the developer issues it addresses, and Big Nerd Ranch founder Aaron Hillegass, who has an interesting history of his own and even bigger plans for the future. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul Google’s Android OS currently dominates the smart phone market in a way that should scare anyone who’s paying attention. After all, this dominance has come in huge leaps over a very short period of time. But I think Google’s cheating. And it needs to be stopped. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul 30 years ago today, IBM launched its IBM Personal Computer, or PC, the result of a year-long skunk works project to get the slow-moving behemoth into the then-nascent personal computing market. On that note, the IBM PC was more successful than its designers could have reasonably dreamed of: It pushed personal computers into the lucrative business market and by using off-the-shelf parts, inadvertently created a market for PC-compatible clones that endures to this day. Source: Win Super Site

Microsoft has overhauled its innovation pipeline from both a technology and process standpoint. Here are five slides that explain some of the changes made. Source: All About Microsoft

By Thurrott, Paul A Seattle-area class-action lawsuit alleges that iPad maker Apple colluded with six of the biggest book publishers to artificially raise the price of ebooks and harm consumers. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expanding its antitrust investigation of Google to determine whether the online giant is illegally requiring licensees of its Android mobile OS to use its search services, shutting out competitors. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul When I saw the news that Wal-Mart was shutting down its online music store, I had the same reaction that most of you probably did: Wait, Wal-Mart still has an online music store? Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul I appeared on the Windows Phone Dev Podcast this week with Ryan and Travis Lowdermilk and discussed Charlie Kindel’s departure from Microsoft, Brandon Watson’s $1000 Windows Phone Challenge, Chamillionaire vs. Windows Phone, Adobe Edge, whether Tango is real and what it is, Microsoft’s big speech bets, and Skype’s Windows Phone claims. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul A Nokia executive said this week that the ailing smartphone giant would stop selling feature phones and Symbian-based smartphones in North America so that it can focus instead on pushing Windows Phone. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul Amazon today announced the availability of its Kindle Cloud Reader solution, a web app for accessing your purchased Kindle content and, perhaps as important, new eBooks via the Amazon Kindle eBook store. The Kindle Cloud Reader works with Chrome and Safari on the PC and Safari for iPad. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul I’m helping out again on the What the Tech podcast, where Andrew and I discuss Macs and PCs, why the Ultrabook makes plenty of sense and maybe even more so in the future, and a trip down memory lane: AOL, Napster, AIM, and where it all went. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul Microsoft this week announced its first major free update for Windows MultiPoint Server 2011, called Update Rollup 1. This release includes new language (Arabic and Hebrew) support, better support for touch screens, improved USB storage drive letter management, improved mouse handling, remote device automatic detection, and better support for PS/2 audio. Source: Win Super Site

By Thurrott, Paul Microsoft recently announced that it had completed the Windows 7 Professional Pack add-in for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. This add-in will be available to customers from the Microsoft Download Center starting August 12. Source: Win Super Site

The Microsoft Tellme team is working with the Bing, Windows Phone, Kinect/Xbox, Azure and other Microsoft teams to add new speech-centric capabilities to Microsoft and third-party products in the coming year-plus. Source: All About Microsoft

If you’re among those going to the Windows 8 Build conference next month, be advised the scheduled pre-conference is no longer happening. Source: All About Microsoft