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Wintel rebirth amid the stock market turning negative about the Wintel future

April 5, 2014 10:16 am / 1 Comment on Wintel rebirth amid the stock market turning negative about the Wintel future

Despite of the Intel video of a year ago getting totally new meaning this week:

with:

Microsoft BUILD 2014 Day 1: consistency and superiority accross the whole Windows family extended now to TVs and IoT devices as well—$0 royalty licensing program for OEM and ODM partners in sub 9” phone and tablet space [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 2, 2014]
IDF14 Shenzhen: Intel is levelling the Wintel playing field with Android-ARM by introducing new competitive Windows tablet price points from $99 – $129 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 4, 2014]

the stock market has just turned negative about the future of both companies:

source: http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/INTC

source: http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MSFT?s=msft

An explanation for that:

Why I Sold All Of My Intel Shares This Week [a “casual investor” by nickname Quoth the Raven on ‘Seeking Alpha’, April 3, 2014]

Summary

Intel was upgraded by a Piper Jaffray analyst, who cited a slowing PC market decline.
The PC market, sans Mac, has been on a decline that hasn’t ended, despite people like myself predicting it would have bottomed by now.
I sold my Intel shares for the time being and am grazing greener pastures.

By now, we all know some of the questionable points about Intel’s (INTC) business. In the past, I’ve written about the company being a little slow on the uptake when it came to mobile and tablet sales. Most recently I’ve questioned the company’s vision for jumping into cloud computing with a major investment and abandoning their in-house Hadoop project, ultimately leading to a major waste of money and resources.

First things first; I sold out of my Intel long position the other day, not necessarily discounting the company to be a long-term hold again at some point in the future. I needed the capital for other purposes, evaluated the many positions in my portfolio, and found the most unease about Intel – so, I sold – for now.

And, sure enough, right after I sold, Seeking Alpha came out and reported that Piper Jaffray came out and upgraded the stock:

As part of a change of coverage for chip stocks, Piper is upgrading Intel to Overweight, and downgrading Broadcom (BRCM) to Neutral.
The firm thinks Intel will benefit from stabilizing PC sales, and is worried about Broadcom’s mobile customer concentration (presumably with Apple and Samsung).
IDC still expects PC shipments to fall another 6% in 2014. But Y/Y decline rates have been narrowing in recent quarters.
OTR Global recently reported Broadcom’s 3G baseband chip sales to Samsung have fallen sharply. Samsung has also taken steps to increase its use of in-house Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, though that hasn’t stopped Broadcom from continuing to secure combo chip design wins.
Apple bought Bluetooth chipmaker Passif Semi last year (possibly for iWatch R&D), but hasn’t yet done anything to suggest it’s working on Wi-Fi chips.

When I dug a little deeper into the reasoning behind the upgrade, one thing perked my ears up. Piper is coming out and assuming that the PC market is going to continue to slow and then eventually bottom. I thought this very same thing six months ago. Since then, I’ve continued to watch the PC market decline – albeit slower now – but it has yet to hit a bottom.

Again, Intel’s biggest friend here has been Mac, which has been able to buck the overall trend of the PC market and continue to sell well. Intel leveraging its relationship with Apple (AAPL) at this point remains a key factor in their success.

As the main constituency of Intel products travel through the sales of PCs, this continues to remain a point of unease for Intel. Additionally, Piper is seemingly betting on a flawless execution and growth of Intel’s Quark chipset which certainly is possible, but remains to be seen at this point.

Gartner’s numbers, shown below, continue to show a decrease in PCs for 2015, and an increase in both tablets and mobile – where Intel still does not have a steady foothold.

(click to enlarge – source)

Further, the headlines surrounding the market that even I predicted would have stabilized by now, continue to look ugly. cnet reported:

PC sales will continue to nosedive this year as more consumers scoop up mobile devices, says a new report from Gartner.

Global shipments of personal computers will total 276.7 million in 2014, Gartner forecast on Thursday, a 6.6 percent drop from last year. On the flip side, tablet shipments will jump by 38.6 percent thanks in part to greater demand in regions outside North America.

But the number of people replacing their aging PCs with tablets is actually expected to decline.

But what about globally, you ask? I asked the very same thing – same uneasy headlines, different countries. We continue to see reports, like this one out of Taiwan, claiming that PC sales are poised to decline:

Total PC sales in Taiwan are poised to decline for the fourth consecutive year, as consumers continue to favor mobile devices that are less expensive than, but as productive as, their pricier counterparts, International Data Corp [IDC] forecast yesterday.

National PC sales are expected to fall by 5.1 percent to 2.55 million units this year, following a 15.6 percent fall last year, the market research firm said in a report.

Desktop computers are projected to account for 60 percent of total PC sales this year, with notebook computers making up the remaining 40 percent, the report said.

Last year, desktop and notebook sales in Taiwan reached 1.68 million and 1.01 million units respectively, it added.

But when are we going to hit the coveted bottom that we continue to talk about? It is coming, possibly, but it sure isn’t here yet. And, as long as these sales continue to decline, Intel remains at a vulnerable point as a company. Especially with the questionable vision they have shown of late.

Again, this data [dated March 5] from IDC is once again suggesting that PC sales are going to decline more than we expected this year:

Shipments of new personal computers, most of them equipped with Microsoft Windows (MSFT), will decline more in 2014 than thought a few months ago, researcher IDC said Tuesday.

IDC said that PC shipments will drop by 6% from the year before to approximately 296 million, a smaller number than it forecast three months ago, when it said global shipments would decline 4% in 2014.

Last year, shipments contracted by 10% compared to 2012, dropping to about 315 million new PCs.

IDC revises its numbers quarterly, said Rajani Singh, an analyst with IDC, who pointed out that as the market changes, the company modifies its forecasts, sometimes up, sometimes down.

Even though I thought their new incentive-based pay program was a good idea, there were many that disagreed with me and thought it was bad for business. You could say the same, again, about the company’s recent foray into cloud computing. People ask, “Is it too little, too late?” Why does it seem like Intel is just throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks?

(click to enlarge)

Do I think Intel is an absolutely horrible stock to be in for the long-term? Of course I don’t. It pays a dividend, has a good balance sheet, and is going to be around for many years to come. Do I think Intel is ripe for a short to mid-term trade? Absolutely not. I think there’s still work that needs to be done at this point before we see Intel push up towards $30/share and, thusly, I made my decision to sell my Intel shares for the time being and enter an Intel holding pattern.

Best of luck to all investors.

IDF14 Shenzhen: Intel is levelling the Wintel playing field with Android-ARM by introducing new competitive Windows tablet price points from $99 – $129

April 4, 2014 5:57 pm / 2 Comments on IDF14 Shenzhen: Intel is levelling the Wintel playing field with Android-ARM by introducing new competitive Windows tablet price points from $99 – $129

As Microsoft is going against Android and Apple with a vastly updated Windows/Windows Phone 8.1 for $0 royalty fee on smartphones and tablets with screens under 9”, integrated Windows desktop experience (upcoming in the next update), capability of creating Universal Windows apps accross the whole Windows family, see Microsoft BUILD 2014 Day 1: consistency and superiority accross the whole Windows family e.t.c … [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 2, 2014]

Update: Intel aggressively promoting tablet CPUs in China [DIGITIMES, April 14, 2014]

Intel has resorted to an aggressive pricing strategy to promote sales of its tablet-use processors, particularly in China, a move which apparently will take on Qualcomm and MediaTek, while ramping up its market share, according to industry sources.

Prices of Intel’s mainstream quad-core tablet CPUs have dropped to below US$5, which are almost on par with those offered by China-based chipset suppliers such as Rockchip Electronics and Allwinner Technology and even below those available from Nvidia, Qualcomm and MediaTek, said the sources.

Consequently, the number of Intel-based tablets is likely to expand in a great proportion as more and more China-based brand and white-box tablet vendors are expected to use Intel’s tablet CPUs to develop new products, the sources revealed.

Intel’s new policy also focuses on deepening its relationship with the supply chain in China, highlighting by its recent announcement of establishing an Intel Smart Device Innovation Center in Shenzhen and a US$100 million Intel Capital China Smart Device Innovation Fund, commented the sources.

To encourage China-based tablet makers to use Intel’s CPUs, the chipset vendor is offering assistance in terms of design, technology and marketing, the sources indicated.

Intel’s offerings will be particularly attractive to white-box tablet makers as they can optimize low-priced chipsets and advanced technologies to roll out competitive models for the entry-level segment, added the sources.

Intel aims to ship 40 million tablet CPUs in 2014, including entry-level Bay Trail family and SoFIA 3G platform products, the sources noted.

Intel is announcing the Bay Trail-Entry SoCs for that: Atom Z3735G and Z3735F
(As far as the original announcement is concerned read the The long awaited Windows 8.1 breakthrough opportunity with the new Intel “Bay Trail-T”, “Bay Trail-M” and “Bay Trail-D” SoCs? [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 14, 2013] post of mine. Note also that by Microsoft the new Bay Trail-Entry SoCs were called “Bay Trail Cost Reduced options”.)

Z3735G/F Bay Trail-Entry Designed Specifically for CTE (China Technical Ecosystem) ODMs an Supply Chain:
– Type 3 packaging of AP and PMIC
>>> Enabling cost effective and broadly
available 6-layer PCBs
– Reduced Component Count
>>> New PMIC with higher level of Integration
>>> Intel Platforms, Bay Trail-Entry 478
vs. Clover Trail+ 496 vs. Bay Trail-v0 700
– CTE-friendly Components
>>> Components selected based on cost and availability in China, after direct ODM & Sales feeback
– Component Catalog
>>> Pre-validated key components to allow reference design variations with fast time to market
Source: TABS002 – Designing Entry and Value Tablets Based on the Intel® Platform, Bay Trail – Entry
(Warning: The slides of that presentation still reflect the case before the $0 Windows royalty fee announcement for tablets with screens under 9” by Microsoft, which occured a few hours before Intel’s Bay Trail-Entry announcement!)

From Bay Trail-v0 to Bay Trail-Entry in terms of tablet circuit boards:

And the effect would be even more dramatic than you would first think: Low cost Windows tablets and Docking Demo [Steve Paine YouTube channel, April 4, 2014]

http://umpcportal.com for more on Windows tablets. Low-cost Windows tablets will have just as much power and USB capability as current models. No Ultrabook was used in this video!

From Delivering Innovation across Mobile Devices, PCs, Software and Services [Intel Fact Sheet, April 3, 2014] + “Mobile Innovation With Intel Inside” – Hermann Eul Webcast [IDF14 Shenzhen, April 3, 2014] + Intel Developer Forum 2014 Keynote – Hermann Eul (English Slides) (PDF 3.7MB)
(Additional information: Intel Developer Forum – Shenzhen 2014 or IDF14 Shenzhen)

Accelerated Mobile Roadmap

Eul, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobile and Communications Group, demonstrated how Intel is accelerating innovation across its mobile platforms, from Intel® Atom™ to LTE, to scale at all prices and designs. The company continues to partner with emerging ODMs and OEMs in China and Taiwan to innovate and drive costs down to deliver compelling mobile devices to consumers around the globe. The China technology ecosystem is key to Intel’s goal of increasing sales of Intel-based tablets this year, and the company has an established program to help these ODMs and OEMs develop, market and sell Intel-based mobile devices at scale.

To further fuel the availability of low-cost, Intel-based tablets, Eul outlined how the company is expanding its Intel® Atom™ Z3700 series (“Bay Trail”) processor lineup to include several new products. New entry SKUs deliver 64-bit-ready, quad-core performance at a much lower cost based on engineering changes to the board design and other third-party components. Eul said these entry “Bay Trail” SKUs are currently in production and Intel anticipates OEMs to launch both Windows* and Android* devices this summer, with some starting at prices as low as US$99.

[Bay Trail 2GHz quad-core SoC has a roughly 2x performance gain vs. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 2.2GHz quad-core SoC in video encoding as it was demonstrated at IDF14 Shenzhen during Hermann Eul’s keynote.]

[ CPU Size reduction: Intel Baytrail for low-cost tablets (IDF14) [Steve Paine YouTube channel, April 3, 2014] ]

The Baytrail CR platform is smaller and is aimed at producing low cost Android and Windows tablets. More detail here. http://www.umpcportal.com/2014/04/windows-tablets-at-99-realsense-for-high-end-later-this-year/

[ Intel’s $99 Windows Tablet Prospect. IDF14 [Steve Paine YouTube channel, April 3, 2014] ]

Hermann Eul presents the Intel $99 Windows Tablet prospect at IDF14 in Shenzen. More information here: http://www.umpcportal.com/2014/04/windows-tablets-at-99-realsense-for-high-end-later-this-year/

Intel is also introducing two tablet master reference designs that will be available this summer. The reference designs help ODMs deliver low-cost, high-quality Intel-based tablets faster.

Global Marketing Campaigns Begin

Reaching Consumer Globally

Help Consumer Choose
Intel Based Tablets

Reaching IT Decision Makers Globally

With tools to pick the best
tablets for the Enterprise

Marketing Local Innovation

Sell Through Campaigns

Eul also disclosed more details about Intel’s future SoFIA 3G product, a dual-chip, fully integrated SoC that will begin shipping in the fourth quarter this year. SoFIA builds on Intel’s proven communications platforms by adding powerful Intel Atom cores, and it will be targeted at entry and value smartphones and tablets.

Eul said LTE is a priority and opportunity for Intel. The company’s 2014 LTE platform (Intel® XMM™ 7260) features five-mode support, including support for TD-LTE, and TD-SCDMA, which expands its addressable market to include China. Eul said the company is already actively engaged with China operators for certification and field trials are underway.

For overall background about IDF14 Shenzhen watch this report: IDF Shenzhen 2014 Highlights & Analysis [Mobilegeeks.de YouTube channel, April 4, 2014]

IDF Shenzhen 2014 http://www.mobilegeeks.com IDF Shenzhen has come to an end and Nicole Scott & Stewart Haston have decided to show you some highlights from the keynotes and give you some extra insight.

Amazon joined the OTT TV, gaming console and entertainment race with its Fire TV

April 3, 2014 12:10 pm / Leave a comment

Gary Busey Meets Amazon Fire TV [amazon YouTube channel, April 2, 2014]

Introducing Amazon Fire TV, http://amzn.to/1pRjlgP, the streaming media player that listens to Gary Busey. Gary likes to talk to things, but gets frustrated when high tech things don’t listen. Luckily, Amazon Fire TV listens to Gary and finds all the movies and TV shows he wants to watch. Amazon Fire TV has voice search that actually works. #AmazonFireTV

Amazon unveils the FireTV [CNETTV YouTube channel, April 2, 2014]

The $99 FireTV plays Amazon on-demand streaming content, adds voice search, and plays games.

with no big stock market enthusiasm (I would say “business as usual” reaction):

Analyst commentary: Amazon Unveils Video-Streaming Device ‘Fire TV’ [WSJDigitalNetwork YouTube channel, April 2, 2014]

Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday unveiled a new set-top box to stream video and other media to television sets, an ambitious move by the retail giant to break into the living room. TECHnalysis Research founder Bob O’Donnell joins Lunch Break. Photo: Getty Images.

Introducing Amazon Fire TV: The Easiest Way to Watch Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, and More on Your Big-Screen TV [Amazon press release, April 2, 2014]

Powerful performance with 3x the processing power, 4x the memory, dedicated GPU, and dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi

Say it, watch it—use voice search to instantly find movies, TV shows, and more

New ASAP feature predicts which movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and prepares them for playback before you even hit play

Huge, open ecosystem of entertainment—choose from over 200,000 movies and TV episodes

Plus, Fire TV comes with access to games from EA, Disney, Gameloft, Mojang, 2K, Amazon Game Studios, and more

My insert here: Amazon announces Fire TV, its own set top box: 90 Seconds on The Verge [The Verge YouTube channel, April 2, 2014]

Amazon announces Fire TV, its own set own set top box that plays movies, TV, music, games, and more. http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/2/5573818/amazon-announces-fire-tv

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Apr. 2, 2014– (NASDAQ:AMZN)—Kindle revolutionized reading by making it possible to think of a book and be reading it in less than 60 seconds. Kindle Fire put the world’s largest selection of movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks, and magazines in the palm of your hand. In each case, Amazonintegrates the hardware, software, and the content into an easy-to-use, seamless, end-to-end service for customers. Today, Amazon is excited to unveil its newest innovation—Fire TV, a tiny box that plugs into your HDTV for easy and instant access to Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, SHOWTIME, low-cost video rentals, and much more. Fire TV also brings photos, music, and games to the living room. Meet Amazon Fire TV at www.amazon.com/FireTV.

“Tiny box, huge specs, tons of content, incredible price—people are going to love Fire TV,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Voice search that actually works means no more typing on an alphabet grid. Our exclusive new ASAP feature predicts the shows you’ll want to watch and gets them ready to stream instantly. And our open approach gives you not just Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video, but also Netflix, Hulu Plus, and more. On Fire TV you can watch Alpha House and House of Cards.”

Related information:

Prime (+Netflix comparison): Amazon may hike Prime cost as earnings disappoint and further challenges lay ahead of the company for which it needs to adjust its business model and expand its operations [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Jan 31, 2014]

1. Cable and satellite video market (U.S. only)
2. Pay-TV market (cable and satellite, IPTV, terrestrial)
3. The overall TV market (home video, on demand video, linear TV)
4. IPTV—AT&T U-verse TV and Verizon FiOS video in particular
5. OTT (Over-the-top content)
within the Microsoft’s integrated solution for streaming video and Live TV providers on all devices, plus the upcoming live-action and “shared experience” TV of its own on Xbox [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 3, 2014] which also contains:
6.   Microsoft’s live TV solution on Xbox
7.   Preliminary information on the upcoming products from Xbox Entertainment Studios
8.   Xbox Music and Xbox Video services for other devices

Amazon’s move into overall leadership: Kindle Fire HDX with Snapdragon 800, “revolutionary on-device tech support” (Mayday), enterprise and productivity capable Fire OS 3.0 forked from Android 4.2.2 etc. PLUS a significantly enhanced, new Kindle Fire HD for a much lower, $139 price [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 27, 2013]

My insert here: Hands On with Amazon Fire TV [TechCrunch YouTube channel, April 2, 2014]

Jordan takes us through an unboxing of the new set top box by Amazon called the Fire TV. Take a look at the hardware itself and also the user interface and media library features.

Amazon Fire TV features:

Voice search that actually works—simply speak the name of a movie, TV show, actor, director, or genre into the remote, and you’re done. No more hunting and pecking in an alphabet grid.
All the content—instant access to Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, YouTube, and more, plus the largest selection of videos for rent and purchase—over 200,000 movies and TV episodes from Amazon Instant Video. Plus, listen to music with Amazon MP3, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and more.
Powerful performance in a tiny form factor—quad-core processor with over 3x the processing power of Apple TV, Chromecast, or Roku 3, a dedicated GPU, plus 4x the memory of Apple TV, Chromecast, or Roku 3 for exceptional speed and fluidity. Delivers stunning 1080p HD video and immersive Dolby Digital Plus surround sound. All of this comes in an incredibly small package—Fire TV is 0.7” thin and comes with a simple and sleek remote control with a built-in microphone.
Simple and easy to use—arrives pre-registered so you can start watching immediately out of the box.
An exclusive new feature called ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) predicts which movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and buffers them for playback before you even hit play—instant start.
High-quality, low-cost gaming—games like Minecraft, Monsters University, The Game of Life, The Walking Dead, NBA2K14, Asphalt 8, Riptide GP2, Despicable Me: Minion Rush, and more. The average price of paid games on Fire TV is $1.85. Play using your Fire TV remote, the Fire TV app for smartphones and tablets, or the optional Fire game controller.
Amazon FreeTime revolutionizes parental controls—parents can choose what their kids see and set time limits for types of content and times of day—no more negotiating for one more show before bedtime. Customers who subscribe to FreeTime Unlimited—Amazon’s all-you-can-eat content subscription designed for kids ages 3 to 8—will get unlimited access to thousands of movies and TV shows.
X-Ray for movies, TV shows, and music—see information about cast and crew, trivia, goofs, and synchronized lyrics.
See all of your photos and personal videos come alive on your big-screen TV—seamless integration with Amazon’s Cloud Drive.

Simple and Easy to Use, with Powerful Performance

Powerful Quad-Core Processor and Graphics Engine

Fire TV features a world-class quad-core processor with 3x the processing power of Apple TV, Chromecast, or Roku 3, and a dedicated Adreno 320 graphics engine that processes 57 billion floating point instructions per second, for lightning-fast graphics and excellent fluidity. Fire TV comes with 2GB of memory, 4x the memory of Apple TV, Chromecast, or Roku 3, so content loads faster and games run smoother.

New Amazon Fire TV powered by Snapdragon 600 processor [Qualcomm Snapdragon Blog, April 2, 2014]

Amongst popcorn aromas and home-theatre decor, today, Amazon announced Fire TV: a streaming set top box that aims to deliver just about every video streaming service in a compact, powerful package.

Addressing the media at today’s announcement in New York, Amazon.com’s Peter Larsen, Vice President of Kindle, identified three problems with today’s internet-enabled set-top boxes—search, performance, and a closed ecosystem—and detailed how Fire TV solves them.

Granted, search and content ecosystems are well within the purview of Amazon. But performance? That’s where Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processors come in.

Sporting a Snapdragon 600 processor with quad-core CPU, the Fire TV has all the base capabilities you expect from a device that lives in your living room: Full HD 1080p streaming video, 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus surround sound, and a lighting-fast, ultra-stable dual-antenna Wi-Fi connection.

With three times the processing power of other set-top boxes, the Fire TV features silky-smooth menu navigation and content browsing. And utilizing the additional performance on tap, Amazon have introduced ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction), which automatically predicts, buffers, and stores the shows you want to watch—all you need to do is hit play, and they instantly start.

But this is Amazon, the everything store. And the Fire TV is the everything box.

Foremost of which is the new voice search. Just press a button on your remote, and the Fire TV can find John Malkovich’s entire body of work at the utterance of his name, or get Team Umizoomi up and streaming almost as fast as you children can yell “Umizoomi.”

In addition to the massive library of movies and TV shows available through just about every video streaming service on the planet; the dedicated Qualcomm Adreno GPU opens up the Fire TV to the gaming world. Available today are staples such Minecraft, The Walking Dead, NBA2K14 and more than 100 other games. In addition, the GPU will power Amazon’s first foray into video games: Sev Zero.

Additionally there’s Second Screen—allowing users to mirror music, movies, and photos from their Kindle Fire HDX (also powered by Snapdragon processors) to their TV. And unlike the set-top boxes that came before, Fire TV will feature X-Ray: A second screen experience, powered by IMDb, that provides viewers with relevant information—such as cast and crew bios, soundtrack credits, trivia, character backstories, and more—as their movie or show plays. Currently, X-Ray is available for Kindle Fire HDX users, with support for iPhone and iPad later this year.

Amazon’s Fire TV is available now for $99.

Streams in High Definition 1080p with Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound

With dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi, Fire TV streams in up to full-HD 1080p and supports HDMI and optical audio-out, enabling up to 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus surround sound.

Simple and Easy to Use

Fire TV comes automatically pre-registered so you can immediately get started. No complicated set-up, no hassle—just plug it in and start watching. All of your previously purchased movies and TV shows from Amazon, as well as personalized recommendations and your Watchlist, will be there waiting for you when you turn on Fire TV.

Designed to Disappear

Fire TV is designed to disappear. It is 0.7” thin, so it is easy to hide, and is silent even when running the most demanding applications.

Fire TV Remote

Fire TV’s remote is small, simple, and intuitive, with familiar controls. Search, browse, play, pause, and add titles to your Watchlist with ease. The Fire TV remote uses Bluetooth so there is no “line of sight” required, which means no reaching or struggling to aim your signal at a tiny target—store your Fire TV in a cabinet or behind the TV.

Voice Search that Actually Works

Gone are the days of searching for a movie or TV show by left-left-down-right-ing through an on-screen alphabet grid using your remote. Simply speak the name of a movie, TV show, actor, director, genre, app, or game into the remote, and the results will appear instantly. Voice search leverages the search data and expertise of Amazon.com and IMDb, and is optimized to understand Amazon’s video, app, and game catalog.

The Best Video Experience

Movies and TV Shows from Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, and More

Fire TV comes with instant access to all of the most popular subscription video services, including Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, VEVO, SHOWTIME, Crackle, YouTube, and more, with additional services like WWE Network, MLB.TV, WATCH Disney Channel, WATCH ABC, and Twitch coming soon.

Prime Instant Video, with Exclusives and Original Shows

Fire TV is seamlessly integrated with Prime Instant Video, Amazon’s subscription streaming service. With tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, Prime Instant Video is the exclusive premium subscription streaming home for thousands of hours of video, including shows like Downton Abbey, The Americans, Workaholics, Justified, 24, Hannibal, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob, and more. Prime Instant Video also includes shows from Amazon Studios, the original TV production arm of Amazon, such as Alpha House from Pulitzer-Prize winner Garry Trudeau and starring John Goodman, which debuted last year and quickly became the most watched show on Amazon since its release. Alpha House is now in production for its second season, and Amazon recently greenlighted six new shows, including The After, Bosch, Mozart in the Jungle, and Transparent, which will be available starting later this year.

The Largest Selection of Videos for Rent or Purchase

Rent or purchase over 200,000 movies and TV episodes from Amazon Instant Video, which has the world’s largest selection of videos to rent or buy, including new releases and blockbusters. Amazon is the only nationwide video service that offers rental and purchase, as well as a subscription streaming service, so you can find everything you want in one place—catch up on past seasons of popular TV shows with Prime Instant Video before purchasing the most recent episode of the show as it’s released.

Find the Lowest Price—Even if it’s Not from Amazon

Just like on Amazon.com, Fire TV integrates viewing options on a single page so you can always choose the lowest price. This is available starting with Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and Prime Instant Video, and will expand to other content providers so you’ll see all of your options in one place.

ASAP

You shouldn’t have to wait 10 seconds for a video to buffer after you press “Play”—it should start immediately. Based on your Watchlist and recommendations, the new ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) feature predicts which movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and prepares them for playback before you even hit play. This feature is smart—it is personalized based on your viewing habits and adapts as those habits change. The caching predictions get better over time, so ASAP will continuously improve as you use Fire TV.

Fling TV Shows and Movies with Second Screen

Fling Amazon TV shows and movies from your phone or tablet to your Fire TV using Second Screen. This turns your TV into the primary screen and frees up your phone or tablet to provide playback controls, a customized display for X-Ray, or simply a place to email, browse the web, and more, while you watch a movie. Second Screen is available on Kindle Fire HDX and will be available later this year from your iPhone or iPad. You can also wirelessly mirror your tablet display to your Fire TV with Kindle Fire, as well as other Miracast-enabled phones or tablets starting later this year. Fire TV supports standards like DIAL, so app developers can enable multi-screen experiences based on open technologies.

X-Ray for Movies and TV Shows, Powered by IMDb

Using Second Screen on your Fire HDX and later this year on your iPhone or iPad, you can see X-Ray information as your movie or TV show plays on Fire TV. With X-Ray you can see information about cast and crew, the names of songs as they play, as well as a list of all music in the movie or TV show, trivia items in context with the action on the screen, and character backstories so you can easily remind yourself of the character’s history. X-Ray is exclusive to Amazon and is powered by IMDb.

Amazon FreeTime—Revolutionary Parental Controls

Now you don’t have to worry about what your kids are watching on the TV—with FreeTime, a parent creates profiles for each child and selects the content they can see. Parents can create time limits based on type of content or time of day. When in FreeTime, the background color and fonts change to a kid-friendly design. Kids only see titles that have been selected by their parents for them, and those who can’t yet read can navigate visually to content based on favorite characters or topics—for example “Dora the Explorer,” “Princesses,” or “Thomas and Friends.” Parents who have already set up profiles and approved content on Kindle Fire tablets will find the settings are automatically synchronized on Fire TV, making it simple and seamless to get started.

Customers who subscribe to FreeTime Unlimited—Amazon’s all-you-can-eat content subscription designed just for kids ages 3 to 8—will get unlimited access to thousands of movies and TV shows. FreeTime Unlimited is available for Prime members to enjoy for a monthly price of $2.99 per child or $6.99 per family. Customers who are not yet Prime members can subscribe to FreeTime Unlimited for a monthly price of $4.99 per child or$9.99 per family. Amazon FreeTime and FreeTime Unlimited will be available on Fire TV starting next month.

Your Photos on the Big Screen

Fire TV makes it easy to view your photos and personal videos on your TV. You can set up and play slide shows, find specific photos, and choose your favorite album for the screen-saver on Fire TV. Photos or videos you take on your phone or tablet can be automatically uploaded to Amazon Cloud Drive, so they appear on your Fire TV within seconds.

Music in Your Living Room

Music from Pandora, Amazon MP3, iHeartRadio, and More

With Fire TV, you can listen to music from popular streaming services like Pandora, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn, and watch music videos from VEVO. Starting next month, you can also listen to your full collection of music through Amazon Cloud Player. Simply upload your music or purchase from Amazon and it will be stored automatically in your Cloud Player and available on Fire TV as well as on your phone or tablet.

X-Ray for Music

Lyrics display and scroll line-by-line automatically as the song plays, so you can follow along with songs. X-Ray for Music will be available starting next month.

Bonus—Great Games at Low Prices

Games from Top Developers

Amazon worked with game developers like EA, Disney, Gameloft, Ubisoft, Telltale, Mojang, 2K, and Sega to bring their games to Fire TV. Games available starting today include customer favorites like Minecraft, Monsters University, The Game of Life, The Walking Dead, NBA2K14, Asphalt 8, Riptide GP2, Despicable Me: Minion Rush, and more. Over 100 games are available starting today and optimized for Fire TV, with thousands of additional games coming next month with the Fire TV app, which brings controls for touch-enabled games. These are great games for such a small box and at such surprisingly low prices—the average price of paid games is $1.85.

Fire TV also comes with access to Sev Zero, a new game built exclusively for Fire TV by Amazon Game Studios. Sev Zero is $6.99 and is available for free when you purchase the Fire game controller. Learn more: www.amazon.com/pr/SevZero.

Fire TV runs the latest version of Fire OS “Mojito,” which is based on Android, so it’s simple for developers to port their services and games over to Fire TV.

Choose How to Play—Remote, Game Controller, or App

In addition to using the Fire TV remote and the Fire TV app available starting next month, you can also choose the Amazon Fire game controller, which enables more high-intensity and complex gaming with dual analog sticks and a complete assortment of controls. Simple and comfortable to use for hours, the Fire game controller pairs with Fire TV via Bluetooth. The Fire game controller also intelligently manages power by automatically going to sleep when not in use, and waking at a touch of a button, so you get up to 55 hours of gaming on a pair of AA batteries. You can pair multiple game controllers with a Fire TV so the whole family can play together in the same room. The integrated GameCircle button gives you instant access to leaderboards, achievements and friends with a simple touch of a button from any GameCircle enabled game. The Fire game controller can also be used as a remote, with fast forward, rewind, play and pause, so you can control all your movies and music on Fire TV. The Fire game controller is available today for $39.99, and comes with a free copy of Sev Zero and 1,000 Amazon Coins (a $10 value) for purchasing games.

The Features You Expect from Amazon

Fire TV is not a gadget—it’s a seamlessly integrated service that brings together the features customers expect from Amazon, including:

Whispersync—Amazon’s Whispersync technology saves and synchronizes your video and music library across all of your devices. Start watching a movie on your Kindle Fire or iPhone, and when you get home, pick up where you left off on your Fire TV. For games that support Whispersync, your place in the game will also sync across devices so you can always pick up where you left off.
Watch on over 300 devices—When you buy a movie or TV show on Amazon, you can watch it on over 300 devices.
Worry-Free Archive—Automatically backs up your Amazon digital content in the cloud so you never need to worry about losing your collection.
Top-Rated, World-Class Customer Service—When a customer shops on Amazon, buys a Fire TV, or buys digital content from Amazon, they know that they are also getting Amazon’s world class customer service. Customers with a Kindle Fire HDX can also use the Mayday button to receive free, live, on-device tech support.
Free Month of Amazon Prime—Amazon continues to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to bring Prime members new movies, TV shows, and books to enjoy at no additional cost. Prime members enjoy unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video. Eligible customers get a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime when they purchase Fire TV.

Pricing & Availability

Fire TV is available starting today for just $99—order at www.amazon.com/FireTV.

Eligible customers get a free 30-day trial of Netflix and Amazon Prime when they purchase Fire TV.

Images of Fire TV are available at www.amazon.com/pr/devicesandcontent.

Snapdragon 600 processor specs [Qualcomm product page, March 25, 2014]

CPU

28nm LP quad core Krait 300 CPU at up to 1.9GHz per core

LP-DDR3 memory for high performance and low latency

GPU

Speed enhanced Adreno 320 GPU delivers over 300% increase in graphics processing performance¹

Support for advanced graphic and compute APIs, including OpenGL ES 3.0, DirectX, OpenCL, Renderscript Compute and FlexRender™²

Power Management

Energy efficient LP process and dynamic GPU clock and voltage scaling

Asynchronous Multi-Processing (aSMP) dynamic CPU power control for power-optimized performance

Qualcomm Quick Charge 1.0 integrated for up to 40% faster battery charging

DSP

Hexagon, QDSP6

Hexagon DSP enables ultra-low power operation for a variety of applications like music playback, enhanced audio effects, computer vision processing and still and video image enhancements

USB

USB 2.0

Bluetooth

BT4.0 + Integrated digital core

Display

Enjoy your photos, videos and games on large, high-resolution display devices (up to 2048×1536) and even on 1080p external displays

WiFi

802.11ac³ Wi-Fi for peak Wi-Fi performance + Integrated digital core³

Publicly demonstrated to 280 Mbps UDP

GPS

IZAT™ location technology features GNSS for accurate auto and pedestrian navigation and Indoor Location capabilities for advanced location-based services

Video/Audio

Capture and playback video at 1080p HD

HD multichannel sound with DTS-HD and Dolby Digital Plus

Camera

Up to 21 Megapixel, stereoscopic 3D

Take high-resolution, 3D photos with 21 Megapixel stereoscopic camera support

Process Technology

28nm LP

¹ Compared to its predecessor, Adreno 305

² FlexRender is designed to help the Adreno GPU boost speed and save power by dynamically switching between drawing pixels in direct or deferred rendering mode

³ Available only in select processors

Snapdragon 600 processors include the following part numbers: 8064T, 8064M

Microsoft BUILD 2014 Day 1: consistency and superiority accross the whole Windows family extended now to TVs and IoT devices as well—$0 royalty licensing program for OEM and ODM partners in sub 9” phone and tablet space

April 2, 2014 9:46 pm / 1 Comment on Microsoft BUILD 2014 Day 1: consistency and superiority accross the whole Windows family extended now to TVs and IoT devices as well—$0 royalty licensing program for OEM and ODM partners in sub 9” phone and tablet space

OR Microsoft is going against Android and Apple with a vastly updated Windows/Windows Phone 8.1 for $0 royalty fee on smartphones and tablets with screens under 9”, integrated Windows desktop experience (upcoming in the next update), capability of creating Universal Windows apps accross the whole Windows family (demonstrated with the Modern version of the Office upcoming later), an open-source cross-platform WinJS framework, the first true digital assistant for phones (Cortana), showing that for TVs, as well as planning for IoT devices.

Update: the expectation was somewhat higher:
although was met when looking back to Nadella’s March 27 Office for iPad announcement:

Microsoft showcases latest updates to Windows, opportunities for developers April 02, 2014
Unveils converged developer platform, new software advances with Windows Phone 8.1, and Windows 8.1 Update and new licensing; Nokia announces new Lumia phones.

SAN FRANCISCO — April 2, 2014 — Wednesday at Build 2014, Microsoft Corp.’s developer conference, the company announced several advances to Windows including Windows Phone 8.1, the availability of Windows 8.1 Update, a converged developer platform, and a $0 royalty licensing program for OEM and ODM partners developing smartphones and tablets with screens under nine inches.

Microsoft detailed new developer opportunities on the Windows platform with a common platform across devices, a single toolset, a common infrastructure across the Windows and Windows Phone stores, and a clear commitment to interoperability. The announcements highlight Microsoft’s continued commitment to its partners and the developer community by maximizing opportunities across the broadest range of devices and services.

Also as a part of the conference, Nokia announced three new Lumia smartphones for Windows Phone 8.1, including the flagship Lumia 930, the affordable Lumia 635 and the first dual-SIM Lumia 630.

“The news today shines a light on continued Windows innovation in ways that benefit our customers, partners and developers alike. Our commitment is to make Windows more personal and accessible to individuals, and to ensure a vibrant ecosystem through closer collaboration with our industry partners,” said Terry Myerson, executive vice president, OS Group at Microsoft.

… <more is inserted in the below keynote report>

The essence of the Day 1 keynote:

Microsoft Build 2014 keynote in seven minutes [The Verge YouTube channel, April 2, 2014]

Couldn’t sit through Microsoft’s three-hour Microsoft Build conference? We’ve cut it down to just the highlights for your viewing convenience.

The Full Day 1 Keynote record on Channel 9: 2 hours, 59 minutes, 13 seconds or a YouTube copy of that from MicrosoftEurope:

Attention developers and tech-fanatics! Build 2014 has started with breaking news and updates! Catch-up with the key announcements made by Satya Nadella, Terry Myerson, Joe Belfiore, David Treadwell and Stephen Elop.

Terry Myerson: Executive Vice President, Operating Sy stems group

Making your creativity come to life
Using public translation APIs to translate everything said here

Joe Belfiore (~ 1 hour): Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems group
==> Full transcript

Running PC, tablet and phone within the Operating Systems group

Windows Phone is the world’s most personal phone

2 additional partners: Micromax and Prestigio (working with Qualcomm and Longcheer)
Windows Phone 8.1: ==> Made more personal
– new Action Center
– new lock screen APIs
– option to choose a high density tile layout with custom background as well … even on a small screen

Microsoft Build 2014 8.1 Update Personalized Digital Assistant named CORTANA

Cortana Microsoft Build 2014 8.1 Update Personalized Digital Assistant named Cortana Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore unveils 2 new phones with hardware partners Micromax and Prestigio using Windows Phone 8.1

Windows Phone gets even more personal

Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8.1 and introduced Cortana, the world’s first truly personal digital assistant with a persona inspired by a much-loved “Halo” character. Powered by Bing, Cortana gets to know you and gets better over time by asking questions based on your behavior and checking in with you before she assumes you’re interested in something. She detects and monitors the stuff you care about, looks out for you throughout the day, and helps filter out the noise so you can focus on what matters to you.

Other new features that make Windows Phone 8.1 smartphones even more personal include Action Center, which complements Live Tiles by showing new activities and notifications at a glance; and Senses, a suite of features that takes the work out of managing data use, storage space and battery life. Windows Phone 8.1 also makes it easier for IT professionals to manage devices and for professionals to connect to essential business apps and services with features such as simplified device enrollment, a built-in mobile device management client, S/MIME for encrypted mail and VPN support.

Windows Phone 8.1 will start rolling out to current Windows Phone 8 users over the coming months. It will also come pre-installed on new phones starting this month. Cortana will launch shortly in the U.S. as a beta, in the U.K. and China in the second half of 2014, and in other countries in 2015. Registered developers can update their phones to Windows Phone 8.1 as part of the developer program later this month.

– working long for one a half year on (video): Cortana (launching as a Beta, in order to learn with linguistic & search things) – a digital assistance for Windows Phone; powered by Bing (knows the whole Internet); learns about you …; also replaces the search function for you …; can be extended via 3d party apps; giving Cortana a notebook in order to put the user in contact with Cortana; about the people matter most to you; about the places you use to frequent; has permission to read all e-mail on the phone in order to prompt pro-actively the owner on …; good with the calendar too; … example queries via voice …; works with typing as well; reminders; only Cortana can do: people reminders …; new version of Skype; starting apps for you via Cortana (like Hulu, even yommunicating with like for Facebook);
==> The first true digital assistant for phones
==> The Ultimate Assistant: Halo’s Cortana Coming to Windows Phone

==> Searching for something more personal
==> Bing at Build 2014: More Helpful, Personal and Intelligent/
==> Introducing the New Skype for Windows Phone 8.1 and Improved Skype for Windows 8.1

Consumers can choose for their device:

– VPN, S/MIME support, MDM capabilities, … many, many more hosted capabilities
==> The right choice for business
==> Building the Mobile Workplace with Windows and Windows Phone
Apps from the Store: … store experience more engaged for you …, new version of Calendar … with other views
Improved basic performance: … WiFi Sense to connect to automatically when sensed … even securely share with friends automatically (no need to tell the WiFi password); … from ordinary phone call to a video call, even for RCS apps as well; Word Flow [Keyboard] typing … world’s fastest typing on the smartphone (the previous record was Samsung Galaxy …); focus on settings; IE11 with a bunch of new features
to consumers rolling out in next few months
on very new phones late April

==> Announcing an updated version of Internet Explorer 11 for Windows and introducing IE11 for Windows Phone 8.1

==> Windows & Windows Phone 8.1 – Better Together

See how we’ve reinvented the Windows experience across all your screens so you can shoot, share, work and play while on the go.

Windows 8.1 Update

boot straight to the desktop
going automatically to enterprise mode

mouse and keyboard experience of Windows, e.g. enhanced taskbar to work with Windows Store apps: no different swithching mode for Modern apps and desktop apps; PC settings tile on Start Screen; right click context menu …; power user … on Start Screen; pre-pinning the Windows Store to the taskbar to make it mouse and kleyboard friendly; new apps pin to the Start Screen or the taskbar …
starting April 8
[The update also enables Microsoft’s hardware partners to deliver low-cost machines that require only 1 GB of RAM and 16GB HDD. On Intel’s Bay Trail Cost Reduced options.]

Windows 8.1 Update: easier to use, runs great on more devices

Continuing its commitment to deliver improvements through regular updates, Microsoft also announced Windows 8.1 Update, which includes improvements that provide more of what people love about Windows across more devices: quicker access to what’s important, a more familiar and consistent experience across touch and non-touch devices, and more ways to discover great apps.

Key features of the update include user interface improvements for mouse and keyboard users, the ability to access the taskbar from any screen and pin Windows Store apps to the taskbar alongside desktop apps and favorite websites, and performance and compatibility enhancements to Internet Explorer 11. These improvements provide faster, more direct access to the things customers care most about, so activities such as powering down, searching the Web and switching between apps are easier than ever. Navigating with the mouse and keyboard will feel more familiar and intuitive because there’s more consistency with where controls are and how they work. Specific to the enterprise, Windows 8.1 Update offers improved Internet Explorer 8 compatibility on Internet Explorer 11, extends mobile device management functionality, and eases deployment with increased predictability for new operating systems and line-of-business apps by leveraging familiar management tools.

Current Windows 8.1 customers will receive the Windows 8.1 Update for free through Windows Update, while Windows 8 customers will receive the update free through the Windows Store, beginning April 8, 2014.*

David Treadwell: Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems group
==> Full transcript

about things for developers

Microsoft’s Universal Windows App Allows Devs To Create For Any Platform [Pureinfotech, published on April 3, 2014]

Microsoft announces universal Windows apps, which simply means that apps created for the Windows platform will now run on all platforms including PCs, tablets, phones, and Xbox One.

Universal Windows apps:
==> Windows Runtime comes to phones

…

…

Update for Visual Studio 2013 for universal Windows apps: demo
==> Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC: Windows Phone 8.1 Tools, Shared Projects and Universal Windows Apps
Streamline the Windows Store experience across …
Modern (touch-first) version of Office: demo … also showing the same binary working on the phone
hundreds of new features added for Windows Phone 8.1 based on developers’ and customers’ requests

Windows developer platform: easily build innovative apps, reach more people

Microsoft also announced enhancements in the way developers can build applications that target the full range of Windows devices using Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 Release Candidate. Among other new capabilities, with the introduction of universal projects, developers are able to create apps that can be easily optimized to take full advantage of Windows devices. Developers of all types can draw upon their existing skills to deliver shared experiences for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update. Universal projects allow developers to use approximately 90 percent of the same code, a single packaging system, and a common user interface to target apps for phones, tablets and PCs.

To improve the developer experience on Windows, Microsoft announced updates to Windows Store to improve app discoverability and monetization, as well as easier shopping for end users with improved search, more personal recommendations and better merchandising. In addition, later this week, Microsoft will release the next version of Windows App Studio, a Web-based tool for non-developers that enables the creation of universal Windows apps in a single project.

To help developers build innovative apps for Windows using a natural user interface, Microsoft detailed plans for Kinect for Windows v2, coming this summer, with a new sensor and SDK that will enable developers to create Windows Store apps, with the Kinect sensor, for the first time. The Kinect for Windows v2 sensor offers more precision, responsiveness and intuitive capabilities. Developers and partner companies, such as Reflexion Health and Freak’n Genius, are already doing great things through the Kinect for Windows v2 developer preview program.

DEMO of the above

Windows enabling cross-platform apps:

frameworks, libraries, tools and services for Universal Windows apps

– Web GL
– Cutting Edge video playback etc.

– announcing: making WinJS cross-platform
– open-source via GitHub
==> MS Open Tech Open Sources WinJS, Part of the Windows App Platform

DEMO My

==> Announcing New Microsoft Advertising SDKs, Tools to Help Devs Do More and Earn More with Apps

Terry Myerson:
==> Full transcript

Now about the TV … no better television than Xbox
going to enable Universal Windows apps running on Xbox
DEMO

My insert here: Satya Nadella email to employees on tuning our organization [Microsoft, March 31, 2014]

Today marks the start of another big week for Microsoft as we gear up for the Build conference in San Francisco. We continue to push on the momentum from last week’s news about how we will thrive and grow in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, as shown by the great Office apps for iOS, rich new APIs for developers and our new Enterprise Mobility Suite.

In advance of Build, I want to highlight three announcements about how we’re continuing to evolve and tune our organization for maximum focus and impact.…

Next, I have asked Phil Spencer to take on a new role leading Xbox, combining the Xbox and Xbox Live development teams with the Microsoft Studios team. Phil will report to Terry Myerson, allowing us to keep gaming close to the group developing operating systems across devices. In this new job, Phil will lead the Xbox, Xbox Live, Xbox Music and Xbox Video teams, and Microsoft Studios. Combining all our software, gaming and content assets across the Xbox team under a single leader and aligning with the OSG team will help ensure we continue to do great work across the Xbox business, and bring more of the magic of Xbox to all form factors, including tablets, PCs and phones. Phil will continue his close partnership with Yusuf Mehdi, who leads business strategy and marketing for Xbox, George Peckham, who heads up third-party partnerships and Mike Angiulo, who will continue leading Xbox hardware. Over the years, Phil’s team at Microsoft Studios has helped build a community of more than 80 million Xbox owners and 48 million Xbox Live members through blockbuster game franchises such as “Halo,” “Gears of War,” “Kinect Sports,” “Fable,” “Forza Motorsport” and many others. He’s helped drive the development of brand-new entertainment offerings like the partnership with the NFL and the formation of Xbox Entertainment Studios [Nancy Tellem]. I love the way the Xbox team is focused on great games and gaming experiences (go, “Titanfall”!), connects with its fans, pushes the boundary of entertainment and has embraced the power of the cloud in such interesting and impactful ways. Phil is the right person to lead Xbox forward.

…

bringing Kinect to PC ==> Kinect 2.0 for Windows with greatly improved SDK, not just for games
non-gaming Kinect apps: video

Developers are excited to bring their apps to the Windows Store for the first time this summer following the release of Kinect for Windows v2, with its improved precision, responsiveness, and intuitive capabilities.

Kinect: this is the future
==> Windows Store app development is coming to Kinect for Windows
Graphics: on Xbox One phenomenal ==> Xbox graphics platform to make available for everyone ==> bringing into DirectX 12

DEMO

Internet of Things (IoT):

Windows ported to ARM
Now Intel Quark (i.e. x86 for IoT)
Windows for IoT will be available for $0

Windows desktop:

Universal Windows apps to run in a window
New Start Menu: live tiles combined
what is shown here is just for start to improve the Windows desktop

(upcoming in the next update of Windows)

Pricing:

Making Windows devices more affordable

Microsoft is evolving its Windows business model to enable partners to offer lower-cost devices in the highly competitive smartphone, tablet and PC categories. Microsoft will offer to hardware partners $0 Windows with services including a one-year subscription to Office 365.

With Windows 8.1 Update hardware partners can also more easily build lower-cost machines — such as devices with 1 GB of RAM and a 16GB hard disk drive — without sacrificing the experience customers expect. The combination of new efficiencies and innovations from Microsoft hardware partners means customers will be able to choose from a wider range of Windows devices, particularly budget-friendly notebooks and tablets.

Additional information from Terry Myerson’s Thoughts on Day 1 of Build 2014 [Blogging Windows, April 2, 2014] post:

I wanted to use this post to share some thoughts from what I said in the keynote:

1. We believe in our ecosystem of device manufacturers and devs (developers, developers, developers!), and that their creativity has incredible potential to change the world – and we want to help them do that.

2. We believe in the Internet of Things, and that as the devices get smaller, the cloud gets bigger.

3. We believe in natural user interfaces, and the power of things like voice and gesture to transform how users will interact with their devices and apps in the coming years.

…

Today we announced that the Windows 8.1 Update will support Intel’s Bay Trail Cost Reduced options, along with 1GB RAM and 16 GB storage configurations which are popular on entry level tablets and notebooks. We’re also working with Intel on enablement programs that make it easy for their partners to onboard new Windows devices quickly, much as we are with Qualcomm.

…

We showed Windows running on an Intel Quark chip. It’s a processor the size of a pencil eraser that is running a full version of Windows, enabling developers to use all their Windows knowledge and skills to create new and exciting devices and experiences. When we are ready to ship Windows for the Internet of Things, we will make that available for zero dollars to encourage creation of these new devices and experiences in this new and exciting category.

…

Finally, I previewed some work we are doing for the next iteration of Windows, which builds on the journey we began with Windows 8 just over a year ago as well as the releases we’ve done since then. In particular, I showed some early thinking on how the user experience in Windows will evolve in a way that will help developers’ apps make their way to users across devices and form factors.

We set out to do this is a thoughtful way – one where we could enable more productivity for customers working in desktop mode, while building smart bridges to the new modern user experience and ensuring customers can get access to all your great apps in the Windows Store no matter where they are in the experience, or which device type they’re on.

As I said today, these are glimpses of our roadmap, with a particular focus on the parts of our roadmap that are most relevant to our developer partners. We’ll continue to invest in these and many other areas to build a great platform and experiences for developers, customers and partners and you’ll hear more from us when this work is closer to being ready to ship out to the world.

Stephen Elop (still Nokia, but soon Microsoft):
==> Full transcript

Lumia 520 the best selling smartphone in the world: will have WP 8.1
WP 8.1 for all other existing Lumias
The next-generation of Lumia devices:
– Lumia 930: flagship for WP 8.1, with unprecendented images and video, Creative Studio app grealy updated, new/updated Living Images app, fantastic cinema video experiences (4 microphones included), all MS services well integrated, 2.2 GHz Snapdragon 800 SoC, from June starting in Europe, with more more than 100 operators
– Lumia 630: 4.5” ClearBlack display, 3G dual-SIM as well (different tiles for each SIM), designed for hyper-social people, Cortana is also available, SensoreCore introduced for health and fitness apps … Lumia services (HERE maps, etc.), 1.5GHz Snapdragon 400 quadcore, from May starting in Asia, $159 single SIM
– Lumia 635: 4.5” ClearBlack display, 4G LTE, …, 1.5GHz Snapdragon 400 quadcore, from May starting in Asia

Two new SDKs:
– Imaging SDK 1.2
– new SensoreCore SDK to create motion based apps

Satya Nadella: CEO
==> Full transcript

developer roots of Microsoft
Q&A via the DPE collection made before the conference
Why build for Windows if one develops for Android? –> innovating in every dimension … you will see a progress in a rapid pace … pretty unique pieces, e.g. bring end-users, IT profs and devs together … create a developer opportunity accross the Windows family expanding … we are betting on this platform ourselves

Plans for easy development accross platforms? –> David Treadwell part … the only platform with APIs on every platform amd native, managed and the web … working w/ PhoneGap, Unity e.t.c. …
What MS is doing to compete against Apple and Google in the tablet space? –> tablets accross all prices ranges … innovate with Surface to make the most productive table … what is the role of a tablet in the device family … consistency of user experience
Approach to UX design now and in 5 years with Microsoft? –> we have fantastic people for UX … see inspiration for other platforms … Cortana … modern apps to mouse and … Bill Buxton about natural UI … the broadest range of input modes today
How to design for the cloud, and how MS is supporting that? –> Scott Guthrie tomorrow … data-tier built for scale-out and other consideration long taken into account, Service Bus etc. … lot of focus on tools, samples that truely take advantage of the cloud
Different APIs released for different products? –> Windows Universal apps is the first step in the direction of bring great consistency for developers … consistency of semantics for these APIs
What’s the plan with latency as we are moving and more apps to the cloud? –> build robustness … data center build-up throughout the world … great effort to enable apps to run in a true distributed way
How MS can better support start-ups? –> BizSpark program with 70K start-ups … seed fundings and accellerators throughout the world
The vision for Microsoft going forward? –> Drive in this world of mobile first, cloud first … interactions of differnt kinds getting digitized … create platforms .. build the best experiences
Plans to becoma a Master CEO? –> … 2514 … watch Scott Guthrie keynote tomorrow

Cortana (yes!) and Many, Many Other Great Features coming in Windows Phone 8.1 [by Joe Belfiore on Windows Phone Blog, April 2, 2014]

Whew, what a day! What a week! I’ve just gotten off the stage at Build in front of 5,000 of our beloved developers talking about the future of the Windows platform. And now I’m here to tell YOU about the stuff we’ve been working on to delight all our Windows Phone users and fans!

During my time on stage, I went over what’s next for Windows PCs, tablets, and phones with two major updates: Windows Phone 8.1 and the Windows 8.1 Update. Both releases bring a lot of new features for consumers and businesses alike, built from the feedback we’ve heard from customers along the way. We’ve also continued to invest in our partners, enabling lots of great new phones, tablets, laptops and PCs for you to choose from in the months ahead.

Windows 8.1 Update: Focused on Mouse/Keyboard

For PCs and tablets, we’ve made improvements in Windows 8.1 that will noticeably improve the experience when you’re using a PC without a touch-screen. We’ve made commands easier to find with mouse/keyboard, we’ve made switching between apps—especially Windows Store apps—much easier with mouse/keyboard… and we’ve made it easier to find new apps to install.

To learn more about the update to Windows 8.1 for your PC and tablets, head on over to the Windows Experience Blog and read Brandon’s post. What I really want to cover in detail here is…

Windows Phone 8.1: More Personal, Smarter, and even a “World Record Holder”!

If you’re a Windows Phone user, you already know that we set out to create an experience that puts you and the things you care about most front and center. As a result, we believe Windows Phone is the world’s most personal smartphone… and with Windows Phone 8.1, we’ve added a BUNCH of new features that make your smartphone even more a reflection of your personality and desires.

Want to experience it all in one giant demo? Then watch this marathon 15-minute video. Else… read on!

The world’s most personal smartphone just got more personal. Watch the innovations of Windows Phone 8.1 come alive.

Start screen: Make the Live Tiles Yours

We want your Windows Phone Start screen to genuinely reflect your personality and the people and things you care about—so we are making it even more customizable!

In 2013, we added a third column on devices for 5-inch screen or larger devices, like the Lumia 1520, to enable more stuff to show up on the screen. People really liked this so we are enabling this on all screen sizes in Windows Phone 8.1. Pin away! We’ve also added the ability to customize your Start background with a favorite picture or one of the options we’ve provided, which will make many of the tiles on your Start screen become clear so you can see the background you selected as you scroll up and down.

Lock screen: Lots of new “themes” to choose from!

The Lock screen is the very first thing you – or your friends—see when you grab your phone, and in Windows Phone 8.1 we’re providing a new app that lets you set a wide range of interesting “Lock Screen Themes” which show all kinds of different visuals and animations. Make it yours…

Cortana: Your PERSONAL Digital Assistant

Of everything we’re announcing today, I’m most excited to introduce you to the world’s first truly personal digital assistant, now on Windows Phone. We were inspired by the popular character from Halo who served as a brilliant AI and a deeply personal digital assistant to Master Chief… so we called her Cortana.

Powered by Bing, Cortana is the only digital assistant that gets to know you, builds a relationship that you can trust, and gets better over time by asking questions based on your behavior and checking in with you before she assumes you’re interested in something. She detects and monitors the stuff you care about, looks out for you throughout the day, and helps filter out the noise so you can focus on what matters to you. Cortana will launch shortly here in the U.S. first as a “beta,” and then will launch in the US, the U.K. and China in the second half of 2014 with other countries to follow afterwards into 2015.

In Windows Phone 8.1, you get to Cortana by either a Live Tile on your Start screen or by pressing the search button on your device. This will take you to Cortana Home. To interact with Cortana, you can either speak or type—if you’re in a meeting, just type and Cortana won’t talk out loud. But if you ask her a spoken question, she’ll answer verbally and even carry on a natural conversation.

When you interact with Cortana for the VERY first time, she will start learning things about you… like your name, how to pronounce it, and ask for some personal interests.

Once she’s learned a bit about you, Cortana’s home populates with information that is curated just for you. You’ll see things like flight information she’s found from your email confirmations, weather, the latest news, and even traffic information once she learns your commute routine, such as from work and home.

To develop Cortana, we talked to a number of real personal assistants. One technique these assistants spoke about was keeping track of the interests and preferences of their bosses in a notebook. We thought… what a great idea! So all the stuff Cortana curates for you is stored in Cortana’s Notebook. This information enables Cortana to be proactive and helpful throughout the day. For example, she’ll let me know if my upcoming flight back to Seattle is on time and, if I choose, will even pop-up to recommend what time I should leave for the airport based on traffic. Cortana can also manage your phone when you don’t want to be disturbed by setting quiet hours where she will silence any notifications, in-coming calls, and texts. Cortana understands the “inner circle” of people-closest-to-you, and she can let them break through at any time during quiet hours. And Cortana is the only digital assistant that lets you setup people reminders. You can have Cortana remind you that your buddy owes you $20 the next time you talk to him. And ALL of these interests and preferences are under YOUR CONTROL via Cortana’s notebook.

What’s more, because Cortana is powered by Bing, some of the interests in Cortana’s Notebook will light up on Bing.comwhen you sign in on the web. Bing.com will give you access to the things Cortana tracks for you, like your weather, stocks, news, and flights.

We’ve also designed Cortana to be able to interact with 3rd Party Appsinstalled on your phone. You can ask Cortana to help you make a video call in Skype, watch a TV show in Hulu Plus, look up a news feed on Facebook or send a tweet using the Twitter app – all of which we demoed during this morning’s keynote.

And finally, Cortana isn’t just a dry computer returning search results. Just as she has in the game Halo, Windows Phone’s Cortana has a bit of personality. But you’ll have to talk to her yourself to see what I mean by that. Or… I bet you’ll be able to find some videos on the web pretty soon to see what I mean.

We think you’re going to really love having Cortana as your personal assistant!

A Whole Slew of New Delighters

Action Center: Live Tiles are a great way to “glance and go,” and now we’ve added Action Center to enable you to see notifications from ANY app – pinned or not—and to give you a customizable way to quickly access the settings you care about most, like Wi-Fi, Flight Mode, Bluetooth and Rotation Lock.

Word Flow Keyboard: The keyboard in Windows Phone is smart enough to learn your writing style and even knows the names of people in your contacts for faster typing. Best of all, our new Word Flow Keyboard lets you glide your fingers over the keys to type INCREDIBLY quickly… a kid was able to BREAK THE OFFICIAL WORLD RECORD previously held by the Swype keyboard on a Samsung Galaxy S4 using Word Flow by 8 seconds!

Skype:The new Skype app for Windows Phone 8.1 brings the best of Skype on a smartphone. It’s integrated with the Phone dialer, so if you’re on a call you can quickly and easily “upgrade” your ordinary phone call to a Skype video call at the tap of a button! And… the new Skype app is designed to work seamlessly with Cortana so you can use Cortana to setup your calls within Skype.

Calendar:The new Calendar has been redesigned to add a new week view which lots of people have been asking for and it has many nice touches—like panning right to get to the next day or week or month! What’s more, it looks a lot like Outlook on your Windows PC… e.g., the weather is integrated at the top – just like in Outlook.

Music, Video, Podcasts: We’ve made a ton of improvements to these experiences, which are now split out as separate apps and all of which can be updated via the Store. In Music, you can edit your playlists and manage your cloud collection really easily and effectively. Video makes it possible to buy or rent videos from Xbox Music, and Podcasts now lets you subscribe to any RSS feed AND provides a Bing-powered podcast search for every country where Windows Phone is available. Oh… and we’ve improved the phone volume control by including separate sliders for your ringer/notifications and for your apps and media. Just the way you asked for it!

People Hub, Email and Accounts: The People Hub has higher-fidelity feeds for your social network content (large photos!) and it connects directly to 3rd-party social networking apps so that you can have easy access to all the full functionality of the 3rd party apps once they are installed. Email now supports S/MIME secure email, and we’ve broadened our support for different account types, now including iCloud.

Photos & Camera: The Photos experience now jumps directly to your most recent photos and shows as collections automatically organized, in a view grouped by date and location. Online photo albums are now supported via app-extensibility, so 3rd parties can plug in their services. In the Camera, we’ve updated the UI and added “burst mode” photography that lets you capture exactly the perfect moment—just like on Windows 8.1.

Data Sense, Wi-Fi Sense, Storage Sense, and Battery Saver:We’ve added a number of features in Windows Phone 8.1 that are designed to help you get the most out of your data allowance, battery life and storage.

Data Sense lets you track how much data usage you use in a given month and will give you a breakdown of usage by app so you can see which app is using the most of your data. As you near your data limit, Data Sense will more aggressively offload data to Wi-Fi and limit cellular usage… and in 8.1 there’s a new “high savings” mode that cranks up the compression of images as you browse the web so you can browse even farther using less data than WP8.

Wi-Fi Sense will automatically connect you to free public hotspots it finds to help you save cellular data. And, if you’d like, you can opt-in to automatically and securely enable your friends and contacts to auto-connect to your home Wi-Fi, so they can use the internet connection at your house without hassling you for the password and typing it in manually. If you turn off Wi-Fi in Wi-Fi Sense, you can have Cortana automatically turn it back on when you reach one of your favorite places as identified in Cortana.

We’re introducing Storage Sense to help you get the most out of the memory and storage on your phone. It will help you manage content you have on an SD memory card if your device supports those. You can also move content – like apps, music, photos – between the storage built in to your device and an SD memory card.

And Battery Saver gives you a clear breakdown of how apps are using your battery so you can make more informed usage decisions. With “automatic mode” enabled, it can dramatically extend your battery life.

Windows and Windows Phone Together

Your Microsoft Accountallows Windows and Windows Phone to work together in amazing ways. Windows Phone 8.1 furthers the integration between phone and PC. If you change your theme color, that change will sync across all your Windows devices. If you buy an in-app purchase in some of the newer apps written for Windows Phone and Windows 8.1, the purchase works on your phone AND your PC. And other settings like your home Wi-Fi password will also sync.

Ever wanted to project your phone screen onto a PC, TV set or projector? We’ve added support for that as well—connect your Windows Phone to a compatible PC using a USB cable and you can run an application on the PC to show the phone screen. Some of the forthcoming new phones will also support wireless Miracast display to compatible TVs and other devices.

And finally with Internet Explorer 11 for Windows Phone, you will be able to see all the open tabs you have on all your Windows devices and all your Favorites too. Plus the new Internet Explorer gives you InPrivate browsing, password caching, and a super-handy reading mode.

Great for Business Users and IT Managers

Windows has long been the choice for the enterprise and professionals. Windows Phone fits easily and seamlessly into a corporate ecosystem making it easier to work when you are on the go. Last year, PC Magazine’s readers selected Nokia Lumia/Windows Phones as the Business Choice Award for smartphonesby scoring them the highest in end-user satisfaction.

With Windows Phone 8.1, we’re making it even easier for IT professionals to manage devices and for professionals to connect to essential business apps and services with features such as customizable MDM enrollment, support for loads more MDM policies, LOB application & certificate management, S/MIME and VPN support. Stay tuned for a detailed blog post later today on the Windows for your Business Blog that covers all the key features for businesses.

Sounds Great! When Can I Get It? And on which phones?

Windows Phone 8.1 will start rolling out to existing Windows Phone 8 users and will come pre-installed on new phones, including the Lumia 630 and 635 and Lumia 930announced by Nokia today, in the coming months. If you want to try out Windows Phone 8.1 and you are a registered developer, you can update your phone as part of the Developer Preview Program in the first part of April.

We are very proud of the progress we are making with Windows Phone. Industry analyst IDC proclaimed Windows Phone the fastest growing smartphone platform in 2013, and we think the future is even brighter. At Mobile World Congress, we announced our commitment to growing the number of device partners making Windows Phones, and were proud to welcome nine new partners to the Windows Phone ecosystem. Today we announced two more partners – Prestigio in Europe and Micromax in India – to further ensure that individuals around the world will have access to the amazing experience that only Windows Phone delivers consistently across all price points.

We know we have lots more to do – for developers, for business customers, and for consumers. Today’s announcements at Build were all about taking the next steps – making it easier than ever to build great devices and write great apps for Windows, and enabling a new generation of cool experiences for customers that show the power of designing around people, delivering truly personal computing, and helping us all to get more out of the technology in our lives.

Tags: Windows phone, Build 2014, Word Flow Keyboard, Battery Saver, Start screen, Email, camera roll, Windows Phone 8.1, Xbox Video,Enterprise, Announcement, inprivate, Action Center, Photos, Windows 8.1, Business, Devices, VPN, Cortana, Platform, skype, Xbox Music,Lock Screen, Windows 8.1 Update, podcasts, People Hub, calendar, Microsoft Accounbt, Windows, Live Tiles, Internet Explorer 11, Nokia, Wi-Fi Sense, Data Sense, Storage Sense

Windows 8.1 Update – important refinements to the Windows experience [ by Brandon LeBlanc on Windows Experience Blog, April 2, 2014]

As Joe mentioned here, today we’re announcing two important updates to the Windows platform: Windows Phone 8.1 andWindows 8.1 Update. With these updates, we continue to refine and improve Windows based on feedback from customers to deliver ongoing value to all their Windows devices. Joe’s post goes into detail on all the awesomeness that’s in Windows Phone 8.1(Cortana is rad – trust me!) but also gives some great context around our new engineering culture in the Operating Systems Group now that we’re in this mobile-first, cloud-first world. It also underscores how we are moving more quickly to improve the Windows experience for customers. In this post, I wanted to share a little bit more about the update for Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1.

With the current generation of Windows, we made a pretty big bet on touch and mobility. Along with building on top of the strong foundation in Windows 7, we also introduced a brand new approach to the Windows user experience that brought touch to the forefront. Since the original introduction of Window 8 in 2012, we have been continuously refining the experience, and we are making steady progress. More than 40 percent of Windows PCs at big box retailers, like Windows Stores Only at Best Buy, this past holiday season were touch-enabled – up from only 4 percent a year ago. As Joe recently said at Mobile World Congress, customer satisfaction for a device running Windows 8 with touch is actually higher than it was for a PC running Windows 7 without touch. We believe deeply in the notion that delivering a compelling personal and modern experience across all the devices that matter in your life should not mean sacrificing familiarity. Windows 8 and 8.1 were first steps, and we continue to make refinements based on customer and partner feedback.

Last fall, less than a year after we shipped Windows 8, we released Windows 8.1– bringing a large set of customer-driven improvements including the return of the Start button, tutorials, more personalization options, the ability to boot to desktop, improvements to multi-tasking, and more. Today marks the next step as we release a new update for your Windows experience.

The Windows 8.1 Update delivers a collection of refinements designed to give people a more familiar and convenient experience across touch, keyboard and mouse inputs. It also brings improvements for business customers, really accelerates opportunity for developers, and enables device makers to offer lower cost devices.

See what’s new with Windows 8.1 in the latest update, including easier mouse and keyboard functions, a new taskbar, and Bing’s improved Smart Search!

Easier access to your favorite apps and key controls:

On the Start screen, on select devices you will now find Power and Search buttons at the upper-right corner next to your account picture. You can now more quickly shut down your PC if you need to and do a search right from the Start screen.

If you like using the desktop, you will be happy to know that select devices will now boot to desktop as the default setting. And on your taskbar, you can now pin both desktop apps and apps from the Windows Store as well as your favorite websites. You can now pin any app you want to the taskbar so you can open or switch between apps right from the desktop. I’ve got some of my favorite apps like Xbox Music, Skype, Facebook, Flipboard, and Mint pinned to my taskbar. You can also access the taskbar from anywhere when you’re using a mouse; you can see the taskbar on any screen by moving your mouse to the bottom edge of your screen. Just click on any of the apps pinned to your taskbar to open or switch to them.

More familiar mouse and keyboard options:

We’ve made it so your mouse works more consistently anywhere in Windows. If you move your mouse to the top of the screen when using a Windows Store app, you will see the familiar Close and Minimize buttons. And as I mentioned above, when you move your mouse to the bottom of the screen in a Windows Store app, the taskbar comes up.

On the Start screen, if you right-click on an app tile, you will get a context menu next to the app tile that shows you what you can do with the tile, like unpin from Start, pin to the taskbar, change the tile size or even uninstall the app. Right-clicking on an app tile on the Start screen works just like right-clicking on something on the desktop.

Simpler way to find new apps:

After installing the update, you’ll find the Windows Store is now pinned to the taskbar by default so you can easily discover new apps (yes, you can unpin it if you don’t want it there).

And after installing new apps, you’ll notice a message at the lower-left corner of the Start screen that points you to the Apps view so you can see what you recently just installed.

Seamless browsing on all devices:

With today’s update, Internet Explorer 11 adapts your browsing experience by detecting your Windows device and input type – whether an 8-inch touch tablet in portrait mode or a 24-inch desktop with mouse and keyboard. The web is still front-and-center but new design enhancements make your browsing experience feel like it was made just for your device – like the number of tabs on-screen, the size of the fonts and menus. You can also now control when the browser remains on-screen or hides away for full-screen browsing. Check out 22tracksto see these updates in action.

Improvements for business customers: We are introducing several key improvements for businesses such as Enterprise Mode Internet Explorer (EMIE) and extended Mobile Device Management (MDM). EMIE enables Internet Explorer 8 compatibility on Internet Explorer 11 so companies can run existing web-based apps seamlessly on Windows 8.1 devices. And with extended MDM, we are introducing additional policy settings that can be managed with whatever MDM solution an enterprise chooses including whitelisting or blacklisting Windows Store apps and websites. Look for a blog post later today on the Windows for your Business Blog that discusses these in greater detail and a post on the Springboard Series Blogon deployment guidance for the Windows 8.1 Update.

New low cost devices:With the Windows 8.1 Update, we have enabled our hardware partners to build lower cost devices for Windows such as devices with only 1GB RAM and 16GB of storage that provide customers with the experience they expect from a Windows device without sacrificing performance.

We have made the Windows 8.1 Update available today for MSDN subscribers, and will begin to roll it out for free to Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 customers via Windows Update next Tuesday April 8th. For the majority of folks, they will receive the update automatically. If you are still on Windows 8, you can get the Windows 8.1 Update via the Windows Store on April 8th as well.

NOTE: The Windows 8.1 Update will be KB2919355 for those of you interested.

We’re really excited to get this update out to everyone! Moving forward, we’ll continue to deliver improvements through regular updates like this one to Windows, allowing us to respond more quickly to customer feedback as your needs change.

Tags: Windows 8, Keyboard, Start screen, Windows Store, Windows 8.1, search, Apps, Windows 8.1 Update, Windows, Update, Pinning,Taskbar, Mouse

Extending platform commonality through universal Windows apps [by Kevin Gallo on Building Apps for Windows, April 2, 2014]

Today during our BUILD conference in San Francisco we unveiled the latest Windows software for phones, tablets, and PCs. Windows Phone 8.1 further establishes Windows Phone as the world’s most personal smartphone, with an even more engaging Start screen, the fastest keyboard on the market, thanks to Word Flow, and of course Cortana – the only personal digital assistant built around you. We also shared Windows 8.1 Update features such as UI improvements for mouse and keyboard users, the ability to pin Windows Store apps to the taskbar, and Internet Explorer compatibility enhancements. These OS features, and a new wave of devices that consumers will love, open up new opportunities for developers.

With this release of the Windows developer platform we set out to accomplish three major goals: 1) Reach customers across phones, tablets, and PCs; 2) Deliver innovation that supports developer investments; 3) Make cross-platform technology easier and more capable.

Reaching customers across phones, tablets, and PCs

Windows Phone 8 brought the same core set of operating system components used by Windows 8 to the modern UI of Windows Phone. Today we’re taking an even bigger step with Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update by empowering developers to create universal Windows apps for a common Windows runtime.

Since universal Windows apps run on the same Windows runtime, developers have a common way of building and architecting apps for phones, tablets and PCs; from how they handle suspend and resume and do background processing, to the way they manage in-app security.

To help developers create universal Windows apps for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, we’ve announced the release of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC. In addition to enhanced productivity and collaboration features, Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC includes Shared Projects that allow developers to create an app that is easily tailored to render a contextually appropriate experience across Windows phones, tablets and PCs. Get the tools now!

Innovation that supports developer investments

We’ve designed Windows for the long term, to address developers’ needs today, while respecting prior investments. We do this with one familiar toolset based on Visual Studio 2013, with support for C#, C++, JavaScript, XAML, DirectX, and HTML. The tools and technology stacks already used by hundreds of thousands of developers extend app development across Windows devices. Developers who have built apps for Windows 8.1 will find it fairly easy to reuse their work and bring tailored experiences to Windows Phone 8.1. Windows Phone 8 developers can use the same code, and also access new features, when they develop for Windows Phone 8.1.

Windows now also offers an expansive set of common APIs for everything from displaying notification toasts to accessing the file system and device capabilities. With Windows Phone 8.1, we are adding a wide array of new features including support for Bluetooth LE to connect to devices, Action Center extensibility to more effectively connect with users, triggers to ensure battery-friendly multitasking, VPN so end users can connect to their workplace, and many more.

Even Cortana delivers developer extensibility. Cortana brings a significant evolution of the speech technology developed by Windows and Bing, which first appeared in Windows Phone 8. In Windows Phone 8.1 we expose new enhancements to the Speech API that developers can use to integrate their apps with the Cortana family of services. Developers can now leverage speech recognition and voice commands to denote a series of actions triggered by heuristically derived scenarios that are surfaced through the Cortana speech recognition service. Fewer steps and more types of natural verbal exchanges open more apps. All of this is delivered through a simple API so developers who use Windows Phone 8 speech features today can plug into Cortana with little additional effort.

Developers are interacting with tablets and Windows computers in new ways as well. Kinect for Windows v2 will be released this summer. Soon developers can start building Kinect apps for Windows Store and publish or commercially deploy Kinect apps and solutions.

We’re also improving the way people find and use apps, as well as increasing monetization options and providing a more consistent Store experience across devices and markets. Developers can choose to link apps among phones, tablets and PCs so when a user downloads an app on one device they can install it on all of their Windows devices, increasing usage and engagement. Windows 8.1 Update brings the Store icon and pinned apps to the taskbar on the desktop. Developers are also getting more ways to market and monetize apps, such as common price tiers that bring the popular $0.99 and $1.29 price point to PCs, and updated advertising SDKs that support more rich media standards for better fill rates.

Also, by popular demand, we’ll soon be piloting a program through which developers can directly respond to app reviews to address potential confusion or other issues that may be hurting their ratings. These are just a few of the new Windows Store features being detailed this week during BUILD. Todd Brix will share much more detail about what’s new in Windows Store later today.

Make cross-platform technology easier and more capable

We’ve also been working for developers who may not already be on the Windows platform by supporting a mix of languages, runtimes, frameworks, and protocols that run across devices. Middleware partners like Unity have helped developers bring thousands of titles to the Windows Store. In a newly released beta version, Unity is delivering support for Windows Phone 8.1, including universal Windows apps.

Microsoft Open Technologies also works with various open source communities to contribute code to popular C++ frameworks and optimize them for Windows devices. For example, Windows Store supports Cocos2D-X, openFrameworks, OpenCV, Cinder, and Ogre3D apps. Box2D and Bullet also have joined the Windows Store. jQuery now fully supports Windows Runtime, so web developers can build Windows 8 apps reusing their existing code and skills. Developers who use HTML5 to build cross-platform apps for iOS and Android with tools like Apache Cordova will find it easy to port their apps to Windows.

In fact, we’re taking a much more pragmatic approach to the web in general. We know that HTML is a critical cross-platform technology. Windows Phone 8.1 brings the same powerful hardware-accelerated IE11 HTML engine in Windows 8.1 to the phone. We’ve made great strides in extending IE to developers by focusing on open standards. Now we want to focus even more on interoperability. We already support WebGL and other technologies, such as media streaming extensions for adaptive streaming scenarios.

Today we’re also announcing that Microsoft Open Technologies has brought the Windows Library for JavaScript (WinJS) cross-platform apps and is open sourcing it under the Apache 2.0 license. Find the source code on GitHub. Use this powerful Windows development framework to build high-quality web apps across a variety of browsers and devices beyond Windows, including Chrome, Firefox, Android, and iOS.

Where we go from here

We’re enabling universal Windows apps for a common Windows runtime today, and we know we have more work to do, including expanding the range of devices running universal Windows apps so developers can reach more customers in more places, from Xbox One and the Internet of Things scenarios, to millions more desktop Windows users. We also continue to strive to make the app development, submission, and management process faster and easier. In the coming weeks and months, you’ll see additional updates to the Windows platform – including tools and Store – all designed to deliver even better experiences and enable greater opportunity for our developer community.

Tags: phone, PC, Tablet

An upcoming new era: personalised, pro-active search and discovery experiences for Office 365 (Oslo)

April 2, 2014 11:27 am / Leave a comment

A great companion to the incredible Power BI experiences! Now it is already part of the Office 365 pre-release TAP (Technology Adoption Program) program, for general public will be available by the end of this year:

Code-Name Oslo – Next Generation Discovery and Search [OfficeGarageSeries YouTube channel, March 10, 2014]

In this show hosts Jeremy Chapman [Office Deployment Lead] and Cem Aykan [Sr Product Manager, Office] are on location at SharePoint Conference 2014 in Las Vegas. They take a look at Microsoft’s new Code-Name Oslo, a new way to let tailored content discover you without searching. Ashok Kuppusamy from the Oslo engineering team in Norway joins them to demonstrate Oslo in action. http://www.microsoft.com/garage

More information: Introducing codename Oslo and the Office Graph [Office Blogs from Microsoft, March 11, 2014] by Ashok Kuppusamy is a group program manager in the FAST engineering team based in Norway.

The goal for Oslo was not just to reimagine search, but to help people get their work done in a quicker, more The goal for Oslo was not just to reimagine search, but to help people get their work done in a quicker, more informed, and even delightful manner. After all, your job isn’t just to “search.” You use search as a tool to get your actual job done. This more ambitious goal drove us to ask how we could remove the information silos that exist across applications, better support information discovery, and enable teams to work together as a network. The result is not just a search solution, but a new way of working – proactive, transformational, and delightful. Oslo is the first in a new breed of intelligent and social work experiences.

Rather than list an exhaustive set of features, let’s see how Oslo transforms the world of work.
…

With Oslo, you can find anything you need by just remembering a person. It’s way easier for us humans to remember names of people than document names or keywords. This change, connecting to content through people, hints at something truly transformative: a new way to staying “in the know” about what’s around you. It’s the difference between working in an office with a closed door that gives you little exposure to what is going on around you, and working in an open office where you are exposed to information dynamically.

This transformation happens even in small teams. Here at Microsoft, when a team is “on Oslo,” we see fewer meetings. We send fewer status reports. We cut down “talking about the work.” Instead we all just do our work and see the latest work from each other through Oslo. We can reuse information from across our organization more effectively. We provide feedback on the work right away instead of waiting for meetings. The pace of work speeds up, yet we still feel “in the know.” It’s like our entire team is sitting in an open-space room where we’re aware of what’s going on but not being constantly interrupted. We call it “working like a network” because Oslo makes connecting with others, building relationships, and sharing information easier than ever before. Oslo is also founded on the openness and transparency that drives new levels of productivity.
…

Enterprise Social: Work like a network. [YammerInc YouTube channel, March 3, 2014]

Learn how your company can work like a network with Enterprise Social. Listen, adapt, and grow in new ways to respond faster and deliver better customer experiences. Visit http://www.enterprisesocial.com to learn more.

Work like a network! Enterprise social and the future of work [Office Blogs from Microsoft, March 3, 2014]

Jared Spataro is the General Manager of Enterprise Social at Microsoft.

My insert here: Jared Spataro speaks at SharePoint Conference 2014 #SPC14 [ToolboxY2K YouTube channel, published on March 10, 2010]

Jared Spataro speaks at SharePoint Conference 2014 at the Venetian in Las Vegas, NV.

As customers gather this week for the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas and Convergence in Atlanta, I want to update you on our enterprise social vision and road map—including several new announcements.

The world has become a giant network

Over the last few years, the world has become a giant network, and social media has rewired the way we connect with people and information. Today we build relationships with family and friends on Facebook, get breaking news from the other side of the world on Twitter, and find our next big break on LinkedIn. Indeed, the old saying still holds: It’s not just what you know but also who you know that matters. And in 2014, technology makes connecting with others, building relationships, and sharing information easier than ever before.

But the great apps and services that have changed our personal lives haven’t yet found their way into the office (at least, not in a consistent way). So we’re excited to introduce an integrated set of social, collaboration, and communication technologies that enable companies to work like a network—using the concepts that have changed our personal lives to transform the way we work. By tapping into the human networks that make a business tick, companies can listen to the conversations that matter most, adapt to an increasingly volatile market, and grow in ways never before possible.

Today, more than 400,000 companies worldwide are already using Yammer to work in this way, and in the remainder of this post I’ll explain how we’re extending this network effect to users of Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics, and virtually any other app, service, or line-of-business applications that matter to your company.

Laying the foundation

We’ve always believed that enterprise social should be woven into the way people already work, so that the power of human networks (from inside and outside a company) is available to help people get their jobs done—anywhere and on any device. Over the past two years, we’ve been busy laying the foundation for this approach with a number of strategic investments:

In February 2013, we integrated Yammer into Microsoft Dynamics CRM, allowing users to participate in social conversations, share important data, and follow updates without ever leaving the CRM application. In the spring 2014 release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we’ll further enhance our customer-facing enterprise social capabilities by delivering a comprehensive set of new social listening, marketing, and service desk capabilities.
In November 2013, we announced the inclusion of Yammer Enterprise with all Office 365 Enterprise plans. This spring, Yammer Enterprise will also be included with the Office 365 Academic and Office 365 Midsize Business plans.
Last month, we released simplified login to Yammer from Office 365, in which Office 365 users are mapped to Yammer accounts. Now, when you click on Yammer from your Office 365 global navigation bar, there is no need to re-authenticate. This summer, we’ll surface the Office 365 navigation bar in Yammer, enabling unified navigation across Office 365.
Last week, we released SharePoint 2013 Service Pack 1 (SP1), which makes it easy to connect an on-premises SharePoint deployment with an in-the-cloud Yammer network.

Enterprise social and the future of work

But a foundation is good only if you build something interesting on top of it. And today we’re announcing three new social experiences designed to help companies work like a network.

Creating the Office Graph. First, we’re extending Yammer’s concept of the Enterprise Graph across Office 365 to create something we’re calling the Office Graph. When we acquired Yammer, one of the things we loved about the technology was how it mapped the relationships between people and information by simply recording likes, posts, replies, shares, and uploads. In what I think is a game-changing move, we’re extending this idea to Office broadly, using signals from email, social conversations, documents, sites, instant messages, meetings, and more to map the relationships between the people and things that make your business go. Just as consumer social networks connect you to people and information you’d otherwise never be able to keep up with, the Office Graph will plug you into the very fabric that makes your organization work.

The Office Graph maps the relationships among people and information.

Oslo (the codename for a brand new app) is the first application to help people put the Office Graph to work, delivering personalized insights and connecting the dots to help people get their jobs done. By tapping into the Office Graph, Oslo provides a natural way for users to navigate, discover, and search people and information across an organization.

Office Graph insights surface through Oslo.

Learn more about your colleagues and their content.

Extending the Groups Experience. Next, we’re extending one of Yammer’s most powerful user experiences to the rest of Office 365. Broad posts are a fine way to make announcements or solicit feedback from across your company, but over the years Yammer found that the value of enterprise social goes up exponentially when people organize themselves into smaller groups focused on a specific process or deliverable. This simple Groups Experience is so powerful, in fact, that we’re making it a cross-Office 365 concept that will unify people, profiles, conversations, email, calendars, and files across the entire set of Office 365 applications. Creating a group anywhere in Office 365 will automatically provision a corresponding inbox, social feed, calendar, and document library that group members can use to get the job done. The group’s Yammer feed and inbox will both display the same conversation, so users who are more comfortable in Yammer can participate in the group through the feed, and users who prefer email can participate in the group through the inbox. And, just like in Yammer, groups are open by default to enhance discoverability and sharing. But to be clear, groups can be made private as necessary. Transparency and openness can be incredibly powerful, but we recognize that privacy and access control haven’t entirely gone out of style.

Group social feed in Yammer

Group inbox in Outlook Web App

Group calendar (green) viewed alongside personal calendar

Group document library

Creating Inline Social Experiences. Finally, we’re weaving social into the apps that matter most by creating Inline Social Experiences in Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics, and any other app, service, or line-of-business system that is important to your business. We’re adding Yammer conversations to documents in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business; we’re making it easy to post updates, documents, and emails to Yammer from SharePoint Online and Outlook; and we’re continuing to enhance the integrated social capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. In the future, we’ll integrate Yammer with Lync and Skype to enable a full spectrum of social interactions, from asynchronous posts to audio and video. We’re committed to helping you put your networks to work naturally—with integrated experiences that put people and information at your fingertips, anywhere and on any device.

You can now see Yammer conversations side by side with PowerPoint Online presentations and other documents.

So, what should I do now?

Over the last 18 months, I’ve had a chance to talk with a lot of customers and partners about our enterprise social strategy, and my discussions have generally focused on two big action-oriented questions: (1) What about SharePoint social? and (2) What should I do now? So to close out this post, I want to respond to both questions and tie our announcements today to next steps.

What about SharePoint social? We shipped basic social features with SharePoint Server 2013, and over the last year and a half I’ve had many people ask me whether they should implement SharePoint social or Yammer. My guidance has been clear and consistent: Go Yammer! While we’re committed to another on-premises release of SharePoint Server—and we’ll maintain its social capabilities—we don’t plan on adding new social features. Our investments in social will be focused on Yammer and Office 365, so that we can innovate quickly and take advantage of the viral user adoption that is so important to the natural network effect that makes social so powerful. We recognize that many of our SharePoint customers will continue to have large on-premises deployments for many years, but we’re investing to help customers easily manage hybrid environments so that they can connect their on-premises farms to their in-the-cloud social network.

What should I do now? A lot of people have assumed that our enterprise social strategy was simply to “add Yammer feeds to SharePoint” or “unify identity and profiles for Yammer and SharePoint.” While we’re absolutely doing these things (and many more like them), I’m pleased that our enterprise social strategy—as articulated above—is much more than just a collection of the obvious. We have lofty ambitions and are aiming to literally change the way people get things done at work. And to do that, we’ve taken a step back and tried to capture the essence of how social has rewired the world—how it has reshaped the way we connect with the people and information that make the world go ‘round. These new innovations—the Office Graph, Office 365 Groups, and Inline Social Experiences—are important steps in realizing our vision. So what should you do now? That’s easy! Start working like a network today by joining Yammer—and then add additional social capabilities, from Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics, as they become available throughout 2014 and as you and your organization solidify your own enterprise social strategy.

So there you have it. The world has become a giant network. And now is the time for you and your company to start working like one. Looking forward to the journey together!

–Jared Spataro, #worklikeanetwork

SharePoint Social And Other Platforms [Michael Gannotti YouTube channel, March 14, 2014]

Recently I have worked with several customers who, while they had adopted and implemented SharePoint, had decided to go another route with another platform like Jive for their Enterprise social efforts. Often the decision was made as a Product X vs Yammer or Product X vs SharePoint decision. The problem with decisions like that is it ignores the obvious in that SharePoint and Yammer are part of a synergistic whole, not simply discrete packages. In the cases where I have been working with clients around this after much by way of spending and effort they have come to regret that path and are looking for a way out. In this Michael on the Go video I discuss the benefits of SharePoint and Yammer together for Enterprise social with a special eye to the announcements made at the recent SharePoint Conference especially the Office Graph and Oslo. To see the entire post with resource links visithttp://michaelgannotti.com

Microsoft Office showcases future of work [press release, March 3, 2014]

From all-new Office 365 social and personalized experiences to new opportunities for developers, Microsoft emphasizes cloud scenarios that change the way people get things done.

LAS VEGAS — March 3, 2014 — Microsoft Corp. kicked off its SharePoint Conference 2014, highlighting new ways Microsoft Office 365 will enable people to accomplish more with new experiences for users, developers and IT pros. In a keynote speech to approximately 10,000 customers and partners, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Jeff Teper showcased innovation that brings together the power of the cloud, enterprise social, big data, machine learning and mobile capabilities into an experience made personal for every Office 365 user. These new technologies will enable a networked way of working together in teams, in groups and across organizations that can result in better customer responsiveness, collaboration, information sharing, discoverability and more.

“Today, the world has become a giant network where connections make information more relevant and people more productive. Most companies, however, are not working like a network, which we believe is vital for their ability to improve collaboration and respond to customers, competition and market changes,” Teper said. “The new Office 365 experiences powered by cloud, social, mobile and big data technologies enable people and teams to find the right connections and most relevant insights to get more done.”

Delivering on this vision, Microsoft showcased new innovations for end users, developers and IT pros coming to Office 365 in the near future, with an emphasis on the trusted platform fundamentals of security, privacy and industry compliance.

For end users, Microsoft demonstrated new personalized experiences that integrate social capabilities throughout Office 365, to help people spend less time trying to find information or looking for people working on similar projects and more time getting things done. Powering these new user experiences is the Office Graph, a new Office 365 intelligence fabric that remains unseen to the user but is constantly analyzing content, interactions and activity streams and mapping the relationships using machine learning to intelligently connect and surface the most relevant content to each user. These new experiences include the following:

“Oslo” (code name). A new application powered by the Office Graph and code-named “Oslo” was previewed onstage. It uses personal interactions and machine learning to surface a view of the most relevant, timely information for each individual using Office 365 across SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, Yammer and Office.

Groups. Groups is a new feature unifying people, conversations, calendars, emails and files across the Office 365 suite, enabling a seamless collaboration experience across applications. Creating a Group anywhere in Office 365 will automatically provision a corresponding Yammer conversation feed, calendar, document library and inbox where members can collaborate and work as a team. Just like in Yammer, Groups are open by default but can be made private if necessary, enhancing discoverability and sharing.

Inline Social. Microsoft is bringing the power of social collaboration and conversations to everyone by offering Inline Social experiences throughout Office 365. The first experience planned for introduction is the ability to have social conversations inside documents stored in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business.

Office 365 Video Portal. Today, Microsoft previewed the new Office 365 Video Portal to support upload, storage and discovery of videos in a secure manner. Businesses will be able to categorize videos into channels for specific business needs and stream them on mobile devices, with all of the video compression, optimization and rendering work done by Office 365.

“Many organizations struggle with bringing together their content creation, collaboration and core business applications,” said Alan Lepofsky, vice president and principal analyst, Constellation Research. “Today’s Office Graph and ‘Oslo’ announcements describe an integrated future that could greatly improve the way Microsoft Office 365 users will get their work done, with easily discoverable insights about important activity across their organizations that personally affect or may be interesting to them.”

With more than 3.4 million Office and SharePoint developers and counting, Microsoft also announced investments that open more doors for customers and partners to build contextual productivity solutions across browsers, PCs and mobile devices. On the Office 365 platform, developers can build integrated solutions and mobile apps to reach today’s leading businesses.

Exciting mobile possibilities. Today, the release of Office 365 SDKs for Windows 8 and Android will help developers build mobile productivity solutions powered by Office 365. Windows and Android developers can now connect to Office 365 data and services, including files, calendars, contacts, tasks and email.

Seamless Office 365 integration. Enhancements to Office 365 APIs for PowerPoint and Outlook give developers the control to build new, sophisticated solutions. PowerPoint presentations can be extended to surface poll or survey data directly within a deck, and Outlook Compose apps offer helpful insight alongside an email as it is written.

Robust APIs. In a continuation of Office 365 API growth, new APIs for files, people, email, calendar and tasks bring new light to the service with an intuitive, open- standards approach. The APIs also feature popularly requested enhancements, including self-service site provisioning and support for OneDrive for Business file actions.

Sharing power. Office 365 documents that include app information can now be more seamlessly activated by recipients. PowerPoint apps travel into the PowerPoint Online experience, allowing customers to share their favorite apps in a more viral way. Later this year, Office Online will bring similar capabilities to Excel.

For IT pros, Microsoft announced new capabilities that enhance Office 365 security and privacy, giving IT pros the tools they need to help protect their organizations. In addition, with the Office 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1 release, it is now easier than ever for organizations to take advantage of Office 365, whether that means making a comprehensive move to the cloud, adopting a hybrid deployment, or making a gradual transition through easy on-ramps such as OneDrive for Business and Yammer.

Data-loss prevention. Microsoft demonstrated new data-loss prevention capabilities for Office content, enabling organizations to manage, track and audit content, while not getting in the way of user productivity.

OneDrive for Business. In April, businesses can purchase OneDrive for Business (formerly SkyDrive Pro) as a stand-alone SKU providing secured file, sync and share in the cloud with all the benefits of integration with Office. Also, with SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1, Microsoft introduced new admin controls to “turn on” OneDrive for Business in the cloud directly from the SharePoint Server 2013 admin console. This enables customers to keep their on-premises infrastructure intact, while still getting the benefit of cloud-based file storage and sharing.

Easy SharePoint social transition to Yammer. In Service Pack 1 Microsoft is making it easy for IT pros to replace the out-of-the-box SharePoint Server 2013 social experience with Yammer. Through simple controls in SharePoint Server 2013 central administration, IT can choose to activate Yammer, redirecting users to the organization’s Yammer network.

More information about today’s news can be found on the Microsoft Office blog.

The SharePoint Conference 2014 is the largest Microsoft SharePoint event in the world, offering developers, IT professionals and executives a range of presentations, workshops, Q&A sessions and networking events. More information on the news at the event can be found at the Microsoft Office virtual pressroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

Read More: Office 365, Developers, SharePoint Online, SharePoint Server, Cloud Computing, Office 365 Customers, Developers, Lync, Yammer, Outlook, Jeff Teper, Enterprise Social

Microsoft expands cloud services for mobile scenarios March 27, 2014
Microsoft takes a stand on student privacy with best-in-class education solutions March 12, 2014
Microsoft, Intel and the Kenya Private School Alliance announce 4Afrika Youth Device Program March 03, 2014
Los Angeles Unified School District selects Office 365 for faculty and staff Feb. 27, 2014

Dux Quax at SharePoint Conference 2014: Jared Spataro and Adam Pisoni [avepointjc YouTube channel, March 5, 2014]

Dux Raymond Sy, AvePoint Public Sector Vice President for Customer Strategy and Solutions and SharePoint MVP, speaks with Jared Spataro, General Manager of Microsoft Office, and Adam Pisoni, Yammer Co-Founder and CTO, at SharePoint Conference 2014.

Technology is enabling new ways of working [Office Blogs from Microsoft, March 3, 2014]

Jeff Teper is the Corporate Vice President of Office Service and Servers group.

It’s an exhilarating time for our industry, our company, and for Office. At the last SharePoint Conference we talked about technology megatrends that are changing the way people work: cloud, social, mobile, and big data. These trends are still alive and well today, and they are active change agents in markets, industries, and companies across the world.

But this year, we want to do more than just talk about technology trends. This year, we want to show you what we’re doing with them and how we’re harnessing these powerful forces to transform work. The innovation you’ll see from us here today—and in fact over the next few years—is based on four core beliefs:

First, we believe the future of work is all about working like a network. It’s about how we build relationships, share information, and respond to ever-changing conditions. And it’s founded on an openness and transparency that will drive a new level of productivity.
Second, we believe personalized and proactive insights are required to cut through the noise. As humans, we have an incredible ability to achieve—but only if we can focus. And we need technology to help us, so that we can focus our energies on accomplishing big things.
Third, we believe in the power of an open development platform and a robust ecosystem. We recognize that one size doesn’t fit all, and that companies need customized solutions that can be developed in weeks, not years.
And finally, we believe that enabling this future of work is possible only if people are empowered to work anywhere and on any device, and if businesses have the tools they need to responsibly manage security and compliance.

We couldn’t be more excited to partner with you to transform work and dramatically change the way people get things done.

Empowering people and organizations

Today, the world is a giant network with people hyper-connected to information and each other. We talk to our friends and family using Facebook, brands can be made or broken with a simple Tweet, and we find our next job through contacts in LinkedIn. Information and knowledge move faster, and we’re able to accomplish more together because we are so connected. Meanwhile, many organizations continue to work the way they always have: they operate in hierarchies, with information coming from the top down or held up in unconnected systems and broken communication channels.

To be more responsive, we need to evolve. We need to flatten the information flow so that we can work better together and serve customers better, using a network of highly informed and highly connected people.

Today we’re showing examples of innovation in the cloud that I’m really excited about, that serve unmet needs in most organizations today, and that allow organizations to work more like a network. By leveraging insights from Office 365 and mapping the relationships between people, groups, files and conversations through machine learning, we can intelligently connect and surface the most relevant content using the Office Graph. This is the power of social, cloud, big data, and machine learning coming together. Office Graph will power many new personalized and contextual experiences for people using Office 365. One of the first experiences to leverage the Office Graph is code-named Oslo. Oslo serves up in a single user interface personalized insights based on meetings, people, conversations, documents and more. The Oslo application surfaces what might be most relevant for each individual based on what they’re already doing in Exchange, Outlook, SharePoint, Office, Lync, and Yammer. We believe this is the start of something game-changing—building digital memory across applications to create a highly personalized experience that helps people get more done. You can learn more about Office Graph and Oslo here.

By helping people work more openly, we believe organizations will work more like a network and become more responsive (and successful). We’ve spent a lot of time studying trends, talking with customers, and thinking about how we can connect experiences in Yammer, Lync, Outlook, and Exchange with a social fabric that permeates Office, is intuitive, and helps organizations gain the benefits of network effects—just by people doing their natural work in Office. To that end, today we’re also showing Groups—building on the loved concept of Groups in Yammer—which will apply to all Office 365 applications. Groups will unify people, email, conversations, calendars and files together across Office 365 services in a common construct to ensure that people can collaborate similarly in the experience they love most. This makes the overall experience of Office 365 social and connected. You can read more about Groups here.

We know that not everything is best expressed in documents or conversations. Many organizations have created dynamic portals, web sites, and mobile apps to surface what matters most to employees. Here we’re also working on some bold new approaches. We believe next-generation portals should be simple to create and customize in the cloud, have high engagement via social interactions, deliver more relevant information, leverage multi-media, and—most importantly—be accessible anywhere and on any device. We have of lot of work going on in this area that will show up this year, but today we’re showing a new social video portal built on SharePoint, Yammer, the Office Graph in Office 365, and Azure Media Services, as a ready-made solution.

Office 365 for developers

There are already more than 3.4 million developers—nearly half of whom are SharePoint developers—building on the Office platform and Office 365, our fastest-growing product in history. We have two objectives in our development platform. First, we want to give customers maximum agility to adapt our products to specific business needs, whether you build or buy these solutions. Second, we want to bring partners a great opportunity to grow their business. You can find more information about today’s announcements for developers here. It’s been very exciting in the last few weeks to have partners ranging from GoDaddy to DocuSign building solutions and services around Office 365 that will help them grow, and that will also help our customers see more value by having direct access within Office 365 to the things they want to do every day. We see more of this great opportunity ahead for our developer partners.

A trusted platform

Beyond base reliability, we know security, privacy, and compliance are paramount, and we’re committed to delivering best-in-class enterprise cloud services. We’re doing this through a massive investment in physical data centers and application-level security, lights-out operations, architecting for zero customer data access, intelligent monitoring, and more. With the Microsoft Cloud and Office 365, you own and control your data. We don’t see or use your data for anything other than delivering the service to you. We know independent certifications for all of this are critical, and we’ve published our processes and met industry standards and regulations such as ISO, EU Model Clauses, HIPAA, FISMA, and CJIS for the largest and most demanding customers, such as the states of California and Texas. You can find out more about our trusted platform at the Office 365 Trust Center.

Partnering with you

We’re making adoption of Office 365 faster and easier than ever with our FastTrack deployment approach. But we understand that not every customer is ready to move their investments to the cloud all at once and so we’re committed to working closely with all of you and lower the friction for you to get started. And, we will ship new server releases of SharePoint and Exchange in 2015. We’ll also continue to support hybrid deployments spanning both cloud and on premises technologies including expanded search and line-of business access. Our server releases will include some, but not all, of the experience you saw today due to the computational power and integrated aspects that only come with Office 365.

I want to be very clear — we know we can deliver more value to you via the cloud – as you saw today in these great new experiences. I also want to be clear that we’re committed to helping you get there in the configuration and pace that works for you.

To help you make the transition at your own pace, we’ve made it easier to get started in the cloud with Social and Files. With SharePoint Server 2013 Service Pack 1, you can connect your on-premises SharePoint 2013 servers to the cloud and to turn on OneDrive for Business or Yammer as the first workloads in the cloud and run those alongside existing SharePoint investments.

But we wanted to go one step farther. So today, we are introducing a new very attractive priced OneDrive for Business Standalone offer. If you aren’t already using OneDrive for Business – now is the time to take your first step to embracing the cloud.

Technology is transforming the world and we’re using it to transform Office to help your organization be more responsive and agile—all while protecting your valuable information. This is just the start!

–Jeff Teper

To watch Alisher Usmanov (Алишер Усманов)

March 22, 2014 3:19 pm / Leave a comment

Alisher Usmanov (Алишер Усманов)? WTF, you may ask. Especially in the context of ‘Experiencing the Cloud’. Those wikipedia articles will hardly explain that. So here are the reasons why I am doing such a recommendation now:

We are witnessing the biggest geopolitical play of the XXI. century between the winning Western world of the last century and the reinvigorated Russian state of the new century under the latest doctrine by Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly declared in his Balancing the East, Upgrading the West – U.S. Grand Strategy in an Age of Upheaval [Foreign Affairs, JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2012 ISSUE] article 2 years ago as:

The United States’ central challenge over the next several decades is to revitalize itself, while promoting a larger West and buttressing a complex balance in the East that can accommodate China’s rising global status. A successful U.S. effort to enlarge the West, making it the world’s most stable and democratic zone, would seek to combine power with principle. A cooperative larger West – extending from North America and Europe through Eurasia (by eventually embracing Russia and Turkey), all the way to Japan and South Korea – would enhance the appeal of the West’s core principles for other cultures, thus encouraging the gradual emergence of a universal democratic political culture.
Given the very first round of this aggressive move—happening before our own eyes in Ukraine—to capture the vast space extending from Ukraine through whole of Russia to Vladivostok, the other biggest play of XXI. century, what is best called as Mobile Cloud Computing, will unfold in a dramatically different way. China as The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower is getting Russia now, as a much closer ally against the fading Western high-tech power. This will even effect the world financial system as well, since the side who is getting the upper hand in the global social networking and related e-commerce race is also getting a dominant position in the global financial system.
Russia has already built some very close strategic ties with strategic businesses of China in this respect, especially via the activities of its most clever businessman, Alisher Usmanov. In the following I will provide a quick summary of his activities so far, as well as the current situation fast evolving because of the so called sanctions looming over the whole Russian economy (because of the “2014 Crimean crisis”).
In 2013 there was a new (maybe final before an IPO) round of Xiaomi financing which was said to be disclosed also on Sept 5. The amount was rumored as being not less than $2B and “from Chinese internet and mobile services firm Tencent (0700.HK), with Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) acting as an intermediary”. DST already invested $90 million into Xiaomi in Dec 2011, and another $216 million in Dec 2012.
Then, DST is controlled by Russia’s richest man Alisher Usmanov with $18.6B of private wealth (beginning of March 2014, “pre-sanctions against Russia”) and an additional $11.1B wealth of its two business partners also controlled by Usmanov via 100% voting rights in his USM Holdings empire. USM Holdings has three groups of assets in its portfolio: Internet (with DST and a complete Mail.Ru Goup), Telecoms (with Megafon, Russia’s second largest mobile operator in terms of revenue and subscribers and the market leader in the mobile data segment, as well as Yota, the leader of the mobile broadband sector in Russia), Media and Steel & Mining.
Tencent is controlled by Naspers (33.9%) which is also heavily invested into the Mail.Ru Group earlier (29%), and might have some minority share of DST itself, indirectly via Tencent definitely (getting not less than 10.26% of DST with a $300M investment into it in April, 2010). AlthoughNaspers’s CEO, Koos Bekker has a personal fortune of ‘only’ $580M (mid’12, so now closer to $1B probably) but has been the unquestioned leader and decision maker of the company, which has a market capitalisation of about $57B (mid’12, now much higher). Also Tencent’s own market capitalisation is not less than $88.6B (Aug 15, 2013).
Also, Venture Capital Dispatch reported in January 2013 that:

“DST Global counts Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and online retailer JingdongMall [pre April 2013 360buy] as part of its Asian portfolio. DST, alongside other private equity firms like Silver Lake agreed to buy shares in Alibaba at a tender offer of $1.6 billion in 2011. That same year, DST Global also participated in a $1.5 billion third round of funding in Jingdong [pre April 2013 360buy], with media reports stating that DST bought a 5% share in the online retailer for $500 million. … DST Global spent around $1.5 billion on both of those deals, said [DST partner John] Lindfors [responsible for the Chinese market].”
More importantly, and very recently Billionaire Usmanov Aims at China After Selling Apple, Facebook [Bloomberg, March 17, 2014]:

“Chinese companies account for about 70 percent to 80 percent of the portfolio of our foreign Internet investments,” Ivan Streshinskiy, head of Usmanov’s asset-management company USM Advisors LLC, said in an interview on March 14 in Moscow. Most of the investment is in “Alibaba, JD.com and some other companies with great potential,” Streshinskiy said.
…
“We hope that our investments in China’s Internet companies may show the same and even better returns as we had with the American companies,” Streshinskiy said. China is Russia’s largest trading partner.

Alibaba’s estimated valuation rose to an average of $153 billion last month after the Chinese e-commerce company reported surging sales. The Hangzhou-based company is starting the process for what may be the biggest U.S. initial public offering in two years. Chinese online retailer JD.com may start an IPO next quarter and be valued at more than $20 billion, according to co-owner Tencent Holdings Ltd.
…
“We are concerned with the possible sanctions against Russia but don’t see any dramatic repercussions for our business,” Streshinskiy said. “China is unlikely to impose any sanctions. So, we will be trading in rubles, yuan, Hong Kong or Singapore dollars.”

And additionally Usmanov Tightens Grip Over Russian Social Network VKontakte (1) [Businessweek, March 18, 2014]:

Mail.ru, an Internet company controlled by Usmanov, agreed to buy a 12 percent stake in VKontakte from Russian executive Ivan Tavrin, according to a statement from Moscow-based Mail.ru today. No price was disclosed. Mail.ru won’t change VKontakte’s operational control or consolidate it into its accounts.

VKontakte may be valued at $2 billion to $4 billion, said Ksenia Arutyunova, an analyst at Rye Man & Gor Securities in Moscow. The company is trying to fend off rivals including Facebook Inc. (FB:US) in Russia and leads the market with Odnoklassniki, another social network controlled by Mail.ru.

“Even though Mail.ru won’t get operational control in VKontakte, this deal is good as it’s a move in the company’s strategy of consolidating social networks in Russia,” said Konstantin Belov, an analyst at UralSib Capital in Moscow.

Mail.ru, which also has assets such as online gaming sites, jumped as much as 6.6 percent, the biggest gain in 11 months. It rose 4.2 percent to $34.58 at 9:45 a.m. in London.

VKontakte had 95 million users in December, including 61 million in Russia, researcher ComScore estimated. Facebook had 13 million Russian users and Odnoklassniki 54 million.

The stake increase also gives Mail.ru an edge over United Capital Partners, a Russian investor who holds the remaining 48 percent of VKontakte. The two shareholders have been at odds over the social network’s management, with UCP calling for the dismissal of co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Pavel Durov, whom Usmanov has supported.

Usmanov is also willing to buy UCP’s stake in VKontakte at a “reasonable price,” Ivan Streshinskiy, head of Usmanov’s asset-management company USM Advisors LLC, said in an interview in Moscow last week. UCP and Usmanov’s representatives each have two of VKontakte’s four board seats.

UCP has claimed that Durov breached his fiduciary duty by developing his own project, the Telegram messenger, separately from VKontakte. Streshinskiy said that Usmanov has been supportive of Durov as his presence in the company ensures success of the social network.

Now with sanctions looming over the whole Russian economy (because of the “2014 Crimean crisis”) the possible changes could be much more dramatic. According to Russian banks offered to go to the Chinese payment systems [Russian news and facts, March 21, 2014]:

Russian banks are affected by international sanctions because of the annexation of Crimea, could restore job by clicking on the Chinese payment system. This RDA told the deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Financial Markets Anatoly Aksakov.

So, he said, “customers will be moved to the side of the Chinese UnionPay».

Autumn 2013 Central Bank registered LLC “YunionPey” as the operator of the payment system. It became a clearinghouse “Bank of China (ELOS).” The system was founded in 2002 as an association of banks in China. It operates in more than 140 countries.

Another popular Chinese system – Alipay, a member of the Alibaba Group – the largest company online commerce. She, in particular, belong to well-known online retailers AliExpress site and Taobao. Alipay was founded in 2004. System used by more than 460,000 companies.

~~Recently~~ [it’s started much earlier, in 2011, as you could see in [4] above] Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has invested in shares of Alibaba Group, getting rid of securities Facebook and Apple.

My insert here: Leaning East: Russia moves towards China as West pushes sanctions [RT (Russia Today), March 20, 2014]

Amid the possibility of further sanctions from Brussels and Washington over Crimea – Vladimir Putin is set to address the annual session of Russia’s Union of Industrials and Entrepreneurs. Live now to RT’s Katie Pilbeam. Well the West may be threatening sanctions – but Russia’s eastern relations are unaffected. Moscow’s trade with China is on the rise – the turnover reaching 89 billion dollars last year. Most of that is made up of oil supplies being sent to Beijing, which is the world’s fastest growing energy market. Let’s get some analysis from Thorsten Pattberg, a writer and author of the book “The East-West Dichotomy”.

Now the Russian register of operators of payment systems includes 29 products including Visa and Master Card, and the revocation of the license Migom.

Earlier it was reported that the Visa and Master Card cards stopped servicing a number of Russian banks, which fell under the EU sanctions and the U.S. due to merger Crimea to Russia. President Vladimir Putin has promised that the government will help companies and their customers.

And indeed Visa explained stop service cards in Russian banks [Russian news and facts, March 21, 2014]:

In accordance with U.S. law, Visa payment system was required to suspend access to the network for organizations that came under sanctions because of Washington’s annexation of the Crimea. This writes the “Interfax” referring to the company’s statement.

The list includes the bank “Russia” and related “Sobinbank”, “SMP Bank” and “InvestCapitalBank.” Earlier it was reported that the Visa and Master Card cards stopped servicing these credit institutions.

According to the director of the Department of the Central Bank of the national payment system Batyreva Timur, because of the actions of Visa and Master Card functionality lost several hundred thousand cards issued by the three banks. … also having problems with credit organizations, which affected banks were sponsors. In this chain of “stuck” seven organizations, he said.

President Vladimir Putin said that the state will help victims of the sanctions to companies and their customers, and ordered to transfer their salary to the bank “Russia”. His example was followed by the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Just Sanctions list were more than 50 Russian and Ukrainian officials and businessmen.

In a longer term changes could well be even more dramatic as Putin: Russian companies should have transparent property structure [ITAR-TASS, March 20, 2014]

MOSCOW, March 20. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian companies should be registered on the territory of Russia and should have a transparent property structure, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Thursday.

At the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Russian president said that business people should realize their responsibility. “Russian companies should be registered on the territory of our country and should have a transparent property structure,” he noted.

Therefore, Putin stated that he had set a task to decrease the number of offshore companies in domestic economy. “Required amendments in legislative base are being drafted,” he noted.

Or as has been reported in a wider context of UPDATE 2-Putin tells Russian businessmen to bring their assets back home [Reuters, March 20, 2014]:

* Putin presses home his argument for bringing business home
* Businessmen fear widening EU, U.S. sanctions
* In case of crisis, government cannot help this time round (Adds more Putin comments, Usmanov, Potanin, background)

President Vladimir Putin told company bosses on Thursday to bring their assets home and clean up their businesses to help Russia survive Western sanctions over Crimea and an economic downturn.

Facing a possible widening of Western sanctions that may target businessmen close to Putin, some of Russia’s oligarchs are increasingly nervous about their companies’ prospects.

Some of Russia’s largest companies are registered abroad where they may benefit from lower tax rates but also may enjoy some distance from the Kremlin and feel beyond its reach.

Without referring to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region or to slowing economic growth, Putin said it would also be in the bosses’ interests to support the Russian economy.

“Russian companies should be registered on the territory of our nation, in our country and have a transparent ownership structure,” Putin told heads of Russia’s largest companies.

“I am certain that this is also in your interests,” he said, pressing home a patriotic message at a conference full of businessmen, including a front row of top oligarchs such as media mogul Alisher Usmanov and metals magnate Vladimir Potanin.

Putin waged war on the oligarchs who amassed political influence as well as vast riches under former president Boris Yeltsin, driving some out of Russia and forcing those who remained to stay out of politics.

Since then several businessmen with ties to Putin have come to dominate the corporate landscape and are now among Russia’s richest men.

His words may have made some oligarchs nervous. Usmanov’s Internet holding group Mail.Ru is registered in the British Virgin Islands, while X5 Retail Group, owned by Mikhail Fridman, who was not at the conference, is registered in Amsterdam.

Returning to the Kremlin in May 2012 for a third presidential term, Putin has urged politicians and businessmen to return from the “offshore shadows” and stop spiriting cash out of the country, a move some critics say was a move by a weakened president to ensure loyalty among Russia’s elite.

But with sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union on officials, his demands are carrying more weight, ensuring there will be little public sympathy for oligarchs who may be stung by widening punitive measures.

“Our task is not only to limit the possibilities of offshore schemes,” Putin said.

“We understand perfectly well that little can be achieved through prohibitions. The main direction of our work is in something else: it is necessary to increase the attractiveness of the Russian jurisdiction, improve the business climate, and strengthen legal guarantees and the protection of property.”

My insert here: Putin mocks US sanctions, vows not to strike back [RT (Russia Today), March 21, 2014]

Vladimir Putin has mocked US sanctions imposed on Russia, saying he will open an account at US-sanctioned Rossiya Bank. During a meeting with the country’s senior security officials he added that he won’t introduce a visa regime with Ukraine – READ MORE http://on.rt.com/x16ya5

FEAR OF SANCTIONS TO COME

The conference, days after Putin signed a treaty on bringing Ukraine’s Crimea region into Russia, was surprisingly upbeat despite the threat of deeper sanctions by the United States and European Union, Russia’s top trading partner.

Many Russians have been swept up in nationalist fervour since Moscow annexed Crimea. But bubbling under the surface, there were some doubts as to what lay ahead.

Putin’s moves in Ukraine have wiped $50 billion off Russia’s stock market this month, sent the rouble down 9 percent since the beginning of the year and further weakened Russia’s poor investment climate.

The economy grew 0.7 percent in January, a slowdown from 1.0 percent the previous month and analysts expect it to slow further as the impact of the crisis in Ukraine is felt.

“The integration of the global economy has reached such an extent that any split in economic ties cannot happen without consequences,” said Usmanov, a close ally of the Kremlin.

“Therefore we do not need sanctions.”

My insert here: Усманов: Санкции будут контрпродуктивными для обеих сторон (i.e. Usmanov: “Sanctions would be counterproductive for both sides”) [RT Russian YouTube channel, March 21, 2014]

Бизнесмен Алишер Усманов выразил свое скептическое отношение к перспективе введения санкций против России. По мнению миллиардера, такой шаг был бы контрпродуктивным для обеих сторон.

Potanin, who owns a stake in the world’s largest nickel and palladium producer Norilsk Nickel, said he had worked out a contingency plan, just in case. “Sanctions are a double-edged sword, it’s not clear who will be more hurt,” he said.

Most business owners know that this time the government will not prop them up, as it did during the 2008/2009 global financial crisis when Russia burnt through billions of dollars from its reserves to support its largest companies.

“We will watch how the situation develops, in what direction both our economy and the situation in the financial sector go,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the same conference.

Siluanov said the government would, if necessary, support Russia’s most important companies and institutions, but it did not have the resources to offer help the majority of companies.

“We do not want to be helping company owners all the time,” he said.

Putin was clear that Russia’s economy would develop on its own terms, and would do his best to reward loyal companies.

He said Russia should find ways to help Russian companies win contracts with state companies while holding competitive auctions with foreign companies to please what he called the more liberal economists in this room.

And while he knew business would like more flexibility in reducing the workforce, he would always consider the “social aspects” of these “difficult problems” – a clear reference to Russia’s monocities which are dependent on certain industries.

“We will do this,” he said. “I hope you understand me correctly.”

Or as has been reported in a wider context of Олигархи поговорили с Путиным «как после ареста Ходорковского» [РБК daily, March 21, 2014]

Открытая часть вчерашнего съезда РСПП [i.e. Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs] прошла без единого упоминания Крыма и международных санкций в отношении России. Слушавшие министров предприниматели ждали приезда Владимира Путина. Разговор с ним длился два часа — члены РСПП получили гарантии сохранности инвестиций в новый регион и пообещали обеспечить этим летом загрузку крымских отелей. Но со встречи они вышли «загруженными».

My insert here: Владимир Путин принимает участие в съезде РСПП [RT Russian YouTube channel, March 21, 2014]

Прямая трансляция. Президент России Владимир Путин принимает участие в работе съезда Российского союза промышленников и предпринимателей.

От министров экономического блока правительства бизнесмены ждали программных заявлений о том, как власти собираются поддерживать экономику под угрозой санкций со стороны Запада. Но глава Минэкономразвития Алексей Улюкаев ограничился признанием, что в правительстве плохо понимают, что происходит в экономике: февраль оказался неожиданно позитивным. Спад инвестиций в основной капитал замедлился с 7% в январе до 3,5% в феврале. «У нас выросли промпроизводство, потребительский спрос», — отметил он. Министр финансов Антон Силуанов отметил, что инфляция, хоть и может ускориться во втором квартале из-за ослабления рубля, во втором полугодии замедлится и по итогам года уложится в диапазон 5—6%.

Приехавший на съезд Путин отказал бизнесменам на просьбу разрешить им в одностороннем порядке переводить работников на сокращенную рабочую неделю или на смежные специальности, но поддержал идею преференций отечественному бизнесу при размещении госзаказа. По нынешнему законодательству российская продукция может быть максимум на 15% дороже импортного аналога, чтобы поставщик победил в конкурсе. «Я бы еще больше увеличил, но есть любимые вами и нами либеральные экономисты… Они говорят: а где же конкуренция, не пострадает ли качество? И это тоже правильно»,— сказал Путин.

На закрытой встрече с президентом остались члены бюро [правления] РСПП, а также глава Банка России Эльвира Набиуллина, первый вице-премьер Игорь Шувалов, советник президента Андрей Белоусов и глава администрации президента Сергей Иванов. Президент РСПП Александр Шохин рассказал РБК, что президент начал беседу с шутки. Шохин представил ему состав бюро РСПП, на что Путин ответил: «Как-то у вас хромает демократия и представительство других слоев бизнеса».

«Это был абсолютно неформальный разговор по вопросам, представляющим взаимный интерес, без заранее подготовленных докладов», — говорит Шохин. По его словам, на встрече обсуждалась ситуация, связанная с санкциями против России, «вопросы, связанные с Крымом как новым субъектом страны и возможностями инвестирования в него». «Повестка закрытой встречи была абсолютно свободной, — подтверждает пресс-секретарь президента Дмитрий Песков. — Предприниматели рассказали о своих проблемах законодательного характера, интересовались событиями на Украине, Крымом. Путин дал подробные разъяснения».

«Разговор шел два часа. Нам очень подробно рассказали хронологию украинских событий, историю про приезд в Россию Виктора Януковича. Как развивалась ситуация по Крыму. Рефреном была мысль о том, как все плохо на Украине сегодня и как плохо будет дальше», — рассказал РБК источник, знакомый с ходом встречи. По его словам, по стилистике разговор скорее походил на монолог, чем диалог. «Изначально думали поговорить и про деофшоризацию. Но предпринимателям был дан ответ в стиле «решение принято, есть законопроект — он исполняется», — говорит он. Атмосфера беседы напомнила ему общение олигархов с президентом, состоявшееся после ареста Ходорковского.

Бизнес интересовался гарантиями своих инвестиций в Крым, говорит другой участник совещания. «Спрашивали, насколько скоро российские правоохранительные органы будут полностью контролировать обстановку на полуострове, чтобы не было риска захвата российских активов радикалами», — добавил он. На вопросы про Крым отвечал помощник главы государства Андрей Белоусов. Предпринимателей не призывали срочно вкладываться в экономику полуострова, но попросили по возможности отправить работников их компаний в крымские здравницы — власти опасаются, что из-за последних событий поток туристов в Крым будет незначительным.

My insert here: Предприниматель: Через несколько месяцев все забудут о санкциях [RT Russian YouTube channel, March 21, 2014]

Российский предприниматель, председатель совета директоров корпорации «Биоэнергия» Давид Якобашвили уверен, что в скором времени ситуация с санкциями США и ЕС в отношении российских чиновников и банков успокоится. Бизнесмен уверен, что западные компании, работающие на российском рынке, смогут убедить свои правительства в недальновидности подобных решений.

«Со встречи члены РСПП выходили «загруженными». Крым — не повод для оптимизма», — говорит источник, знакомый с ходом встречи. Вице-президент РСПП Давид Якобашвили, напротив, говорит, что ему понравились и тон президента, и его настроение. «Он хочет мирного решения всех вопросов. Для нас это очень важно. Хорошо бы, чтобы никто не начинал военные действия. У меня осталось самое положительное впечатление и уверенность, что с нашей стороны не предполагается никаких агрессивных шагов. Надеемся, что не будет провокаций и с другой стороны», — поделился он с РБК впечатлениями от закрытой встречи.

My insert here:

Бюро Правления [РСПП i.e. Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs]

Бюро Правления Российского союза осуществляет оперативное руководство деятельностью Российского союза. Бюро Правления избирается Правлением на срок полномочий Правления и информирует Правление о своей деятельности. Правление вправе переизбирать членов Бюро Правления.

СОСТАВ БЮРО ПРАВЛЕНИЯ РОССИЙСКОГО СОЮЗА ПРОМЫШЛЕННИКОВ И ПРЕДПРИНИМАТЕЛЕЙ

Шохин Александр Николаевич	Президент Российского союза промышленников и предпринимателей
Абрамов Александр Григорьевич	Председатель совета директоров «ЕвразГрупп С.А.»
Алекперов Вагит Юсуфович	Президент открытого акционерного общества «Лукойл», Председатель Комитета по энергетической политике и энергоэффективности
Березкин Григорий Викторович	Председатель совета директоров Группы компаний ЕСН, Председатель Комиссии по электроэнергетике, сопредседатель Комитета по корпоративным отношениям
Бокарев Андрей Рэмович	Председатель Совета директоров ОАО «Угольная компания Кузбассразрезуголь», председательРегионального объединения работодателей «Кузбасский союз работодателей», ПредседательКомиссии по машиностроению
Вексельберг Виктор Феликсович	Председатель Совета директоров Группы компаний «Ренова», Президент Фонда развития Центра разработки и коммерциализации новых технологий «Сколково», Председатель Комитета по международному сотрудничеству
Галицкий Сергей Николаевич	Генеральный директор Розничной сети «Магнит», Председатель Комиссии по торговле и потребительскому рынку
Генералов Сергей Владимирович	Президент Группы компаний «Промышленные инвесторы», Председатель Комитета по развитию конкуренции
Дерипаска Олег Владимирович	Председатель Наблюдательного Совета общества с ограниченной ответственностью «Компания «Базовый Элемент», Председатель Комитета по экологии и природопользованию
Дмитриев Владимир Александрович	Председатель Государственной корпорации «Банк развития и внешнеэкономической деятельности (Внешэкономбанк)», Председатель Комитета по государственно-частному партнерству и инвестиционной политике и инвестиционной политике
Евтушенков Владимир Петрович	Председатель совета директоров открытого акционерного общества «Акционерная финансовая корпорация «Система», Председатель Комитета по промышленной политике
Зюзин Игорь Владимирович	Председатель Совета директоров ОАО «Мечел», Председатель Комитета по рынку труда и социальному партнерству
Казинец Леонид Александрович	Председатель Совета директоров Корпорации «Баркли»
Карачинский Анатолий Михайлович	Президент Группы компаний «Информационные бизнес системы» (IBS), Председатель Комитета по профессиональному обучению и профессиональным квалификациям
Костин Андрей Леонидович	Президент – председатель правления открытого акционерного общества Банк ВТБ
Лисин Владимир Сергеевич	Председатель совета директоров открытого акционерного общества «Новолипецкий металлургический комбинат», председатель Регионального объединения работодателей «Союз промышленников и предпринимателей Липецкой области», Председатель Комитета по налоговой политике
Мельниченко Андрей Игоревич	Председатель Совета директоров ОАО «МХК «ЕвроХим»
Мордашов Алексей Александрович	Генеральный директор открытого акционерного общества «Северсталь», Председатель Комитета по интеграции, торгово-таможенной политике и ВТО
Потанин Владимир Олегович	Генеральный директор ОАО «ГМК «Норильский никель», Председатель Комитета по корпоративным отношениям
Пумпянский Дмитрий Александрович	Председатель совета директоров открытого акционерного общества «Трубная металлургическая компания», Президент Регионального объединения работодателей «Свердловский областной союз промышленников и предпринимателей», Председатель Комитета по техническому регулированию, стандартизации и оценке соответствия
Рашников Виктор Филиппович	Председатель совета директоров ОАО «Магнитогорский металлургический комбинат», председательЧелябинского регионального объединения работодателей «Союз промышленников и предпринимателей»
Смушкин Захар Давидович	Председатель Совета директоров открытого акционерного общества «Группа «Илим», ПредседательКомиссии по лесному хозяйству и лесопромышленному комплексу
Усманов Алишер Бурханович	Генеральный директор общества с ограниченной ответственностью «Газпром инвестхолдинг», Председатель Комитета по совершенствованию контрольно-надзорной деятельности и устранению административных барьеров, Сопредседатель Российско-Канадского Делового Совета
Фридман Михаил Маратович	Член Совета директоров ОАО «Альфа Банк», Председатель Комитета по собственности
Чубайс Анатолий Борисович	Председатель Правления ОАО «РОСНАНО», Председатель Комитета по инновационной политике и инновационному предпринимательству
Якобашвили Давид Михайлович	Председатель совета директоров Корпорации «Биоэнергия», Председатель Объединенной комиссии по корпоративной этике при РСПП, Председатель Комитета по корпоративной социальной ответственности и демографической политике
Якунин Владимир Иванович	Президент ОАО «РЖД», Председатель Комиссии по транспорту и транспортной инфраструктуре

(AND THE FACTS DO NOT END HERE BUT ARE GOING TO EVEN HIGHER ECHELONS OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM. GOLDMANN SACHS AND LARRY SUMMERS ARE THE MOST NOTABLE EXAMPLES. BUT DO NOT FORGET J.P. MORGAN EITHER WHICH IS HAVING A 5% OWNERSHIP OF TENCENT AS WELL. So read The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower post completely.)

Mobile Cloud Computing: proven questions and statements about the current and future state-of-the-market

March 21, 2014 8:59 pm / Leave a comment

Is Android Becoming the New Windows?
Tablets to Outsell PCs Worldwide by 2015
Android Blows Past iOS in Global Tablet Market
Android To Retain Big Lead In Maturing Smartphone Market
The Price Gap Between iOS and Android Is Widening
In Just 2 Years, Google And Facebook Have Come To Control 75% Of All Mobile Advertising

Note: In addition keep in mind at least the fact that Bloomberg (Businessweek) legitimizes Allwinner and Rockchip as challengers to Intel and Qualcomm via the tablet space, as well as Spreadtrum in the smartphone space [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 18, 2014]. More facts of such kind:
– Alibaba gets Tango for its push into the U.S. and the whole Western world [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 20, 2014]
– Chinese smartphone brands to conquer the global market? [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 18, 2014]
– MediaTek is repositioning itself with the new MT6732 and MT6752 SoCs for the “super-mid market” just being born, plus new wearable technologies for wPANs and IoT are added for the new premium MT6595 SoC [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 4, 2014]
– To watch Alisher Usmanov (Алишер Усманов) [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 22, 2014]
– Device businesses should have a China-based independent headquarter at least for Asia/Pacific if they want to succeed [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Jan 28, 2014]
– 2014 will be the last year of making sufficient changes for Microsoft’s smartphone and tablet strategies, and those changes should be radical if the company wants to succeed with its devices and services strategy [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Jan 17, 2014]
– The tablet market in Q1-Q3’13: It was mainly shaped by white-box vendors while Samsung was quite successfully attacking both Apple and the white-box vendors with triple digit growth both worldwide and in Mainland China [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Nov 14, 2013]
– Leading PC vendors of the past: Go enterprise or die! [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Nov 7, 2013]
– The question mark over Wintel’s future will hang in the air for two more years [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 15, 2013]

Is Android Becoming the New Windows?
Tablets to Outsell PCs Worldwide by 2015
Android Blows Past iOS in Global Tablet Market
Android To Retain Big Lead In Maturing Smartphone Market
The Price Gap Between iOS and Android Is Widening
In Just 2 Years, Google And Facebook Have Come To Control 75% Of All Mobile Advertising

All supported by facts and well researched forecasts by IDC, Gartner and eMarketer.

Source: Is Android Becoming the New Windows? [Statista, Jan 9, 2014]

Source: Tablets to Outsell PCs Worldwide by 2015 [Statista, Mach 1, 2014]

Source: Android Blows Past iOS in Global Tablet Market [Statista, Mach 3, 2014]

Source: Android To Retain Big Lead In Maturing Smartphone Market [Statista, Mach 4, 2014]

Source: The Price Gap Between iOS and Android Is Widening [Statista, Feb 14, 2014]

Source: In Just 2 Years, Google And Facebook Have Come To Control 75% Of All Mobile Advertising [Business Insider India, March 21, 2014]

In the last two years, Facebook and Google have gone from a position of merely being two big, fast-growing players in mobile advertising to dominating it completely. Combined, they have cornered 75.2% of the entire mobile market in 2013, according to new data by eMarketer.

In 2014, Google alone is expected to be roughly as big as all other companies combined, as this chart of mobile ad revenues from Statista shows.

“new data by eMarketer”:
Driven by Facebook and Google, Mobile Ad Market Soars 105% in 2013 [eMarketer, March 19, 2014]

Mobile ad spending on pace to reach $31.45 billion this year

Last year, global mobile ad spending increased 105.0% to total $17.96 billion, according to new figures from eMarketer. In 2014, mobile is on pace to rise another 75.1% to $31.45 billion, accounting for nearly one-quarter of total digital ad spending worldwide.

Facebook and Google accounted for a majority of mobile ad market growth worldwide last year. Combined, the two companies saw net mobile ad revenues increase by $6.92 billion, claiming 75.2% of the additional $9.2 billion that went toward mobile in 2013. The two companies are consolidating their places at the top of the market, accounting for more than two-thirds of mobile ad spending last year—a figure that will increase slightly this year, according to eMarketer.

Facebook in particular is gaining significant market share. In 2012, the social network accounted for just 5.4% of the global advertising market. In 2013, that share increased to 17.5%, and eMarketer predicts it will rise again this year to 21.7%. Google still owns a plurality of the mobile advertising market worldwide, taking a portion of nearly 50% in 2013, but the rapid growth of Facebook will cause the search giant’s share to drop to 46.8% in 2014, eMarketer estimates.

The rapid pace at which mobile has taken over the company’s ad revenue share indicates Facebook’s mobile future. In 2012, only 11% of Facebook’s net ad revenues worldwide came from mobile, and last year, that figure jumped to 45.1%. In 2014, eMarketer estimates that mobile will account for 63.4% of Facebook’s net digital ad revenues. Mobile accounted for 23.1% of Google’s net ad revenues worldwide in 2013, and eMarketer estimates this share will increase to 33.8% this year.

Micromax is in a strategic alliance with operator Aircel and SoC vendor MediaTek for delivery of bundled complete solution offers almost equivalent to cost of the device and providing innovative user experience

March 21, 2014 11:06 am / Leave a comment

Micromax, the No. 1 among local smartphone brands in India, has announced its partnership with MediaTek and Aircel, India’s fifth largest operator, aimed to come up with best mobile experience for the Indian users. The offers initially will be available across 4 Micromax devices – MMX 377G data card, Funbook Mini 410i Android tablet, A090 and X070 smartphones. The smartphones will be available across the retail outlets across India from April, 2014.

This strategic alliance is also aimed at the development of a local version of MediaTek’s new “super-mid market” approach as descibed in my earlier MediaTek is repositioning itself with the new MT6732 and MT6752 SoCs for the “super-mid market” just being born, plus new wearable technologies for wPANs and IoT are added for the new premium MT6595 SoC [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 4, 2014] post. Here is the illustration of what is the envisaged future state-of-the-market:

versus the current one:

With more than $1 billion of revenue for its latest fiscal year ending March 31 and almost 8 million smartphones delivered in 2013 (18% of the market) Micromax is the company to watch how MediaTek’s new approach will work on this fast growing smartphone market. Look at the following chart to grasp the immense growth potential:

As per IDC producing the above chart:

The overall phone market stood at close to 257 million units in CY 2013 – an 18% increase from 218 million units in CY2012.

CY2013 also witnessed a remarkable migration of the user base from feature phones to smartphones primarily due to the narrowing price gaps between these product categories.

As per another Smartphone Prices Race to the Bottom as Emerging Markets Outside of China Come into the Spotlight for Future Growth, According to IDC [press release, Feb 24, 2014]:

India will be key to future smartphone growth as it represents more than a quarter of the global feature phone market. “Growth in the India market doesn’t rely on high-end devices like the iPhone, but in low-cost Android phones. Nearly half of the smartphones shipped in India in 2013 cost less than US$120,” said Kiranjeet Kaur, Senior Market Analyst for mobile phones at IDC Asia/Pacific.

Details:

Micromax somewhat underperformed on its home market last year according to this chart:

A detailed analysis of that situation could be found in 2013 Review: Micromax loses market share in Q2 and Q3 [daily.bhaskar.com, March 20, 2014] from which the most important details are:

In 2012 Micromax launched the Canvas 2 A110. This was a hot-seller when the young generation around colleges, in buses and in metros were actually talking about the handset. The Canvas HD A116 followed in early 2013 with 9000 pieces in the initial phase. Less than 24 hours and this Rs. 13990 [$229] phone was gone! Though Micromax was criticized for getting less number of pieces into the market and keeping customers wait, we have to admit this was a best-seller. People did wait for 2 months to get their piece of Canvas HD.

After this Micromax went ahead with costly flagships. It launched Canvas 4 and Canvas Turbo last year apart from other budget launches (that silently made way to stores) throughout the year. It took to premium smartphones with prices like Rs. 17999 [$296] and Rs. 19999 $327. Though these handsets got good reviews but they could not create the craze like the earlier Canvas 2 and Canvas HD. We definitely missed the ‘dus hazaar mein aur kya chahiye yaar?’ last year. (What more do you want in a Rs. 10000 [$167] phone about the Canvas 2?) We have seen people talking about Micromax Canvas 2 or HD outside phone stores being out of stock and in demand. Too bad on our part, but that’s the recall value associated with these two phones.

Competitors has their best budget phones launching during the year 2013. In the first part of the year 2013 Samsung launched Galaxy Grand series of large display screen phones, Sony and HTC went down for launch of budget phones and so did Nokia with its new Lumia phones. Competition was no doubt increased by the end of 2013.

… The market shares dropped from 22% in Q2 2013 to 17.1% in Q3, 2013. This was the time when Samsung gained from 26% in Q2 2013 to 32.9% in Q3 2013. The launch of Galaxy Grand Quattro and Galaxy Mega happened in May at a price of Rs. 16990. The Canvas HD that was launched in mid of February in 2013 was getting delivered till June in the year after its on-and-off appearance in stores.

Note that Canvas HD launched in Q1 2013 started shipping and available in stores by the Q2 2013. The low cost Canvas Viva 5-incher also saw a launch in Q2 2013 and was popular. There were more than two dozen of budget launches from the company in 2013. See 12 top Micromax launches in 2013. …

This analysis has even found that Micromax’s Q1’14 move went wrong:

Micromax has just launched its new phone in the market, the Canvas Knight with cutting edge specs and a beautiful body that can compete with the most premium handsets in the market. The new Canvas knight A350 has been placed at a higher price point of Rs. 20K (Precisely Rs. 19999 [$327]).

According to the ex-regular and (most of the time) an authentic leakster Micromax got only 830 pieces for sale initially. The handset was expected to be a best-seller for Micromax and ideally should go out of the stock very soon (we expected it to be out of stock in less than 12 hours). But this did not happen with the Canvas Knight. Even after 24 hours of Day 1 of launch the phone was still in stock. On Day 3 morning when we checked the status it finally showed a waiting period of at least 7-10 days. That is some 40-48 hours to sell 830 number of phones.

so this analysis concludes:

The trend has been towards…

According to the research firm IDC, markets like China and India are quickly moving toward a point where sub-$150 smartphones are the majority of shipments, bringing a solid computing experience to the hands of many.

Competitors tried to fit themselves in less than Rs. 15000 [$245.5] price bracket. Nokia, Sony. HTC, now Blackberry are planning their smart moves in this direction. Check out our other speculations for the year – Top 10 trends for Indian smartphone market for year 2014

…

For 2014 the competition will be more tough with Nokia X series, low-cost Moto phones and other budget smartphones. Micromax probably needs to launch low-cost flagship (as one of its flagship phones in a year) that can make it a talk of streets again! We are waiting for Q1 2014 results to know if the Canvas Knight could become the next Canvas HD for the company?

Instead of such expectation Micromax decided to innovate via another route in Q2’13 by providing bundled Aircel offers, i.e. operator based offerings, to which it invited MediaTek innovation in the user experience space, all aimed at a range of complete solution offers for the consumers which will be almost equivalent to cost of the device when sold unbundled:

Micromax to hit $1 billion revenue this fiscal
[PTI [Press Trust of India] via The Economic Times … BGR India, March 20, 2014]

Helped by growing sales of its affordable and entry-level smartphones, homegrown handset maker Micromax expects to hit $1 billion (over Rs 6,100 crore) in revenues this fiscal, ending March 31.

The New Delhi-headquartered company’s revenues were Rs 3,168 crore [$518 million] for the financial year 2012-13.

Micromax, which is the second largest smartphone player in India, held about 16 percent market share in Q4 2013. Some of the top selling models were the entry level smartphones like A35 Bolt and A67, IDC data showed.

The Canvas range of devices has also done well in terms of volume contribution owing to the marketing campaigns launched around them.

“We have seen huge growth in business, especially in the smartphone category (mid and entry-level). We expect to close this fiscal will a billion in revenues,” Micromax co-founder Vikas Jain told PTI.

The firm will continue to launch innovative and affordable products for the market across platforms, he added.

“We will introduce a product based on Android Kitkat with in the next 60 days,” Jain said.

Asked if the company would introduce a device with Windows Phone OS, he said the company is in discussions with Microsoft on bringing out “products relevant to the Indian market”.

Micromax today announced a strategic partnership with chipset maker MediaTek and telecom services provider Aircel.

“This is aimed at offering the best out-of-the-box experiences for the Indian users and the partnership will see a unique amalgamation of the expertise of the three companies,” Jain said.

While, Aircel will offer one stop solutions to address the increasing data demands, MediaTek along-with Micromax’s expertise in product design and performance will redefine the user experience creating a win-win ecosystem for the Indian users, he added.

Under this alliance, Aircel will team up with Micromax to introduce a range of offers for the consumers which will be almost equivalent to cost of the device.

Powered by MediaTek chipsets, the devices promise to deliver a seamless and a powerful user experience, while the bundled Aircel offers will drive data growth in the country.

The offers initially will be available across 4 Micromax devices – MMX 377G, Funbook Mini 410i, A090 and X070 – to be available next month.

The co-developed smart devices by the three pioneers will deliver seamless experience for consumers, driving enhanced performance and data experience for customers across the country.

Micromax, MediaTek & Aircel Partner For The Best Mobile Experience For The Indian Consumers On The Go! [joint press release via … Gizbot … EFYTimes …, March 20, 2014]

In pursuit to strengthen the mobile eco-system in India, Micromax, India’s 2nd largest smartphone manufacturer, today announced a strategic partnership with MediaTek, one of the leading chipset manufacturers and Aircel. Aimed at offering the best out of the box experiences for the Indian users, the partnership will see a unique amalgamation of the expertise of the three companies. While Aircel will offer one stop solutions to address the increasing data demands, MediaTek along-with Micromax’s expertise in product design and performance will redefine the user experience creating a win-win ecosystem for the Indian users.

Under this alliance, Aircel will team up with Micromax to introduce a range of offers for the consumers which will be almost equivalent to cost of the device. Powered by MediaTek chipsets, the devices promise to deliver a seamless and a powerful user experience, while the bundled Aircel offers will drive data growth in the country. The offers initially will be available across 4 Micromax devices – MMX 377G, Funbook Mini 410i, A090 and X070. The co-developed smart devices by the three pioneers will deliver seamless experience for the consumers, driving enhanced performance and data experience for customers across the country.

The products will be available across the retail outlets across the country from April, 2014. Aircel has launched bundled offers with Micromax devices which will give customers exciting benefits worth more than Rs. 10,000 [$164]:

Device

Benefits

Micromax Dongle – MMX 377G

(Benefits for 6 months)

Aircel customers can get exciting data benefits for 6 months at Rs. 141 [$2.31]

For the first 3 months, customers will get 2GB/month data

For the next 3 months – customers will get double data value for every recharge

Smartphones and Tablets (Benefits for 3 months)

1GB data per month

1.2P/2 sec Local Calling

1.2P/ sec STD Calling

WAP content worth Rs. 10,000 [$164]

Popkorn TV App Free

Data Enabled Feature Phones (Benefits for 3 months)

500MB data per month

1.2P/2 sec Local Calling

Local. 1.2P/sec STD Calling

WAP content worth Rs. 10,000 [$164]

Commenting on the partnership, Vikas Jain, Co-founder, Micromax, said, “At Micromax, we have constantly strived to democratize technologies for the masses by bringing alive unique and customized products and offerings for our consumers. Entering a new phase, our focus is now to provide seamless solutions to the consumers using their smart devices, thereby concentrating a large chunk of our efforts on coming up with products and services which act as solutions to the needs of the fast-evolving consumers. This partnership exemplifies the same endeavor, and we are very delighted to pioneer with MediaTek and Aircel, two pioneers in their own respective domains. While MediaTek supports us with the hardware, Aircel offers customized offerings for consumers to get a complete, affordable and seamless data experience across the country“

My insert here Exclusive: Micromax will Launch its Hexa Core smartphone in April 2014 in India [GadgetsToUse.Com, March 20, 2014]

In an Interview with GadgetsToUse.Com, Micromax Co-founder Vikas Jain confirmed that Micromax has completed internal testing of its up-coming Hexa Core smartphone based on MT6591 chipset and this new phone will be launched by the end of April 2014. Micromax also confirmed that its LapTab will indeed launch and that to in the same time frame.
…
Interview with Micromax, Co Founder Vikas Jain About Laptop India Launch, Hexa Core Phone [GadgetsToUse YouTube channel, March 20, 2014]

[ As per Micromax Canvas LapTab confirmed to arrive in April 2014 in India [GadgetsToUse.Com, March 20, 2014] LapTab is an 1.46GHz Intel Celeron processor based device, with a 10.1 inch IPS LCD display, 2 GB RAM and 32 GB storage. Despite of the fact that neither Microsoft nor Google are keen on supporting dual boot devices, the LapTab enjoy the productivity of Windows 8.1 Platform and richness of Android 4.2 jelly bean on a single device, but the transition won’t be seamless. You will have to reboot the device to switch between two operating systems. It is expected to be priced between Rs. 25,000 [$409] and Rs. 30,000 [$490] . ]

Sharing his thoughts on the partnership, Anupam Vasudev, Chief Marketing Officer, Aircel, said, “Aircel has positioned itself well as a data leader by constantly innovating products and services aimed at redefining user experience, which essentially is the youth. While there are many factors driving internet adoption in India; one key factor is the evolution of devices such as smart phones and tablets. Today’s youth are well informed on the data consumption patterns and therefore smart devices becomes an integrated tool to propel consumption of videos, social TV, HD gaming, content on demand etc. Keeping in line with consumer’s needs and demands, Aircel is bullish on device tie ups. We are delighted to continue our successful partnership with Micromax to offer exciting bundled benefits of their newly launched smart devices.” He further added, “According to a study, the number of telecom subscribers in India accessing the internet through mobile devices is increasing and will reach 350 million by 2015. This clearly indicates that mobile devices and data connectivity is undoubtedly the future of mobile telephony.”

Speaking at the occasion, Dr. Finbarr Moynihan, General Manager – Business Development at MediaTek, said, “For the first time, this unique tri-partnership between MediaTek, Micromax and Aircel provides the end-consumers both unparalleled benefits as well as unparalleled choice. Buyers do not only get benefits equivalent to the value of device they buy, but also a seamless and bundled value-add for data, voice and messaging across the entire product segmentation that includes dual-core smart phones, feature phones, 3G Tablets and 3G data card dongles. Hailing the beginning of the post-PC era, our MT6572, MT6260, MT8377 and MT6280 chipsets offer harmonized platforms to empower fast, powerful, smart and inclusive devices that cater to the emerging ‘super-mid’ market.”

Interview with Mediatek, General Manager Dr Finbarr About 4G Chipset, India Prices, Hexa MT6591, … [GadgetsToUse YouTube channel, March 20, 2014]

Visit http://www.gadgetstouse.com – to read more detailed reviews, hands on and overview of smartphones

Further details about MediaTek’s new “super-mid market” approach you can find in my earlier MediaTek is repositioning itself with the new MT6732 and MT6752 SoCs for the “super-mid market” just being born, plus new wearable technologies for wPANs and IoT are added for the new premium MT6595 SoC [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 4, 2014] post.

Alibaba gets Tango for its push into the U.S. and the whole Western world

March 20, 2014 12:17 pm / Leave a comment

It is a further proof point that in 2014: Jack Ma (Alibaba) going against Jeff Bezos (Amazon) et al. [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Jan 8, 2014]. It is also a critical investment as Alibaba needs to have a market leading messaging and social networking app of its own to compete with the Facebook+WhatsApp combo. The aim of Tango after the huge $215M investment from Alibaba (which is giving them 21.5% majority stake) is no less than:

… to build the WeChat of the Western world. We have all the WeChat features but each one of them is Westernized.

as was declared by Uri Raz, co-founder and CEO of Tango, in an interview to the Wall Sreet Journal. Quite an undertaking considering WhatsApp’s MAU (Monthly Active Users) of 450M and WeChat’s MAU of 355M versus that of the 70M+ MAU for Tango. Considering the details behind this announcement it is—nevertheless—quite feasible:

Tango Announcement [TangoME YouTube channel, March 19, 2014]

Tango announces a $280M round of funding led by Alibaba. Tango is a free mobile messaging service with 200M+ members. Through communication, social features and a compelling content platform, Tango members discover engaging ways to connect, get social and have fun. Download for FREE at http://www.tango.me on iOS, Android, Blackberry, Kindle Fire, and PC.

From TANGO AT-A-GLANCE [company fact sheet, March 19, 2014]

Funding

 Total funding to date: $367M

Series A – $5M (June 2010). Investors:
 MXB Holdings
 WR Hambrecht
 Long Sea Limited

Series B – $42M (June 2011). Investors: 4
 DFJ
 SPA Special Investment Fund

Series C – $40M (March 2012). Investors:
 AI SMS
 Qualcomm
 DFJ
 Long Sea Limited

Series D – $280M (March 2014). Investors:
 Alibaba [$215M from Alibaba according to Wall Street Journal, which is giving a 21.5% majority stake as the company was valued at the time of Series D founding at $1B]
 DFJ
 Qualcomm Ventures
 Access Industries
 Translink Capital
 Toms Capital
 Jerry Yang
 Bill Tai
 Alex Zubillaga

Tango’s Latest News: A Vision of The Future and a $280M Funding Round [by Uri and Eric in Tango Me Blog, March 19, 2014], note that my inserts below are from TANGO AT-A-GLANCE [company fact sheet, March 19, 2014] and the TangoME YouTube channel

We launched Tango in September 2009 out of the personal need to stay connected to our own families. It helped tremendously that both of us came from deep video technology backgrounds and had strong entrepreneurial spirits. But it was the emotional connection with family living in other parts of the world that inspired our mission here at Tango. Back then we felt that free online communication through texts, voice and video calls would remove barriers and change the world. The world agreed: we signed up our first million members in the first 10 days after launch.

Since then, we have been on quite a journey. The sheer power of free communication has changed the way we connect with others. Today, the amount of texting from over-the-top messaging apps surpasses carrier SMS. We’re proud that Tango has become a part of this industry disruption and even more excited that Tango has become a preferred place for our members to communicate and share with friends and family.

According to China’s Alibaba Invests $215 Million in Startup Tango [The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2014]

Last summer, Alibaba began blocking merchants on Taobao and Tmall from using WeChat to send promotional messages to shoppers. Tencent, meanwhile, added mobile payments last year and has been offering more services and shopping options on WeChat.

There are no immediate plans to connect the Tango app with the company’s various e-commerce services, though that could come over time, said a person familiar with the plans. Tango will operate separately from Laiwang.

Tango also expands Alibaba’s portfolio of fast-growing U.S. startups as the Chinese company tries to gain a foothold here. It led investments last year in app search-engine Quixey Inc. and two-day shipping provider ShopRunner Inc.
…
Alibaba’s cash will help Tango, based in Mountain View, Calif., to double its workforce to more than 300 this year and open up its service to more outside developers, Chief Executive Uri Raz said.
…
Mr. Raz said he began adding other services, such as games and photo sharing, after seeing the success of Asian texting apps such as WeChat, Kakao and Line. “We were looking at what happened in Japan and China,” Mr. Raz said. “It was the first time since 1999 that I saw the speed of innovation happening faster over there than here.”

From TANGO AT-A-GLANCE [company fact sheet, March 19, 2014]

What is Tango
Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.
Tango is consistently in the top 25 on Google Play and top 100 in the iTunes App Store.

Tango is available in 14 languages and has subscribers in more than 224 countries with nearly one third of its members in the U.S.

Basic Stats
Year founded: 2009
Number of users: 200M+ (if Tango were a country it would be the 5th largest in the world)
Daily user base growth: 325K (average)
Monthly active users [MAU]: 70M+
[note that WhatsApp bought by Facebook has MAU of 450M and Alibaba’s major competitor Tencent’s WeChat MAU of 355M]

Global breakdown based on DAU
 27% U.S. (North America 31%)
 20% Asia
 12% Europe
 29% Middle East
 8% Other

Platform user base demographics:
 Gender neutral
 Over half between the ages 25-44
Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, PC
Coverage: 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi
Number of iPhone/iPad users: 40% (whole user base)
Number of Android users: 60% (whole user base)
App store ranking:
 4.3 stars on Google Play
 4.5 stars on iTunes
Number of patents: 30 (4 approved – 26 pending)
Awards:
 Appy Awards: Best Communication App 2013
 About.com: Reader’s Choice 2013
 Webby nomination 2013
 Verizon’s Must Have Apps list 2013
Number of employees: 160
Total funding to date: $367M
Partners: 40+ game partners, 10+ Direct advertising partners, and Spotify on Music Messaging

While we’ve made progress on our mission to enable people to communicate, share and feel more connected, we are just beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible. The opportunity for Tango goes well beyond just providing a messaging app for free communications. We see an even bigger opportunity – one where people can have access to free communication, social networking features and enjoyable content – all within a single platform.

Over the past eight months, Tango has evolved.

We’ve introduced a content platform that is now home to more than 30 games.

My inserts here:
– Connect & Play with Tango [TangoME YouTube channel, June 18, 2013]

Tango is partnering with Gameloft, Bubble Gum Interactive, and other world-class developers to bring great games to their messaging app.

– Games developed for Tango: 35+ games live
– Game developers for Tango: 50+ developers signed

We’ve introduced new social networking features that allow members to share updates or photos and to find new friends.

My insert here:
– Find Friends Nearby with Tango [TangoME YouTube channel, July 18, 2013]

And we’ve introduced social music sharing through integration with Spotify, which means members can now send each other songs.

My inserts here:
– Tango powered by Spotify video [TangoME YouTube channel, Nov 11, 2013]

Search, listen and share songs with your friends.

– Tango music video featuring recording artist Riz – the first of its kind to be recorded using Google Glass [RizVEVO YouTube channel, Nov 11, 2013]

This is the FIRST ever music video shot entirely using Google Glass.

– Total Music Played: hundreds of millions

According to China’s Alibaba Invests $215 Million in Startup Tango [The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2014]

Tango joined with outside developers, such as game maker Gameloft Inc. and music-streaming service Spotify AB, to offer users a range of virtual activities inside the app. For example, Tango users can share 30-second clips of their favorite songs from Spotify or compete with their friends for the high score in the Gameloft title “Candy Block Breaker.” The company shares the revenue from purchases made inside the apps with the developers.

By the end of this year, Tango plans to open its software code to allow any outside developer to build games and other services for its users, Mr. Raz said.

The startup is also bolstering its revenue through mobile advertising. Last December, it began working with Twitter Inc.’s MoPub unit to sell ads within users’ news feeds and message inboxes, promoting apps made by Zynga Inc. and others.

Quite honestly, the results have blown us away. We’re excited by the 2x increase in daily engagement since last July. And we love it that our members are huge fans of music and love to send hundreds of millions of songs to their friends through Tango. These changes are reflected in huge growth in registered users: over the last year we’ve doubled to more than 200 million.

The way we see it, this is just the beginning for Tango. We believe that messaging apps will fundamentally change the way content and services are distributed. We are very excited to continue to build upon our foundation of free communications, while extending into new growth areas in social networking and content. We know that we can’t do it on our own, and for that reason, we couldn’t be more excited to announce our newest investor, Alibaba Group.

According to China’s Alibaba Invests $215 Million in Startup Tango [The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2014]

While the company has an office in Beijing and has seen rising usage in Thailand and Hong Kong, Asia isn’t currently a main area of focus for the company, Mr. Raz said.

Mr. Setton says the alliance with Alibaba will give Tango market insights that will help it beat rivals to new trends.

Rather than take on WeChat in China, Mr. Raz said he’s more focused on perfecting the model for U.S. users.

“We want to build the WeChat of the Western world,” Mr. Raz said. “We have all the WeChat features but each one of them is Westernized.”

Together with some of our prior investors, Alibaba has lead a $280 million Series D funding round. [$215M from Alibaba according to Wall Street Journal, which is giving a 21.5% majority stake as the company was valued at the time of Series D founding at $1B.] As part of this financing, Michael Zeisser from Alibaba will join our Board of Directors. We welcome Alibaba’s investment in Tango. We know that we will be able to benefit from Alibaba’s expertise.

More on Tango as it is:

Tango – Connect, Get Social, Have Fun! [TangoME YouTube channel, March 12, 2014]

Tango is a free mobile messaging service with 200 million members. Through communication, social features and a compelling content platform, Tango members discover engaging ways to connect, get social and have fun. Tango is available on iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, Blackberry, Kindle Fire and PC and works across platforms and networks. Download the app at http://www.tango.me.

Let’s Play – Tango [TangoME YouTube channel, Feb 21, 2014]

The award-winning messaging app now powers games around the world. Connect & Play with hundreds of millions of people around the world! Play with Tango!

Tango Free Voice, Video, and Text [TangoME YouTube channel, Sept 10, 2012]

Now you can send pictures with all of your Tango friends, or try playing out new game during a video call!

and its first year anniversary was proudly celebrated with the following achievements: Tango Turns One! [TangoME YouTube channel, Sept 30, 2011]

Check out the many milestones Tango achieved it’s first year out to market!

Tango’s market position as per Since Facebook Owns WhatsApp, Here Are 5 Alternative Messaging Services [ReadWrite, Feb 25, 2014]

You shouldn’t feel forced to relinquish your messaging data to Facebook.

Facebook stunned the tech world last week when it scooped up the messaging application WhatsApp for $19 billion.

The deal was largely heralded as a win for both sides: Facebook gained a much-needed service it hasn’t yet delivered on, and the small startup cashed in big time. But the downside of the acquisition fell heavily on the shoulders of users—those 450 million people [MAU – monthly active users] whose private data is now in the hands of Facebook.

If you’re a WhatsApp user who wants to break up with Facebook, or someone looking for a great new messaging application, we’ve put together a list of mobile messaging apps you should try.

Telegram

Almost five million people signed up for Telegram after Facebook bought WhatsApp. As a messaging service, it is sleek and easy to use.

Telegram, which is built by a Berlin-based nonprofit, is cloud-based and heavily encrypted so users can use several devices to access their messages and documents including both mobile and desktop. The company also claims Telegram is a free service that will remain so in the future, meaning no advertisements or subscription fees will ever be levied on customers.

Telegram is available on iOS and Android. Developers can access and implement the app’s API through Telegram’s open source code.

Wickr

Snapchat’s sophisticated competitor Wickr brings government-strength security and encryption to your messages. Wickr lets you send self-destructing messages, documents, photos, videos and voice calls that disappear after a select amount of time.

Wickr is entirely anonymous, as the application doesn’t ask for any of your personal information. Wickr is also exceeds top secret and HIPAA compliance, so people in medical, law enforcement, and journalism fields can feel confident using Wickr for secure messaging knowing it can’t be traced or reproduced.

Wickr is available on iOS and Android.

Line

Line is one of the most popular messaging services on the market for free voice and video calling.

The app is massively popular internationally, especially in Asia, and it finally entered the U.S. market earlier this year. Line is more than just a simple messaging application—it has branched out to offer in-app games and a variety of standalone apps like Line Camera and Line Tools. While the app is free, additional services like stickers and games provide revenue for the company. In the first quarter of 2013, Line made $17 million off sticker sales alone.

Line is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Blackberry.

Kik

Kik is the world’s first messaging application with a built-in browser. The application boasts over 100 million users, a majority coming from North America and Western Europe.

Kik has over 30 HTML5 experiences built into the application for sharing pictures, videos and gaming, according to the company, and recently launched the in-app browser. Kik has also created open source tools to help developers build and optimize their websites for mobile.

Kik is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry.

Tango

Tango, like Line, offers an all-inclusive social app with games, music, video, and voice and text messaging. The San Francisco-based company says the app has ~~150~~ million [200 million as of March 19, 2014] users.

Because of the additional features that extend beyond voice calling and messaging, users of more traditional messaging services like WhatsApp may find the interface a bit confusing, but users can personalize their profiles to find and make friends or discover people you may know nearby.

Tango is available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone [was on WP7 back in 2011, but it is not on WP8].

Breaking Up Is Hard

It’s inconvenient to switch to an entirely new messaging service, especially if all your friends are dedicated to one app. But you shouldn’t feel forced to turn over your data to Facebook either. All these applications provide messaging services that rival WhatsApp, without the commitment to Facebook services, meaning you’re not turning over your mobile phone book and payment information to the social network in exchange for an efficient messaging service.

OneNote is available now on every platform (+free!!) and supported by cloud services API for application and device builders

March 18, 2014 12:07 pm / 1 Comment on OneNote is available now on every platform (+free!!) and supported by cloud services API for application and device builders

This is preparing the ground for launching new overall business positioning as well as new cross-platform Microsoft strategy(IMHO) with Microsoft’s CEO may unveil Office for iPad on March 27: source [Reuters, March 17, 2014]

Investors for years have urged Microsoft to adapt Office for mobile devices from Apple and Google Inc, rather than shackling it to Windows as PC sales decline. But the Redmond, Washington-based software giant has been reluctant to undermine its other lucrative franchise, its PC operating software.

Microsoft gives up some $2.5 billion a year in revenue by keeping Office off the iPad, which has now sold almost 200 million units, analysts estimate.

Tech blog Re/code first reported news of Nadella’s event. Microsoft said in an invitation to reporters that Nadella will discuss “news related to the intersection of cloud and mobile“ but declined to comment on the specifics of the CEO’s appearance.

Microsoft has had iPad and iPhone versions of Office primed for several months now, sources told Reuters, but the company has dallied on their release due to internal divisions, among other things.

Although Nadella is expected to discuss his thinking in depth next week, the company has already signaled that it will adopt a more liberal attitude toward putting its software on different platforms.

Microsoft said earlier on Monday that it would make OneNote, its note-taking software, available on Mac, a move interpreted by observers as a shot against Evernote, the popular note-taking application that has both Mac and Android compatibility.

Aside from Evernote, Microsoft also faces budding challenges from startups that have released mobile-friendly alternatives to Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

The Evernote related action is already making the central Microsoft message really powerful: “Office 365 and OneNote has made me so much more efficient that I’m able to do a lot more”: Making Faster, Better Decisions (Extended Version) [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Meet Devin. Dedicated to helping others, Devin is working on faster, better ways to deliver medical treatments to people around the world. The information that he works with is complex, dense and endless, but he uses OnetNote to keep track of it all—and when all the pieces fit together, the result can be magical. See how he uses OneNote to make it happen.

OneNote now on Mac, free everywhere, and service powered [Office Blogs, March 17, 2014]

– David Rasmussen, Partner Group Program Manager (on behalf of the whole OneNote team who worked hard to bring you this)

When we started OneNote we set out to revolutionize the way people capture, annotate, and recall all the ideas, thoughts, snippets and plans in their life. As many of you have attested, OneNote is the ultimate extension for your brain, but it’s not complete if it’s not instantly available everywhere. We’ve already made a lot of progress in that direction with our mobile, tablet and online web experiences. But there was still a gap. People frequently asked us for OneNote on Mac, and for more ways to capture content.

[Check out the new OneNote for iPad, iPhone and Android [July 1, 2013]]

[iPhone: OneNote for iPhone Version 2.1.5: since Dec 10, 2013]

[iPad: OneNote for iPad Version 2.1.5: since Dec 10, 2013]

[Android: OneNote in Google play since Jan 8, 2014 as described in OneNote for Android update: Do more in less time [Dec 30, 2013]]

[Web: OneNote Online [on One Drive] since January 28, 2014 as per Use OneNote anywhere with the OneNote Web App]

Today we’re excited to complete that story with three major developments:

OneNote for Mac is available for the first time and for free. With this, OneNote is now available on all the platforms you care about: PC, Mac, Windows tablets, Windows Phone, iPad, iPhone, Android and the Web. And they’re always in sync.
OneNote is now free everywhere including the Windows PC desktop and Mac version because we want everyone to be able to use it. Premium features are available to paid customers.
The OneNote service now provides a cloud API enabling any application to connect to it. This makes it easier than ever to capture ideas, information and inspirations from more applications and more places straight into OneNote, including:

OneNote Clipper for saving web pages to OneNote
me@onenote.com for emailing notes to OneNote
Office Lens for capturing documents and whiteboards with your Windows Phone
Sending blog and news articles [from the web] to OneNote from Feedly, News360 and Weave
Easy document scanning to OneNote with Brother, Doxie Go, Epson, and Neat [scanners]
Writing notes with pen and paper and sending them to OneNote with Livescribe
Mobile document scanning to OneNote with Genius Scan and JotNot [smartphone apps]
Having your physical notebooks scanned into OneNote with Mod Notebooks
Connecting your world to OneNote with IFTTT

Go to www.onenote.com to get OneNote for free for your Mac, PC or other devices, and try out the new OneNote service connected experiences.

OneNote: No Limits [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

OneNote is the ultimate extension for your brain. It’s now available everywhere and for free. Go to http://www.onenote.com to get OneNote for free on all your devices and try out the new OneNote service connected experiences.

Mac users have made it loud and clear that you want the first class note-taking experience of OneNote on your Macs. Actually… really, really clear. We got LOTS of direct mails, forum posts, and tweets like these:

“Now, @msonenote needs to release the OS X version of OneNote and my life will be complete :)”
“Dear Microsoft – the new web OneNote is nice. A native Mac version would be better. By this afternoon please, I have work to do.”
“I own a Mac and I LOVE OneNote so for me having OneNote on my Mac would just rock my world.”
“I desperately want OneNote on my new Mac… I use OneNote on VMware Fusion… There is nothing remotely like it for Mac… I have just spent a week looking for anything that comes close.”

Okay, we got the message. Rocking worlds and making lives complete is a pretty high bar, and we’re sorry we missed your afternoon deadline, but we’ve been working away, and we’re excited to bring it to you today. And if you’re a Mac user who didn’t already know about OneNote, check out Introducing OneNote for Mac or just get started now by downloadingOneNote for Mac from the Mac App Store to see what your fellow Mac users are so excited about.

People love OneNote 2013 on Windows. We want this awesome experience to be available to anybody, so we’ve created a free version! It’s designed for personal and school use, it’s totally ad-free and there’s no limit on how long you can use it because it’s not just a trial. For Office 365 and Office 2013 customers, we have premium features like SharePoint support, version history, Outlook integration and so on, but all the core OneNote application capabilities are available in the free version.

Everything you create in the free PC and Mac clients are synced to OneDrive, so you can access them from your phone and tablet too. Your Microsoft Account gives you 7GB of free storage with no monthly upload limit, so there’s plenty of room for everything you want to remember.

If you have an older version of OneNote or haven’t yet had a chance to use OneNote on your PC, get OneNote 2013 today at www.onenote.com.

OneNote service: Bringing OneNote to the apps you care about

OneNote is more than just syncing your content across all your devices. It’s now a hub for the applications and experiences you care about. By making it easy to send anything from any application to OneNote, it’s one more step towards becoming your digital memory. We’ve built some new experiences for this and we’ve worked with a bunch of partners to integrate it with their applications as well.

OneNote Clipper: The new OneNote Clipper lets you capture any web page in one click. The page is automatically put in your OneNote Quick Notes. It is available for Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Mac Safari.

Send email to OneNote: Send a mail to me@onenote.com and we’ll save it into your OneNote Quick Notes. Forward a receipt from your inbox or send a web link from your phone to me@onenote.com.

Office Lens: Office Lens is a Windows Phone app that’s like having a scanner in your pocket. Take a picture of a whiteboard, document, business card, or anything. Office Lens will enhance the image and put it into your OneNote Quick Notes. We’ll recognize the text so you can search for your scans.

Partner apps and devices: We want to make it easy to remember things from anywhere, not just Microsoft apps. So we’ve been working with several key partners to let you do that. You can use these great apps and devices to get anything into OneNote today: Brother, Doxie Go, Epson, Feedly, Genius Scan, IFTTT, JotNot, Livescribe, Mod Notebook, News360 and Weave. Check them all out at www.onenote.com/apps

We also have several more exciting partner experiences coming soon including Neat. If you’d like to make your app, device or service work with OneNote, visit our developer portal at http://dev.onenote.com or check out the OneNote Dev Blog.

Learn more, ask questions

Along with these exciting releases we have some great free events this week.

OneNote for Mac 15-minute Webinar: Join Doug Thomas online to learn why OneNote rocks, how to use OneNote for Mac and have some fun. There will be Q&A with the team as well. You can join us for the OneNote for Mac Webinar on March 18 at 9:00am PST or you can watch the recording afterwards.
OneNote Twitter Q&A with Joe Block: We will be asking Joe Block, play-by-play broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers, about the upcoming baseball season, March Madness, and how he uses OneNote to track it all. To join us on Twitter follow@msonenote or @joe_block. The Q&A will start on March 18 at 9:30am PST.
OneNote reddit IAMA: If you still have questions for the OneNote team about OneNote, today’s announcements, our favorite color or anything at all – this is for you. Head on over to reddit on March 19 at 9:00am PST and ask the OneNote team anything!

It’s going to just keep getting better

Today is a huge step forward for OneNote. We’ve made it easier to use OneNote no matter what platform you’re on, and easier than ever to send anything into OneNote. But we’re not stopping here. We’re continually improving OneNote across our applications and service, and working with partners so you can take note of anything and keep it in your digital memory.

Go to www.onenote.com to get OneNote on all your devices and let us know what you think.

Introducing OneNote for Mac [by OneNote Team on Office Blogs, March 17, 2014]

Today we announced three major OneNote developments, including the first version of OneNote for Mac. We are very excited and proud to deliver this to you today.

We’ve seen the countless requests for a Mac client of OneNote, and we’ve been hard at work to deliver it. We’ve been counting the days to finally share with you that OneNote for Mac is now available and you can download it from the App Store for free today!

While you’re downloading the app, check out this video of OneNote for Mac.

Introducing OneNote for Mac [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn about OneNote for Mac, one place for all your digital notes. Learn more at: http://www.onenote.com

OneNote is your place to jot down your ideas, capture your collection of web clippings and research, plan your trips and events, check your to-dos and shopping lists and share your notes with friends and co-workers. It’s a single place to collect your thoughts and ideas, as well as an easy and fun way to stay organized.

Here are some of the main highlights of why we think you are going to love OneNote for Mac.

Create your notes as you wish

Similar to other Office for Mac applications, OneNote for Mac has the Ribbon user interface with a variety of options for formatting and styling your notes. Your notes can be styled however you like. You can choose that special font and color you like to use for your notes, or emphasize important content with bold, underline or highlights.

Sometimes notes contain lists. Whether it’s an invitees list for a party, or the checklist you use for traveling, you can manage your lists using multiple levels of bullets and numbering, and with quick shortcut keys you can re-order, strikethrough, format and more. In addition, if you want to remember, flag or track specific items, you can choose from over 20 styles of tags, such as a To Do tag to check off completed items.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so we make it easy for you to insert pictures in your notes and place them anywhere on your page. And when your notes are best organized in a table, you can easily do so with a variety of table formatting options, such as cell shading colors.

One of the unique characteristics of a page in OneNote is that it’s an infinite canvas where you can lay out different note containers with different content types anywhere you like on the page.

Familiar notebook experience

Your notes are structured in each OneNote notebook with sections and pages similar to paper notebooks. You can create a separate notebook for each of the different projects or aspects of your life, such as work, family, school and travel notebooks.

For instance, you can set up a travel notebook with a section for each of your upcoming trips. Each section can contain multiple pages for itinerary information, such as hotel research, flight options, sights to see and places to eat.

To help you easily find your notes and stay organized, you can re-arrange your notebook as you like, including dragging the pages and sections to change their order or location. And you can apply a color theme to sections to identify them at a glance.

Rest assured, you don’t have to remember where you placed each note. You can very quickly find any text, page, section or notebook by using search options.

Share your notes with others

Whether you’re working on a school project or planning an event with friends, OneNote for Mac enables you to collaborate with others on the same notebook. It syncs changes to and from OneDrive seamlessly and fast so that you can see everyone else’s edits and they can see yours. We make it easy for you to identify the changes made in your shared notebook by displaying the names of the different authors next to their edits.

Or, if you want to just share a specific page in your notebook you can simply email that page to others.

Your notes on all your favorite devices

We know how important it is for you to access your notes on all of your devices and for your notes to look exactly the same as you created them. Add a recipe to OneNote on your Mac, and you can view it on your iPhone in the grocery store. Research and plan a trip on your Mac at home and then easily access those same notes on your iPad during your trip.

All those notes you create on OneNote for Mac are synced to OneDrive and available to you on all your other OneNote clients, including OneNote for Windows desktop, Windows Store, Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, Android and OneNote Online.

These are only some of the highlights of OneNote for Mac—there’s so much more included in this version that we think you’ll enjoy. OneNote for Mac is compatible with Mac OS X 10.9 and above and you can download it for free from the App Store today. You can also visithttp://www.onenote.com to access all the different OneNote apps including a few exciting OneNote services available today that will enhance your web capturing experience on OneNote for Mac.

And this is just the beginning. We hope you enjoy this first version of OneNote for Mac and encourage you to keep the comments, ratings and feedback coming to help us make future OneNote updates even better.

OneNote Clipper: Clip the web, right to OneNote [by OneNote Team on Office Blogs, March 17, 2014]

Today we announced three major OneNote developments, including the OneNote Clipper, the easiest way to save anything on the web to OneNote with just one click. Think of it as your camera for the web, snapshotting any webpage you see directly into OneNote.

Researching for a big trip? Gathering recipes for an upcoming party? Collecting inspiration for a home makeover? The OneNote Clipper can help you do all of this quickly and easily. Watch the video below to see it in action.

OneNote Clipper: clip the web, right to OneNote [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how to use the OneNote Clipper — the easiest way, to save anything you see on the web to OneNote, in just one click. Learn more at: http://www.onenote.com/clipper

Try out the OneNote Clipper now

To get started, use any major browser to visit www.onenote.com/clipper and follow the instructions to add the purple Clip to OneNote button to your Favorites bar. Congratulations, now you’re all set to start clipping the web to OneNote!

To clip, just browse to any webpage and click the Clip to OneNote button.

Once signed in, you’ll see the actual OneNote Clipper. The Clipper will let you know that it’s sending the page to OneNote, and when it’s finished, you can click the OneNote logo to immediately view your clip in OneNote Online.

All of your clips are saved to the Quick Notes section of your default notebook on OneDrive — automatically accessible and fully searchable on all your devices.

We hope you enjoy the OneNote Clipper. Please let us know in the comments if you have any feedback, we would love to hear from you. Happy clipping!

Email your notes into OneNote with me@onenote.com [by OneNote Team on Office Blogs, March 17, 2014]

Today we announced three major OneNote developments, including me@onenote.com.

One of our goals is to make it easy to get content into OneNote, no matter where you are or what app you’re using. me@onenote.com is a big step towards that goal. Now, you can use any ‘Email this’ button to send content to OneNote.

Email to OneNote is a great way to forward receipts, travel itineraries or documents that you want to keep track of from your mailbox. If you’re on the run and want to send yourself a quick to do, it’s hard to get faster than writing up a quick mail. Or, if you’re in an app, and want to remember what you’re seeing, you can do so quickly by sharing via email.

me@onenote.com: email anything to OneNote [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how to use me@onenote.com to get anything into OneNote. Learn more at: http://www.onenote.com

Try it out now

To get set up just visit the email settings page and select the addresses from which you would like OneNote to accept emailed content. You can also add any email addresses that are not already associated with your Microsoft account by using the link at the bottom of the settings page. If you don’t remember any of that, just send an email to me@onenote.com and we will email back with instructions.

Now you’re ready to email content to OneNote quickly and easily! Please let us know in the comments if you have any feedback, we would love to hear from you.

Office Lens: A OneNote scanner for your pocket[by OneNote Team on Office Blogs, March 17, 2014]

Today we announced three major OneNote developments, including Office Lens, a neat new app in the Windows Phone Store.

Office Lens is an app that’s like having a scanner in your pocket. You can use it to take pictures of things like business cards, restaurant menus, notes on whiteboards or blackboards — anything you want to keep on hand. But unlike loose sticky notes, business cards or sketches on lunch napkins, you won’t lose track of your ideas when you capture them with Office Lens. Even things like children’s artwork is fair game. Snap a picture of that one-of-a-kind card your child made and it’ll be at your fingertips whenever you’d like to see it.

Office Lens trims, enhances and makes pictures readable. Weird angles are straightened, shadows are cleaned up and the images are automatically synced to OneNote, so you can get to them on all your devices.

When your picture includes printed text, such as a poster or business card, OneNote on a PC can recognize the text with optical character recognition (OCR) so you can search for words in the image — and you can edit the text, or copy and paste it into apps like email and documents.

Office Lens has three modes, or settings, that help make your captures look their best:

With Whiteboard mode, glare and shadows disappear.
With Document mode, text is clear and easy to read.
With Photo mode, you can take pictures of people and scenery.

Office Lens: Before and after

If you already have pictures on your phone, you can edit them in Office Lens and clean them up too. See how it works in the video below.

Office Lens: a OneNote scanner for your pocket [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how to use Office Lens, a Windows Phone App, that is like having a OneNote scanner in your pocket. Learn more at: http://www.onenote.com\apps

Office Lens is free in the Windows Phone Store. Install it and try it out today.

Try Office Lens Now!

Please let us know in the comments or in the app store if you have any feedback. We would love to hear from you.

OneNote Featured Apps [OneNote site by Microsoft, March 17, 2014]

Get more out of OneNote with these apps and devices.

Brother [scanner] + OneNote: Better Together [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how Brother scanners can help get content sent directly into OneNote. Learn more at http://www.onenote.com.

Doxie [scanner] + OneNote: Better Together [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how Doxie can help get physical documents into OneNote. Learn more at http://www.onenote.com.

Brother Web Connection

Your Brother machine (MFP/Document scanner) can scan images and upload them to OneNote and OneDrive directly without going through a PC.

Get Started

Doxie Mobile Scanners

Doxie is a new kind of paper scanner that’s rechargeable, so you can scan documents anywhere – no computer required. Just charge it up and turn it on, wherever you are – insert your paper, receipts, and photos to scan, archive, and share. Doxie scans anywhere, then syncs to OneNote for access to all your scanned documents, on all your devices

Get Started

Email to OneNote

Capture the things that are important to you while you are on the go by emailing them directly to your notebook! Send documents, notes, itineraries, and so much more to me@onenote.com and we will put them into your OneNote notebook, where you can access them from all of your devices.

Get Started

Epson Document Capture Pro

Document Capture Pro allows you to easily scan documents, edit pages, save files, and transfer data to the applications scanned with Epson scanners such as the Workforce® DS-560 and others. What’s more, users can scan to OneNote with one touch, to easily access documents from multiple devices or share with others.

Workforce® DS-560

Feedly

Feedly focuses on making reading the web a little faster, better. The Feedly OneNote integration makes it easy for people to save great articles they found in their Feedly reader into their OneNote notebook.

Web

Genius Scan

Genius Scan is a scanner in your pocket. It enables you digitize paper documents, create PDF files and immediately store them in OneNote.

iOS     Android

IFTTT

IFTTT lets you create powerful connections with one simple statement – if this then that. Use the OneNote Channel on IFTTT to create and share recipes that automatically create pages, sync content, and connect over 80 other products and services.

iOS Web

JotNot Scanner

JotNot converts your iPhone into a portable multipage scanner. You can use JotNot to scan documents, receipts, whiteboards, business cards and notes into an electronic format.?JotNot now offers direct integration with Microsoft’s OneNote platform, so you can quickly and easily backup and organize your scans using your OneNote account.

iOS

Livescribe 3 Smartpen

With the Livescribe 3 smartpen and Livescribe+ app, simply write on paper and watch everything appear instantly on your mobile device, where you can tag, search and convert your notes to text. You can send everything to OneNote so your handwritten notes and sketches are integrated with the rest of your important information.

iOS

Mod Notebooks

Mod notebooks are physical notebooks that are scanned, digitized and backed up to the cloud once completed. Each page of completed notebooks can be synced to OneNote and saved forever.?

Get Started

NeatConnect

NeatConnect transforms paper piles into digital documents and sends them straight to OneNote – without a computer. From any room in your house, or any spot in the office, NeatConnect’s Wi-Fi compatibility and touchscreen interface make scanning to OneNote fast and easy so you can save time, taking organization and productivity to whole new levels.

Coming soon!

News360

News360 is a free personalized news app that learns what you like and gets smarter the more you use it. With more than 100,000+ sources, there is always something interesting to read, and you can save your favorite stories directly to OneNote with a tap of a button.

Android   iOS   Windows   Windows Phone

Office Lens

Office Lens is like having a scanner in your pocket. Never miss notes on a whiteboard or blackboard, and never look for misplaced documents or business cards, missing receipts or stray sticky notes again! Office Lens makes your pictures magically readable and re-useable. Capture content right into OneNote with automatic trimming and clean up.

Windows Phone

OneNote Clipper

The OneNote Clipper lets you save webpages from your browser into your OneNote notebooks. In just one click, it helps you capture things quickly and remember more in your life.

Web

Weave News Reader

Your news, personalized. Get the free Weave News Reader app for Windows 8 and start saving your favorite news articles to OneNote today!

Windows   Windows Phone

Feedly + OneNote: Better Together [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how feedly can pull your favorite content into OneNote. Learn more at http://www.onenote.com

Genius Scan + OneNote: Better Together [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how Genius Scan can help get beautifully cleaned up images into OneNote. Learn more at http://www.onenote.com.

Livescribe [smart pen] + OneNote: Better Together [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how Livescribe can help blend the physical and digital world by pushing physical ink into OneNote. Learn more at http://www.onenote.com.

Weave + OneNote: Better Together [officevideos YouTube channel, March 17, 2014]

Learn how Weave can improve your reading experience by saving articles into OneNote. Learn more at http://www.onenote.com.

CPU	28nm LP quad core Krait 300 CPU at up to 1.9GHz per core LP-DDR3 memory for high performance and low latency
GPU	Speed enhanced Adreno 320 GPU delivers over 300% increase in graphics processing performance¹ Support for advanced graphic and compute APIs, including OpenGL ES 3.0, DirectX, OpenCL, Renderscript Compute and FlexRender™²
Power Management	Energy efficient LP process and dynamic GPU clock and voltage scaling Asynchronous Multi-Processing (aSMP) dynamic CPU power control for power-optimized performance Qualcomm Quick Charge 1.0 integrated for up to 40% faster battery charging
DSP	Hexagon, QDSP6 Hexagon DSP enables ultra-low power operation for a variety of applications like music playback, enhanced audio effects, computer vision processing and still and video image enhancements
USB	USB 2.0
Bluetooth	BT4.0 + Integrated digital core
Display	Enjoy your photos, videos and games on large, high-resolution display devices (up to 2048×1536) and even on 1080p external displays
WiFi	802.11ac³ Wi-Fi for peak Wi-Fi performance + Integrated digital core³ Publicly demonstrated to 280 Mbps UDP
GPS	IZAT™ location technology features GNSS for accurate auto and pedestrian navigation and Indoor Location capabilities for advanced location-based services
Video/Audio	Capture and playback video at 1080p HD HD multichannel sound with DTS-HD and Dolby Digital Plus
Camera	Up to 21 Megapixel, stereoscopic 3D Take high-resolution, 3D photos with 21 Megapixel stereoscopic camera support
Process Technology	28nm LP

Device	Benefits
Micromax Dongle – MMX 377G (Benefits for 6 months)	Aircel customers can get exciting data benefits for 6 months at Rs. 141 [$2.31] For the first 3 months, customers will get 2GB/month data For the next 3 months – customers will get double data value for every recharge
Smartphones and Tablets (Benefits for 3 months)	1GB data per month 1.2P/2 sec Local Calling 1.2P/ sec STD Calling WAP content worth Rs. 10,000 [$164] Popkorn TV App Free
Data Enabled Feature Phones (Benefits for 3 months)	500MB data per month 1.2P/2 sec Local Calling Local. 1.2P/sec STD Calling WAP content worth Rs. 10,000 [$164]

Experiencing the Cloud

Yearly Archives: 2014

Wintel rebirth amid the stock market turning negative about the Wintel future

IDF14 Shenzhen: Intel is levelling the Wintel playing field with Android-ARM by introducing new competitive Windows tablet price points from $99 – $129

Accelerated Mobile Roadmap

Global Marketing Campaigns Begin

Marketing Local Innovation

Amazon joined the OTT TV, gaming console and entertainment race with its Fire TV

Related information:

Prime (+Netflix comparison): Amazon may hike Prime cost as earnings disappoint and further challenges lay ahead of the company for which it needs to adjust its business model and expand its operations [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Jan 31, 2014]

New Amazon Fire TV powered by Snapdragon 600 processor [Qualcomm Snapdragon Blog, April 2, 2014]

Amongst popcorn aromas and home-theatre decor, today, Amazon announced Fire TV: a streaming set top box that aims to deliver just about every video streaming service in a compact, powerful package.

Addressing the media at today’s announcement in New York, Amazon.com’s Peter Larsen, Vice President of Kindle, identified three problems with today’s internet-enabled set-top boxes—search, performance, and a closed ecosystem—and detailed how Fire TV solves them.

Granted, search and content ecosystems are well within the purview of Amazon. But performance? That’s where Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processors come in.

Sporting a Snapdragon 600 processor with quad-core CPU, the Fire TV has all the base capabilities you expect from a device that lives in your living room: Full HD 1080p streaming video, 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus surround sound, and a lighting-fast, ultra-stable dual-antenna Wi-Fi connection.

But this is Amazon, the everything store. And the Fire TV is the everything box.

Foremost of which is the new voice search. Just press a button on your remote, and the Fire TV can find John Malkovich’s entire body of work at the utterance of his name, or get Team Umizoomi up and streaming almost as fast as you children can yell “Umizoomi.”

Amazon’s Fire TV is available now for $99.

Microsoft BUILD 2014 Day 1: consistency and superiority accross the whole Windows family extended now to TVs and IoT devices as well—$0 royalty licensing program for OEM and ODM partners in sub 9” phone and tablet space

Also as a part of the conference, Nokia announced three new Lumia smartphones for Windows Phone 8.1, including the flagship Lumia 930, the affordable Lumia 635 and the first dual-SIM Lumia 630.

The essence of the Day 1 keynote:

Microsoft Build 2014 keynote in seven minutes [The Verge YouTube channel, April 2, 2014]

The Full Day 1 Keynote record on Channel 9: 2 hours, 59 minutes, 13 seconds or a YouTube copy of that from MicrosoftEurope:

Windows Phone gets even more personal

Windows 8.1 Update: easier to use, runs great on more devices

Current Windows 8.1 customers will receive the Windows 8.1 Update for free through Windows Update, while Windows 8 customers will receive the update free through the Windows Store, beginning April 8, 2014.*

Windows developer platform: easily build innovative apps, reach more people

In advance of Build, I want to highlight three announcements about how we’re continuing to evolve and tune our organization for maximum focus and impact.…

…

Making Windows devices more affordable

Microsoft is evolving its Windows business model to enable partners to offer lower-cost devices in the highly competitive smartphone, tablet and PC categories. Microsoft will offer to hardware partners $0 Windows with services including a one-year subscription to Office 365.

I wanted to use this post to share some thoughts from what I said in the keynote:

1. We believe in our ecosystem of device manufacturers and devs (developers, developers, developers!), and that their creativity has incredible potential to change the world – and we want to help them do that.

2. We believe in the Internet of Things, and that as the devices get smaller, the cloud gets bigger.

3. We believe in natural user interfaces, and the power of things like voice and gesture to transform how users will interact with their devices and apps in the coming years.

…

…

…

Whew, what a day! What a week! I’ve just gotten off the stage at Build in front of 5,000 of our beloved developers talking about the future of the Windows platform. And now I’m here to tell YOU about the stuff we’ve been working on to delight all our Windows Phone users and fans!

Start screen: Make the Live Tiles Yours

We want your Windows Phone Start screen to genuinely reflect your personality and the people and things you care about—so we are making it even more customizable!

Lock screen: Lots of new “themes” to choose from!

The Lock screen is the very first thing you – or your friends—see when you grab your phone, and in Windows Phone 8.1 we’re providing a new app that lets you set a wide range of interesting “Lock Screen Themes” which show all kinds of different visuals and animations. Make it yours…

Cortana: Your PERSONAL Digital Assistant

When you interact with Cortana for the VERY first time, she will start learning things about you… like your name, how to pronounce it, and ask for some personal interests.

What’s more, because Cortana is powered by Bing, some of the interests in Cortana’s Notebook will light up on Bing.comwhen you sign in on the web. Bing.com will give you access to the things Cortana tracks for you, like your weather, stocks, news, and flights.

We think you’re going to really love having Cortana as your personal assistant!

A Whole Slew of New Delighters

Data Sense, Wi-Fi Sense, Storage Sense, and Battery Saver:We’ve added a number of features in Windows Phone 8.1 that are designed to help you get the most out of your data allowance, battery life and storage.

And Battery Saver gives you a clear breakdown of how apps are using your battery so you can make more informed usage decisions. With “automatic mode” enabled, it can dramatically extend your battery life.

Easier access to your favorite apps and key controls:

On the Start screen, on select devices you will now find Power and Search buttons at the upper-right corner next to your account picture. You can now more quickly shut down your PC if you need to and do a search right from the Start screen.

More familiar mouse and keyboard options:

Simpler way to find new apps:

After installing the update, you’ll find the Windows Store is now pinned to the taskbar by default so you can easily discover new apps (yes, you can unpin it if you don’t want it there).

And after installing new apps, you’ll notice a message at the lower-left corner of the Start screen that points you to the Apps view so you can see what you recently just installed.

Seamless browsing on all devices:

New low cost devices:With the Windows 8.1 Update, we have enabled our hardware partners to build lower cost devices for Windows such as devices with only 1GB RAM and 16GB of storage that provide customers with the experience they expect from a Windows device without sacrificing performance.

NOTE: The Windows 8.1 Update will be KB2919355 for those of you interested.

We’re really excited to get this update out to everyone! Moving forward, we’ll continue to deliver improvements through regular updates like this one to Windows, allowing us to respond more quickly to customer feedback as your needs change.

Tags: Windows 8, Keyboard, Start screen, Windows Store, Windows 8.1, search, Apps, Windows 8.1 Update, Windows, Update, Pinning,Taskbar, Mouse

With this release of the Windows developer platform we set out to accomplish three major goals: 1) Reach customers across phones, tablets, and PCs; 2) Deliver innovation that supports developer investments; 3) Make cross-platform technology easier and more capable.

Reaching customers across phones, tablets, and PCs

Since universal Windows apps run on the same Windows runtime, developers have a common way of building and architecting apps for phones, tablets and PCs; from how they handle suspend and resume and do background processing, to the way they manage in-app security.

Innovation that supports developer investments

Developers are interacting with tablets and Windows computers in new ways as well. Kinect for Windows v2 will be released this summer. Soon developers can start building Kinect apps for Windows Store and publish or commercially deploy Kinect apps and solutions.

Make cross-platform technology easier and more capable

Where we go from here

Tags: phone, PC, Tablet

An upcoming new era: personalised, pro-active search and discovery experiences for Office 365 (Oslo)

The world has become a giant network

Laying the foundation

Enterprise social and the future of work

So, what should I do now?

To watch Alisher Usmanov (Алишер Усманов)