The long, slow march toward end of life of Microsoft currently most popular operating system is underway. As of October 30, 2013, Microsoft ceased selling boxed copies of Windows 7 at retail. ZDNet Ed Bott posted back in April of this year about the pending October 30 cut off date, but a few stories have popped up this week about it, so this is just a reminder. This October 30 cut off date mean that OEMs or retailers are no longer selling PCs with Windows 7 preloaded. I can verify after a trip...

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday might be a distant memory, but Microsoft is creating 12 days of deals at its own retail stores to continue the bargains in the run up to Christmas. The first day of sales commences on Monday, with Microsoft Stores selling Dell’s Venue 8 Pro tablet for just $99. It’s an incredibly good deal for an 8 inch tablet running a full copy of Windows 8.1, but there’s a slight catch: there’s only 20 at each of Microsoft’s 58 stores across the US...

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It’s pretty much a brick, says Pawn Stars’ Rick Harrison as he rejects aSamsung Chromebook brought in by an actor playing a customer. Microsoft really doesn’t want you buying this thing. In many ways, 2013 has been the year of the Chromebook for Google. FromAcer’s $199 C720 2848 toHP’s $279 Chromebook 11, Mountain View has attracted traditional Windows PC makers to build a variety of low cost laptops in time for the holidays. While Microsoft had largely ignored the...

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My ZDNet colleague Steven J. Vaughan Nichols has been pounding the table for Chromebooks since their launch more than two years ago. Back in June 2011, he called the Chromebook a Windows killer, predicting that Microsoft is facing real trouble in the market for desktop PCs. Last April I wrote that Chromebooks are struggling in the market, based on real world usage figures. That an illusion, according to Mr. Vaughan Nichols, who argues today that Chromebooks have been selling like hotcakes on a...

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A couple of my contacts have confirmed that Microsoft Executive Vice President Terry Myerson recently mentioned the Threshold codename in an internal email about plans for his unified operating system engineering group. If all goes according to early plans, Threshold will include updates to all three OS platforms Xbox One, Windows and Windows Phone that will advance them in a way to share even more common elements. The codename Threshold, for those wondering, derives from the planet around which...

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In just over four months, Microsoft is scheduled to stop supporting Windows XP after over 12 years. Now it appears the government of China would like for the company to reconsider its support cut off date of April 8th. In a report on the Chinese language TechWeb site, Yan Xiaohong, deputy director of China’s National Copyright Administration, is quoted as saying that the shut down of Windows XP support could lead to more security threats and increased use of pirated software. He stated,...

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Tablet devices, now omnipresent, have enabled new levels of mobility and content creation on the go. Today, consumers want more from their tablets: the ability to access files from any device, and the affordance to do so without running out of disk space on these low storage devices. As a result, many consumers and developers have turned to cloud storage services to store files and deliver a continuous experience across devices.With Windows 8.1, SkyDrive is built at the core of Windows, which...

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At the moment, Microsoft has a bunch of consumer facing Windows derived brands: Windows 8.1 for x86 and x64 PCs, Windows RT for ARM PCs, and Windows Phone for smartphones. According to research firm Canalys, that at least one too many, with Windows Phone and Windows RT specifically named as confusing to both developers and consumers alike. Both operating systems are used on smart devices, so why have two? Canalys report shows the remarkable benefit of hindsight, as just last week Julie Larson...

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