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The long awaited Windows 8.1 breakthrough opportunity with the new Intel “Bay Trail-T”, “Bay Trail-M” and “Bay Trail-D” SoCs?

September 14, 2013 2:06 pm / 2 Comments on The long awaited Windows 8.1 breakthrough opportunity with the new Intel “Bay Trail-T”, “Bay Trail-M” and “Bay Trail-D” SoCs?

“Bay Trail” was, and still is a highly secretive project inside Intel as you could see from this latest video Update: New Atom Chip, Bay Trail: Great User Experience and Battery Life [channelintel YouTube channel, Sept 26, 2013]

An Intel engineer, speaking in anonymity, worked on the team that created new multicore system-on-a-chip processors, formerly codenamed “Bay Trail,” for tablets, 2 in 1 devices, all-in-ones, laptops and desktops. The processors are essentially, the “brain” for many of the most popular mobile devices. He describes using tablets running on the new Bay Trail processor as “amazing.” “The fluidity involved with total user experience is great,” he says. “The Bay Trail-based systems also have instant connections. Your data is never stale. And, the battery life improvements are huge.”

Coming back to the title of the post: could be very much so. Look at the first tablet:
ASUS Transformer Book T100 [the Official ASUS Facebook page, Sept 11, 2013]

The announcements just keep coming! Introducing the ASUS Transformer Book T100, the 2-in-1 Ultraportable laptop with a 10″ tablet powered by Intel’s latest Bay Trail-T quad-core [Atom] processor. Available in the US starting October 18th from only $349.

ASUS Transformer Book T100 Press Event [ASUS North America YouTube channel, Sept 12, 2013]

On September 11, 2013 Jonney Shih, the Chairman of Asus introduced the ASUS Transformer Book T100 to the world with a perfect fit to their long articulated slogan: “We Transform”.

From ASUS Transforms Expectations for Mobile Computing with New Transformer Books at IDF 2013 [press release, Sept 12, 2013]:

“The ASUS Transformer Book T100 is the perfect transformation of the Eee PC with full compatibility, detachable touch screen, immersive entertainment and enough battery for all-day computing,” said ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih. “It is truly a game-changer for our mobile lifestyle.”

Transformer Book T100— high-mobility notebook and tablet combined

ASUS Transformer Book T100 is a 10.1-inch ultraportable with an Intel® Atom™ ‘Bay Trail’ quad-core processor and detachable HD display than can be used as a standalone Windows 8.1 tablet. Featuring a sleek design and durable finish, Transformer Book T100 is not only one of the lightest ultraportables currently available at just 1.07kg, but also one of the lightest 10-inch tablets around, at 550g.

Transformer Book T100 features the new Intel® Atom™ Bay Trail-T Z3740 [2M Cache, 1.33 GHz, up to 1.86 GHz] quad-core processor for smooth multi-tasking performance and incredible energy efficiency that can last up to 11 hours on battery power. The lightweight keyboard dock features precision-engineered keys designed for comfortable extended use, a multi-touch touchpad with full Windows 8.1 gesture support and USB 3.0. Just 10.5mm thin, Transformer Book T100 features a brilliant HD 10.1-inch tablet IPS multi-touch display with wide 178-degree viewing angles and razor-sharp images. Transformer Book T100 is also pre-installed with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 with full versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, the perfect productivity solution for both school and work.

In retrospective:
ASUS: We are the real transformers, not Microsoft [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 17, 2012]

ASUS Transformer Book T100 – Intel Bay Trail Quad-Core Tablet / Notebook 2-in-1 Hands On Preview [TechnologyGuide YouTube channel, Sept 12, 2013]

We take a hands-on look at the new ASUS Transformer Book T100 Hybrid 2-in-1 Laptop/Tablet PC, running Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 operating system. Specifications: -1.33 GHz Quad-Core Intel Bay Trail Processor -2GB RAM -32GB / 64GB SSD -USB 3.0 -11-hour Battery life

From Intel we learned the same day that smaller 8” or even 7” tablets without detachable keyboards will come for as low as $199. There will be certainly higher priced versions as well, with higher resolution than that of the T100’s 1366×768 (which has an IPS screen nevertheless), 11” screen instead of the 10” T100, and most importantly using the higher-end Z3770 SoC with up to 2.4 GHz in burst mode (when thermal and other conditions allow it) instead of T100’s Z3740 SoC with up to 1.8 GHz only. In fact there will be notebook and desktop SoC products as well, code named Bay-Trail-M and Bay-Trail-D, respectively.

#5 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T
by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture,
Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

#47 slide of the same SPCS004 presentation as above

This is pretty good as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and NVIDIA Tegra 4 are the current leaders among quad-core ARM SoCs. And a very important point here is that Intel went down very significantly with the recommended customer price of just $37 in volume (1K TRAY) for Z3770. Its “little brother” the Z3740 has even lower $32 price in volume (1K TRAY) while the same clock frequency Clover Trail Z2760 launched a year ago had $41 price (1K TRAY) but significantly less performance as you will see below. And remember that the non-tablet but netbook Atoms, the N470 and N475, launched 2 and a half year ago had even $75 (1K TRAY) price, and were inferior in all regards even to the Z2760. Intel has definitely decided to compete with ARM quadcores not only in performance but in price as well.

UPDATE as of Sept 20, 2013: By the time of publishing my analysis of The manufacturing side of the “Race to the Bottom” Ecosystem [‘USD 99 Allwinner’, Sept 19, 2013] the pricing information for the announced Bay Trail-T SoCs as well as the earlier generation Clover Trail (Z3770, Z3740 and Z2760) disappeared from subsequent ark.intel.com specification pages. I cannot think any other reason than the indicative pricing information became a public blunder for Intel when people were asking questions similar to the two opening ones in my above indicated post:

Are you aware of $32 entry-level Android tablets available for local resellers around the world? Are you aware that this is the price of Intel’s upcoming in October 2013 Bay Trail-T Z3740 SoC, i.e. a chip only?

Update as of Oct 14, 2013:
Intel plans cheap Bay Trail CPUs for 2Q14 [DIGITIMES, Oct 14, 2013]

Intel is planning to release entry-level Bay Trail-based processors for the Android platform in the second quarter of 2014, according to sources from tablet players.

The sources expect the CPUs to be priced between US$15-20, about US$12 lower than the current models.

Although Intel has already offered subsidies for its Bay Trail-T processors including Atom Z3740 and Z3770 at US$32 and US$37 and another 10% off for bulk purchase, they are still less competitive in pricing compared to ARM-based quad-core processors.

With the new entry-level processors, the sources expect Intel to gain an equal footing against players such as Mediatek, Qualcomm and Nvidia.

Let’s see then the great video decoding capability of Z3770:
Bay Trail playing 4K video 100Mb/s on a 2560×1440 sreen [of Intel Z3770 based Reference Design] [Francois Piednoel YouTube channel, Sept 11, 2013]

then a recent game with 3D graphics: Torchlight II on Intel’s Bay Trail Tablet at IDF13 [HardwareZoneMY YouTube channel, Sept 11, 2013]

An Intel representative demonstrating Torchlight II on a reference design Bay Trail unit.

No wonder as relative to the previous generation Clover Trail Atom Z2760 introduced last September, which had the Imagination PowerVR SGX545 GPU @533 MHz, the Bay Trail Atom Z3770 has the Intel HD Graphics (Gen 7 with 4EU) @313 MHz. Measured at the same 13×7 resolution the improvement is not less than 6.42 times according to benchmarking run by Intel. It is also significantly better than the contemporary (Sept’12) leaders of quad-core ARM SoCs from NVIDIA and Qualcomm, by 4.4 and 3 times, respectively:

#52 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T
by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture,
Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

This comparison is speaking for itself:
Intel Bay Trail demo (tablet on the right) vs. Clover Trail (tablet on the left) [zzopmusic YouTube channel, Sept 11, 2013] i.e. the previous generation Atom

Note that relative to the current quadcore SoC leaders from ARM the GPU performance of Bay Trail Z3770 is still lagging somewhat:

#49 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T
by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture,
Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

It is important here to compare the Bay Trail Z3770 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 only because only they are at the same 19×10 resolution while NVIDIA Tegra 4 is at the much higher 25×16 resolution.

This current lag in GPU performance may be overcome in the future as the Bay Trail-T GPU had been announced by much higher clock frequency possibilities, as given on #15 slide of the above presentation:

Intel HD Graphics architecture
– Graphics turbo supported with CPU-GPU power sharing
– DirextX 11, OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics core
– Support for high-resolution displays (up to 25×16)
– Programmable in-order multi-threaded
– 4EUs, 8 threads each, SIMD32
– >= 667MHz

High-quality, high-performance, low power HD H.264 encoder
– High profile support, fast transcode
– Separate 3D and media power wells
– Video and display post-processing support

Power
– Autonomously hardware detects Idle condition, save state and power gate
– Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling

No wonder why at IDF 2013: Intel demos Bay Trail tablet with virtual shopping app [Computerworld YouTube channel, Sept 12, 2013]

On Wednesday at IDF in San Francisco Intel launched Bay Trail, the next-generation Atom Z3000 chip that gives tablets PC-like performance.

That was meant to be the supposedly most convincing demo at the full IDF 2013 San Francisco Dr. Hermann Eul Keynote [karan YouTube channel, Sept 12, 2013]

Dr. Hermann Eul, Vice President & General Manager, Mobile and Communications Group

Also read the relevant part of the from IDF Day 2 Keynote Transcript, from which I will quote here just the following:

[4:14] The platform from soups to nuts. What does that mean? First, we start with a fantastic CPU, then we add the gorgeous imaging processing, and we have a stunning graphics coming to this. And around this, of course we will always be connected. We want to have fast, robust, reliable connectivity, cellular connectivity, short range connectivity. We put this on this platform as well, and then we add much more stuff: I/Os, audio, display, and so on and so forth.

Last but not least, we dovetail very sophisticated security into this and a highly specialized, optimized power management. That is the crown jewel of the platform. On this, we put software, a protocol stack, hardened in more than 100 countries and operators around the globe, a very proven stack around all the connectivity connections, and of course a highly optimized software operating system load that runs best on our architecture. And this we call the platform, from A to Z. All these elements are important. They form this platform.

For the user-facing part, the application system, it all starts with a great CPU. A leadership CPU is necessary to do this. And we all know, all cores are not created equal. That compares very much to our brains. So to speak, the analogy is that the core is the brain of that system. And so, our brains are all not equal.

And for our platform, it just starts with an extraordinary brain. The Silvermont core. It’s a flexible, multi-core architecture, has 64 bits, it is leading in performance per watt efficiency. And the good thing is, it spans an ultra-wide dynamic range from very low power to extremely high performance that we need. And we are supporting with this the broadest range of devices and market segments. And needless to say, it comes with the advanced 22-nanometer tri-gate transistor technology.

#9 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T
by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture,
Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

And having said this, we have the capabilities, and we know the secret sauce on matchmaking: this stunning architecture and this very advanced process technology manufacturing. That is what I call in that slide here magic. This is our secret sauce. And this is what, exactly what we have done.

And all that leads me to today’s announcement, the introduction of the Bay Trail platform.

Bay Trail is architected for the best mobile computing experience. In more detail, it has leading performance and outstanding battery life. It comes with the next generation of Intel multi-core technology. It provides immersive experiences with Intel HD graphics, and it has ample performance on demand, with the Intel Burst technology 2.0. And of course, it comes with advanced imaging capabilities, and with our next-gen programmable ISP. [8:54]

Intel Bay Trail the Newest Intel Atom Processor, Tech News Interview [Santa Barbara Arts TV YouTube Partner Global News YouTube channel, Sept 12, 2013]

Intel Executives and Developers talk about Bay Trail, the Newest Intel Atom Processor 22 nanometer, quad-core system-on-a-chip technology Intel Bay Trail the Newest Intel Atom Processor Tech News Interviews.

Dr. Hermann Eul, Vice President & General Manager for Intel’s Mobile and Communications Group: [1:33] “If you look at the Windows tablets I think it is amazing to see what you can do on these lightweight tablets. What you did years back with a heavy weight computer everything now works on those tablets: from office applications, from productivity work to what’s gaming, everything runs on it. They are just compatible PERIOD.” [1:57] – says

“Bay Trail is an amazing platform we’ve developed for tablets,” says Ticky Thakkar, Chief Platform Architect for Intel’s Mobile and Communication’s Group. [2:46] “Well, Bay Trail will give you the same performance as the previous generation of our core at about 5x less power. So that gives you some perspective of how much hard work we did on power.” [3:03] “You’re going to get awesome performance delivered in the thinnest, lightest tablet.” Thakkar led the development of the latest Atom processor, which is based on 22 nanometer, quad-core system-on-a-chip technology. Essentially, the technological achievement has resulted in a chip that outperforms laptops of just a few years ago.

Tami Reller from Microsoft talks Windows 8.1 at IDF 2013 Keynote [camwilmot YouTube channel, Sept 12, 2013]

Microsoft’s Tami Reller took the stage at this year’s IDF to talk about Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8.1 update. The Redmond giant recently released the update to manufacturer and posted it on MSDN for download, which Reller suggested was well received.

Intel Launches New Multicore, Low-Power SoCs for Tablets, 2 in 1s and Other Computing Devices [press release, Sept 11, 2013]

Scalable 22nm Silvermont Microarchitecture Delivers Flexibility for a Range of Designs, Price Points

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Built on its leading 22nm tri-gate technology and the new “Silvermont” microarchitecture, Intel launched three new multicore SoCs, formerly codenamed “Bay Trail,” for tablets, 2 in 1 devices, all-in-ones, laptops and desktops.
The multi-core Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Series, Intel’s most powerful SoC for tablets to-date, delivers an ideal balance of performance, battery life, graphics and features for consumers and businesses, on both Android* and full Windows 8* operating systems.
Leading OEMs will offer a wide range of Bay Trail-powered devices at a variety of prices starting in the fourth quarter of 2013.

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, San Francisco, Sept. 11, 2013 –Intel Corporation today launched its latest family of low-power systems-on-a-chip (SoC), codenamed “Bay Trail,” that will fuel a wave of highly powerful and energy efficient tablets, 2 in 1s and other mobile devices to market for consumers and business users in the fourth quarter of this year from leading OEMs including AAVA*, Acer*, ASUS*, Dell*, Lenovo* and Toshiba*.

The “Bay Trail” family of processors is based on Intel’s low-power, high-performance microarchitecture “Silvermont,” announced in May 2013. The Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Processor Series (“Bay Trail-T“) is the company’s first mobile multi-core SoC and its most powerful offering¹ to date for tablets and other sleek mobile designs. It delivers a fast and fluid experience and a powerful balance of performance, battery life, graphics and rich features.

The flexibility of the new microarchitecture allows for variants of the SoC to serve multiple market segments, including new Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® processors (“Bay Trail”-M and -D) for entry 2 in 1s, laptops, desktops and all-in-one systems.

The family of “Bay Trail” SoCs provides a wide range of options for Intel’s customers by enabling one hardware configuration that supports both Windows 8* and Android*, ultimately offering people broader choice of form factors at a range of price points that meet the varied needs of consumers and business users.

“What we have delivered with our Bay Trail platform is an incredibly powerful SoC that delivers outstanding performance, long battery life, and a great experience for the way people use these devices today. It’s an incredible leap forward,” said Hermann Eul, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobile and Communications Group. “With Bay Trail as the foundation, our OEM partners are bringing a wide variety of designs at a range of prices to delight consumers, business users and IT managers.”

To bring this level of performance to a processor aimed at mobile devices, Intel developed a new platform that solves the contemporary technology challenges people have today, including the ability to multitask, the need for prolonged battery life and enhanced graphics, and the ability to have a more productive, enjoyable mobile experience. Video content and B-roll featuring Intel executives and developers on the making of Bay Trail and supporting images are available at intel.synapticdigital.com.

More Powerful Tablets, 2 in 1s with Intel Atom Z3000 Processor Series

The Intel Atom Z3000 Processor series delivers leading performance with all-day battery life. It is Intel’s most capable, best-performing platform to-date for tablets and other sleek mobile devices. It offers a smaller footprint and lower power usage while also enabling double the compute performance and triple the graphics performance compared to the previous-generation Intel Atom processor. The low-power SoC platform enables over 10 hours of active battery life² and three weeks of standby with an always-connected mobile experience.

The Intel Atom Z3000 Processor series also includes Intel® Burst Technology 2.0 with four cores, four threads and 2MB L2 cache. This performance allows users to multi-task, consume and create content, and enjoy a rich experience across either Android or Windows 8. People will also have a choice of form factors between tablets and 2 in 1s, with thin-and-light devices ranging from 8mm to 1 pound, and screen sizes ranging from 7-11.6 inches.* Tablets based on this latest Intel Atom SoC will be available at prices starting as low as $199.

The Intel Atom Z3000 series also enables business-ready tablets that deliver the experiences and designs people want with the protection for the enterprise that IT requires. With robust security features, including McAfee® DeepSAFE* Technology, AES hardware full disk encryption, Intel® Platform Trust Technology, Intel® Identity Protection Technology and Intel Data Protection Technology, the platform offers a more secure computing environment. It also supports Microsoft Windows 8 Pro Domain Join and Group Policy, and delivers full application and peripheral compatibility.

Intel has been working with top application developers to ensure the best experience is available for Intel® architecture platforms on both Windows and Android. Work with Cyberlink, Skype-HD and Netflix-HD, PhiSix, Arcsoft, Tieto, Gameloft, and many line of business apps are a few examples where Intel has focused on optimizing imaging, graphics, and overall performance that will ultimately improve the experience for consumers. Intel has a long history of optimizations for Windows and Andorid operating systems.

Intel will introduce 64-bit support for tablets in early 2014, delivering even greater value to IT managers. Devices built on this version of the SoC will offer enterprise-class applications and security, and with Intel® Identity Protection Technology (IPT) with PKI, will not require a VPN password when used with systems optimized for IPT and PKI.

Bay Trail Processors to Power Entry 2 in 1s, Notebooks, Desktops and All-in-Ones

The “Bay Trail M” line will be available in four SKUs: Intel Pentium N3510 and Intel Celeron N2910, N2810 and N2805 processors. This series will power a number of innovative 2 in 1 devices in addition to notebooks enabled with touch capabilities, bringing them to new audiences at lower price points.

With the microarchitecture flexibility and graphics improvements across all of the “Bay Trail” SKUs, the Pentium N3000 Processor and Celeron N2000 Processor series also boast two times faster performance in productivity applications and up to three times improvement in graphics compared to 2-year-old Intel-based value notebooks³. Designs powered by these processors can be fanless, can measure less than 11 mm thick and weigh just 2.2 lbs. Intel expects the systems to start at $199 for a clamshell device, $250 for a notebook with touch and $349 for a 2 in 1 device.

The “Bay Trail D” line will be available in three SKUs: Intel Pentium J2850, Intel Celeron J1850 and Intel Celeron J1750. These offerings are Intel’s smallest-ever packages for desktop processors, making them ideal for fanless and smaller form factor systems for entry level desktop computing. The processors are also ideal for vertical uses, including intelligent digital displays, with the power savings and up to three times faster performance than similar products from Intel just three years ago³. Full systems based on these SKUs are expected to start at $199.

Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Processor Series (“Bay Trail-T“) … its most powerful offering¹ to date for tablets and other sleek mobile designs
1 Based on the geometric mean of a variety of power and performance measurements across various benchmarks. Benchmarks included in this geomean are measurements on browsing benchmarks and workloads including SunSpider* and page load tests on Internet Explorer*, FireFox*, & Chrome*; Dhrystone*; EEMBC* workloads including CoreMark*; Android* workloads including CaffineMark*, AnTutu*, Linpack* and Quadrant* as well as measured estimates on SPECint* rate_base2000 & SPECfp* rate_base2000; on Silvermont preproduction systems compared to Atom processor Z2580. Individual results will vary. SPEC* CPU2000* is a retired benchmark. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go to: www.intel.com/performance

Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Processor Series (“Bay Trail-T“) … over 10 hours of active battery life²2 Battery life is measured 1080p,10″, 31Whr 13×7 OEM System; FFRD on 38.5 Whr 25×14, 10Mbps h.264 Elephants Dream video. Windows 8 only.

The “Bay Trail M” line … two times faster performance in productivity applications and up to three times improvement in graphics compared to 2-year-old Intel-based value notebooks³

The “Bay Trail D” line … up to three times faster performance than similar products from Intel just three years ago³3 Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go to www.intel.com/performance

Intel Baytrail SOC Explained [minipcpro YouTube channel, Sept 11, 2013]

More information: Intel’s Bay Trail Fact Sheet (PDF) [Intel, Sept 11, 2013]
as well as from: http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/55844/Bay-Trail
……………………….………………….. Z3740 ……… Z3770 ……. Z3770D ….. Z3740D

UPDATE as of Sept 20, 2013: By the time of publishing my analysis of The manufacturing side of the “Race to the Bottom” Ecosystem [‘USD 99 Allwinner’, Sept 19, 2013] the pricing information for the announced Bay Trail-T SoCs as well as the earlier generation Clover Trail (Z3770, Z3740 and Z2760) disappeared from subsequent ark.intel.com specification pages. I cannot think any other reason than the indicative pricing information became a public blunder for Intel when people were asking questions similar to the two opening ones in my above indicated post:

Are you aware of $32 entry-level Android tablets available for local resellers around the world? Are you aware that this is the price of Intel’s upcoming in October 2013 Bay Trail-T Z3740 SoC, i.e. a chip only?

The complete set of Z3000 Series SKUs from here (with all other Bay Trail SKUs as well):

According to #5 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture, Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation the 2-core Z3600 Series (Z3680, Z3680D) is targeting only the Android tablets:

4th Generation Intel® Atom™ Processor-Based Tablet Overview [Intel Developer Zone article, Sept 11, 2013]

Introducing the next generation Intel® Atom™ Processor
(Code named “Bay Trail”)

Abstract

Intel has launched its latest Intel® Atom™ processor, code named “Bay Trail”. It is the first Intel Atom processor based on 22-nm technology. This article discusses the key features of the platform like extended battery life, Intel® Gen7 graphics architecture, advanced imaging and video, improved performance, security, and more.

Platform Overview

The new processor offers Intel level performance for apps, games, photos, videos, and web browsing in the new thinnest/lightest/coolest form factors. The Intel Atom processor is optimized for tablets and 2 in 1 devices. Tablets based on the new Intel Atom processor support multiple cameras with excellent camera quality and feature integrated image signal processing for both still and video image capture. The table below shows the “Bay Trail” improvements.

Comparison of Clover Trail vs Bay Trail features

Intel Atom processor feature highlights

First-ever 22-nm Intel Atom processor

The new first-ever, 22-nm Intel Atom processor is a quad-core system on chip (SOC) with 4 cores/4 threads. With the CPU, graphics, and memory in one package, this modular design provides the flexibility to package a high-performance processor and graphics solution for multiple form factors.

Enhanced battery life

The new processor offers active battery life of more than 10 hours and standby performance of approximately 30 days³.

Graphics and Media Performance

The latest Intel Atom processor includes a 7th generation Intel® GPU with burst technology to provide a stunning graphics and media experience. The new processor supports high resolution displays up to 2560X1600 @ 60HZ and supports Intel® Wireless (Intel® WiDi) technology through Miracast. Seamless video playback is supported by a high performance and low power hardware acceleration of media encode and decode. The table below compares the two processors’ graphics features.

Intel Burst Technology 2.0

Automatically allows processor cores to run faster than the base operating frequency if they’re operating below power, current, and temperature specification limits.

Graphics Feature Comparison

Advanced Imaging and video

The new Intel Atom processor comes with an integrated image signal processor and supports excellent camera quality. It supports video capture at 1080p with full HD playback. Superior multi axis Document Image Solution (DIS) and image alignment extend High Dynamic Range (HDR) to moving devices hence removing the moving blur. Ghost removal is also extended from HDR to moving scenes.

Security Features

With people carrying their devices with them almost everywhere they go, they are more likely to lose their tablet or laptop. And even if they don’t lose them, devices are susceptible to the growing number of viruses and malware threats. Intel® Identity Protection Technology (Intel® IPT)⁴ can help businesses keep their critical information secure and protect against malware. Intel® IPT helps prevent unauthorized access to personal and business accounts by using hardware-based authentication.

New business-class tablets built with the Intel Atom processor Z3700 Series are specifically designed for the needs of business and the enterprise. Hardware-enhanced Intel® security technologies and support for software from McAfee offer robust security capabilities.

Intel® Wireless Display benefits on Intel Atom processor

Intel® WiDi enables content-protected HD streaming and interactive usages between tablets and TVs. It supports full 1080p video and low latency gaming, and is Miracast compliant Intel® WiDi can be used to link health indicators as well. A few of the capabilities of Miracast-enabled apps are:

– Share & Enjoy: use a big screen HDTV to enjoy and share media with family and friends
– Wireless: quickly and securely connect with standard Wi-Fi to a TV without cables
– Easy Set-up: simple user interface makes it easy to connect; no additional remote controls
– Portable: adapter is small and light, so solution can move with you

Resources for Developers

Below are links to some resources for programming on Windows 8 that can help you take advantage of the new Intel Atom processor features.

1: Optimize apps for touch: The latest devices with Intel Atom processors include touch screens. To learn more on how about UX/UI guidelines and how optimize app design for touch, see:
– Ultrabook™ Device and Tablet Windows* Touch Developer Guide
– Handling touch input in Windows* 8 Applications

2: Optimize apps with sensors: Intel Atom processor-based platforms come with several sensors: GPS, Compass, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, and Ambient Light. These sensor recommendations are aligned with the Microsoft standard for Windows 8. Use the Windows sensor APIs, and your code will run on all Ultrabook™ and tablet systems running Windows 8. For more information, see:
– Ultrabook™ and Tablet Windows* 8 Sensors Development Guide
– Detecting Ultrabook sensors on Windows 8

3: Optimize apps with Intel platform features: Take advantage of the security features such as Intel Anti-Theft Technology⁴ and Intel Identity Protection Technology with HD Graphics. Please refer to resources below for more information on each. For more information, see:
– Intel® Anti-Theft Technology
– Intel® Identity Protection Technology

4: Optimize for visible performance differentiation: Intel® Quick Sync Video encode and post-processing for media and visual intensive applications. For more information, see:
– Intel® Media SDK
– Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions
– Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer Manuals
– Graphics Developers Guide

5: Optimize app performance with Intel® tools: Check out the Intel® Composer XE 2013 and Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE 2013 for Windows. These suites provide compilers, Intel® Performance Primitives, and Intel® Threaded Building Blocks that help boost application performance. You can also optimize and future-proof media and graphics workloads on all IA platforms with the Intel® Graphics Performance Analyzers 2013 and Intel Media SDK. For more information, see:
– intel.com/software/products
– http://software.intel.com/en-us/windows-tool-suites/
– http://software.intel.com/en-us/vcsource/tools

¹ Claims for Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3770 (up to 2.40GHz, 4T4C Silvermont, 2MB L2 Cache) are based on an internal Intel® Reference design tablet which is not available for purchase: 10” screen with 25×14 resolution, Intel Gen 7 HD Graphics, pre-production graphics driver, 2GB (2x1GB) LPDDR3-1067, 64GB eMMC solid state storage, 38.5 Whr battery. Based on TouchXPRT, WebXPRT and SYSmark* 2012 Lite compared to Intel Atom Processor Z2760. Individual results will vary. Commercial systems may be available after future Windows updates. Consult your system manufacturer for more details. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go to http://www.intel.com/performance.

² Claims for Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3770 (up to 2.40GHz, 4T4C Silvermont, 2MB L2 Cache) are based on an internal Intel® Reference design tablet which is not available for purchase: 10” screen with 25×14 resolution, Intel Gen 7 HD Graphics, pre-production graphics driver, 2GB (2x1GB) LPDDR3-1067, 64GB eMMC solid state storage, 38.5 Whr battery. Measured using 3DMark* Ice Storm—a 3D graphics benchmark that measures 3D gaming performance compared to Intel Atom Processor Z2760. Find out more at http://www.futuremark.com. Individual results will vary. Commercial systems may be available after future Windows updates. Consult your system manufacturer for more details. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go tohttp://www.intel.com/performance.

³ Based on a 30W Hour battery on 19×10 resolution on 10.1” display. Higher resolution will require larger battery. Active use measured as 1080/30 fps local video playback. Battery life may differ based on SKU and SoC performance.

⁴ No computer system can provide absolute security. Requires an Intel® Identity Protection Technology-enabled system, including an enabled Intel® processor, enabled chipset, firmware, software, and Intel integrated graphics (in some cases) and participating website/service. Intel assumes no liability for lost or stolen data and/or systems or any resulting damages. For more information, visit http://ipt.intel.com/. Consult your system manufacturer and/or software vendor for more information.

Tablet Performance: Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3770 [Intel Infographic]

System Configurations – Performance

Latest Generation: Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3770 (4T4C, up to 2.4 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache) measured on Intel® Reference Design 1.4.1: Memory: 2 GB; OS: Microsoft* Windows* 8.1 RTM; Browser: Chrome* 29.0.1547.57; Graphics driver 10.18.10.3266; Display size: 10”; Display Resolution: 2560×1440; Battery size: 38.5 WHr; Storage: 64 GB
Prior generation / existing tablet: Intel® Atom™ Processor Z2760 (4T2C, up to 1.8 GHz, 1 MB L2 Cache) measured on Acer* Iconia* W510: Memory: 2 GB; OS Microsoft* Windows* 8; Browser: Chrome* 29.0.1547.57; Graphics driver: 9.14.3.1082; Display size: 10.1”; Display Resolution: 1366×768; Battery size: 26.6 WHr; Storage: 64 GB

System Configurations – Battery life

Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3770 (4T4C, up to 2.4 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache) measured on Intel® Reference Design 1.4.1: Memory: 2 GB; OS: Microsoft* Windows* 8.1 RTM; Browser: Chrome* 29.0.1547.57; Graphics driver 10.18.10.3266; Display size: 10”; Display Resolution: 2560×1440; Battery size: 38.5 WHr; Storage: 64 GB
Intel® Atom™ Processor Z3740 (4T4C, up to 1.86 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache) measured on OEM pre-production system: Memory: 2 GB; OS: Microsoft* Windows* 8.1 RTM; Browser: Chrome* 29.0.1547.57; Graphics driver 10.18.10.3266; Display size: 10”; Display Resolution: 1366×768; Battery size: 31 WHr; Storage: 64 GB

Product and Performance Information

1. Based on TouchXPRT, WebXPRT, and SYSmark* 2012 Lite compared to Intel® Atom™ processor Z2560. Individual results will vary.

2. Measured by TouchXPRT* 2013 overall score and Convert video for sharing sub score. TouchXPRT 2013 is a benchmark for evaluating the capabilities of your Windows* 8 and Windows RT devices. TouchXPRT 2013 runs tests based on five user scenarios (beautify photo album, prepare photos for sharing, convert videos for sharing, export podcast to MP3, and create slideshow from photos) and produces results for each of the five test scenarios plus an overall score. Find out more at http://www.principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/touchxprt/.

3. Measured by WebXPRT* 2013. WebXPRT 2013 uses scenarios created to mirror the tasks you do every day to compare the performance of almost any Web-enabled device. It contains four HTML5- and JavaScript-based workloads: Photo Effects, Face Detect, Stocks Dashboard, and Offline Notes. Find out more at http://www.principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/webxprt/. File transfer workload measures time transferring a 423 MB playlist from a PC to a tablet.

4. Measured by SYSmark* 2012 Lite overall score and TabletMark. SYSmark 2012 Lite is an application-based benchmark that reflects usage patterns of business users in the areas of office productivity, data/financial analysis, system management, and web development. SYSmark 2012 Lite features popular applications from each of their respective fields. Find out more at http://bapco.com/products/sysmark-2012-lite. TabletMark is targeted specifically for touch-enabled devices. With support for Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT, TabletMark measures performance for two different usage scenarios: Web & Email and Photo & Video sharing. Find out more at http://bapco.com/products/tabletmark.

5. Measured using 3DMark* Ice Storm, a 3-D graphics benchmark that measures 3-D gaming performance. Find out more at http://www.futuremark.com.

6. Display resolution is an OEM feature selection. Consult your system manufacturer for more details.

7. Battery life is measured using a 1080p 10Mbps h.264 Elephants Dream video. Configuration: In the device settings, disable all radios except Wi-Fi. Disable Intel® Display Power Saving Technology (Intel® DPST), set up the system to ~200 nits screen brightness using a full screen white background, and re-enable Intel DPST. Turn OFF the adaptive brightness setting under Power Options in Control Panel. Set “Dim the display” to never on both battery and AC. Set “Put the computer to sleep” to never on both battery and AC. Wait 15 minutes after boot. Launch the default Windows* 8.1 Style UI video player, start the workload video in a loop, and disconnect the AC plug to start the test. Measure the time until battery is exhausted.

8. Requires an Intel® Wireless Display-enabled system, compatible adapter, and TV with 1080p and Blu-ray* or other protected content playback, a compatible adapter and media player supporting Intel® WiDi software, and graphics driver installed. Consult your tablet manufacturer. For more information, see http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/intel-wireless-display.html. 

9. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations, and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information, go to http://www.intel.com/performance.

ASUS Transformer Book T100 [the Official ASUS Facebook page, Sept 11, 2013]

The announcements just keep coming! Introducing the ASUS Transformer Book T100, the 2-in-1 Ultraportable laptop with a 10″ tablet powered by Intel’s latest Bay Trail-T quad-core processor. Available in the US starting October 18th from only $349.

ASUS Transformer Book T100 Press Event [ASUS North America YouTube channel, Sept 12, 2013]

on September 11, 2013 we [via Jonney Shih, the Chairman of Asus] introduced the ASUS Transformer Book T100 to the world. We Transform.

In retrospective:
ASUS: We are the real transformers, not Microsoft [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 17, 2012]

Jerry Shen, CEO, ASUS (from IDF Day 2 Keynote Transcript):

The machine in my hand, T100, which features the incredible Bay Trail quad-core processor, and incredible 11 hours of battery life. With SD IPS display and stereo audios. And the detachable keyboard back features precisely keyboard and touchpad. It’s perfect for productivity. We are very proud of this machine, and very excited about the Bay Trail quad-core promise. It’s perfect, it’s a perfect two-in-one device in the market.

Dell shows off new Venue tablet during IDF 2013 Keynote [camwilmot YouTube channel, Sept 12, 2013]

Intel invited Dell up to the stage in order to show off its new Venue tablet that is powered by Intel’s new Bay Trail architecture. In addition to previewing this new Venue tablet, Dell also informed us that they are creating a new family of tablets that will be known by the Venue name. We should know more about these in early October.

Neil Hand, VP Product Marketing, Dell (from IDF Day 2 Keynote Transcript):

I am really excited to be here at the Bay Trail launch to talk about some of the new platforms that Dell can actually innovate from some of the Bay Trail technologies that Intel is bringing out.

And what I want to show you today is, firstly, one of our new Windows 8 eight-inch tablets we’ll be introducing very soon. This system is part of a new family that we’re introducing that are going to really innovate and drive new capabilities into very small new form factors.

The whole family will offer several key benefits.

Firstly, quality, quality Dell is renowned for, products that last a long time but have great performance on the screen and usability. Secondly, battery life. Anybody worry about range anxiety? Am I going to be able to turn it on and be able to use it? This really fixes that.

Security, making sure you’re connecting to a business, or you’re connecting to your home. That data is secure in transit and on the device.

And lastly, to make sure that there is connectivity, a range of 4G and LTE connectivity, so wherever you happen to be, you’ll be able to connect to the wells.

So great features in the products. But more importantly, we think, is actually being able to have fun and easy to-use products.

So with this introduction, I’m actually pleased to announce here at IDF that we’ll be branding our new family of tablets, Venue, the Dell Venue family. Venue means the place where things happen. And to us, this really is the place that things happen and becomes the center of the universe.

So you can actually carry your entire life with you, connect back, use Dell pocket clouds to be able to access content, be able to use your files and applications wherever you happen to be, really excited about them.

And October 2 in New York City, we’ll be announcing the entire range of products.

Microsoft answers to the questions about Nokia devices and services acquisition: tablets, Windows downscaling, reorg effects, Windows Phone OEMs, cost rationalization, ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment, and supporting developers for an aggressive growth in market share

September 4, 2013 2:32 pm / 1 Comment on Microsoft answers to the questions about Nokia devices and services acquisition: tablets, Windows downscaling, reorg effects, Windows Phone OEMs, cost rationalization, ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment, and supporting developers for an aggressive growth in market share

Preceding analysis of the announcement materials on this blog:
Unique Nokia assets (from factories to global device distribution & sales, and the Asha sub $100 smartphone platform etc.) will now empower the One Microsoft devices and services strategy [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 3, 2013]
Other views are given here as well, after the Q&A excerpts coming immediately below. From a Reuters’ editor, an IHS senior analyst, an investment bank executive, and a business news presenter on France24 – in the form of 4 embedded videos. Those views could be summarized as “Nokia did a good deal while the success of Microsoft with this acqusition is uncertain and needs a lot of further investment”.

Let’s see how much the answers to the questions on the Microsoft Nokia Transaction Conference Call (Sept 3, 2013 ) were able to clarify the analyses and critical views:

Tablets?

STEVE BALLMER: Tablets is an area where we absolutely have our own first-party hardware, as you know, and see opportunities to continue to build and strengthen. And it’s an area where we have very strong programs in place with our OEMs, particularly on the Intel Atom-processor-based product lines that people will really get a lot of value on, and you’ll see a range of new products coming for the holiday season.

Scaling Windows down?

TERRY MYERSON: It’s definitely a priority for us to bring Windows to as many customers as we can around the world. Lower-price phones is a strategic initiative for the next Windows Phone release, but we have nothing more really to say now.

Acquisition effect on the reorg?

STEVE BALLMER: No [effect], the reorg is absolutely intact. Obviously, the devices business has a broader scale and new capability. Julie Larson-Green, who is running devices and studios is flat out. We’ve got a lot of work we’re doing here over the next several months. And Julie and her team will work on a planning and integration phase. Julie will continue. She’s excited about working on devices, but absolutely, the critical mass of the group with that acquisition is in the phone space, and Stephen Elop will run the group and will take the appropriate steps with Julie working with Stephen to figure out appropriate integrations.

Windows Phones coming from OEMs in the future?

STEVE BALLMER: Today, Nokia, as I said, is well over 80 percent of all of our phones, and I don’t foresee that changing dramatically in the short run, but as the market grows, I expect to see additional percentages, if you will, go to our OEMs, but it’s premature to predict today. We definitely have interest from OEMs in the Windows Phone opportunity given that people understand we’re going to blaze the trails here with our own first-party hardware.

Cost rationalization over time?

STEVE BALLMER: Amy will take it. I do want to highlight that in many hardware companies, manufacturing labor is primarily outsourced. And Amy can remind us the numbers, but in Nokia, there is more in-sourced manufacturing. Nokia has had a strategy about that that, obviously, they’ve executed very well. But you kind of have apples and oranges a little bit between the 32,000 and our almost 100,000. But Amy, why don’t you provide some context and detail?

AMY HOOD: Sure. Thanks, Brent. About 18,000 of those 32,000 employees are really directly a part of the manufacturing business. And so I think a better way as you think about the scale and opportunity is to really focus on the percentage of Nokia outside of that.

I think both Steve and Stephen did a thoughtful job in the execution slide about talking about the philosophy we’re using as we go through the integration process around the benefits of the incremental sales force that we’re getting with Chris and his team, as well as really going through and being thoughtful about the rationalization so that we get to one voice, one brand, one team that can best execute and be efficient.

What was not possible that the acquisition enables now, or is it only ensuring a presence in the smartphone market for a long-term basis, i.e. ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment?

STEVE BALLMER: Well, the latter is certainly true. We see at least three distinct opportunities to do better as one company than as two.

Number one, we talk about one brand and the unified voice to the market. I will say that I think we can probably do better for consumer name than the Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 1020. And yet, because of where both companies are and the independent nature of the businesses, we haven’t been able to shorten that. Just take that as a proxy for a range of improvements that we feel we can make, we can simplify, the way in which we work with operators and the overall consumer branding and messaging gets much simpler. That is an efficiency of being one company.

On the innovation front, we’ve done a lot of great work together, and yet as two companies, there’s always some lines along which it’s hard to innovate. The Lumia 1020 is awesome in terms of what it has for camera and imaging, and yet I think as one company we would have doubled down on that bet and made an even greater range of software and services investments around the core hardware platform.

Third, I think we get business agility. As two companies, we’re making two independent sets of decisions about where and when and how to invest by country, by operator, by price point, and there is, let me say, an inefficiency financially as well as a lack of agility that comes with that.

So in all three of those areas, despite the fact that I think we’ve done a really good job, we can improve and accelerate quite noticeably.

How the much needed developer support for the fairly aggressive market share assumption will be ensured?

Note: the “fairly aggressive market share assumption” was presented by Microsoft as:

To which I added the following calculation and judgment in my analysis post:
15% of the 1.7B units in 2018 is 255M units. The ~$45 billion estimated revenue at that time means ~$176 ASP. Considering the latest Q2’13 EUR 157 [$207] ASP of Lumia it seems feasible, but in 5 years timeframe it needs a strong premium strategy to achieve that. … NPV – Net Present Value.

TERRY MYERSON: Well, for developers today, Windows offers an incredible opportunity with the installed base of PCs, phones, and tablets, and soon the new Xbox One. We want to offer them this opportunity to build either HTML5 applications or native applications that span all of those devices, enabling them to reach segments of users on those devices, users in an enterprise, users on a gaming console, and just provide them very unique opportunities to monetize their application investments.

So we’re pretty excited about the platforms we’re bringing to market. Developer reception in some areas is certainly better than others, but overall we’re making progress, and we know we’ve got a lot more work to do.

STEVE BALLMER: One of the keys, of course, is driving volume. We think we have differentiated products. We can tell the story a little bit better. We can get the volume up, and we have over 160,000 applications in the store. We know we have a long way to go, and the key is really offering with our own first-party applications and first-party hardware, enough reasons to buy to drive volumes and then attract the broader developer ecosystem.

Obviously, HTML5 would be kind of a neutral thing. I would expect all the major platforms to embrace it to some extent. And in some senses, it takes away a little bit of the apps barrier to entry, which we know we need to work hard on right now.

Windows [inc. Phone] 8.x chances of becoming the alternative platform to iOS and Android: VERY SLIM as it is even more difficult for Microsoft now than any time before

August 20, 2013 2:39 pm / 1 Comment on Windows [inc. Phone] 8.x chances of becoming the alternative platform to iOS and Android: VERY SLIM as it is even more difficult for Microsoft now than any time before

First recent findings about The hierarchy of developer needs: Creativeness, not money is the top motivator [VisionMobile blog, Aug 12, 2013] are showing quite clearly how much Microsoft is in disadvantage in the global developers community not only vs. iOS and Android, but even vs. HTML5 in general, which is already a real third platform for developers. Regarding that read UPDATE: HTML5 Vs. Native Mobile Apps — HTML5 Is Down But Not Out [Business Insider Australia, Aug 14, 2013], HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

It is even more so as a much better HTML5 platform (than the corresponding Windows 8 subset, so called WinJS) came now to the market with FireFox OS:
– as its “first two devices hitting the market – the Alcatel OneTouch Fire and ZTE Open – the latter just launched in Spain from Telefonica for €69 ($90) contract-free including €30 ($39) of airtime for prepaid” according to p. 12 of the free Developer Economics Q3 2013 [VisionMobile, July 29, 2013] report
– and “In just a short space of time, Firefox OS has managed to amass a respectable Developer Intent share, even before devices hit the market, and while competing for Windows Phone, Windows 8 and BlackBerry 10 all of which are much older platforms, with devices in market and billions of market dollars behind them.” as per p. 24 of the same report.

Now the quite important findings from The hierarchy of developer needs: Creativeness, not money is the top motivator [VisionMobile blog, Aug 12, 2013]

What motivates developers? Is it fame or fortune? Our new Developer Segmentation 2013 report [starting from £1,495.00] addresses this questions, presenting a needs-bases segmentation model that focuses on developer goals, not just demographics. Based on data from our latest Developer Economics survey (6,000 respondents from 115 countries [FREE to download from here: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]), this article gives you some insights from the report, discussing how the sense of achievement, not money is the prime motivator for developers.

…

Most business are resorting to traditional, textbook marketing techniques to segment developers – by technology (web, Java, Windows, Android, Apple), job function (coders, designers, architects, team leads, IT managers, CxOs), by company size, app category (games vs enterprise developers), by audience (B2C vs B2B) or by demographics (age, income, education or location).

Yet all these segmentation models are bound to fail, as they fundamentally neglect to address how developers make investment decisions in a new platform, API or SDK. In other words, it’s not age, job function, audience or technology background that influences how a developer chooses between Apple, Google, Windows Phone, BlackBerry or Tizen.

To understand the complex mosaic of developer personas we segment developers in terms of their outcomes, or what developers are trying to achieve. This is based on the Jobs to Be Done methodology, popularized by Harvard Professor Clay Christensen and which constitutes today’s cutting edge in segmentation techniques. We have backed this model with unprecedented statistical rigor and hard data, from the largest-ever mobile developer survey of 6,000+ developers.

Building on our earlier Developer Economics 2012 research work, we extracted hard data on thousands of developers in terms of their aspirations, motivations, challenges and plans in app development. We produced a unique model of eight developer segments – the Hobbyists, the Explorers, the Hunters, the Guns for Hire, the Product Extenders, the Digital Content Publishers, the Gold Seekers and the enterprise IT developers.

How do these eight segments and three clusters contribute to the app economy? More importantly, when do these segments interact with platforms?

We find that Explorers and Hobbyists, those seeking to learn, have fun and self-improve, make up 33% of the mobile developer population but only 13% of the app economy revenues. These segments prefer – more than average – BlackBerry 10, Windows Phone as a platform, as these are more often associated with experimentation and learning.

The Hunters and Guns for Hire, those seeking revenues from the app economy, make up 42% of the developer population and 48% of the app economy revenues. These segments prefer – more than average – iOS as a platform, due to the consistent revenue-generating opportunities of the platform.

Product Extenders, Enterprise IT developers, Digital Content Publishers and Gold Seekers, aiming at extending a [non-mobile] business [with apps], make up 29% of the developer population, and a whopping 39% of app economy revenues. These segments prefer – more than average – Android and HTML5 as a platform – due to the reach that these platforms offer across the entire smartphone and feature phone installed base.

… <goes to “The Hierarchy of Developer Motivations” chart, not relevant to this post, so omitted> …

Then Microsoft should take into account The evolution of handset business models: From source of profits to distribution channel [VisionMobile blog, Aug 5, 2013]

The evolution of the PC and mobile handset industry have been mirror images of each other, as both saw two distinct disruptions: a new market disruption, followed by a low-end disruption. Guest author Sameer Singh discusses how the shift from integrated companies to modular competitors will pressure hardware profit margins across the industry, leading to the emergence of a new business model, i.e. hardware-as-distribution.

The mobile handset industry has already seen two waves of disruption: A “new market disruption”, led by Apple, and a “low-cost disruption”, driven by Google and its Android platform. Each wave created distinctly different business models that completely realigned competitive dynamics in the industry. Where do we go from here?

We believe that the coming, third wave of disruption will again reshuffle the deck for all industry players. We will see growth in a new class of business models, where handset hardware is no longer seen as a source of profits, but is treated as a distribution channel for digital products and services.

… <two long sections about “Dual Disruption Patterns in Computing” and “Impact of Value Chain Integration on Business Model Evolution” which are quite important to prove the author’s prediction about the inevitability of the third wave of mobile handset industry disuption, but for us here it is sufficient for our subject to include his “Third Disruption” discussion> …

The Third Disruption: Hardware as a Distribution Channel

As there will be fewer profits left in the handset industry, a third wave of disruption is a certainty.

In the PC industry, once the dominance of modular architectures led to deep commoditization, hardware just became a distribution channel for software (the operating system and applications). The evolution of the mobile handset industry works out slightly differently. Google essentially destroyed the software licensing business model by giving the Android operating system away for free. Consequently, the cost of owning a proprietary operating system became unviable for most players (like Motorola, Sony Ericsson or Nokia) because hardware margins became severely pressured. This ensured that industry focus and profitability would accrue to the next layer of the value chain that was underserved, i.e. Google’s core business – online services.

In the PC industry, OEMs like Dell and Sony used the “hardware as distribution” approach to charge software vendors to pre-install applications on their devices and boost margins. In the mobile industry, we have seen already numerous companies follow this model to create a competitive advantage by leveraging established ecosystems. Many service companies like Baidu, Dropbox, Opera, Facebook and Whatsapp have attempted this strategy by partnering with OEMs to pre-install or use their services by default.

Another variation of this strategy, followed by services and content companies, is selling relatively high-end hardware at cost, in order to enable deeper penetration of the company’s core services. Companies like Amazon and Xiaomi compete asymmetrically with true hardware vendors in order to expand their consumer base. Both strategies have been quite successful – Amazon has expanded Kindle Fire availability to numerous countries based on strong sales and Xiaomi expects to double its handset sales ~~to 15 million~~ this year [to 20 million, see p. 25 of my The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower mini e-book]. Many more services companies like Evernote and Spotify are contemplating the low-cost, “hardware as distribution” strategy in the future. We have already seen a smartphone called SmartNamo dedicated to an Indian politician, Narendra Modi. Will we see a “Justin Bieber phone”, “Shah Rukh Khan phone” or even a “Real Madrid phone”?

Rapid commoditization will only make it easier for companies to convert hardware into a distribution channel. The tablet industry has seen more price competition than the smartphone market in the absence of carrier-driven price distortions. As a result, commoditization has been much more rapid and the “hardware as distribution” model has come to the forefront in a very narrow time frame. Low-cost tablet hardware has allowed companies like Newscorp to enter the industry with preloaded, education-focused content. We have seen similar models emerge in South Africa, India, China and many more countries. As price competition increases, commoditization pressure in the smartphone industry, variations of “hardware as distribution”, could become one of the primary drivers of profitability.

The expected shift in handset business models will reshuffle the deck once again. Companies that catch the trend early will find plenty of opportunities to create competitive advantages and thrive in the new environment. Those who miss it will be destined to fight the losing battle of “competition to the best”, which Prof. Porter calls “the granddaddy of all strategy mistakes”.

On pp. 32-33 of my The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower mini e-book [Aug 14, 2013] it was further noted that:

China Daily reported not less than 14 months ago that Xiaomi, China’s Apple success story?

…

The broader vision of Xiaomi, Lei [Jun, chairman and chief executive officer of Xiaomi Corp] pointed out, is to ship more than 100 million smartphones annually for one model by 2016.

“I know it (the vision) is crazy, but we would like to have a try,” said Lei. Cupertino-based Apple managed to sell more than 90 million iPhone devices last year. It is widely believed that Apple will break the 100 million unit mark this year, although it has been less than five years since the first iPhone launched in 2007.

The difference in business model was even more clearly communicated in this recent interview: Xiaomi CEO: Don’t call us China’s Apple [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 15, 2013]

Aug. 15 – China’s Xiaomi has sparked a frenzy with a low-cost smartphone that may help the tech firm widen its lead over Apple in the local market — but CEO Lei Jun says it has very different ambitions.

This shows very well how the above mentioned third disruption could fundamentally alter the current state of mobile intelligent devices market. As far as our subject is concerned my three other posts are giving further clues about growing Microsoft difficulties:

Google Play catchup with iOS App Store and its way of assuring compatibility across Android 1.6 to 4.3 [Aug 15, 2013]
With Android and forked Android smartphones as the industry standard Nokia relegated to a niche market status while Apple should radically alter its previous premium strategy for long term [Aug 17, 2013] from which I include here this major chart (from myself) as well:

Watch also a recent video report closely related to that: In China smartphone market, cheap rules – and Apple suffers [Reuters TV YouTube channel, Aug 19, 2013]

Aug. 19 – Apple’s seen its market share in China dwindle as homegrown smartphone makers crank out feature-packed budget models. Could the launch of a cheaper iPhone restore its flagging fortunes?

Android to overtake the overall PC market? [Aug 20, 2013] from which I include here this major chart (from IDC) as well:

Consider also Apple and Samsung Losing Share to Chinese Smartphone Makers [China Internet Watch, Aug 7, 2013]

The high-end players like Apple and Samsung are losing share to Chinese manufacturers like ZTE, Huawei, and Lenovo, and no-name brands which are willing to make extremely cheap smartphones. As you can see in the picture, Samsung’s Q2 share in 2013 is 1% lesser than that of 2012, and Apple decreases 3.6% share, while Chinese manufacturers grow 3.5%.

With Android and forked Android smartphones as the industry standard Nokia relegated to a niche market status while Apple should radically alter its previous premium strategy for long term

August 17, 2013 2:55 pm / 4 Comments on With Android and forked Android smartphones as the industry standard Nokia relegated to a niche market status while Apple should radically alter its previous premium strategy for long term

Here is the chart reflecting the performance of the market-leading mobile phones upto Q2’13:

From this the most visible things are:

Android and Android-forked (Xiaomi etc.) smartphones are the undisputed industry standards to dominate the market in years to come
Both the Symbian to Windows Phone and S40 to Asha Full Touch smartphone platform transition strategies from Nokia could survive the continued Android onslaught but only in a niche market status
There is no room for Apple’s further growth, and both the platform and the company could face a gradual decline in the smartphone market

My other observations about the state of the smartphone market after Q2’13 were already presented in the following posts:

Superphones turning point: segment satured with Tier 1 globals while the Chinese locals are at less than 40% of the Samsung price [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 3, 2013] OR Samsung is leapfrogging Apple while the Chinese local brands are coming close to Samsung but at less than 40% price. Meanwhile the superphone segment of the market becomes saturated.
Xiaomi, OPPO and Meizu–top Chinese brands of smartphone innovation [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 1, 2013]
GiONEE (金立), the emerging global competitor on the smartphone market [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 22, 2013]
Eight-core MT6592 for superphones and big.LITTLE MT8135 for tablets implemented in 28nm HKMG are coming from MediaTek to further disrupt the operations of Qualcomm and Samsung [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 20-29, 2013]
China: Entry-level dual core IPS WVGA (480×800) smartphones $65+ now, quad-core $70+ in June [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 29, 2013]

In essence we came to a point when the superphone market came down in price to as low as $110 and up, while the entry-level segment of good quality came down to a $65+ price level. Also the smartphone market became saturated in all segments which brings an end to Samsung’s ability to base its premium profitability ambitions on smartphones alone (almost), as it was reflected in 20 years of Samsung “New Management” as manifested by the latest, June 20th GALAXY & ATIV innovations [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 2-26, 2013]:

… innovations in the broadest sense of the world: technology, hardware and software engineering and design, marketing in general and branding in particular etc.

Updates: Q2 record-high operating profit + smartphone worries deepen + overall business situation + nonproportionally high capex of the semiconductor business + the #2 capex beneficiary, the Display Panel Segment

These observations also led to much greater conclusions about the upcoming changes:

China is the epicenter of the mobile Internet world, so of the next-gen HTML5 web [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 5, 2013]
The Upcoming Mobile Internet Superpower [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Aug 13, 2013]

Below I will assess the ‘Nokia Q2’13 market situation and changes’ as well as include ‘Gartner’s own assessment of the Q2’13 overall market situation and the changes’ to complete the picture.

Nokia Q2’13 market situation and changes:

Looking at the progress of Nokia Symbian to Windows Phone transformation Q2’13 was a straight continuation of the trends noted for Q1’13 in Nokia: Continued moderate progress with Lumia, urgent Asha Touch refresh and new innovations to come against the onslaught of unbranded Android and forked Android players in China and India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 18, 2013] as you could also well observe from the chart included here as well:

Nokia was extensively discussing its Windows Phone transition in Nokia Corporation Interim Report for Q2 2013 and January-June 2013 [press release, July 18, 2013]:

Lumia Q2 volumes increased 32% quarter-on-quarter to 7.4 million units, reflecting strong demand from customers for a broadened Lumia product range.
Commenting on the second quarter results, Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, said: “ … In our Smart Devices business unit, we continue to focus on delivering meaningful differentiation to consumers around the world. We are very proud of the recent creations by our Lumia team, from the Lumia 520 – our most affordable Windows Phone 8 product which has enjoyed a strong start in markets like China, France, India, Thailand, the UK, the US and Vietnam – to the Lumia 1020, our star imaging product which we unveiled to the world last week. Overall, Lumia volumes grew to 7.4 million in the second quarter, the highest for any quarter so far and showing increasing momentum for the ecosystem. During the third quarter, we expect that our new Lumia products will drive a significant part of our Smart Devices revenue.”
In the third quarter 2013, supported by the wider availability of recently announced Lumia products as well as recently announced Mobile Phones products, Nokia expects higher Devices & Services net sales, compared to the second quarter 2013.
The year-on-year decline in our Smart Devices volumes in the second quarter 2013 continued to be driven by the strong momentum of competing smartphone platforms and our portfolio transition from Symbian products to Lumia products. The decline was primarily due to lower Symbian volumes, partially offset by higher Lumia volumes. Our Symbian volumes decreased from 6 million units in the second quarter 2012 to approximately zero in the second quarter 2013. Our Lumia volumes increased from 4.0 million in the second quarter 2012 to 7.4 million in the second quarter 2013.
On a sequential basis, the increase in our Smart Devices volumes in the second quarter 2013 was due to higher Lumia volumes, as we started shipping the Lumia 520 and 720 in significant volumes. In the second quarter 2013, the vast majority of Smart Devices volumes were from Windows Phone 8-based Lumia products.
The year-on-year increase in our Smart Devices ASP in the second quarter 2013 was primarily due to a positive mix shift towards sales of our Lumia products which carry a higher ASP than our Symbian products, partially offset by our pricing actions. Sequentially, the decrease in our Smart Devices ASP in the second quarter 2013 was primarily due to a negative mix shift towards sales of our lower priced Windows Phone 8-based Lumia products as well as our pricing actions.
Nokia announced and started shipments in select markets of the Nokia Lumia 925, a new interpretation of its award-winning flagship, the Nokia Lumia 920. The Nokia Lumia 925 introduces metal for the first time to the Nokia Lumia range and includes the most advanced lens technology and next-generation imaging software to capture clearer and sharper pictures and video even in low light conditions. The Nokia Lumia 925 offers a variety of exclusive services such as Nokia Music for unlimited streaming of free playlists, integrated HERE services, and the option to add wireless charging with a snap-on wireless charging cover.
Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 928 smartphone, exclusive to Verizon Wireless. With a 8.7MP camera and Nokia’s PureView imaging innovation, the Nokia Lumia 928 delivers superior imaging and video performance that enables people to capture bright, blur free photos and videos, even in low light conditions. The sleek and stylish smartphone comes with the latest high-end Nokia Lumia experiences, including Nokia Music, HERE services, and built-in wireless charging.
Nokia started shipping in volumes the Nokia Lumia 520, its most affordable Windows Phone 8 smartphone, delivering experiences normally found only in high-end smartphones, such as the same digital camera lenses found on the Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Music for free music out of the box and even offline, and HERE services.
Nokia’s Lumia range of smartphones continued to attract businesses, including Miele & Cie. KG, a global leader in domestic appliances and commercial machinery, which has chosen the Nokia Lumia range as the smartphone of choice for its global employees.
The Windows Phone Store continued to strengthen in terms of the quantity and quality of applications. The Windows Phone Store today offers more than 165 000 applications and games.

The Q2’13-related improvements mentioned above and influencing the below chart were even more extensively discussed in my earlier posts:

High-volume Nokia Lumia superphones with Windows Phone 8 extended on the top for China, and on the entry level needed for Asia and Middle-East as well UPDATE: at even lower price by 27% [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Dec 5, 2012 – March 21, 2013] Note that the Lumia 520 W-CDMA mentioned there for ¥ 1299.00 [$209] is now (Aug 17) ¥ 899.00 [$147] while in India it is even lower priced at Rs 7,667+ [$124+]
Nokia’s expanded, new risks and uncertainties for its Windows Phone strategy for 2013 [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, March 17, 2013]

while the Q3’13-related actions of improvements in these posts:

Nokia Lumia 1020: an excellent case of Nokia’s contribution to Microsoft as a key innovation partner [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 12, 2013]
Minutes of a high-octane but also expert evangelist CEO: Stephen Elop, Nokia [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 12, 2013]

Now look again at the performance chart for the reflections:

From the further decline of Asha Full Touch you could see that the Temporary Nokia setback in India [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 28, 2013] continued into the Q2’13 as well as the result of entry-level local brand Android smartphones being in heavy price competition with Nokia Asha Full Touch during Q2 while having superior hardware specifications. Even Samsung’s REX 70 competed in price with Asha Full Touch.

Nokia was talking in his Nokia Corporation Interim Report for Q2 2013 and January-June 2013 [press release, July 18, 2013] only about the following future-oriented actions that were introduced in Q2 in order to remedy this situation:

In Devices & Services, our Mobile Phones business unit started to demonstrate some signs of recovery in the latter part of the second quarter following a difficult start to the year. Also, towards the end of the second quarter, we started to ship the Asha 501, which brings a new design and user experience to the highly competitive sub-100 USD market. While we are very encouraged by the consumer response to our innovations in this price category, our Mobile Phones business unit is planning to take actions to focus its product offering and improve product competitiveness.

On a year-on-year basis, our Mobile Phones volumes in the second quarter 2013 were negatively affected by competitive industry dynamics, including intense smartphone competition at increasingly lower price points and intense competition at the low end of our product portfolio. Compared to the second quarter 2012, our Mobile Phones volumes declined across our portfolio, most notably for our non-full-touch devices that we sell to our customers for above EUR 30, partially offset by higher sales volumes of Asha full-touch smartphones.

Nokia started production at its new manufacturing facility in Hanoi, Vietnam. The new site has been established to produce our most affordable Asha smartphones and feature phones.

Nokia announced and started shipments of the Nokia Asha 501, the first of a new generation of smartphones to run on the new Asha platform. Retailing at a suggested price of USD 99, the Nokia Asha 501 offers users affordable smartphone design with bold color, a high-quality build and an innovative user interface. The new Asha platform also allows developers who write applications for the Nokia Asha 501 to reach all smartphones based on the new Asha platform without having to re-write code.

These things were already extensively discussed in my earlier posts:

Nokia’s non-Windows crossroad [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 2, 2013]
New Asha platform and ecosystem to deliver a breakthrough category of affordable smartphone from Nokia [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9, 2013] my composite post of the all relevant launch information
New Nokia Asha platform for developers [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, May 9, 2013] my composite post of the all relevant development platform information
Nokia becoming the next Samsung from its new Vietnamese manufacturing base? [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 24, 2013]

And here is how Gartner was assessing the Q2’13 overall market situation and the changes:

Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Grew 46.5 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013 and Exceeded Feature Phone Sales for First Time [press release, Aug 14, 2013]

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 3.6 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013

Microsoft Has Become the No. 3 Smartphone OS Overtaking BlackBerry

Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 435 million units in the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 3.6 percent from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide smartphone sales to end users reached 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from the second quarter of 2012. Sales of feature phones to end users totaled 210 million units and declined 21 percent year-over-year.

“Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions.

Samsung maintained the No. 1 position in the global smartphone market, as its share of smartphone sales reached 31.7 percent, up from 29.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (see Table 1). Apple’s smartphone sales reached 32 million units in the second quarter of 2013, up 10.2 percent from a year ago.

Table 1

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Samsung

71,380.9

31.7

45,603.8

29.7

Apple

31,899.7

14.2

28,935.0

18.8

LG Electronics

11,473.0

5.1

5,827.8

3.8

Lenovo

10,671.4

4.7

4,370.9

2.8

ZTE

9,687.6

4.3

6,331.4

4.1

Others

90,213.6

40.0

62,704.0

40.8

Total

225,326.2

100.0

153,772.9

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market (see Table 2), Microsoft took over BlackBerry for the first time, taking the No. 3 spot with 3.3 percent market share in the second quarter of 2013. “While Microsoft has managed to increase share and volume in the quarter, Microsoft should continue to focus on growing interest from app developers to help grow its appeal among users,” said Mr. Gupta. Android continued to increase its lead, garnering 79 percent of the market in the second quarter.

Table 2

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Android

177,898.2

79.0

98,664.0

64.2

iOS

31,899.7

14.2

28,935.0

18.8

Microsoft

7,407.6

3.3

4,039.1

2.6

BlackBerry

6,180.0

2.7

7,991.2

5.2

Bada

838.2

0.4

4,208.8

2.7

Symbian

630.8

0.3

9,071.5

5.9

Others

471.7

0.2

863.3

0.6

Total

225,326.2

100.0

153,772.9

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

Mobile Phone Vendor Perspective

Samsung: Samsung remained in the No. 1 position in the overall mobile phone market, with sales to end users growing 19 percent in the second quarter of 2013 (see Table 3). “We see demand in the premium smartphone market come mainly from the lower end of this segment in the $400-and-below ASP mark. It will be critical for Samsung to step up its game in the mid-tier and also be more aggressive in emerging markets. Innovation cannot be limited to the high end,” said Mr. Gupta.

Nokia: Slowing demand of feature phone sales across many markets worldwide, and fierce competition in the smartphone segment, affected Nokia’s mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013. Nokia’s mobile phone sales totaled 61 million units, down from 83 million units a year ago. Nokia’s Lumia sales grew 112.7 percent in the second quarter of 2013 thanks to its expanded Lumia portfolio, which now include Lumia 520 and Lumia 720. “With the recent announcement of the Lumia 1020, Nokia has built a wide portfolio of devices at multiple price points, which should boost Lumia sales in the second half of 2013,” said Mr. Gupta. “However, Nokia is facing tough competition from Android devices, especially from regional and Chinese manufacturers which are more aggressive in terms of price points.”

Apple: While sales continued to grow, the company faced a significant drop in the ASP of its smartphones. Despite the iPhone 5 being the most popular model, its ASP declined to the lowest figure registered by Apple since the iPhone’s launch in 2007. The ASP reduction is due to strong sales of the iPhone 4, which is sold at a strongly discounted price. “While Apple’s ASP demonstrates the need for a new flagship model, it is risky for Apple to introduce a new lower-priced model too,” said Mr. Gupta. “Although the possible new lower-priced device may be priced similarly to the iPhone 4 at $300 to $400, the potential for cannibalization will be much greater than what is seen today with the iPhone 4. Despite being seen as the less expensive sibling of the flagship product, it would represent a new device with the hype of the marketing associated with it.”

Lenovo: Lenovo’s mobile phone sales grew 60.6 percent to reach 11 million units in the second quarter of 2013. Lenovo’s quarter performance was bolstered by smartphone sales. Its smartphone sales grew 144 percent year-over-year and helped it rise to the No. 4 spot in the worldwide smartphone market for the first time. Lenovo continues to rely heavily on its home market in China, which represents more than 95 percent of its sales. It remains challenging for Lenovo to expand outside China as it has to strengthen its direct channel as well as its relationships with communications service providers.

Table 3

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company

2Q13 Units

2Q13 Market Share (%)

2Q12 Units

2Q12 Market Share (%)

Samsung

107,526.0

24.7

90,432.1

21.5

Nokia

60,953.7

14.0

83,420.1

19.9

Apple

31,899.7

7.3

28,935.0

6.9

LG Electronics

17,016.4

3.9

14,345.4

3.4

ZTE

15,280.7

3.5

17,198.2

4.1

Huawei

11,275.1

2.6

10,894.2

2.6

Lenovo

10,954.8

2.5

6,821.7

1.6

TCL Communi-cation [Alcatel]

10,134.3

2.3

9,355.7

2.2

Sony Mobile Communications

9,504.7

2.2

7,346.8

1.7

Yulong [Coolpad]

7,911.5

1.8

4,016.2

1.0

Others

152,701.5

35.1

147,354.60

35.1

Total

435,158.4

100.0

420,120.0

100.0

Source: Gartner (August 2013)

“With second quarter of 2013 sales broadly on track, we see little need to adjust our expectations for worldwide mobile phone sales forecast to total 1.82 billion units this year. Flagship devices brought to market in time for the holidays, and the continued price reduction of smartphones will drive consumer adoption in the second half of the year,” said Mr. Gupta.

Additional information is in the Gartner report “Market Share Analysis: Mobile Phones, Worldwide, 2Q13.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/document/2573119.

How the device play will unfold in the new Microsoft organization?

July 14, 2013 1:40 pm / 2 Comments on How the device play will unfold in the new Microsoft organization?

After the Microsoft reorg for delivering/supporting high-value experiences/activities the Devices and Studios Engineering Group lead by Julie Larson-Green will have undoubtable the far biggest challenge of all hardware development and supply chain from the smallest to the largest devices Microsoft builds. What I found below is that the conceptual structure developed by Microsoft might have much greater chance of success in general, and Julie Larson-Green is much better in meeting that challenge, in particular, than what I thought previously about her.

In Steve Ballmer and Microsoft Senior Leadership Team: One Microsoft Conference Call [Microsoft News Center, July 11, 2013] the internal part of the challenge was briefly described as:

ADRIANNE JEFFRIES, The Verge: Hi, thanks so much. My question is, Steve, with Julie and Terry leading separate software and hardware teams, how do you feel you can bring devices to the market in a way that Apple and other competitors do? Will they work closely enough and collaboratively enough to compete with Apple?

JULIE LARSON-GREEN: I think it’s a perfect way for us to approach it. Terry [Myerson leading the Operating Systems Engineering Group] and I have worked together for a long time. We both have worked on the operating system side. I’ve worked on the hardware side [as well since joined the Windows division in H2 2006 as CVP of program management for the Windows Experience], and it’s a good blending of our skills and our teams to deliver things together.

So the structure that we’re putting in place for the whole company is about working across the different disciplines and having product champions.

So Terry and I will be working to lead delivery to market of our first-party and third-party devices.

STEVE BALLMER: Yes, and maybe just also have Tony Bates [leading Business Development and Evangelism Group with dotted line management of the OEM business in the COO/SMSG] add a little bit. Tony is going to have a critical role running business development evangelism, our role with our hardware innovation partners, our OEMs.

TONY BATES: Yes, I would just add to that. Julie alluded to this — first party, there’s also a third party — and I think having a single interface to our key innovation partners [which is one of the roles of his group], but two bringing together the way we think about offers with our partners is going to be absolutely critical. So when we think about how we work together, I think of going back to one strategy, one team. So we’re all going to be part of that. It’s going to be critical that we have that interface going forward.

ADRIANNE JEFFRIES: And is Terry there?

TERRY MYERSON: Yes. I thought Julie and Tony had it very well said. We’ve got innovative ideas coming from our OEM partners, and Julie’s team has some very innovative ideas. And the platform [engineered by his group] needs to span from the PPI whiteboard that Tony talked about to Xbox, to our phone, and beyond. So it’s exciting to have all these hardware partners in the Windows ecosystem, or in the Microsoft ecosystem, and all the innovative ideas and to bring it to market together.

Regarding the product and high-value scenario champions’ role:

From: One Microsoft: Company realigns to enable innovation at greater speed, efficiency

One Strategy, One Microsoft

We are rallying behind a single strategy as one company — not a collection of divisional strategies. Although we will deliver multiple devices and services to execute and monetize the strategy, the single core strategy will drive us to set shared goals for everything we do. We will see our product line holistically, not as a set of islands. We will allocate resources and build devices and services that provide compelling, integrated experiences across the many screens in our lives, with maximum return to shareholders. All parts of the company will share and contribute to the success of core offerings, like Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox, Surface, Office 365 and our EA offer, Bing, Skype, Dynamics, Azure and our servers. All parts of the company will contribute to activating high-value experiences for our customers.

We will reshape how we interact with our customers, developers and key innovation partners, delivering a more coherent message and family of product offerings. The evangelism and business development team will drive partners across our integrated strategy and its execution. Our marketing, advertising and all our customer interaction will be designed to reflect one company with integrated approaches to our consumer and business marketplaces.

How we organize our engineering efforts will also change to reflect this strategy. We will pull together disparate engineering efforts today into a coherent set of our high-value activities. This will enable us to deliver the most capability — and be most efficient in development and operations — with the greatest coherence to all our key customers. We will plan across the company, so we can better deliver compelling integrated devices and services for the high-value experiences and core technologies around which we organize. This new planning approach will look at both the short-term deliverables and long-term initiatives needed to meet the shipment cadences of both Microsoft and third-party devices and our services.

…

How We Work

The final piece of the puzzle is how we work together and what characteristics this new Microsoft must embody. There is a process element and a culture element to discuss.

Process wise, each major initiative of the company (product or high-value scenario) will have a team that spans groups to ensure we succeed against our goals. Our strategy will drive what initiatives we agree and commit to at my staff meetings. Most disciplines and product groups will have a core that delivers key technology or services and then a piece that lines up with the initiatives. Each major initiative will have a champion who will be a direct report to me or one of my direct reports. The champion will organize to drive a cross-company team for success, but my whole staff will have commitment to the initiative’s success. We will also have outgrowths on those major initiatives that may involve only a single product group. Certainly, succeeding with mobile devices, Windows, Office 365 and Azure will be foundational. Xbox and Bing will also be key future contributors to financial success. Our focus on high-value activities — serious fun, meetings, tasks, research, information assurance and IT/Dev workloads — also will get top-level championship.

Culturally, our core values don’t change, but how we express them and act day to day must evolve so we work together to win. The keys are the following:

Nimble

In a world of continuous services, the timeframe for product releases, customer interaction and competitive response is dramatically shorter. As a company, we need to make the right decisions, and make them more quickly, balancing all the customer and business imperatives. Each employee must be able to solve problems more quickly and with more real-time data than in the past.

Communicative

In the new, rapid-turn world, we need to communicate in ways that don’t just exchange information but drive agility, action, ownership and accountability.

Collaborative

Collaborative doesn’t just mean “easy to get along with.” Collaboration means the ability to coordinate effectively, within and among teams, to get results, build better products faster, and drive customer and shareholder value.

Decisive

As a global company with literally billions of diverse customers in an accelerating business environment, we must have a clear strategic direction but also empower employees closest to the customer to make decisions in service of the larger mission. This is tricky in a big company, but it is the key to higher levels of productivity, growth and customer satisfaction.

Motivated

In our industry, every day brings more challenges and more opportunities than the day before. But we have a unique chance to make the lives of billions of people better in fundamental ways. This should inspire all of us — those who love making products and services, those who love engaging with customers, and those who love planning and running our company in the most effective way possible. We want people who get up each morning excited to make Microsoft better — that’s how we come closer to fulfilling the potential of all people around the globe.

Our leadership team has discussed these cultural aspects a lot and is committed. In my own staff meetings, we are modeling these new characteristics yet also find ourselves occasionally slipping back. One strategy, united together, with great communication, decisiveness and positive energy is the only way to fly.

From Steve Ballmer and Microsoft Senior Leadership Team: One Microsoft Conference Call [Microsoft News Center, July 11, 2013]

In order to execute then on this one Microsoft strategy, we’re organizing by discipline and by engineering area.

Of course, at the end of the day, we have to deliver great products, a great family of devices and services and experiences that help people realize high-value activities.

So we will have teams that function across the company and across engineering areas to deliver on a high-value experience or device type like Windows, which literally has engineering content already today from our entire company, and involvement from a variety of innovation partners.

So we have the notion today that teams work across the company. That’s fundamental. But we’ll formalize, we’ll organize by discipline, and we’ll have product champions who bring together our cross-company teams to deliver our core products and high-value scenarios.

…

RICHARD WATERS, Financial Times: Thank you. Hello. Does this mean that senior managers won’t have direct profit/loss account responsibility that they might have had before? And, if so, how are you going to hold people accountable, and what kind of measures are you going to use; what kind of incentives and measures are actually going to make this new senior management team work?

STEVE BALLMER: Suffice it to say, the level of accountability we all feel for the success of the company rises when we all have to look at the company’s integrated profitability. I’ll let Amy talk a little bit about sort of the concepts. I don’t know that we’ll go into the specifics, but the concepts in terms of how we’re thinking. And there are pieces, obviously, that will have to have attention.

When it comes time to how we’re doing with our consulting business, which is a multibillion dollar business that doesn’t get discussed much, I think we’re all pretty clear. Kevin is on point. He thinks about it. He lives it. He eats it. He breathes it. He sleeps it every day. And I sleep well knowing that. There will be pieces, but I think the problem we’ve had in a sense — not the problem, but the opportunity we have — is if you subdivide the thing into too fine a set of parts you don’t think about your R&D investments as a general corporate resource that should be repurposed and used very broadly. It’s my resources, my business, and so this notion even from a P&L and resourcing perspective of getting to a one Microsoft strategy is very important, and yet we need to have strong financial accountability, and maybe Amy can talk about that.

AMY HOOD: Yes, I would not say that I wouldn’t necessarily associate this new org chart to any reduction in accountability from a financial perspective. I think we have always thought about personal accountability around this table to product success. And I think that will not change in the new organizational structure. Steve’s used words like that already. I think whether we call it accountability or a P&L or financial accountability, it will still remain just as it has in the past.

In such a setup Julie Larson-Green’s group will have an absolutely critical place to succeed with Microsoft powered or pure Microsoft devices on the market. Would Larsen-Green up to that task? What follows below is all the necessary evidence to judge for yourself:

Interview: Windows President Julie Larson-Green [ABC News, Nov 13, 2012]

ABC News sits down with the woman now in charge of Microsoft Windows.

From Operating Segments of the 2012 [FY12] Annual Report:

Windows & Windows Live Division (“Windows Division”) develops and markets PC operating systems, related software and online services, and PC hardware products. … approximately 75% of total Windows Division revenue comes from Windows operating system software purchased by original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”), which they pre-install on equipment they sell. In addition to PC market volume changes …
Principal Products and Services: Windows 7 operating system; Windows Live suite of applications and web services; and PC hardware products. …

From Note 21 – Segment Information and Geographic Data of the Notes to Financial Statements of the 2012 Annual Report:

(In millions) FY12 FY11 FY10

Revenue: $ 18,818 $ 18,787 $ 18,789

Operating Income: $ 11,908 $ 11,971 $ 12,193

Windows 8 Charms Developers with New Touch Experiences [WindowsVideos YouTube channel, Sept 13, 2011]

Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President Windows Experience at Microsoft, unveiled a fast and fluid new user interface for the upcoming Windows 8 at the company’s Build conference earlier today in Anaheim. Larson-Green showcased how Windows 8 is built for touch by demoing gestures such as swipe left, right, top and bottom as well as new features called charms such as search, share, start, devices, and settings.

More to view from Julie Larson-Green: Microsoft Reimagines Windows, Presents Windows 8 Developer Preview [WindowsVideos YouTube channel, Sept 13, 2011]

Interview with Julie Larson-Green about Office 2007 and Windows 7 [BryZad YouTube channel, Nov 21, 2009]

D6 Conference Windows 7 Multi Touch Keynote Demo [AllTingsD, May 28, 2008]

This is the D6 (All Things Digital) Conference Windows 7 Multi Touch Demo shown by Julie Larson Green after the Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer Chat with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

Julie Larson-Green [Microsoft TCN –Awards and Recognitions, Feb 28, 2010]

2008 Outstanding Technical Leadership
In revamping the interface of Microsoft Office 2007, Larson-Green effected a paradigm shift in one of the company’s most successful products.

“At first, no one wanted to change Office dramatically,” says Julie Larson-Green, who was tasked with overseeing a reimagining of the product’s end-user interaction and overall experience in the fall of 2003. Larson-Green’s leadership of Microsoft Office 2007’s redesign, the most radical revamp in the product’s history, required immense courage and conviction, to which this award attests.

A specialist in user-interface design, Larson-Green began working with Office in 1997, when she program-managed FrontPage. She subsequently helmed UI design for Office XP and Office 2003, which had evolved into a large organization of carefully negotiated compromises among the application suite’s various programs. Although Office’s great success was based on customer familiarity, the Customer Experience Improvement Program was indicating that users, while basically happy with the product, were increasingly either unaware of (possibly redundant) functions among Office’s different programs or frustrated by the amount of training necessary to use an astonishingly complex set of commands, dialogs, and interaction modes.

After deciding that Office needed to be made easier to use, Larson-Green’s team arrived at the elegant solution of the browsable Ribbon (or Office Fluent user interface) and its contextual cousins that united the product’s common capabilities and ease of experimentation. “The breakthrough,” Larson-Green says, “arrived with contextualizing the user interface and realizing that all of the product’s features didn’t have to be present all the time.”

SELLING THE REDESIGN

As development of Office 2007 proceeded, Larson-Green was confronted with the equally formidable task of selling the redesign across Office’s various programs. “Our biggest challenge,” she says, “was convincing people that we had an idea that would work.” Heavily invested in the earlier version, the Word, Excel, Outlook, and other organizations were initially reluctant to relegate control to an umbrella design team. Even more significant, Larson-Green had decided not to compromise the integrity of Office 2007 with the safety net of a “classic mode.”

It’s difficult to change the direction of a large organization at the best of times. It’s even more difficult when the goal is still incomplete. Larson-Green’s ability to argue her vision without necessarily being able to address myriad objections in detail is a remarkable trait in a data-driven culture such as Microsoft’s. One by one, however, the suite’s principals bought into the design as it was being tested and fleshed out.

Office 2007 shipped to nearly universal critical acclaim in January 2007, and Larson-Green was promoted to corporate vice president of program management for the Windows Experience. As with Office 2007, she plans to identify and solve customer problems, which will in turn drive a new design and its subsequent engineering. “In the old world,” she notes, “coding would start and design would kind of evolve with the coding.”

COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS

Flattered by her nomination for the Outstanding Technical Leadership Award, Larson-Green admits to shock at winning. “I was very pleased,” she says, “but also kind of embarrassed. I may have been the ringleader, but I couldn’t have done it without a lot of help from a lot of people.” She cites principal Office User Experience Team Program Manager Jensen Harris, Product Design Manager Brad Weed, General Manager Dave Barthol, and Test Manager Sean Adridge as key collaborators.

As for the prize, Larson-Green will treat its dispensation as a family affair. “Unless we all agree on one, we’re going to split the award and each pick a charity,” she says. “My seven-year-old son has already decided he wants to do something with animals. My fifteen-year-old daughter wants to do something with children. And my economist husband is doing all the research on how much money goes to programs versus administration.”

The Ribbon in Microsoft Office 2007 New Features & Upgrades [mydigitalworks YouTube channel, March 18, 2008]

Q&A: Microsoft Showcases New User Interface for Office “12” Core Applications [Microsoft feature story, Sept 13, 2005] PressPass spoke with Julie Larson-Green, group program manager for the Office User Experience at Microsoft.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Microsoft Office 2007: The Story of the Ribbon [10 videos, each 10” long on the creativecrewchannel YouTube channel, Jan 11, 2009]

From Julie Larson Green BIO [Microsoft, Oct 25, 2012]

Larson-Green joined Microsoft in 1993 and has focused on technical design and development throughout her career. As a program manager in Development Tools and Languages, she was instrumental in several releases of Visual C++ for 32-bit operating systems and led the development of Microsoft’s first customizable integrated development environment for Windows. Moving to the Windows team, she was responsible for the Internet Explorer 3.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0 user experiences, including features related to the Web-integrated Windows desktop.

Continuing her focus on end-user software, Larson-Green joined the Office team in 1997 and led program management for Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft FrontPage, including the early work in information worker servers. More recently, she has been responsible for leading the user interface design for Microsoft Office XP, Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system, which was lauded for its innovative reinvention of the user experience for productivity software.

…

Before joining Microsoft, Larson-Green was a senior development engineer at a Seattle-based company [Aldus] that created leading desktop publishing software. She has a master’s degree in software engineering from Seattle University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Western Washington University. A native of Washington state, she lives there with her husband, who is a university professor, and her two children.

From The Rise of Julie Larson-Green, the Heir Apparent at Microsoft [Wired, July 11, 2013]

Today’s promotion is just the latest leap for Larson-Green. Most recently, she replaced her longtime boss and mentor, Steven Sinofsky, to become engineering head of Windows this past November, jumping two rungs up the ladder. Unlike the notoriously prickly Sinofsky, Larson-Green is known for her communication skills and ability to work well with others, uniting people, including those outside her own purview, around a common goal.

But if you step back a bit, her biography has been a story of tenacity and persistence in pursuit of a closely-held personal mission to reshape how the world uses computers, according to various press reports, public appearances by Larson-Green, and Microsoft in-house media.

…

[When applying for a Microsoft position in 1993, being a development lead in Aldus] Larson-Green found herself in the potentially embarrassing situation of giving a frank assessment of the weaknesses and strengths of software code compilers made by Microsoft, along with those made by Microsoft rival Borland, to a room that turned out to be dotted with Microsoft staffers. But the Microsofties were impressed, and soon roped Larson-Green into a gig helping to oversee the development of Microsoft’s Visual C++ — just the sort of software development tool she had critiqued.

…

It’s hard not to wonder whether Larson-Green will end up replacing a controversial boss once again, if and when Ballmer leaves the company. The longtime Microsoft sales executive has been rightly criticized for allowing once-catatonic rival Apple to surpass Microsoft in driving the growth of personal computing, first through music players and now via smartphones and tablets.

And it’s interesting that when asked about replacing Ballmer at Wired’s business conference this past May (see video below), Larson-Green was uncharacteristically blunt. “I wouldn’t rule it out, but I’m not in a hurry,” Larson Green said. “Give me a year and ask me again.”

[you can reach the video here]

From Bodyslams at Microsoft Prepared Larson-Green for Overhaul [Bloomberg, July 12, 2013]

Julie Larson-Green body-slammed a 6-foot-6 colleague who was blocking her exit one day in 2001 when the largest earthquake to hit Washington state in a half century rattled her office.

“When I have a direction I want to go, it doesn’t matter who’s in my way,” said Larson-Green, 51, who started at Microsoft 20 years ago and is the company’s highest-ranking female engineering executive.

…

Jensen Harris, the Microsoft software designer who Larson-Green shoved out of the way during the 2001 earthquake — even though she’s about a foot shorter than he is — said she makes quick work of any obstacle. The temblor “was my first experience with Julie,” said Harris, who has worked for her for the past 10 years overhauling Office and Windows. “Julie has this immediate ability to cut through things.”

…

Rene Haas, vice president and general manager of computing products at Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), which makes the chip for one of the Surface tablet’s two models, said while Larson-Green is capable, “It’s not a small task for anybody.”

Maria Klawe, a Microsoft board member and president of Harvey Mudd College, said Larson-Green will do fine. “Software-hardware integration is one of the really exciting things going on in the world right now and you really need people who can cross that boundary,” said Klawe.

…

Ballmer praised Larson-Green’s ability to play well with others, a skill he said was critical to Microsoft’s future success.

Larson-Green put that skill into practice last fall when she convened design and program management executives from various products and plied them with pricey wine. Then she pitched teams like those overseeing the Bing search engine on putting their other priorities on hold to build for Windows.

With a 15-minute conversation, she won over Derrick Connell, a Bing vice president who had never met her before. He gave Larson-Green 20 percent of his staff for six months to build the new search app in Windows 8.1. It was a big project on a short time frame.

“I trust that you will do it,” Connell said she told him. “We’ve worked harder to make sure we delivered on that trust.”

Microsoft will now have to move even faster and get things right the first time, Larson-Green said. She said she “hates that stereotype” that has trailed Microsoft for decades — that the company only gets it right on version 3.0.

“You really only get to sell something one time,” she said. “We shouldn’t do it unless we think it’s great.”

Then the functionally separate COO/SMSG under Kevin Turner will play a crucial role in the devices success, and not only because of its internal OEM part. Here is the background information on that functional organization in order to assess its importance for yourself:

Sales, Marketing and Services Group (SMSG): – SMSG employs more than 45,000 people and is responsible for Microsoft sales, marketing, and service initiatives; customer and partner programs; and product support and consulting services worldwide [2009]
– SMSG is one of the core groups at Microsoft and stands for “Sales, Marketing, Services, IT & Operations Group”. Shortened you can get Sales Marketing and Services Group (IT & Operations are actually part of the Services division). [2011]
– As Microsoft’s chief operating officer (COO), Kevin Turner leads the company’s global sales, marketing and services organization of more than 47,000 employees in more than 190 countries. Under his leadership, the sales and marketing group delivered more than $77 billion in revenue in fiscal 2012. Turner oversees worldwide sales, field marketing, services, support and partner channels as well Microsoft Stores and corporate support functions including Information Technology, Worldwide Licensing & Pricing and [Commercial] Operations. The sales and marketing organization is focused on delivering Microsoft’s family of devices and services to customers and partners all over the world. [2013]

Enterprise and Partner Group (EPG)
Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partners (SMS&P), see also Microsoft Small and Midsize Business Pressroom
Public Sector Groups (PSG): Education, Public Safety & National Security, Government, Health, International Organizations see also Worldwide Public Sector Virtual Presskit
Communications Sector
Enterprise Services (Services)
Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)
Worldwide Licensing and Pricing (WWLP)
Marketing and Operation (M&O)
Consumer & Online (C&O)

According to [Microsoft] Worldwide Marketing & Operations as of July 14, 2013: How exciting would it be to have a global view of the largest software company in the world, and help optimize go-to-market strategy and operations execution? The WW M&O organization does just that by integrating business, marketing, and operational leadership globally. We combine our consumer and commercial marketing into a single organization, and serve as the center of gravity for subsidiary marketing and operations. We align our corporate assets and talent to spark innovation, drive growth, win share and improve the customer and partner experience.

According to Sales Jobs at Microsoft as of July 14, 2013, with added overall/marketing descriptions when available:

Microsoft Enterprise [and] Partner Group (EPG), Sales: Our enterprise customers call our Worldwide Enterprise and Partner Group their trusted advisors. We help these customers strengthen their own customer relationships, lower their costs, and build a strategic advantage.
Microsoft Enterprise Services, Sales: We solve problems. What could be better than helping a customer discover a technology or service that solves a pressing business problem? Or that makes a life easier, richer, or more rewarding? Those are a winning scenarios for everyone—for the customer you satisfy, for our company, and for you—the person who solves the problem and makes the sale. That’s Enterprise Services Sales at Microsoft.
Microsoft Enterprise Services, Overall: We are the consulting and enterprise support division of Microsoft. We help businesses around the world get a maximized return on their investment in Microsoft products and technologies. This means not only helping with deploying and optimizing IT, but also helping businesses move forward with IT initiatives that deliver the most business value. We have a global team of more than 9,720 professionals in 88 countries, we help a large number of customers worldwide achieve their business objectives each year. Why do so many businesses and individuals trust us to help them save money and improve their profitability? Because we are the experts at accelerating the adoption and productive use of Microsoft products and technologies. Our goal is to empower our customers to succeed. We help our customers get the most out of existing IT assets, saving them money and delivering real business results. We are committed to the transfer of knowledge so that our customers can drive the success of projects through best practices, intellectual property, and key insights from thousands of Microsoft Services engagements worldwide. When it comes to support, we never forget that our customers’ business and their success comes first.
Microsoft Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), Sales: We solve problems and engage with strategic Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) to identify and drive efficiencies, best practices, product improvements and consumer loyalty.
Microsoft Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), Overall: Tablets, Smartphones, Laptops, Netbooks, Desktops, Smart TVs…the device business is exciting, fast-paced & rapidly changing. We help Microsoft partners to design & sell the latest hardware solutions featuring Win7, Win8, Windows Phone, Server, Office & Bing. If you’re passionate about impacting the global ecosystem of partners, and influencing the experience on the 100’s of millions of devices that ship every year, then this is the team for you. Check out exciting opportunities in engineering, marketing, business development and policy.
Microsoft Public Sector, Sales1: The Worldwide Public Sector team focuses on truly partnering with customers and partners in Government, Health and Education industries in new and innovative ways. This effort includes not only working on projects and programs important to them, but also staying focused on establishing Framework Agreements that are all-encompassing.
Microsoft Public Sector, Sales2: For more than 30 years Microsoft has provided technology solutions for Public Sector organizations globally. Microsoft, along with our partner ecosystem, addresses the most complex, mission-critical technology issues for the government (federal, state and local), education (K-12 and universities) and healthcare (hospitals, physicians’ offices and other Health & Life Sciences organizations). The global Public Sector has made huge investments in our products to create practical, cost-effective solutions.
Microsoft Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partners (SMSP / SMS&P), Sales: Our Small & Mid-market Solutions and Partners team ensures that we and our ecosystem of partners deliver technology solutions that meet the unique needs of small and medium businesses and home consumers.
Microsoft Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partners (SMSP / SMS&P), Overall: Small & Mid-market Solutions and Partners works with our ecosystem of partners, including system integrators, resellers, distributors, hosters, managed service providers and readiness partners, to deliver technology solutions that meet the unique needs of our customers. The SMS&P team is responsible for selling the broad spectrum of Microsoft products and cloud services, an exciting growth area for both Microsoft.
Microsoft Worldwide Licensing and Pricing (WWLP), Sales and Overall: World Wide Licensing and Pricing Group (WWLP) is accountable for leading and orchestrating the business groups, segments and field in global development and implementation of licensing business models that make it easy for customers to acquire, use, and manage Volume Licensing products while maximizing synergy among all business groups across Microsoft.
Microsoft Communications Sector, Sales: The Communications Sector is responsible for driving the sales and marketing of Microsoft services and innovative software-based solutions to telecommunications, hosting, media and entertainment companies.
Microsoft Consumer & Online (C&O), Sales = Marketing: Each day, more people are spending more time online—always connected, using multiple devices. The goal of Consumer & Online (C&O) is to build consumer loyalty and enable a seamless consumer experience across Windows, mobile devices, and online properties. We couldn’t do this without close cooperation of a broad network of retail and online partners, PC and device manufacturers, advertisers, and publishers. You’ll find all kinds of talent in C&O: content development, marketing, advertising sales, business development, operations, and technical. We offer world-class advertising sales, consumer marketing, and creative services to our partners and advertisers. We help them build consumer loyalty by targeting their unique styles and needs. Our consumer marketing team is also responsible for evangelizing the breadth and value of Microsoft’s consumer offerings including Windows, Windows Mobile, MSN, Windows Live (which includes Hotmail and Messenger), Bing, and other advertising-supported services. Our business is to help consumers experience a “Life without Walls,” and we hire outstanding people to do so.

Nokia Lumia 1020: an excellent case of Nokia’s contribution to Microsoft as a key innovation partner

July 12, 2013 7:40 pm / 3 Comments on Nokia Lumia 1020: an excellent case of Nokia’s contribution to Microsoft as a key innovation partner

Update: An excellent infographic from All you need to know about the world’s coolest Nokia Lumia 1020 infographic [Nokia Conversations, July 26, 2013]
óriásméretben: http://cdn.conversations.nokia.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Lumia-1020-Infographic1.png

From the video presentations these two are worth to embed here:

Nokia’s Lumia 1020 event recap in 5 minutes [TheVerge YouTube channel, July 11, 2013]

Need to catch up on Nokia’s Lumia 1020 event? We’ve got you covered with this 5-minute recap!

Interview with Nokia’s Stephen Elop: the Lumia 1020 will take customers ‘over the goal line’ [TheVerge YouTube channel, July 11, 2013]

Nilay Patel sits down with Nokia CEO Stephen Elop to talk about the company’s future and the newly announced Lumia 1020.

Note that Elop is emphasizing here the experience what is delivered as much via software as hardware. In the Q&A: How Nokia and Microsoft collaborated to create the groundbreaking new Lumia 1020 with Windows Phone 8 [Windows Phone Blog, July 11, 2013] there is even a talk about the whole set of “camera / imaging / navigation / personal experiences”. By reading my Microsoft reorg for delivering/supporting high-value experiences/activities [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 11, 2013] post you will understand even more this whole experiences stuff, both for Nokia and Microsoft, also as an excellent case of key innovation partnership.

From the first 24 hours media reports only the ones given below (only four) are worth to be excerpted here, as all others are emphasizing the 41MP camera:

Nokia Lumia 1020 Hands On: This Actually Might Be Amazing [Gizmodo, July 11, 2013], indeed. You should read this article to understand why I agree wholeheartedly with that.

Nokia’s strategy for selling the Lumia 1020 makes zero sense [BGR, July 11, 2013], what?

… Nokia’s obvious pride in its work on the Lumia 1020 is undermined by the company’s bizarre strategy for selling the device … what really baffles me about Nokia’s strategy for selling the Lumia 1020 is its decision to make the device an AT&T exclusive. … When a Forbes reporter pointedly asked Nokia CEO Stephen Elop on Thursday why he was sticking with his strategy of promoting carrier exclusivity despite the fact that AT&T has allegedly been a “dreadful” partner, he drew loud cheers from the crowd. Whether AT&T has been good or bad when it comes to promoting Nokia devices is really beside the point, however. What has become clear is that keeping your best devices exclusively on one carrier is a self-defeating strategy.

For Nokia, 41MP Hype Of Lumia 1020 Is Both Blessing And A Curse [Forbes, July 12, 2013], why?

… the problem with emphasizing the Lumia 1020′s pixel count is that no consumer wakes up thinking, “What I really need is larger images from my phone.” … when was the last time you walked into a retail cellular provider’s store and got information from sales staff beyond the bullet points on the display signage? … They have a product that is stylish, delivers great-looking photos and, all things considered, is reasonably priced. But none of that will mean much if the Lumia 1020 becomes defined as the “41MP phone” sitting in the back of your local AT&T retail shop, with a salesperson who can only tell you it takes big pictures.

Lumia 1020: A flash point for Nokia? [CNET, July 11, 2013], is it?

… “The device is about re-establishing Nokia as an innovator in the devices market,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. … Unlike most phone launches, which often delve into specifications such processor speeds, [Nokia CEO Stephen] Elop kept the presentation focused on all the tricks and features enabled by the monster camera. “We’re all looking forward to bringing people the next chapter in smartphone imaging,” he said. … “You can see how much software innovation is going on inside this product — that also positions Nokia in a better place than many of its competitors who still do technology for the sake of it, but are unable to package it in a way that improves the users experience,” Milanesi said. “At a time when macro-level innovation has seemed to be lacking in smartphones, Nokia’s Lumia 1020 demonstrates that there is still considerable scope to drive forward the user experience in core smartphone capabilities,” said Ovum analyst Tony Cripps.

…

While the 41-megapixel camera may wow shutterbugs and tech enthusiasts, the Windows Phone operating system gives some consumers pause when considering the Lumia 1020. The operating system, which employs live tiles, is wholly different from the standard grid of icons found on Apple’s iPhone or Android devices. Some critics have called it a fresh take on a smartphone, but consumers have been slow to embrace it. “It’s a Windows Phone challenge,” Elop conceded when asked about less-than-stellar sales. “There’s tremendous responsiblity to help everyone understand what that third alternative stands for.”

One of the challenges that Nokia faces is getting the phone in people’s hands to try out. Elop said he is working to get more carrier sales representatives trained and using a Lumia device, which he said will help convince consumers to give the operating system a shot. Elop touted the Lumia line’s higher net promoter score, or a measure of how willing a person is to recommend a product. He believes the score will help Nokia build its momentum. …

Finally, the related Nokia communications:

Lumia 1020 whitepaper [23 pages PDF document, July 10, 2013]

Background

Best of both worlds: Sharpness and low light
– Sharpness is more than just megapixels
—Why 5MP?
—Oversampling results in 5MP photos with amazing detail
—High resolution zoom
—Getting rid of hand-shake
– Photos in the dark
—Back side illuminated sensor
—Exposure time
—Flash
– Real life sharpness measurement

Nokia Pro Camera
– Zoom reinvented and reframing
– Photography tools and creative control
—Manual controls: EV, shutter speed, ISO, focus, WB
—Nokia Pro Camera Video
—Nokia Rich Recording

Photo examples

Key technologies and specs

Credits

Nokia Rich Recording Technology – Technical overall description [6 pages PDF document, June 14, 2013]
Nokia Rich Recording – Video that brings back the moment [Nokia Lumia 1020] [nokia YouTube channel, July 11, 2013]

Discover the new Lumia http://nokia.ly/Lumia1020 Nokia Rich Recording lets you capture distortion-free, stereo sound — so you can relive the moment as if you were there again. Soundtrack: Karin Park — Explosions

Get creative and win with Nokia Lumia 1020 [Nokia Developer, July 11, 2013]
Nokia Imaging SDK [Nokia Developer, July 11, 2013]
Create great imaging apps with the Nokia Imaging SDK [nokiadevforum YouTube channel, July 11, 2013]

The Nokia Imaging SDK gives you access to a powerful library of exciting image manipulation tools, which will make creating the next generation of imaging apps for Windows Phone 8 devices quicker and easier. Designed from the ground up with performance and a low memory footprint in mind, the library’s functions don’t put a strain on the user’s device, which makes editing high-resolution images swift and engaging. In fact, the technology behind the Nokia Imaging SDK is well proven, as Nokia uses it to create its own imaging apps, such as Creative Studio, Photo Beamer, and Smart Camera. Hear from David Fredh, Lead Program Manager, Capture and Relive, and Daniel Larsson, Project Manager, Nokia Imaging SDK, the developers of the Nokia Imaging SDK and other great imaging apps from Nokia. David and Daniel provide an introduction to the features and capabilities of the SDK. For more information and a download of the Nokia Imaging SDK, visit http://www.developer.nokia.com/imaging

Nokia Lumia 1020: the smartphone camera revolution begins! [Nokia Conversations, July 11, 2013]
Professional camera power to the people with Nokia Pro Camera [Nokia Conversations, July 11, 2013]
Nokia Lumia 1020 picture gallery: zoom in [Nokia Conversations, July 11, 2013]
Nokia Lumia 1020 – product gallery [Nokia Conversations, July 11, 2013]
What the world’s saying about the Nokia Lumia 1020 [Nokia Conversations, July 11, 2013]
Nokia Lumia 1020: hands on video [Nokia Conversations, July 12, 2013]
10 reasons to get excited about the Nokia Lumia 1020 [Nokia Conversations, July 12, 2013]
Camera Grip for the Nokia Lumia 1020 [Nokia Conversations, July 12, 2013]
Changing the game again: From Nokia 808 PureView to Nokia Lumia 1020 [Nokia Conversations, July 12, 2013], see also The 41 MP Nokia 808 PureView meeting the vanishing world challenge [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, April 4, 2012]
Zoom. Reinvented. Nokia Lumia 1020 arrives [press release, July 11, 2013]

Espoo, Finland and New York, NY – Today, Nokia established a new benchmark in smartphone imaging with the arrival of the Nokia Lumia 1020, boasting a second generation 41 megapixel sensor. Unlike any smartphone in the market today the Nokia Lumia 1020 reinvents zoom, enabling people to discover more detail than the eye can see. With Nokia’s innovative PureView technology, including optical image stabilization, the device is able to produce some of the sharpest images possible by any digital camera.

This is made possible by leading hardware technology combined with a new application called Nokia Pro Camera, which makes it easy for anyone to take professional quality images. Either before a picture is taken or after it has been shot, the zoom capability enables people to discover and then rediscover the personal stories each image can tell. With a beautiful interface that visually demonstrates how settings will affect the final photo or video, Nokia Pro Camera makes it easier than ever to capture, edit and share photos and videos with unrivaled clarity.

Using a new feature called dual capture, the Nokia Lumia 1020 simultaneously takes a high resolution 38 megapixel image for endless editing opportunities, and creates a 5 megapixel picture that is easy to share to social networks with Windows Phone 8.

The Nokia Lumia 1020’s 41 megapixel sensor features leading ZEISS optics with six physical lenses, plus optical image stabilization, delivering crystal clear pictures even in low light conditions. It also captures blur free videos with stereo sound even at the loudest concerts thanks to Nokia Rich Recording, which handles sound pressure levels six times louder than conventional smartphone microphones.

“We want to take people on a journey from capturing pictures to recording and sharing their lives,” said Stephen Elop, President and CEO, Nokia. “The Nokia Lumia 1020 will bring new meaning to pictures and continues to strengthen Nokia’s leadership in imaging.”

Nokia also released a new imaging software development kit (SDK) that provides key image editing features of the Nokia Lumia 1020 to developers. The SDK is available today at developer.nokia.com with a number of developers including Vyclone, Yelp and CNN integrating these features into future releases.

Hipstamatic showcased Oggl PRO, an exclusive application for the Nokia Lumia 1020 offering the most advanced smartphone camera controls for their creative community. It was also announced that popular applications Vine, Path and Flipboard will soon be available on Windows Phone.

Adding further professional capabilities and additional battery life, Nokia announced the new Nokia Camera Grip. This is an accessory that complements device features usually reserved for stand-alone cameras, like the Nokia Lumia 1020’s built-in xenon flash and mechanical shutter. The Nokia Camera Grip also has a tripod mount, and is expected to be available this month for an estimated retail price of USD 79.

The personal nature of Windows Phone makes it the perfect platform for the Nokia Lumia 1020, showcasing live images on the Start screen with the Photos tile, quick sharing to social networks, and easy access to files across a number of devices with SkyDrive. With the dedicated camera button, Windows Phone is designed with imaging in mind.

To help people see what’s around them and discover new places to take photos, the latest developments in LiveSight will available in HERE Maps soon. The Nokia Lumia 1020 also comes with ad and subscription free Nokia Music streaming.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 will arrive first on U.S. shores exclusively with AT&T, with sales expected to start on July 26 at a price of USD 299.99 on a two-year contract.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 is then expected to arrive in China and key European markets this quarter. Nokia plans to ship an exclusive variant of the device with Telefonica to select European and Latin American markets. The Nokia Lumia 1020 will be available in yellow, white and black.

Nokia Lumia 1020

Operating system

Windows Phone 8

HERE location services

Free global HERE Maps and HERE Drive+; Free HERE Transit available in the Store

Display

4.5″ AMOLED WXGA (1280×768), 2.5 D sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass 3, PureMotion HD+, ClearBlack, high brightness mode, sunlight readability, super sensitive touch, Nokia Glance Screen

Battery

2000 mAh battery, wireless charging supported via cover

Processor

1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4

Main camera

PureView 41 MP with optical image stabilization, Resolution: 7712 x 5360. Includes Nokia Pro Camera. Xenon flash for still images, LED flash for video

Front facing camera

HD 1.2 MP wide angle

Memory

2 GB RAM, 32 GB internal memory; 7 GB free SkyDrive cloud storage

Read more about the Lumia 1020 on our product pages and at Nokia Conversations.

Microsoft reorg for delivering/supporting high-value experiences/activities

July 11, 2013 7:27 pm / 6 Comments on Microsoft reorg for delivering/supporting high-value experiences/activities

Too elevated and abstract formulation? Not at all, as just 3 days ago we’ve seen a really great example of such an experience/activity at the WPC 2013:
Power BI Demo [msPartner YouTube channel, July 8, 2013]

Even the title of the post reporting on the WPC 2013 was Microsoft partners empowered with ‘cloud first’, high-value and next-gen experiences for big data, enterprise social, and mobility on wide variety of Windows devices and Windows Server + Windows Azure + Visual Studio as the platform [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, July 10, 2013]

Still find too elevated and abstract the high-value experiences/activities formulation now put into the center of what Microsoft does? Watch this Nokia’s Lumia 1020 event recap in 5 minutes [TheVerge YouTube channel, July 11, 2013] video from Nokia showing how a major innovation partner could join Microsoft in all that (in this case with incredible camera experience):

Need to catch up on Nokia’s Lumia 1020 event? We’ve got you covered with this 5-minute recap!

It is not by chance that the Lumia 1020 event was synchonized with Microsoft reorg announcement of July 11.

Have doubts how such high-value experiences/activities could be presented to everyday customers? Watch this video:

See how the Dell XPS 10 with Windows RT stacks up against the iPad. Check out more at http://windows.com/compare

This is a month-old ad for Dell Tablet vs. iPad [WindowsVideos YouTube channel, June 13, 2013] showing how much it is possible, and more importantly it is possible exactly because of such value focus:

Now it is time to show the scope of such high values Microsoft found it could and should focus on. In Transforming Our Company [Microsoft memo, July 11, 2013] the following high-value activities based on devices and services delivery were defined:

Reinventing expression and documents. People love and need to express themselves in new ways. Documents are going from being printed to being experienced. There are many high-value needs for personal creative expression — some just for fun, others at work or at school. We will reinvent the tools and form of expressing oneself (and expressing things as a group) from paper and slides to online. We will ensure that the tools handle multimedia (photos, videos, text, charts and slides) in an integrated way and natively online. These documents/websites will be easily sharable and easily included in meetings. They will offer complex options such as imbedded logic and yet be easy to author, search and view. These documents will be readable from a browser, but the experience will be infinitely better if read, annotated or presented with our tools.

Next-generation decision-making and task completion. Our machine learning infrastructure will understand people’s needs and what is available in the world, and will provide information and assistance. We will be great at anticipating needs in people’s daily routines and providing insight and assistance when they need it. When it comes to life’s most important tasks and events, we will pay extra attention. The research done, the data collected and analyzed, the meetings and discussions had, and the money spent are all amplified for people during life’s big moments. We will provide the tools people need to capture their own data and organize and analyze it in conjunction with the massive amount of data available over the Web. Bing, Excel and our InfoNav innovations are all important here. Decision-making and tasks mean different things in personal versus professional lives, yet they are important in both places.

Social communication (meetings, events, gathering, sharing and communicating). Social communications are time-intensive, high-value scenarios that are ripe for digital re-imagination. Such innovation will include new ways to participate in work meetings, PTA and nonprofit activities, family and social gatherings, and more. We can reimagine email and other communication vehicles as the lines between these vehicles grow fuzzy, and the amount of people’s digital or digitally assisted interaction continues to grow. We can create new ways to interact through hardware, software and new services. Next-gen documents and expression are an important part of online social communications. We will not focus on becoming another social network for people to participate in casually, though some may use these products and services that way.

Serious fun. This expression may sound like an oxymoron, yet it encapsulates an important point of differentiation for us. There are many things people do for light fun, for example play solitaire, spend three minutes on a word game or surf the TV. Although we will enable these activities effectively, our biggest opportunity is in creating the fun people feel most intensely, such as playing a game that lasts hours and takes real concentration, or immersing them in live events and entertainment (including sports, concerts, education and fitness) while allowing interactive participation. Interactivity takes engagement and makes things serious; it really requires differentiated hardware, apps and services. People want to participate at home and on the go, and in gatherings with others. We see a unique opportunity to make experiencing events with others more exciting with interactivity. We also see opportunity in fitness and health because, for many, this is serious fun much more than it is a task.

The rationale behind is best represented by following excerpts from:
[1] One Microsoft: Company realigns to enable innovation at greater speed, efficiency
[2] Transforming Our Company

[2] we realized our strengths are in high-value activities, powering devices and enterprise services.

[2] The bedrock of our new strategy is innovation in deep, rich, high-value experiences and activities. It’s the starting point for differentiated devices integrated with services. It’s at the core of how we will inspire ourselves all to do our best work and bring to our customers the very things that will make a difference in their lives.

[1] We will plan across the company, so we can better deliver compelling integrated devices and services for the high-value experiences and core technologies around which we organize. This new planning approach will look at both the short-term deliverables and long-term initiatives needed to meet the shipment cadences of both Microsoft and third-party devices and our services.

[1] services core technologies in productivity, communication, search and other information categories [within Applications and Services Engineering Group]

[1] We will see our product line holistically, not as a set of islands. We will allocate resources and build devices and services that provide compelling, integrated experiences across the many screens in our lives, with maximum return to shareholders. All parts of the company will share and contribute to the success of core offerings, like Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox, Surface, Office 365 and our EA offer, Bing, Skype, Dynamics, Azure and our servers. All parts of the company will contribute to activating high-value experiences for our customers.

[1] We will pull together disparate engineering efforts today into a coherent set of our high-value activities.

[1] Our focus on high-value activities — serious fun, meetings, tasks, research, information assurance and IT/Dev workloads — also will get top-level championship.

[2] people also turn to technology for more important tasks in their lives — and we will focus our energies on creating new, memorable and even extraordinary experiences across our family of devices and services. Think of the student stuck on that term paper looking to display all his creativity in ways that will get him an A+; the family that’s getting together for a reunion and wants the delightful memories to last forever online; the gamer who is taking his fantasy team to the playoffs; or any of us who could be faced with a tough medical decision and needs to plan care and finances.

Such high-value activities include the full breadth and depth of areas like personal expression, decision-making and tasks, social communication, and serious fun — and we have both the drive and the capacity to reinvent these experiences for people across the globe.

[2] Our devices must support the same high-value activities in ways that are meaningful across different device types.

[2] We will be on a new path centered around delivering high-value activities on a family of devices with integrated services.

[2] We will engage enterprise on all sides — investing in more high-value activities for enterprise users to do their jobs; empowering people to be productive independent of their enterprise; and building new and innovative solutions for IT professionals and developers.

[2] Building upon Windows, Xbox and our growing suite of consumer and enterprise services, we will design, create and deliver through us and through third parties a complete family of Windows-powered devices — devices that can help people just as much in their work life as they do after hours. Devices that help people do more and play harder.

[1] The evangelism and business development team will drive partners across our integrated strategy and its execution.

[1] Our marketing, advertising and all our customer interaction will be designed to reflect one company with integrated approaches to our consumer and business marketplaces.

[1] As devices become further integrated into everyday life, we will have to create new and extraordinary experiences for our customers on these devices. We are going to focus on completely reinventing experiences like creating or viewing a creative document and what it means to communicate socially at home or in meetings at work. We are going to immerse people in deep entertainment experiences that let them have serious fun in ways so intense and delightful that they will blur the line between reality and fantasy. And as we develop these new experiences, we will also support our developers with the simplest ways to develop apps or cloud services and integrate with our products. We will help businesses that find themselves in a new world of ever-mounting information to manage that information through greater enterprise information assurance. We will make these high-value activities priorities in our strategy.

Media completely missed the above essence of Microsoft reorg, as quite well evidenced even with the Microsoft’s New Management: Too Little, Too Late? [Bloomberg YouTube channel, July 11, 2013] video

July 11 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft, playing catch-up in mobile computing, is reorganizing into fewer units and shuffling senior management roles to speed development of hardware and Web-based services. Paul Kedrosky speaks with Sara Eisen on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.” (Source: Bloomberg)

from such a prestigous source. Absolutely amazing how much they miss the whole point of this reorg.

Whether you come from the understanding of the overall change of attitude towards a complete high-value focus, or you see this as a kind of catch-up play in terms of the devices and services approach announced a year ago, you will arrive at talking about the following functional organization as per [2] which is replacing the previous divisional organization:

Business Development and Evangelism Group. Tony Bates will focus on key partnerships especially our innovation partners (OEMs, silicon vendors, key developers, Yahoo, Nokia, etc.) and our broad work on evangelism and developer outreach. DPE, Corporate Strategy and the business development efforts formerly in the BGs will become part of this new group. OEM will remain in SMSG with Kevin Turner with a dotted line to Tony who will work closely with Nick Parker on key OEM relationships.

Operating Systems Engineering Group. Terry Myerson will lead this group, and it will span all our OS work for console, to mobile device, to PC, to back-end systems. The core cloud services for the operating system will be in this group.	Devices and Studios Engineering Group. Julie Larson-Green will lead this group and will have all hardware development and supply chain from the smallest to the largest devices we build. Julie will also take responsibility for our studios experiences including all games, music, video and other entertainment.	Applications and Services Engineering Group. Qi Lu will lead broad applications and services core technologies in productivity, communication, search and other information categories.
Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group. Satya Nadella will lead development of our back-end technologies like datacenter, database and our specific technologies for enterprise IT scenarios and development tools. He will lead datacenter development, construction and operation.		Dynamics. Kirill Tatarinov will continue to run Dynamics as is, but his product leaders will dotted line report to Qi Lu, his marketing leader will dotted line report to Tami Reller and his sales leader will dotted line report to the COO group.
Advanced Strategy and Research Group. Eric Rudder will lead Research, Trustworthy Computing, teams focused on the intersection of technology and policy, and will drive our cross-company looks at key new technology trends.	COO. Kevin Turner will continue leading our worldwide sales, field marketing, services, support, and stores as well as IT, licensing and commercial operations.	Marketing Group. Tami Reller will lead all marketing with the field relationship as is today. Mark Penn will take a broad view of marketing strategy and will lead with Tami the newly centralized advertising and media functions.
HR Group. Lisa Brummel will lead Human Resources and map her team to the new organization.	Finance Group. Amy Hood will centralize all product group finance organizations. SMSG finance, which is geographically diffuse, will report to Kevin Turner with a dotted line to Amy.	Legal and Corporate Affairs Group. Brad Smith will continue as General Counsel with responsibility for the company’s legal and corporate affairs and will map his team to the new organization.

From Steve Ballmer and Microsoft Senior Leadership Team: One Microsoft Conference Call [Microsoft News Center, July 11, 2013]

ADRIANNE JEFFRIES, The Verge: Hi, thanks so much. My question is, Steve, with Julie and Terry leading separate software and hardware teams, how do you feel you can bring devices to the market in a way that Apple and other competitors do? Will they work closely enough and collaboratively enough to compete with Apple?

JULIE LARSON-GREEN: I think it’s a perfect way for us to approach it. Terry and I have worked together for a long time. We both have worked on the operating system side. I’ve worked on the hardware side, and it’s a good blending of our skills and our teams to deliver things together. So the structure that we’re putting in place for the whole company is about working across the different disciplines and having product champions. So Terry and I will be working to lead delivery to market of our first-party and third-party devices.

STEVE BALLMER: Yes, and maybe just also have Tony Bates add a little bit. Tony is going to have a critical role running business development evangelism, our role with our hardware innovation partners, our OEMs.

TONY BATES: Yes, I would just add to that. Julie alluded to this — first party, there’s also a third party — and I think having a single interface to our key innovation partners, but two bringing together the way we think about offers with our partners is going to be absolutely critical. So when we think about how we work together, I think of going back to one strategy, one team. So we’re all going to be part of that. It’s going to be critical that we have that interface going forward.

ADRIANNE JEFFRIES: And is Terry there?

TERRY MYERSON: Yes. I thought Julie and Tony had it very well said. We’ve got innovative ideas coming from our OEM partners, and Julie’s team has some very innovative ideas. And the platform needs to span from the PPI whiteboard that Tony talked about to Xbox, to our phone, and beyond. So it’s exciting to have all these hardware partners in the Windows ecosystem, or in the Microsoft ecosystem, and all the innovative ideas and to bring it to market together.

Microsoft partners empowered with ‘cloud first’, high-value and next-gen experiences for big data, enterprise social, and mobility on wide variety of Windows devices and Windows Server + Windows Azure + Visual Studio as the platform

July 10, 2013 12:15 pm / 5 Comments on Microsoft partners empowered with ‘cloud first’, high-value and next-gen experiences for big data, enterprise social, and mobility on wide variety of Windows devices and Windows Server + Windows Azure + Visual Studio as the platform

… even non-Microsoft devices are supported as Android and Apple phones are embraced as well

Preliminary information from this same ‘Experiencing the Cloud’ blog:
– Windows Embedded is an enterprise business now, like the whole Windows business, with Handheld and Compact versions to lead in the overall Internet of Things market as well [June 8, 2013]
– Proper Oracle Java, Database and WebLogic support in Windows Azure including pay-per-use licensing via Microsoft + the same Oracle software supported on Microsoft Hyper-V as well [June 25, 2013]
– Windows 8.1: Mind boggling opportunities, finally some appreciation by the media [June 27, 2013]
– Windows Azure becoming an unbeatable offering on the cloud computing market [June 28, 2013] Important note: Samsung was complete missing from device OEM roundup of Day 1 keynote despite of its leadership ATIV Q, ATIV Tab 3 and ATIV One 5 Style devices. It is not by accident as according to Intel’s tablet challenge: How Israel helped lay the foundations of its Samsung-led fightback [ZDNet, July 9, 2013]:

Intel, along with Samsung and other companies, are betting that the public is going to go for a new breed of device — two in one devices, which be switched between tablet and laptop mode, running both Android (when separated from the keyboard/base) and Windows 8 Pro (when attached).

Brief subject summary:

industry megatrends:
– [MS leading the enterprise cloud era] cloud,
– [MS has unmatched offerings, unmatched insight] big data,
– [MS solution is woved in, not forced] enterprise social, and
– [MS has best devices for doers, best tools to manage] mobility
Partners going ‘cloud first’ with Windows Azure
Microsoft unique point of view: delivering high-value experiences through our software value-added devices and experiences
support non-Microsoft devices: embrace Android and Apple phones
new user experience design [partner] competency [to be launched in January]
Windows 8.1:
– one modern and complete experience across the devices that matter today
– the best of the modern UI and the best of the desktop UI brought together in a harmonized way
– multitasking on one or any number of screens to increase productivity in a workstation like way
Windows 8/8.1 devices:
– Windows Embedded 8
– large-format touch, or the all-in-one (also as a desktop replacement)
– ultimately thin and light ultrabook
– tablet with touch, and convertible form factors
– docking tablet (also as a desktop replacement)
– waterproof tablet
– tablet with ink/stylus
– ruggedized tablet
– “one-handed Windows”
– thinnest and lightest tablet with ARM
– phones
– innovation: in hinge, in screen quality, in combined desktop replacement/home device/flat tablet mode
Self-service BI with Power BI for Office 365 Preview: next giant leap via building into Excel and SharePoint data discovery, data navigation, visualization, collaboration, and enterprise features around auditability
Application development: sea change with Windows Server + Windows Azure + Visual Studio as the development platform
– “A platform that is capable of both infrastructure as a service and platform as a services (IaaS + PaaS)”
– “That means any mission-critical Web application you want to build, any mobile front-end you want to build, where you’re automating a business process with a mobile front-end; any cloud service you want to build, you want to have this rich capability of both infrastructure as a service and a platform as a service”
– “And you want to be able to deliver that, by the way, in both Windows Azure, as well as on Windows Server. So that symmetry of development runtime is also very important, and that’s what we’re building out.”
– Visual Studio 2013 Preview availability announcement
– SQL Services, or SQL Database Premium Services for Windows Azure announcement: “unique already with the fact that we have a PaaS-based SQL Service”
Cloud infrastructure: “No one else in the industry, neither Amazon nor VMware can promise or deliver this level of consistency, this level of mission-critical readiness because of the battle testing of all the diverse set of first-party workloads.”

From: Jon Roskill: Worldwide Partner Conference 2013 Introduction [Speech transcript, July 8, 2013]

JON ROSKILL: Now let’s turn our attention and look forward, because while WPC is about celebrating, it’s also about us coming together to build our business plans together for the next year and kick off the fiscal year. That’s what WPC is all about.

And we’ve made a few changes in WPC, some of which you’ve already noticed as you look at things we’ve done in MPN today, but changes based on your feedback.

One of the key ones we’ve made is in the keynotes. You guys told us that you needed to have all of the product strategy upfront in order to be able to go and build your business plans over the remaining days. And so we’ve taken the day two keynote and the day one keynotes, and we’ve combined them together into a WPC day one supersession. So that’s what we’re going to do this morning.

Then you have day two fully open to go and do networking, go to sessions, and build out those business plans.

And then on day three we’ll come back together here with me, Kevin Turner. And then Wednesday night we will celebrate. And boy, are we going to have an amazing celebration. And by Wednesday night I’m going to be so excited to go crowd surfing with you guys.

We’ve also made this year ‘s WPC, we’ve built it around a customer-centric notion, customers at the center of WPC. And we’ve done that by basing WPC around these four industry megatrends: mobility, enterprise social, cloud, and big data. These are trends that are relevant every day to customers, and they’re driving demand for all of our solutions. So you’re going to see these four trends reflected not just in the keynotes and the sessions, but also in the expo across the commons, in the BG areas, et cetera.

Windows 8 takes center stage at Worldwide Partner Conference [Blogging Windows blog, July 8, 2013]

At Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Houston, Texas, executives discussed the company’s approach to services and devices. Tami Reller, Windows chief marketing officer and chief financial officer, announced that Windows 8.1 release to manufacturing (RTM) will be available for original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners in late August, so they can prepare Windows 8.1 devices just in time for the holidays.

New Power BI solution for Office 365 delivers self-service business intelligence on nearly any device [The Fire Hose blog from Microsoft]

Today, at the Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft announced a new offering: Power BI for Office 365 – a cloud-based business intelligence (BI) solution that enables customers to easily gain insights from their data, working within Excel to analyze and visualize the data in a self-service way.

Developments from Worldwide Partner Conference: Partners can go ‘cloud first’ with Windows Azure [Windows Azure blog, July 8, 2013]

At Day 1 of the Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft made several announcements that highlight new ways for our partners and customers to embrace cloud computing using the Windows Azure platform.

Partners in the cloud for modern business [The Official Microsoft Blog, July 8, 2013]

From the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Houston, Texas, Microsoft President of Server and Tools Business Satya Nadella announced new programs and services that are designed to help Microsoft partners and customers embrace the challenges and opportunities associated with cloud computing and big data. One such program, Cloud OS Accelerate, brings together Microsoft and key partners – Cisco, NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems, HP and Dell – who will invest more than $100 million to help put thousands of new private and hybrid cloud solutions into the hands of customers.

Partners: Want higher profits and faster growth? Sell cloud solutions, new IDC study says [Microsoft press release, July 8, 2013]

Today from the Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, Microsoft released a new study from IDC that shows partners selling cloud-based solutions benefit from higher gross profit, more new customers, higher revenue per employee and faster overall business growth. The study also revealed customer buying preferences that highlight the importance of the role of partners in the overall industry cloud transition.

Microsoft survey reveals SMB and enterprise opportunities for partners [Microsoft press release, July 9, 2013]

IPSOS study released at Worldwide Partner Conference highlights utilization of social tools and showcases opportunities for partners.

Windows Embedded partners to join Microsoft Partner Network [Microsoft feature story, July 9, 2013]

Resources will strengthen opportunities in rapidly growing intelligent systems market.

Details

Steve Ballmer at the Day 1 Keynote [msPartner YouTube channel, July 8, 2013]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer provided opening remarks at the WPC 2013 Day 1 keynote.

From: Steve Ballmer: Worldwide Partner Conference 2013 Keynote [Speech transcript, July 8, 2013]

… There’s 15,000 of you here in the room today, and to all of you I want to start with a simple message of thanks. Thanks for your support, thanks for your good work, and thank you every day for taking care of our customers. (Applause.) We have a total of 750,000 partners around the world, but about 90 percent of the revenue that we do is actually represented in some way, shape or form with the partners who are here today: systems integration partners, resale partners, hardware partners, development partners, software partners, cloud partners, framing partners, distribution partners. The range in breadth of the activities in which you engage are amazing. This year, our partners in aggregate had really quite a good year. Growth in the businesses from our partners was about 6.5 percent year over year, but on a base of $650 billion. That’s the total revenue of our partner network, $650 billion, and you still manage to grow at 6.5 percent. Congratulations everybody. (Applause.) …

…

We spend a lot of time as a leadership team thinking about the remaking of Microsoft. About a year ago in our annual report, we talked about the move from being a “software company” to a “devices and services company.” What that really means? It means that the world, and I’ve been saying this at our partner conferences here for a while, the world we grew up in was a world of software. When I dropped out of school and joined Microsoft, I had to explain to my mother and father what software was and why I was joining a software company. That was a long time ago.

And software development, I believe, is still the most valuable skill that anybody on the planet can possibly have. And yet the way in which software innovation gets really packaged and presented now is through a set of devices that include the software, and through a set of cloud services that deliver that software.

Just about six or seven years ago, I started talking about the cloud here at WPC. And it was highly unpopular the first time I talked about it, because it looked like an end around. And yet I think today everybody understands that this is the future of innovation. Even Windows, if you think about it, has really always been much more of a device than a piece of software.

Windows defined a class of devices called the PC. And we are certainly incredibly determined to have Windows define new classes of devices, tablets, phones, two-in-ones, living room devices, defined by Windows as a piece of software, but purchased and implemented by our partners as tested software. So we’re in the transformation from delivering our software value one way to delivering it in a new form, and we need our partners to come with us on that journey, whether you design and build computers, whether you deliver systems integration services, whether you provide custom development, there’s a place in this journey for all of us.

At Microsoft we say, what’s our unique point of view. Our unique point of view is on delivering high-value experiences through our software value-added devices and experiences. We think we understand the tools, the technologies that it takes to help people get work done better than anybody else on the planet, whether you are an employee, whether you are a customer or a trading partner, whether you are an IT person or a developer, we build experience that help people get stuff done. You need to do a piece of analysis, we’re going to have the best tools, the best devices and services for helping people do analysis. You want to participate in a virtual meeting, nobody is going to give you a better experience to participate in a virtual meeting than Microsoft does. You want to ensure information integrity in your customer, because no matter what happens with consumerization, it’s still the IT department that has to protect the integrity and value of corporate information. We together understand these things, and we together, Microsoft and our partners, will deliver the devices and services that really bring these things alive when people want to be productive.

Now, we have another side of ourselves at Microsoft, too. That’s the fun side. I refer to it as serious fun, because unless you’re hardcore about fun, the Xbox probably hasn’t been the product for you. But when it’s serious fun, or serious business, we’re going to make sure that we provide the core experiences through our devices and services, and through the value add of people in this room to really bring that alive. That’s not easy. It takes a lot of core technology investment in operating systems, in user interface, and particularly now natural user interface, in machine learning, in cloud infrastructure.

…

So what is on our customer’s mind? These are the four big trends that I think in particular our IT customers, but businesses in general, want to speak with us about every day. They come to us and they say, what about the cloud? They say it to you. They say it to us. They say, hey, I hear about big data, or I understand big data, or I’m afraid I’m missing out on big data, how are you going to help me get there, they’ll say to the two of us.

Social, part of the consumerization theme of the day is how do we apply techniques and software services that people get to know in their personal lives, how do we apply those to enable business productivity? And we’re going to show you a lot today of what we’re doing with social so that people can come together in what I would call human ways to do superhuman tasks at their work.

And last, but certainly not least, is mobility. I get to do something that the rest of you don’t do, because I sit on the stage, I get to count the number of mobile devices that go up for pictures and various other things during my speech. We’re at about 25 percent would be my gauge this year. I’m sure everybody has got a mobile device with them, but what it says is that the range of applications of mobility just continues to increase. And I want you to really understand just how rich our mobile offering has become, both in terms of the Windows devices that you can use as part of your solution, and the work that we are doing to support some non-Windows devices. So let me dive into each of these in turn.

First is the cloud, the cloud remains a little bit of an amorphous thing. But, at the end of the day, the task of the cloud probably means, and it might be 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, it is really a path that leads for almost all companies to the public cloud. And that puts a lot of pressure on providers, whether it’s Microsoft, folks we compete with, our service provider partners, it puts a lot of pressure on us to make sure that we have world-class scaled, low-cost, low latency, high-bandwidth cloud infrastructure across the world. How do we, from a public cloud application, deliver with incredibly low-latency and with exactly the right data security and privacy and protection? How do we deliver information, whether it’s in the U.S., or Australia, or China, or Malaysia, or any place else in the world? And we are investing in that infrastructure.

We actually started the investment process in that infrastructure in order to support our own applications, to support Bing, to support Office 365. And what we would tell you is that our cloud infrastructure, Azure, is being proven out, is being battle tested, and is being advanced on the backbone of our own first-party applications, but then that infrastructure, that Azure infrastructure, is there for all of you to use, to deliver solutions to your customers.

I claim there really are almost no companies in the world, just a handful, that are really investing in scaled public cloud infrastructure. We have something over a million servers in our datacenter infrastructure. Google is bigger than we are. Amazon is a little bit smaller. You get Yahoo! and Facebook, and then everybody else is 100,000 units probably or less. So the number of companies that really understand the network topology, the datacenter construction, the server requirements to build this public cloud infrastructure is very, very small, very small. And the number of companies that are at the same time seriously investing in the private cloud, which is not going away, and in these hybrid clouds is really just one and that’s us. We are building in a compatible way private cloud infrastructure based on Windows Server, and public cloud infrastructure based on Windows Azure, and we will talk to you about that today.

Sixty-three percent of customers surveyed will say they really want a single vendor who can provide them both public cloud and private cloud. We think we are the only solution and certainly the best solution for customers who want that. We continue to advance with our cloud applications, our Bing search service has made progress each and every month, improving not only its market-share and its quality, but also the speed and performance with which we deliver our results, which should be a key indication to you on just how rich our cloud infrastructure is.

Through your good work our Office 365 service has literally exploded. For the last few years we were saying SharePoint was the No. 1 fastest growing product at Microsoft. Then it was Lync, the No. 1 fastest growing product at Microsoft. Through your good work it’s Office 365. And what all of that means is our mutual customers are ready for the cloud, and our product line is ready for the cloud. People want full, familiar, world-class productivity tools in the cloud. Only we give people those tools that really let you get work done. There are pretenders who come from the consumer world, but there’s only one set of tools for your business customers who really need a productive, high-security, high-reliability, infrastructure in the cloud for their applications.

No. 2, big data, big data is I think one of the areas that is still very, very early actually in its exploitation. Big data means a lot of things to a lot of people, and it’s very important that we continue to push forward on these big data themes. You’re going to see demonstrations today of some of our tools, some of the work that we’ve done with Excel, and SQL Server, I guarantee you for people who have a lot of data, there is no question that the No. 1 sort of most familiar, easy-to-use toolset to get insight out of data comes from Excel and SQL Server.

Ninety percent, literally, of the world’s data, this is a very interesting fact, ninety percent of the world’s data has actually been created in the last two years, 90 percent of all of the online data in the world in the last two years. What it says is there’s an explosion in this data. And so tools that let people mine it, get insights from it, and understanding from it are essential. We’re going to show you a demonstration of some of the things that you can do with our big data and BI suite later on today that I think will absolutely blow your mind.

But, we’re also providing you with the infrastructure that lets you build out automated solutions for your customers, because over time most of the value in big data will actually be in having the data learn from itself and take automated actions on our joint customers behalf. We’re building out our Hadoop infrastructure on Azure, so that you can do a mix of things with structured and unstructured data. We are certainly doing a lot of work on SQL Azure, so that you can access the structured data in the cloud. Because of our investment in Bing, we know we have a lot of data. We are putting that data in a structured form, where you can use it as part of the applications you deliver.

One of the key things that we showed at our developer conference a couple of weeks ago in Windows 8.1 is the way we’re starting to take entities that Bing understands and make them part of a platform for you to use as developers in your applications.

Last but not least is the Azure Data Marketplace. There is going to be a lot of data that people are going to want to use inside their applications that don’t actually live inside the enterprises you serve. If you want to write a forecasting application for one of your customers that forecasts how many raincoats they need in each of their retail stores, I guarantee you the weather data is a helpful input. And yet most of our joint customers don’t keep the weather data in their enterprise systems. And so we want to let you mix and match public data and private data. We want you to be able to bring that data together in structured and unstructured ways. We want to bring it together in ways in which humans get the insights, and we want to give you the machine-learning infrastructure so that the computers themselves can actually help your customers respond to their customers in real time. The work we’re doing here you’ll hear about throughout the morning, and particularly the demonstrations you’ll see I think will really bring these things alive.

Social. Some people think social is one product. I don’t. Social is a way of working. How do four of us come together and collaborate on a project? How do we collaborate if we work in the same company? How do we collaborate if we work in different companies? How do I reach you if you are in my customer base and I want to do a seminar for you? Or I want to put on and have an event where we communicate real time? All of these are social activities that are involved in business. So it’s people to people, it’s people to businesses, it’s employees to employees, it’s all of the constituents, consumers, employees, customers, and partners. How do you bring them together naturally? Sometimes you want to do that on a real-time basis, and sometimes you want to be able to do that in a way in which people can participate asynchronously.

I’m glad to have 15,000 people here today, but many more people will watch the video of this section in our partner community around the world. And it’s part of, if you will, the social infrastructure, letting people participate the way they want when they want. And we’ve woven this into the fabric of everything we do. Windows devices come from the get-go with integrated communications and social capabilities like Skype. Skype and Lync are being brought together to allow the consumer and the businessperson to interact together in real time.

We continue to push forward in Outlook, adding more social capabilities directly into the e-mail client that is the base station from which most of us would communicate with other people. We acquired Yammer over a year ago, and you’ll see the way we’re using Yammer both inside companies and now enabling it to stretch between companies and their partners to involve real-time communication that feels very much like what somebody would do on Twitter or Facebook, but in a productivity context. We continue to push SharePoint social capabilities forward, and even in our Dynamics product line, even when we’re talking about line of business process, it is very important to collect the information from the social realm, and to be able to let people in formal line of business processes actually connect to social environments. And we’re going to show you some of that later on in the demonstration.

Last but not least is mobility. This is an area where we’ve made huge strides in the last year. I had a chance to beat my chest a little bit, get excited about Windows Phone, but we’re also going to show you today what we’ve done with Windows 8.1, and what our hardware partners have done with Windows devices. You can buy beautiful Windows devices today in so many different shapes and forms. Windows PCs, everybody has a notion of what we mean by a Windows PC. But we’re going to show you small Windows tablets. They’re still all Windows all the time, but they’re hard to mistake for a PC.

We’ll show you Windows two-in-ones, devices, which depending on how you configure them at any time will feel like a PC or can feel like a tablet. I happen to think this will be the most popular configuration for business people because they’ll want the ability to seamlessly go back and forth between their productive life, their consumptive life, and their personal life.

I talked about Windows Phone. You’re going to get a chance to see the Surface. Hopefully many of you will choose to pick one up, but what we’re doing with Surface I think is also amazing. We’re trying to really lead the way on products like Surface Pro, and the use of the pen, which I think is pretty fundamental in mobility.

While we’re making these investments in sort of Windows mobile form factors, if you will, we also continue to do work to support non-Microsoft devices. You’ve seen us certainly move with SkyDrive, with Lync, with OneNote, with a number of our offerings to embrace Android and Apple phones. We’re going to show you some technology today for managing mobile devices that apply outside the Microsoft sphere. So our mobility strategy, as centered as it may feel in our Windows devices, and they are beautiful, and they are the most productive, for those people who just don’t happen to have one, we’ll also show you a little bit of some of the technology that we’ll give you so you can stay well anchored in Windows and Active Directory as the center point for managing devices of all shapes, sizes and forms.

At the end of the day we may see ourselves focusing on high-value experiences, and our customers may ask us collectively about cloud, and big data, and mobility, and social, but at the end of the day we deliver to you some products. And with those products in hand you turn around and try to serve our joint customers.

Windows, we’ll show you 8.1 and I couldn’t be more pleased with the progress. Windows Phone, if you haven’t checked it out recently you must. Surface, I hope you get the opportunity to delve in and really explore at the partner conference. Office 365, including Yammer, and Skype, and Lync, and SharePoint and Excel, and BI, and all of these phenomenal capabilities, the footprint of what you can do with Office is continuously expanding. And when you leave here, we want to make sure you leave here understanding completely the breadth of footprint that Office is embracing. Windows Azure, and when I say Azure today I include Windows Server, and the full on-premise product line. Your ability to go out and articulate a hybrid cloud story with Windows Server, SQL Server, and Windows Azure is incredibly important to us. So we are going to try to equip you to do that by the time you’re done today.

And then last, but not least, is Dynamics. Dynamics continues to evolve in its footprint, in its embrace of the cloud. Dynamics is an amazing business for Microsoft. I’ll bet we get less PR on the business that is billions of dollars for Microsoft, and where we probably have the most loyal committed partner base in the world, and the most loyal committed customer base. And for those of you who have not come back and looked recently at the amazing work that we’re doing in business applications I hope you’ll feel enthused to go do that by the end of the day.

We will only succeed as a company if we arm you to go approach these challenges. You need to see these products. You need to understand their potential. You need to believe that they can help you serve our joint customers. You need to know each other. Some of you are experts in hardware. Some of you are experts in systems integration, some are developers, some are resellers. Bringing you all together and equipping you with the common base, so you understand where we’re going, what we’re doing, and collectively how we can serve our joint customers that’s what WPC is all about, and if we take advantage of this opportunity and certainly with the phenomenal product lineup that we have today, and we’ll roll out over the next month, we know absolutely that we can succeed together.

Thank you all very much and enjoy WPC.

Windows 8.1 Product Enhancements [msPartner YouTube channel, July 9, 2013]

Tami Reller, CVP and CFO, Windows and Windows Live, provided updates and demos of Windows 8.1.

See also: Windows at WPC 2013 [Blogging Windows, July 8, 2013]
From: Tami Reller: Worldwide Partner Conference 2013 Keynote [Speech transcript, July 8, 2013]

Tami Reller: … everything that we are talking about today is anchored by this idea that we can do something that no other company can. And that is one modern and complete experience across the devices that matter today. Your experience, your data, everything can travel with you. And it’s connected through this trusted foundation of Windows. This is one experience that is unique to Windows, but it’s also uniquely yours.

I mean, we know that when a customer chooses an Apple product, they get a device that reflects Apple. When you choose an Android device, you get a device that reflects a dizzying number of points of view. But when you choose a Windows device, you get a device that reflects you.

Start a Word document from your laptop, then easily finish it on a Windows Phone. You get music, video, and games from Xbox. The best of the Web with Internet Explorer. The best cloud storage in SkyDrive. And of course the best way to stay connected, Skype. And the absolute best in productivity with Office. All of this across every device providing the most complete experience from the start.

Well, we’re believers, continue to be believers that user experience and the design is going to continue to be an important differentiator for Microsoft, and it’s also going to continue to be an important differentiator for the experiences that you are building for customers.

What we’re finding is that businesses are seeking trusted partners who can not only write great code, that’s critical of course, but they can also design beautiful and engaging experiences for customers.

Apps that are better designed, they absolutely achieve better ratings in the Windows store, and even equally as important, they are more engaging for customers, and they deliver greater monetization opportunities.

So to support all of this, I’m excited to announce that in January we will be launching a new [partner] competency: The user experience design competency. And the whole idea behind this competency is to give you the best way to train your designers and to get recognized for your expertise with the Microsoft design language and user experience for app building.

This competency will provide your designers with training and certification and gives your firm a head start in building great apps, and we think will help you recruit the best people. So I hope you’re as excited about this as we are, look for this in January.

So we’ve been talking about devices and services for about a year now. And while so much of the opportunity that we see for us and that we see for you is still ahead, there’s a lot of great momentum to talk about.

…

Let’s take, for example, Windows Phone, which Steve did such a great job talking about. Our sales are growing six times faster than the overall smartphone market. Safe to say that we are now officially the third ecosystem in mobility. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you.

Windows. We are moving forward. Steve did a great job talking about that. We’re moving forward, and you heard us talk about 100 million licenses. I can also report that we have over 20 million enterprise evaluations. So great in consumer and a lot of enterprise traction starting.

And Windows 8, so far, has logged 60 billion hours of use. And our new customer activation continues at a consistent pace.

Office. It’s a great example of a product that is used multiple times every day and it is known and loved by more than a billion people. The new Office is our fastest-selling release in history. Worldwide, one copy is sold every second.

Additionally, one out of four enterprise customers are already on Office 365. And I love this next statistic. Partners lead three out of four enterprise Office 365 deployments, three out of four, great opportunity. Thank you so much for your role in moving businesses to the cloud. (Applause.)

Amazing momentum on Skype. More than 300 million people use Skype each month. And that’s a service that can see up to two billion minutes of use per day on some peak days.

So how our products come together really starts with the experience. And people are using our products as part of everyday life. Important parts of their life. And Steve talked about this as well.

So I have this short video that I think does a great job of showing what we mean by this. Take a look.

(Break for video segment.) [6:40 … 7:10 essentially for Office 365]

… [Office 365: complete Office in the cloud … this is the Office enhancement … +extension to the Open program … +investment in partner enablement]

… [Windows Phone: Lumias … suitable to build end-to-end enterprise solutions … tools to build enterprise solutions]

… [xBox: … newest xBox One …]

… [Surface and Surface Pro: … hand down more productive than iPad … better with Windows 8.1 …]

… [Windows: … mobility is top for CIOs … Windows 8 tablets are best for the business … SkyDrive … destination for developers … more than 100,000 apps … LOB customers need partners … 2 out of 3 enterprise enterprise organizations are investing today in mobile applications … great UI enhancements, great usability functionality … migration from XP opportunity … Windows Accelerate program continued … new Touch Win program incentives directly to authorized distributors as well as reseller partners …]

… [Windows 8.1: … 900 continuous improvements and hundreds of updates to our inbox apps … represents responsiveness, it represents rapid timeframe … feel natural on everything from a small tablet to a large work station …]

[21:18 Jensen Harris showing Windows 8.1 via a jam-packed demo here for the next few minutes, including some things that we have never publicly shown before]

… [Nokia Lumia 925 … 8-inch Acer Iconia W3 … in landscape games and productivity … +optimized Windows 8.1 specifically for portrait for working great on these small tablets e.g. Reading List, ergonomics … ]

Now I’m going to move over here to a Surface and I’m going to show you one of the most important near features in 8.1. Every month, 20 billion searches are performed just in the United States on Windows PCs — 20 billion searches every month. We looked at this as an opportunity to say if we made search better in this product, we would be making 20 billion things every month better for people. And so we’ve introduced search in 8.1.

… [search hero: … curated, built-on-the-fly app that brings together information from Bing, information from your PC, files from the cloud, things from the Web, and puts it all together in one view … integrated with Maps functionality…]

… [xBoxMusic app: … redesigned totally to make it fast, to make it efficient, and to focus on your collection of music …]

[Dell all-in-one, 27 inches with touch … the world’s best Skype device, a Windows 8.1 PC … Start screen changes: all the things that you love on one screen … new personalization options … multiselect … Reading List … SkyDrive … picture editing built-in … a lot of new [built-in] apps: e.g. Food & Drink … hands-free mode … Windows Store big-big update: e.g. recommendation engine built one Bing … … OneNote syncing with SkyDrive …]

[Surface Pro: “play to Xbox One” … Miracast built-in … OneNote
Windows Phone: OneNote syncing with SkyDrive ]

… [desktop PC: … doesn’t need touch …bring together the best of the modern UI and the best of the desktop UI and harmonize them in Windows 8.1 … Start button .. enterprise cosumer dashboard … productivity (… multitasking) taken to next level: e.g. new version of Outlook … ]

Suddenly, I have something that is starting to look like a very productive work station. And I can move these windows around, I can put them where I want. We have maximize, we have resize, and all of a sudden you start to realize that there’s more than one way of doing awesome productivity. This uses all the pixels on my PC.

And on this sort of smallish monitor, I can fit three. But if I had something like a 2550 x 1440 monitor, I could show four apps on the screen at once. And all of a sudden, now you’re way more productive than you could have been on the desktop. You’ve got your Twitter feed, you’ve got your full running mail app, you’ve got multiple browser windows or multiple mails up at once.

And it gets even better. If I attach a second monitor, then suddenly I can do the same thing on multiple monitors at once. So I have any collection of apps across my monitors in any configuration I want, any size I want, blending desktop and modern apps across my screens. I can bring the Start screen up on one and just leave it, and this doesn’t just work for two monitors, it works for three, four, five, six, seven, as many as I have. And so this sort of shows the power of Windows 8.1 and the modern UI even on a desktop engineering workstation making you more productive.

[1:02:06]

Tami Reller: … I’m also quite happy to be able to confirm today that Windows 8.1 will be available for our OEM partners in late August. Meaning that holiday devices, many of them will have Windows 8.1. So late August available to OEMs. So very pleased to confirm that today.

What better timing to talk about our OEM devices? We’d like to do that. Please help me welcome to the stage Nick Parker. To do that, I’d like to open with a little video, a commercial we have on air that shows just why Windows 8 tablets are so special.

(Windows tablet commercial video.) [1:04:05 … 1:04:35 essentially iPad 32 GB $599 vs. Windows Tablet $299 (Dell XPS 10 32GB) Limited time offer at Dell.com]

Dell Tablet vs. iPad [WindowsVideos YouTube channel, June 13, 2013] here the limited time offer at the end stands at $399

See how the Dell XPS 10 with Windows RT stacks up against the iPad. Check out more at http://windows.com/compare

Nick Parker:

… Windows Storage Server: e.g. Western Digital Sentinel, a 16-terabyte small business server … Windows Embedded 8: e.g. IEI [?Institute for Emerging Issues?] display panel … large-format touch, or the all-in-one: e.g. Dell XPS 18 also as a desktop replacement … ultrabook: e.g. the world’s thinnest and lightest one Sony VAIO Pro 13 … tablets with touch, and convertible form factors: e.g. Lenovo Helix … tablet with stylus … docking tablet, also as a desktop replacement: e.g. Latitude 10 … Fujitsu Arrows Tab waterproof tablet … Hewlett Packard ElitePad 900 the choice of Emirates Air for their in-flight device, also with a very innovative sleeve … Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 , not just a small app running a stylus capability, but ink immersed as part of your input mechanism … Panasonic FZ-G1, the Panasonic Toughpad ruggedized computer … Acer W3 one-handed Windows … thinnest and the lightest tablet that you can get, as well as having all-day battery and integrated 4G, and those are capabilities built on the ARM platform: Asus VivoTab RT … phones: Nokia 925 and Nokia 520 … innovation: Acer Aspire R7 with innovation in hinge, Toshiba KIRAbook a 221-pixels-per-inch device, HP Rove the 20-inch IPS all-in-one for both desktop replacements as well as great home devices + complete flat tabletop mode for using an application that’s maybe multi-orientational …

[1:22:24]

Note that Samsung was complete missing from this device OEM roundup despite of its leadership ATIV Q, ATIV Tab 3 and ATIV One 5 Style devices, as you could read in 20 years of Samsung “New Management” as manifested by the latest, June 20th GALAXY & ATIV innovations [‘Experiencing the Cloud, July 2-5, 2013]

Satya Nadella about Platform, Infrastructure, and Applications [msPartner YouTube channel, July 8, 2013]

Satya Nadella, President of Server and Tools, speaks about the enterprise.

From: Satya Nadella: Worldwide Partner Conference 2013 Keynote [Speech transcript, July 8, 2013]

… <before that: how to enable dynamic business … demoed across Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online Windows Intune, and System Center Configuration Manager, and Azure Active Directory … >

[30:08] When you think about having lots of data and having lots of rich processing capabilities, the next step is to be able to empower your end users with the best tools to drive insights. This is where we collectively have really created one of the most amazing phenomena when it comes to BI with self-service BI. We took the most ubiquitous tool around data in Excel, combined it with the power of SQL Analysis Services, and started the self-service BI revolution, and especially in combination with SharePoint, we really have done a fantastic job of driving insight at the edge of all data, big or small.

Today I’m really pleased to announce the next giant leap, if you will, when it comes to self-service BI. We are announcing Power BI for Office 365 Preview. It takes all of the rich capabilities around data discovery, data navigation, visualization, collaboration, enterprise features around auditability, taking all of that, building it right into Excel and SharePoint, so that every user has friction-free access to it. They’re also delivering all of the rich cloud capabilities that power this natively in Azure. So that means all of the SQL analysis capabilities that power this experience are all there natively in the cloud.

So to show you a glimpse of what this new solution, Power BI for Office 365, can do I wanted to invite up on stage Amir Netz.

Amir.

Power BI Demo [msPartner YouTube channel, July 8, 2013] for those who want to watch only this part, watch especially from [8:10] on especially (incredible demo/performance)

Amir Netz demonstrates the new Power BI

AMIR NETZ: Thank you, Satya.

Power BI brings self-service analytics to the cloud and the power of the cloud directly into Excel. It opens amazing new ways for users to connect with data. So let’s take a look. We have here on the screen our Excel 2013. And I want to create a report about our datacenters. I don’t have the data. With Power BI we can actually go and find the data that we need. You see here online search, I am going to use it to go and find the data for my report.

I’m going to type in my search query and just here within Excel Power BI is searching for millions of public data tables, and finding the data that I might need. It comes from Wikipedia, it comes from the marketplace, it comes from Bing, but because I’m a Microsoft employee I’m also getting data not just from the public data sources, I’m also getting data from my enterprise data assets. Those were mapped into the catalogue of Power BI. So here we see a table from my data warehouse, and I can go and add that table to my Excel, and just like that Power BI connects and aligns the data directly to my sheet just like that. It’s so easy.

Now I want to create my report. I’m going to go and use PowerView. It’s also integrated into Excel 2013. So let’s go and create a nice report here. We’re going to take a look at the let’s take the location of the datacenter, the square footage of the datacenter, let’s make it a bit larger. It’s Excel 2013 so we can just convert it immediately to a map. We can go and categorize my datacenters by generation. Just with a few clicks, a beautiful report and it’s not the only report I have here in my workbook. I have a couple more.

So this report here shows me the storage of Azure, just an amazing explanation of the growth in the business. This one here shows me the subscriber’s growth in the business. You see almost 200 percent in just over a year. I mean I can slice and dice and look at segments of users, and see the growth there. So I have this beautiful report, interactive, and I want to share it with other people and to do that I go to the file menu, I do a save as and I’m saving it to the Power BI side in Office 365.

And now what does this site look like? Let’s see how this site looks like in SharePoint Online. This is it. You can see how well organized it is. You see my Azure report, my Office 365 report. It’s clean. It’s crisp. It’s beautiful. I want to go and take a look at one of those reports. I click and of course, because the reports are all created inside Excel, Excel is the application used to be able to browse the reports in my browser. So you can see here the explanation of growth you see in the compute resources of Azure, you can go and look at the other reports of that, the database growth, and of course the whole thing is fully interactive. So I can go select different time slices and in the browser get the full interrogation of the data.

It’s very easy to share, very easy to explore, but it’s more than that, it’s a full enterprise offering. So let’s take a look and see all the options that we have here. So see this menu here, take a look at what we have. I can share with other people, I can protect the data, I can schedule data refresh, where Power BI will reach back from the cloud to the enterprise, go to the original data sources, bring the data on the regular basis up to the cloud, up to the report that we have here. I can track the data usage by my users. And one more thing I can do here, I can add that report to my mobile favorites. And you can see this mobile star here, now that report is here and it’s showing up on my mobile device. It’s a beautiful application Power BI. It’s fully interactive as you use it. And it’s not just this report. I have a full gallery of reports that I can use here. You can see I can browse through that. It’s just the best way you can have to consume reports on the go.

So you’re seeing what kind of a gorgeous, great offering we have here. But, there’s one more thing, one more capability that I think you need to see, because in my opinion it’s the true game changer. So for this I’m going to take a look at another Power BI slide. Look at this one here, and make it a bit larger. This one Power BI slide is for a media company. And you see it has these reports that we created in Excel. But, there’s another role here, we call it “Featured Answers.” And these are the most common questions my users ask about the data. For example, show our sales pipeline. I’m clicking on it and now Power BI connects automatically to the sales pipeline data source and shows me the results. Now it looks like a comp report, but it is not. It is the beginning of a conversation with Power BI.

So I can compute that, show our sales pipeline only with opportunity size greater than $20,000. And as I type I immediately get the answer. You can see that there are six opportunities greater than $20,000. It’s very easy, right. (Applause.) Now one of those opportunities is this rock-themed event series. And I want to continue the line of interrogation I want to ask questions about that, so I can go and ask maybe the top rock classics. And notice I’m using, something magical happens. As I was typing the questions the results came up and I actually realized I’m asking about songs. So I moved away from the pipeline data set, automatically it connects me to a different one. This one is the historical data set for all the music charts in the United States. So I can see that “Bohemian Rhapsody” here, by the way my favorite song of all time, is the top rock classic. And I know it’s right, because Power BI tells me what it understood from me.

Look at that. It tells me that when I said rock I meant rock songs. And when I said classic, I meant a certain period of time, the ’70s and the ’80s. It is not the oldies from the ’50s. And when I said top it said you probably want to rank it by something, so you rank it by the number of weeks it stayed on the charts. So I like that interpretation, but not exactly. And again, Power BI comes to help me. It says, hey, I know what you mean now. So how about instead of ranking by weeks on the chart, I offer other options, rank it by the weeks the song stayed at No. 1. And I can see that “I Love Rock and Roll” is showing at No. 1. And every other part of the sentence is understood with Power BI.

So you say, maybe you don’t want to look at songs, you might want to look at artists or albums. Maybe not rock, here’s other genres. How about pop? Let’s go with pop. And see “Physical,” Olivia Newton John, the top pop classic from that era. It’s just an easy and fun way to interrogate the data. Let’s take this for example; let’s ask for songs about true love. And I can see immediately five different songs, one of them by Bing Crosby, another by Elton John, all called “True Love” showing up on the charts. I can ask questions about people that I know. Songs about Bill Gates, and you’d be surprised there’s actually a song called Bill Gates showing up on the charts, three years ago. Yes, by Lil Wayne, one week on the charts. I looked at the lyrics. It actually is truly not a love song.

We can ask more business questions like number of songs. You can see we have 2,600 songs in the database. Let’s list it by year. And now notice how the system automatically detects what I’m asking, giving me a much better visualization. This is a better way to look at it as a chart, automatically. I don’t have to say anything. And you can see this very interesting chart. It shows how many songs showed up on the music charts every year. And you can see in the late ’60s and early ’70s over 700 different songs on the charts. And then we go to the new millennium you see how it’s kind of dropping gradually and it’s less than half of that when you get to the new millennium. And then there is some recovery. But, when you turn on the radio and it seems like it’s the same song playing again, and again, and again, well now you know, we actually do listen you have the proof. We do listen to way less songs than people in the ’60s and ’70s listened to, very interesting.

Now the picture is even more interesting when you look at it by genre. And again, the system just changed the visualization for me on the fly, and look at that, this is the pop genre. And you see the peak that we saw before, the decline, and some of the recovery. Rock starts the same way, peak, decline, but it doesn’t recover. Something is going on here. And look at that hip-hop. From the mid-’80s hip-hop is growing and growing, and growing and it’s not taking from pop, it’s taking all the market share from rock. So you can see how the data is telling you this fascinating story of the music industry just like that.

[8:10] Now, of course you might want to know other questions. For example, what is the best song of all time? And you can see that we have here Jason Mraz with “I’m Yours.” The first time I saw that I said, who the heck is Jason Mraz? But I had to go look at the data three times and unfortunately it is Jason Mraz, scientifically speaking, it’s the best song of all times, over a year and a half on the chart, like no other song. It’s amazing. And of course, the age old question, who is the best artist? And now we get here, again, a different visualization, and you can see here that you have Mariah Carey, you have The Beatles, we have Usher, we have Elvis, really fantastic artists that we have here. But, these are very different periods of time and it’s really hard to compare The Beatles from the ’60s to Mariah Carey from now. So maybe other visualizations can help me. And with Power BI we can switch the visualization. Look at that, I have a whole list of visualizations. I can change it to a table, for example. It doesn’t help me to explain it. But, there’s one more visualization here that we call the king of the hill. And this one is just specifically designed to explain changes over time.

Now we can see here, let me just explain how it works. It’s kind of a bubble chart. In the middle we have the biggest bubble, it will be the artist that has the most weeks at No. 1 on the chart is the king, right. It’s going to be the center big bubble, around it will be the contenders, the people who want to take the center position from it, the other artists with less weeks on the charts. And we’re going to animate over the time dimension.

So we start with 1955, Frank Sinatra, Pat Boone, and we’ll see the Motown area, so we’re going to see here the Platters joining in. But, in 1957 something amazing happened, Elvis Presley breaks through with “All Shook Up,” and he is the king. This is Elvis in the center. He is going to have over 100 different songs on the Billboard 100. It’s just dominating. But, in the ’60s come and so over the pond the greatest band in the history of music, The Beatles are showing up. And they would have 26 No. 1 hits. They’re going to have eight consecutive ones. They just dominated the rest of the decade into the ’70s, and they’re breaking up. And this is kind of a weird condition. Look at that, Three Dog Night, never heard about them? Forget about them, because the next one is going to be Elton John, he’s a legend. Candle in the Wind is still the No. 1 selling single of all time. This is also the disco era. So we have the Bee Gees, I danced to their songs with my first girlfriend. And of course, it was Olivia Newton John, a giant mega-star in the early ’80s.

And now look at that, what do you have in the ’80s, Paul McCartney, going to be followed by Michael Jackson, going to be followed up by Madonna, going to be followed up by Whitney Houston. This is a parade of the greats we had in the ’80s, George Michael, Paula Abdul, I have no idea what she is doing here. Now, we’re seeing Mariah Carey, she is going to dominate the ’90s. She’s going to have a fight with Boys To Men. But, look at it, she’s in that fight and she’s pushing them out. She is going to continue with 79 weeks at No. 1. She is going to dominate the ’90s. But, the ’90s are coming to an end. Santana is taking over. He is going to take over and then it’s the hip-hop and rap, with Nelly, Kid Rock I cannot stand, and then Usher he is a genius, wonderful, wonderful. But, look at that, it’s Mariah. She’s over here again. She’s looking for a fight in the 2000s, and she’s pushing them out. And now we are getting ready for the era of the divas. Rihanna, look at it she’s taking over. Katy Perry is trying. Adele is trying. But, no Rihanna is here to stay. Thank you, Rihanna. Thank you Power BI.

Thank you all. [43:30]

SATYA NADELLA: Thank you, Amir.

Hopefully you got a good feel for the power of Power BI in Office 365, and now just imagine if you can sort of replace all of the pop data and music data with your business data and your customer data. Mix it up, in fact, with some of the public data inside of Bing, and doing these kinds of demos where people are able to get insights from all of the data that they have inside their organization, and doing a join of that with, in fact, information that’s available publicly. We think that this is the next big leap when it comes to BI and insight around big data. [44:16]

So let’s switch gears and talk about application development. I know many of you in the room have lots of projects that you’re doing application development for. This is something that we have historically done very well together with Visual Studio and .NET. And, in fact, all of our client and server runtime platform. But this is going through a sea change. And, therefore, we are building and retooling for the sea change a few apps that you want to build.

It all starts by having a platform that is capable of both infrastructure as a service and platform as a services. So that’s IaaS plus PaaS. And that means any mission-critical Web application you want to build, any mobile front-end you want to build, where you’re automating a business process with a mobile front-end; any cloud service you want to build, you want to have this rich capability of both infrastructure as a service and a platform as a service. And you want to be able to deliver that, by the way, in both Windows Azure, as well as on Windows Server. So that symmetry of development runtime is also very important, and that’s what we’re building out.

Since you’re building applications for enterprise customers, you’ll want to have real richness of business logic. And this is where we are making some changes, and innovations, which are going to fundamentally change the economics and the repeatability of your business application development, or mission-critical application development. From identity, you saw Azure AD already from an IT perspective, but from a developer perspective now you have a fully programmable identity management solution where you can handle multiple identities, consumer identities as well as enterprise identities.

We have BizTalk services in the cloud now where you can use that to be able to automate your enterprise application integration, or even B-to-B integration. We have all the richness of the data platform I talked about previously that now you can incorporate as part of your solutions without having to really build that all on your own, whereas you now will be able to make API calls.

And, lastly, perhaps most interestingly, is you can, in fact, incorporate all of Office 365 as part of your solution. Office 365 has a very modern API surface area across the entire length and breadth, both on the client side as well as on the server side, that you can now program as part of your solution. Think about all the document workflows within the enterprise business application context that you can incorporate.

Of course, at the end of the day, what matters to you as well as your customers is productivity. And that’s where we’ve always led with the fantastic tooling in Visual Studio. We’re taking that a step further to make rapid application development, especially with the Lightswitch features inside of Visual Studio 2013, we’re making it possible for you to build your Web applications or business applications with Web fronts that much more simple for you to do rapid application development, especially in combination with Office. So the combination of Visual Studio, Lightswitch, the services that go with Visual Studio, either on TFS or on Azure with source code control, project management, build, test, all of those services come together to really improve your productivity.

And we have many, many customers and partners who are taking advantage of this. The one I wanted to highlight was a solution built by .NET Solutions for IT, a financial services company in the UK. And it’s a very cool solution in the sense that they were able to take a very innovative approach to doing codes where they were monitoring the in-car telematics getting back information to Azure, then rendezvousing that with a code system which was on premise to be able to do real-time codes, and do custom codes for their customers. So that’s a pretty innovative way to think about mobile applications, Web tier, as well as being able to service relay back to data inside of your enterprise. And that richness of both tooling and capabilities in the runtime are unparalleled and unique to what we do with the combination of Windows Server and Windows Azure.

So I’m really pleased to announce the availability of Visual Studio 2013 Preview. I really encourage those of you who have .NET practices, Visual Studio expertise, now you can take the tooling coming out, the runtimes that are coming out as part of Windows Server, Windows Azure, as well as Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone, and really build this next generation of mobile applications as well as Web applications, and cloud services.

I’m also pleased to announce SQL Services, or SQL Database Premium Services for Windows Azure. Windows Azure has been going through significant growth, and particularly there’s not a solution that’s built in Windows Azure that does not use SQL Azure. And we are now introducing some capabilities that allow you to make those reservations. That means you can bring your most mission-critical applications over to the cloud. This is, again, something that we are going to be very unique. We are unique already with the fact that we have a PaaS-based SQL Service. And now we are making it much more ready for mission-critical applications.

[49:28] So the last piece of the presentation today is cloud infrastructure. Now all of the things that we talked about rely on cloud infrastructure. And our goal has been to build the most robust cloud infrastructure. And to live the cloud lifestyle we build Windows Azure using our server software. So when we sort of say we are serving millions of virtual machines on Windows Azure, it runs, in fact, on Windows Server 2012 hypervisor. So that’s an amazing feedback cycle. Not just that, but all of our first-party workloads, from Office 365 to Bing to Xbox Live, are all running on Windows Azure capabilities. So that this reinforcing feedback cycle is what battle tests our cloud infrastructure.

We are, again, unique in that we take that same cloud infrastructure that we are using on a day-in and day-out basis inside of Azure as well as our first-party applications, and making it available as part of Windows Server and System Center for others to be able to build their own cloud. And that’s what really gives us the ability to deliver a true boundary-less datacenter infrastructure with consistency to our customers.

We think that that is very, very important to be able to really service the needs that enterprise customers have around infrastructure and support of their applications, and this is something that we believe we are setting the pace, and no one else in the industry, neither Amazon nor VMware can promise or deliver this level of consistency, this level of mission-critical readiness because of the battle testing of all the diverse set of first-party workloads.

We have lots and lots of partners who are already taking advantage of it. One example that I wanted to highlight today is what Skyline Technologies did for Trek Bicycles. They really took advantage of all of the capabilities of this boundary-less datacenter. They built out a private cloud solution. They, in fact, used the IaaS capabilities inside of Azure to be able to deploy the retail management solution. They even built a PaaS solution on Azure to be able to automate all of the partner management. So again, you can see how having this consistency gives you the flexibility to be able to take advantage of all the resources in your datacenter, in your partner datacenter, and in Windows Azure, but still have the one consistent virtualization and management pane of glass from an IT perspective.

So now to really show you this boundary-less datacenter in action, I wanted to invite up on stage Jeff Woolsey from our team. Jeff. [52:08]

Related post: Partners in the cloud for modern business [Satya Nadella on The Official Microsoft Blog, July 8, 2013]

Today, at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), I am excited to announce new programs and services that are designed to help our partners and customers embrace the challenges and opportunities associated with cloud computing and big data.

The first new program we are announcing is Cloud OS Accelerate. As part of this new program, Microsoft and key partners – Cisco, NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems, HP and Dell – will invest more than $100 million to help put thousands of new private and hybrid cloud solutions into the hands of customers. We are also announcing a new Windows Intune offer, effective Oct. 1, that will help connect partners and customers with the latest in cloud connected management at a 30 percent discount. These new programs, and others you will hear about throughout the Worldwide Partner Conference, are designed to help our partners realize the opportunities in cloud computing – today.

We are also announcing previews of new technologies– including:

· Power BI for Office 365 – our new self-service business intelligence (BI) solution that combines the data analysis and visualization capabilities of Excel with the power of collaboration, scale and trusted cloud environment of Office 365. This new solution will help partners deliver powerful BI solutions to small and medium businesses everywhere. Customers and partners can sign up here.

· New Windows Azure Active Directory capabilities that will make it possible for ISVs, CSVs and other third parties to leverage Windows Azure’s directory to enable a single sign-on (SSO) experience for their users, at no cost. Customers can sign up here.

· A Premium offer for Windows Azure SQL Database, which delivers reserved capacity for more powerful and predictable performance. This will allow partners to raise the bar on the types of services and products they can offer to customers. A limited preview will be available in a few weeks, so sign up today so we can notify you when it’s ready.

This news wraps up a wave of new enterprise cloud announcements from the Server and Tools Division, including: new versions of Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, SQL Server 2014 and Windows Intune at TechEd North America and TechEd Europe; the general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services and Windows Azure Web Sites at Build 2013; and a new strategic partnership with Oracle to improve customer flexibility and choice.

The technology to help our partners realize the opportunities in cloud computing and big data is here and the time to collectively help our customers embrace these mega trends is now. Together, Microsoft and our partners helped customers successfully navigate the client-server and enterprise IT technology transformations. Going forward, we’re committed to doing that again for enterprise cloud.

Windows Azure becoming an unbeatable offering on the cloud computing market

June 28, 2013 2:40 pm / 4 Comments on Windows Azure becoming an unbeatable offering on the cloud computing market

Almost a year ago, when –among others– the Windows Azure Mobile Services Preview came out, it became evident that Microsoft has a quite old heritage in cloud computing as it is the case that The cloud experience vision of .NET by Microsoft 12 years ago and its delivery now with Windows Azure, Windows 8/RT, Windows Phone, iOS and Android among others [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Sept 16-20, 2012]. Next, with Windows Azure Media Services, an interesting question came up: Windows Azure Media Services OR Intel & Microsoft going together in the consumer space (again)? [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Feb 13, 2013]. Then just in the beginning of this month it was possible to conclude that “Cloud first” from Microsoft is ready to change enterprise computing in all of its facets [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 4, 2013]. The understanding of importance of the cloud for the company was further enhanced by finding a few days later that Windows Embedded is an enterprise business now, like the whole Windows business, with Handheld and Compact versions to lead in the overall Internet of Things market as well [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 8, 2013]. Finally we had a quite vivid example of the fact that Windows Azure is a huge ecosystem effort as well with: Proper Oracle Java, Database and WebLogic support in Windows Azure including pay-per-use licensing via Microsoft + the same Oracle software supported on Microsoft Hyper-V as well [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 20, 2013].

Now we have general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services, Windows Azure Web Sites, as well as previews of improved auto-scaling, alerting and notifications, and tooling support for Windows Azure through Visual Studio. This made me conclude that Windows Azure is becoming an unbeatable offering on the cloud computing market.

Let’s see now the details which I will base not only on the Microsoft materials but on the first media reactions (also in order to have consistency with my post of yesterday on Windows 8.1: Mind boggling opportunities, finally some appreciation by the media [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, June 27, 2013]) as well:

Media reactions in the first 15 hours:

Specific reactions:

Windows Azure Mobile Services, Windows Azure Web Sites – general availability:

Microsoft makes Windows Azure services generally available [by Mary Jo Foley on CNET, June 27, 2013 at 1:13 PM PDT, also on the ZDNET] “Microsoft is moving more of its Windows Azure products from preview to general availability. The latest: Azure Mobile Services and Azure Web Sites.”
Windows Azure Web Sites, Mobile Services Now Generally Available [TechCrunch, June 27, 2013]
Windows Azure Mobile Services and Web Sites now generally available [Neowin.net, June 27, 2013]
Microsoft’s Azure Mobile Services & Azure Web Sites hit general availability [VentureBeat, June 27, 2013 9:45 AM]
Microsoft Build 2013: Azure Mobile Services and Azure Web Sites become generally available [Computing News, June 27, 2013]
Microsoft Launches Azure Mobile Services and Azure Web Sites [Virtualization Review, June 27, 2013]

Using Azure Mobile Services and Web Sites for a Mobile Contest pt. 1 [windowsazure YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

This 2-part video is a walk-through of a Mobile Contest project. It demonstrates how to Azure Mobile Services and Web Sites can be used to create a consistent set of services used as a back-end for an iOS mobile app and a .NET web admin portal. Part 1 covers: Using multiple authentication providers, Reading/Writing data with tables and Interacting with Azure storage for BLOBs

Using Azure Mobile Services and Web Sites for a Mobile Contest pt. 2 [windowsazure YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

Part 2 covers: Using Azure Web Sites for the admin portal, Integrating with Custom API with cross-platform Push notifications and using Scheduler with 3rd Party add-ons for scripting admin tasks.

Partner support:

Microsoft Adds Engine Yard to its Azure Cloud [SiliconANGLE, June 27, 2013]
Windows Azure: Microsoft Receives Support From RightScale, EngineYard [Talkin’ Cloud, June 27, 2013]
Box releasing new SDK that enable developers to integrate Box into their Windows Phone apps with ease [WPSuperfanboy, June 27, 2013 at 20:56]

Xamarin with Craig Dunn [windowsazure YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

Xamarin provides a frameword that lets developers buildiOS and Android applicatinos in C#. With Windows Azure Mobile Services, developers can connect those mobile apps by hosting the backend in Window Azure. Mobile Services provides a turnkey way to store data in the cloud, authenticate users and send push notifications. Get started at http://www.windowsazure.com/mobile

Building a Comprehensive Enterprise Cloud Ecosystem [Windows Azure blog, June 20, 2013]

Over the past two decades, Microsoft has worked with OEMs, Systems Integrators, ISVs, CSVs, Distributors and VARs to build one of the largest enterprise partner ecosystems in the world. We’ve done this because customers – and the industry – need solutions that just work together. With our partners we built the most comprehensive enterprise technology ecosystem – and, now, we’re focused on the enterprise cloud.

That’s why you’ve seen us work with Amazon, to bring Windows Server, SQL Server and the entire Microsoft stack to Amazon Web Services, and with EMC who owns VMware and Pivotal – key competitors in their respective areas. We also work with innovative companies like Emotive, with Systems Integrators like Accenture and Capgemini and a host of other partners – large, small and non-commercial – around the world and across the industry.

The need for diverse technologies and companies to work together is clear – and that means competitors are often partners. To many in the industry that is a given – and it really should be. The need for technologies to work together is particularly clear in cloud computing – where platforms and services are so incredibly connected they must work together to deliver cloud computing benefits when and how customers want it.

So, it should not be a surprise when we partner with technology leaders who are also competitors. We partner with these companies (and plan to partner with more) to bring our products & services to as many customers as possible. We will continue to work across the industry to ensure our products & services work with the many platforms, business apps, services and clouds our customers use.

As you may have heard me say, it’s been an exciting year for Windows Azure – and we are just 6 months in. Stay tuned – there’s more to come!

Steven Martin
General Manager
Windows Azure

All other:

Microsoft Adds Auto Scaling To Windows Azure [TechCrunch, June 27, 2013]
Microsoft Tweaks Windows Azure With Autoscaling, More [eWeek, June 27, 2013]
Microsoft adds mobile services, auto-scaling to Azure [iTnews.com.au, June 28, 2013 at 6:31 AM]
Microsoft Gives Virtual Machines in Windows Azure a Security Boost [Virtualization Review, June 27, 2013]
Windows Azure To Gain Auto-Scaling, Single Sign-On Improvements [Virtualization Review, June 27, 2013]

Overall reactions:

Windows Azure Now Stores 8.5 Trillion Data Objects, Manages 900K Transactions Per Second [TechCrunch, June 27, 2013]

Microsoft announced at the Build conference today that Windows Azure now has 8.5 trillion objects stored on its infrastructure.

The company also announced the following:

Customers do 900,000 storage transactions per second.
The service is doubling its compute and storage every six months.
3.2 million organizations have Active Directory accounts with 68 million users.
More than 50 percent of the world’s Fortune 500 companies are using Windows Azure.

In comparison, Amazon Web Services said at its AWS Summit in New York earlier this year that its S3 storage service now holds more than 2 trillion objects. According to a post by Frederic Lardinois, that’s up from 1 trillion last June and 1.3 trillion in November, when the company last updated these numbers at its re:Invent conference.

So what accounts for the differene between Azure and AWS? It all has to do with how each company counts the objects it stores. With that in consideration, it’s likely Azure’s numbers are far different if the same metrics were used as AWS.

Nevertheless, the news highlights the importance of Windows Azure for Microsoft, especially as the enterprise moves its infrastructure, shedding data centers to consolidate and reduce their costs.

Microsoft Beefs Up Azure Cloud Platform at Build [PCMag.com, June 27, 2013 02:09pm EST]
Microsoft exec on the Valley’s bias against Azure: It’s ‘running out of excuses’ [VentureBeat, June 27, 2013 6:13 PM]
Microsoft boosts mobile app development and brings Unity3D to Xbox One [Ars Technica, June 27 2013, 11:41pm CEDT] “Build iOS, Android, and Windows Phone apps (and websites) on Windows Azure.”
Microsoft tunes Windows Azure cloud for developers [InfoWorld, June 28, 2013] “At Build conference, company debuts Azure Mobile Services for mobile back-end app capabilities, Azure Web Sites for ‘business-grade’ Web apps”
Microsoft server unit shows off full plate of results [The Seattle Times, June 28, 2013 at 03:30 a.m.]
Microsoft adds 1,000 businesses to its Azure cloud daily – expands focus on mobile apps [Siliconrepublic.com]

Build 2013 Keynote Day 2 Highlights [InfoQ, June 27, 2013]

Server & Tools Business President Satya Nadella opened the keynote this morning with some statistics about Windows Azure and the major Microsoft cloud services.

Windows Azure

– 50% of Fortune 500 companies are using Windows Azure
– 3.2 Million organizations with active directory accounts
– 2 X compute + storage every 6 months
– 100+ major service releases since Build 2012 to Windows Azure

Major Microsoft Cloud Services

– XBox Live 48 million subscribers
– Skype 299 Million connected users
– Outlook.com 1 million users gained in 24 hours
– Office 365 Nearly 50 million Office web apps users
– SkyDriver 250 million accounts
– Bing 1 billion mobile notifications a month
– XBox Live 1.5 Billion games of Halo

Nadella noted the wide variety of first party cloud services that Microsoft supports, and says it is important that they support them as well as provides good learning experience. In his words, “We build for the first party and make available for the third party.”

Scott Hanselman arrived on stage to discuss the latest for ASP.NET on VS2013. A big change is the simplification of starting an ASP.NET application in VS2013. The project types have been reduced to one, “ASP.NET”, and from there the new project wizard lets developers customize their project based on what they would like to create: web forms, MVC, etc.

VS2013 will ship with Twitter’s open source project Bootstrap, and it will be Microsoft supported just like jQuery is now.

An important debugging achievement was demonstrated where browsers can be associated with Visual Studio, allowing for real-time debugging and developing. Edit code in VS2013, and the browser(s) will reflect the updates. In this case the demo showed Hanselman editing cshtml, and via SignalR the updates were shown on the his selected web browsers of IE and Chorme.

In another example, Hanselman went to www.bootswatch.com to obtain a new CSS template which he used to overwrite his current file. Pressing CTRL-ENTER, the browsers reflected this update.

Then Hansleman opened a CSS file to show some new editor tricks. Hovering over CSS statements, VS has a hover window appear that indicates which browser a particular statement applies to. Another ability allows VS to trace and view live streaming trace logs from Azure.

Then Hanselman demonstrated his sample website producing a QR Code of a deep link. He then scanned this on his phone which allowed him to jump into his existing authenticated session, moving from his desktop session to the same screen on his phone.

Satya returned to the stage to announce the general availability of Windows Azure Web Sites, which habe been in preview since Build 2012. Now it is available with full SLA and enterprise support.

Josh Twist from Microsoft’s Mobile Services came on stage to demonstrate using a Mac to add Azure support to an iOS app. Twist noted that developers looking to explore Azure can now create a free 20 meg SQL database which in addition to the 10 free web services allowed.

In Twist’s demo, Azure was used to create a custom XCode project that was preloaded with the appropriate Azure URLs for the project being worked on. This simplifies getting up to speed with Azure development on Mac. Related to this convenience, Windows Azure Mobile Services now enables git source control so that you do not need to edit code on the web portal. So if you would rather develop with a locally (VS, Sublime, etc) you can do by pulling the files down from Azure and the push them back when edits are complete. Twist demonstrated this functionality using Sublime to edit a JavaScript file, and then using a Git push back into Azure.

VS2013 has a new Server Explorer, which is used to browse all of the Mobile Services on Windows Azure for your site/installation. A new wizard has been added which simplifies adding Push Notification for Windows Store based applications.

Satya Returns to Introduce Scott Guthrie.

The big news is the new auto-scaling on Windows Azure for billing. Developers can manage the instance count, target CPU, VMs, No billing when a machine is stopped (only pay when the machine is working.)

Per minute billing has been added, for greater granularity. Preview of Windows Azure AutoScale is now live

Windows Azure

– Active Directory for the Cloud
– Integrate with on-premises Active Directory
– Enable single sign-on within your cloud Apps
– Supports SAML, WS-Fed, and OAuth 2.0

Applications tab shows all apps registered with the current Active directory. Manage Application to integrate (external) app with Active Directory. For example, developers can Use Windows Azure AD to enable user access to Amazon Web Services.

Satya describes Office 365 as “…a programmable surface area”

Jay Schmelzer to demonstrated the changes being made to allow/promote Office 365 as a platform.

– Rich Office Model
– Use Web APIs to access
– Extend with Azure
– First class tools support in VS2013
– Office 365 Apps + Windows Azure

Increasing promotion of Windows Azure, MSDN subscribers receive greater discounts and incentives to use the Azure platform.

1. Use your MSDN Dev/Test licenses on Windows Azure
2. Reduced rates for Dev/test licenses up to 97% discounts
3. No Credit card required for MSDN members

Microsoft showcases developer opportunity on Windows Azure, Windows devices [press release, June 27, 2013]

…

Increasing importance of cloud services

Developers today are building multidevice, multiscreen, cloud-connected experiences. Windows Azure spans infrastructure and platform capabilities to provide them with a comprehensive set of services to easily and quickly build modern applications, using the tools and languages familiar to them.

“Developers are increasingly demanding a flexible, comprehensive platform that helps them build and manage apps in a cloud- and mobile-driven world,” [Satya] Nadella [, president, Server and Tools Business] said. “To meet these demands, Microsoft has been doubling down on Windows Azure. Nearly 1,000 new businesses are betting on Windows Azure daily, and as momentum for Azure grows, so too does the developer opportunity to build applications that power modern businesses.”

Delivering on its commitment to provide developers with the most comprehensive cloud platform, Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services. Mobile Services enables developers building Windows, Windows Phone, iOS and Android apps to store data in the cloud, authenticate users and send push notifications. TalkTalk Business, a leading business telecommunications provider in the United Kingdom, chose Windows Azure Mobile Services to create new ways to engage with its customers and serve demand for mobile access.

Microsoft also announced the general availability of Windows Azure Web Sites, which allows developers to create websites on a flexible, secure and scalable platform to reach new customers. With the investments Microsoft has made in ASP.NET and Web tools, Web developers can now create scalable experiences easier than ever. Dutch brewer Heineken is using Windows Azure to power a social pinball game for the UEFA Champions League Road to the Final campaign, with the expectations of millions of interactions scaled on Windows Azure. Heineken exceeded its usage metrics by a wide margin yet experienced no scalability issues with Windows Azure.

[Scott] Guthrie[, Corporate Vice President, Windows Azure] also highlighted Microsoft’s continued enterprise cloud momentum by demonstrating several platform advancements, including previews of improved auto-scaling, alerting and notifications, and tooling support for Windows Azure through Visual Studio. In addition, he previewed how Windows Azure Active Directory provides organizations and ISVs, such as Box, with a single sign-on experience to access cloud-based applications.

Developers can go to the Windows Azure site today for a free trial:http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/?WT.mc_id=AE37323DE.

…

Windows Azure: General Availability of Web Sites + Mobile Services, New AutoScale + Alerts Support, No Credit Card Needed for MSDN [ScottGu’s Blog, June 27, 2013 at 10:41 AM]

This morning we released a major set of updates to Windows Azure. These updates included:

Web Sites: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Web Sites with SLA
Mobile Services: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Mobile Services with SLA
Auto-Scale: New automatic scaling support for Web Sites, Cloud Services and Virtual Machines
Alerts/Notifications: New email alerting support for all Compute Services (Web Sites, Mobile Services, Cloud Services, and Virtual Machines)
MSDN: No more credit card requirement for sign-up

All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note: some are still in preview). Below are more details about them.

…

Windows Azure: Major Updates for Mobile Backend Development [ScottGu’s Blog, June 14, 2013]

This week we released some great updates to Windows Azure that make it significantly easier to develop mobile applications that use the cloud. These new capabilities include:

– Mobile Services: Custom API support
– Mobile Services: Git Source Control support
– Mobile Services: Node.js NPM Module support
– Mobile Services: A .NET API via NuGet
– Mobile Services and Web Sites: Free 20MB SQL Database Option for Mobile Services and Web Sites
– Mobile Notification Hubs: Android Broadcast Push Notification Support

All of these improvements are now available to use immediately (note: some are still in preview). Below are more details about them.

Windows Azure: Announcing New Dev/Test Offering, BizTalk Services, SSL Support with Web Sites, AD Improvements, Per Minute Billing [ScottGu’s Blog, June 3, 2013]

This morning we released some fantastic enhancements to Windows Azure:

Dev/Test in the Cloud: MSDN Use Rights, Unbeatable MSDN Discount Rates, MSDN Monetary Credits
BizTalk Services: Great new service for Windows Azure that enables EDI and EAI integration in the cloud
Per-Minute Billing and No Charge for Stopped VMs: Now only get charged for the exact minutes of compute you use, no compute charges for stopped VMs
SSL Support with Web Sites: Support for both IP Address and SNI based SSL bindings on custom web-site domains
Active Directory: Updated directory sync utility, ability to manage Office 365 directory tenants from Windows Azure Management Portal
Free Trial: More flexible Free Trial offer

There are so many improvements that I’m going to have to write multiple blog posts to cover all of them! Below is a quick summary of today’s updates at a high-level:

…

From Announcing LightSwitch in Visual Studio 2013 Preview [Visual Studio LightSwitch Team Blog, June 27, 2013]

…

Sneak Peek into the Future

At this point, I’d like to shift focus and provide a glimpse of a key part of our future roadmap. During this morning’s Build 2013 Day 2 keynote in San Francisco, an early preview was provided into how Visual Studio will enable the next generation of line-of-business applications in the cloud (you can check out the recording via Channel 9). A sample app was built during the keynote that highlighted some of the capabilities of what it means to be a modern business application; applications that run in the cloud, that are available to a myriad of devices, that aggregate data and services from in and out of an enterprise, that integrate user identities and social graphs, that are powered by a breadth of collaboration capabilities, and that continuously integrate with operations.

Folks familiar with LightSwitch will quickly notice that the demo was deeply anchored in LightSwitch’s unique RAD experience and took advantage of the rich platform capabilities exposed by Windows Azure and Office 365. We believe this platform+tools combination will take productivity to a whole new level and will best help developers meet the rising challenges and expectations for building and managing modern business applications. If you’re using LightSwitch today, you will be well positioned to take advantage of these future enhancements and leverage your existing skills to quickly create the next generation of business applications across Office 365 and Windows Azure. You can read more about this on Soma’s blog.

…

Additional information:
– Announcing the General Availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services, Web Sites and continued Service innovation [Windows Azure blog, June 27, 2013]
– 50 Percent of Fortune 500 Using Windows Azure [Windows Azure blog, June 14, 2013]
– Azure WebSites is now Generally Available [Enabling Digital Society blog of Microsoft, June 27, 2013]
– New features for Windows Azure Mobile Services [Enabling Digital Society blog of Microsoft, June 14, 2013]
– Lots of Azure Goodness Revealed [Enabling Digital Society blog of Microsoft, June 3, 2013]
– BizTalk Services is LIVE! [To BizTalk and Beyond! blog of Microsoft, June 3, 2013]
– Hello Windows Azure BizTalk Services! [BizTalk Server Team Blog, June 4, 2013]
– Windows Azure BizTalk Services – Preview [The Enterprise Integration Space blog of Microsoft, June 4, 2013]
– Business Apps, Cloud Apps, and More at Build 2013 [Somasegar’s blog, June 27, 2013]

Day 2 Keynote [Channel 9 video, June 27, 2013] Windows Azure related part up to [01:31:12], click on the link or the image to watch the video

Speech transcript: Satya Nadella and Scott Guthrie: Build 2013 Keynote

Remarks by Satya Nadella, President, Server & Tools Business; and Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President, Windows Azure; San Francisco, Calif., June 27, 2013

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome President, Server and Tools Business, Satya Nadella. (Applause.)

SATYA NADELLA: Good morning. Good morning, and welcome back to day two of Build. Hope all of you had a fantastic time yesterday. From what I gather, there were half a trillion megabytes of downloads as far as the show goes in terms of show net, so we really saturated the show net with all the downloads of Windows 8.1. So that’s just tremendous to see that all of you took Steve’s guidance and said, “Let’s just download it now and play with it.” Hopefully you had fun with it, also had a chance to get Visual Studio and maybe hack some of those Bing controls last night after the party.

But welcome back today, and we have some fantastic stuff to show. There’s going to be a lot more code onscreen as part of this keynote.

Yesterday, we talked about our devices, and we’re going to switch gears this morning to talk about the backend.

The context for the backend is the apps, the technology, as well as the devices, experiences that all of us collectively are building. We’re for sure well and truly into the world of devices and services. There is not an embedded system, not a sensor, not a device experience that’s not connected back to our cloud service. And that’s what we’re going to talk about.

And we see this momentum today in how we are seeing the backend evolve. If you look at Windows Azure, we have over 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies already using Windows Azure. We have over 250,000 customers. We’re adding 1,000 customers a day.

We have 3.2 million distinct organizations inside of Azure AD representing something like 65 million users active. That’s a fantastic opportunity, and we’ll come back to that a couple of different times during this keynote.

Our storage and compute resources are doubling every six months. Our storage, in fact, is 8.5 trillion storage objects today, doing around 900K transactions per second. Something like 2 trillion transactions a month.

The last point, which is around the hypervisor growth, where we’re seeing tremendous hypervisor share growth is interesting. Because we are unique in that we not only are building an at-scale public cloud service, but we’re also taking all of the software technology that is underneath our public cloud service and making it available as part of our server products for service providers and enterprises to stand up their own cloud. That’s something pretty unique to us.

Given that, we’re seeing tremendous growth for the high-end servers that people are buying and the high-end server software people are buying from us to deploy their own cloud infrastructure in support of the applications that you all are building.

Now, of course at the end of the day, all that momentum has to be backed up by some product. And in that case, Steve talked a lot about our cadence and increased cadence across our devices. But when it comes to Windows Azure and our public cloud service, that cadence takes on a different hyper drive, if you will, because we are every day, every week, every month doing major updates. We’ve done over 100-plus major updates to our services from the last Build to now.

In fact, this is even translating into a much faster cadence for our server. We now have the R2 updates to our 2012 that were made available yesterday. So all around, when it comes to server technology and cloud technology, we have some of the fastest cadences, but very targeted on the new scenarios and applications and technologies that you’re building to run these cloud services.

Now, one of the other things that drives us and is at play for us on a daily basis is the feedback cycle of our first-party workloads. We have perhaps the most diverse set of first-party workloads at Microsoft. You know, these are SaaS applications that we run ourselves.

Now, these applications keep us honest, especially if you’re in the infrastructure business, you’ve got to live this live site availability day in and day out. And the diversity also keeps us honest because you build out your storage compute network, the application containers, to meet the needs of the diversity these applications represent.

Take Xbox. When they started Xbox Live in 2002, they had around 500 servers. Now, they use something like 300,000 servers, which are all part of our public cloud to be able to really drive their experiences. Halo itself has had over a billion games played, and something like 270 million hours of gameplay. And Halo uses the cloud in very interesting ways for pre-production, rendering support, gameplay, post-production analytics, the amount of real-time analytics that’s driving the continuous programming of Halo is pretty stunning.

Take SkyDrive. We have over 250 million accounts. You combine SkyDrive with the usage of Office Web Apps, where we have more than 50 million users of Office Web Apps, you can see a very different set of things that are happening with storage, collaboration, productivity.

Skype is re-architecting their core architecture to take advantage of the cloud for their 190-plus million users.

Bing apps that you saw many of them yesterday as part of Windows 8.1 are using the Azure backend to do a lot of things like notifications, which is one of the core scenarios for any mobile apps. And it’s going to send something like a billion notifications a month.

So all of these diverse needs that we have been building infrastructure for, we have this one simple mantra where “first party equals third party.” That means we build for our first party and make all of that available for our third party. And that feedback cycle is a fantastic cycle for us.

Now, when you put it all together, you put what we’re building, what you’re building, we see the activity on Azure, we listen to our customers, and you sort of distill it and say, “What are the key patterns of the modern business for cloud? What are the applications people are building?”

Three things emerge: People are building Web-centric applications. People are building mobile-centric applications. And what we call cloud-scale and enterprise-grade applications. So the rest of the presentation is all about getting into the depth of each of these patterns.

Now, in support of these applications, we’re building a very robust Windows Azure app model. Now, of course, at the bottom of the app model is our infrastructure. We run 18-plus datacenters on our own, 100-plus co-locations. We have an edge network. And so that is the physical plant. But the key thing is it’s the fabric, the operating system that we build to manage all of those resources.

At the compute-storage-network level, at the datacenter scale and multi-datacenter scale. And that really is the operating system that is Windows at the backend, at this point, which in fact shipped even in Windows Server for a different scale unit.

But that infrastructure management or resource management is one part of the operating system.

Then about that, you have all the application containers. And we’re unique in providing a complete IaaS plus PaaS, which is infrastructure as a service and platform as a service capability when it comes to application containers. Everything from virtual machines with full persistence to websites to mobile to media services to cloud services. So that capability is what allows you to build these rich applications and very capable applications.

Now, beyond that, we also believe that we can completely change the economics of what complex applications have needed in the past. We can take both productivity around development and continuous deployment and cycling through your code of any complex application and reduce it by orders of magnitude.

Take identity. We are going to change the nature of how people set up your applications to be able to accept multiple identities, have strong authentication and authorization, how to have a directory with rich people schema underneath it that you can use for authorization.

Integration, take all of the complex business-to-business or EI type of project that you have to write a lot of setup before you even write the core logic; we want to change the very nature of how you go about that with our integration services.

And when it comes to data, there is not a single application now that doesn’t have a diverse set of needs when it comes to the data from everything from SQL to NoSQL, all types of processing from transactional to streaming to interactive BI to MapReduce. And we have a full portfolio of storage technologies all provided as platform services so that your application development can be that much richer and that much easier.

Now, obviously, the story will not be complete without great tooling and great programming model. What we are doing with Visual Studio, we will see a lot of it throughout the demos. .NET, as well as our support for some of the cloud services around continuous development — everything from source code control, project management, build, monitoring — all of that technology pulled together, really take everything underneath it to a next level from an application development perspective.

But also supporting all the other frameworks. In fact, just this week we announced with Oracle that we will have even more first-class support for Java on Windows Azure. And so we have support for node, we have support for PHP and so on. So we have a fantastic set of language bindings to all of our platform support and a first-class support for Visual Studio .NET, as well as TFS with Git when it comes to application development.

So that’s really the app model. And the rest of the presentation is really for us to see a lot of this in action.

Let me just start with our IaaS and PaaS and virtual machines. We launched our IaaS service just in April. In fact, we have tremendous momentum. Something like 20 percent of all of Azure compute already is IaaS capacity. So that’s tremendous growth.

The gallery of images is constantly improving and increasing in size, in depth, breadth, and variety. In fact, if you want to spin up Windows Server 2012 R2, I would encourage you to go off to the Azure gallery and spin it up because it’s available as of yesterday there, and so that will be a fantastic use of the Azure IaaS, and test that out.

So what I want to talk about is websites. We’ve made a lot of investments in websites. And when we say “websites” we mean enterprise-grade Web infrastructure for your most mission-critical applications. Because if you think about it, your website is your front door to your business. It could be a SaaS business, it could be an enterprise business, but it’s the front door to your business. And you want the most robust enterprise-scale infrastructure for it. And we’ve invested to build the best Web stack with the best performance, load balancing built in, elasticity built in, and from a development perspective, integrated all the way into Visual Studio.

So we think that what we have in our website technology is the best-in-class Web for the enterprise-grade applications you want to build.

Now, you can also start up for free, and you can scale up. So maybe even the starting process with our Web, very, very easy.

Now, of course having Web technology is one, but it’s also very important for us to have a lot of framework support. And we have a lot of frameworks. But the one framework that we hold close and dear to our heart is ASP.NET. This is something that we have continued to innovate in significant ways. One of the things that we’ve done with the new version of ASP.NET, which is in preview as part of .NET 4.5.1. is the one ASP.NET. Which means that you can have one project where you can bring all of the technologies from Web forms to MVCs to Web APIs to signal all together.

We also improved our tooling from a scaffolding perspective across all of these frameworks.

You’re all building even these rich Web applications. So these single-page Web applications. And for that, you need new frameworks. We have Bootstrap. You also want to be able to call into the server side, we made that easy with OLAP support, we made it easy with Web APIs. So this makes it much easier for you now to be able to build these rich Web apps.

And Entity Framework. We’ve now plumbed async all the way back into the server. So now, you can imagine if you’re building one of those social media applications with lots of operations on the client, as well as needing the same async capabilities on the backend, you now have async end to end.

So a lot of this innovation is, I think, in combination with our Web is going to completely change how you could go about building your Web applications and your Web technologies.

To show you some of this in action, I wanted to invite up onstage Scott Hanselman from our Web team. Scott? (Applause.)

SCOTT HANSELMAN: Hello, friends. I’m going to show you some of the great, new stuff that we’ve got in ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2013.

I’m going to go here and hit file, new, project. And you’ll notice right off the bat that we’ve got just one ASP.NET Web application choice. This is delivering on that promise of one ASP.NET. (Applause.)

Awesome, I’m glad you dig that. And this is not the final dialog, but there is no MVC project or Web forms project anymore. I can go and say I want MVC with Web API or I want Web forms plus MVC. But there is, at its core, just one ASP.NET.

We’ve got an all-new authentication system. I can go in here and pick organizational accounts, use Active Directory or Azure Active Directory, do Windows auth.

For this application, I’m going to use an individual user account. I’m going to make a geek trivia app. So I’ll hit create project.

Now, of course when you’re targeting for the Web, it’s not realistic to target just one browser. We’re not going to use just Internet Explorer; we’re going to use every browser and try to make this have as much reach as possible.

So up here, I’m going to click “browse with” and then pick both Internet Explorer and Google Chrome and set them both as the default browser. (Applause.)

Now, we’ll go ahead and run our application. And I’ll snap Visual Studio off to the side here. You notice Visual Studio just launched IE and Chrome.

You can see that we’re using Twitter Bootstrap. We’re shipping Bootstrap with ASP.NET; you get a nice, responsive template. We’ve got the great icons, grid system, works on mobile. And that’s going to ship just like we shipped jQuery, as a fully supported item within ASP.NET, even though it’s open source.

I’m going to open up my index.cs HTML over here. You can see we’ve got ASP.NET as my H1. Notice next to multiple browsers, we’ve got a new present for you. You see this button right here? We’re running SignalR in process inside of Visual Studio, and there’s now a real-time connection between Visual Studio and any number of browsers that are running.

So now I can type in the new geek quiz application and hit this button. And using Web standards and Web sockets, we’ve just talked to any number of browsers. (Applause.)

Now, this is just scratching the surface of what we’re going to be able to do. What’s important isn’t the live reload example I’ve just shown you, but rather the idea that there’s a fundamental two-directional link now between any browser, including mobile browsers or browser simulators and Visual Studio.

Now, this is using the Bootstrap default template, which is kind of default. So I’m going to go up to Bootswatch, which is a great website that saves us from the tyranny of the default template.

And I’m going to pick — this looks appropriately garish. I’m going to pick this one here. And I’m going to just right click and say “save target as” and then download a different CSS, and I’m going to save that right over the top of the one that came with ASP.NET.

And then I’ll come back over here and use the hotkey control/alt/enter and update the linked browsers. And you’ll see that right there, the hotdog theme is back today, and this is the kind of high-quality design and attention to — I can’t do that with a straight face — attention to detail and design that you’ve come to expect from us at Microsoft. That’s beautiful, isn’t it? You’ve got to feel good about that, everybody.

I’m going to head over into Azure. And I’m going to say “new website.” You know, creating websites is really, really easy from within the portal. I’ll say geek quiz. Blah, blah, blah, and I’m going to make a new website.

And this is going to fire up in the cloud right now. You can see it’s going and creating that. And that’s going to be ready and waiting to go when it’s time for me to publish from Visual Studio.

Now, I’m going to fast forward in time here and close down this application and then do a little Julia Child action and switch into an application that’s a little bit farther along.

So we’re going to write a geek quiz or a geek trivia app. And it’s going to have Model View Controller and Web API on the server. And it’s going to send JSON across the wire over to the client side. This trivia controller, which is ASP.NET, Web API is going to be feeding that.

This is code that I’m not really familiar with. I can spend a lot of time scrolling around, or I could right click on the scroll bar, hit scroll bar options, and some of you fans may remember this guy. It’s back. And now you’ve got map mode inside of the scroll bar. I can move around, find my code really, really easily. Here is the GET method. Notice that this GET method is going to return the trivia questions into my application here. And it’s marked as async. We’ve got async and await all the way through. So this asynchronous Web API method is then going to call this service call, next question async.

Now, I could right click and say “go to definition.” But I could also say “peek definition.” And without actually opening the source code, see what’s going on in that file. (Applause.)

I could promote that if I wanted to. You notice, of course, I’m using Entity Framework 6, I’ve got async and await from clients to servers to services all the way down into the database non-blocking I/O, async and await all the way down. I just hit escape to drop out of there. So it makes it really, really easy to move around my code.

So this is going to serve the trivial questions. I’m just going to hit control comma, go get my index.cs HTML.

Now, in this HTML editor that’s been completely rewritten in Visual Studio 2013, you notice that I’ve got a couple of things you may not have seen before in an ASP.NET app. I’ve got Handlebars, which is a templating engine, and I’ve got Ember. So we’ve got model view controller on the server and model view controller on the client. So we can start making those rich, single-page applications.

Now, this Ember application here has some JavaScript. And on the client, we’ve got a next question method. This is going to go and get that next question, and I’ve got that Web API call. So this is how the trivia app is going to get its information. And then when I answer the question, I’m going to go and send that and post that same RESTful service. So you’ve got really nice experience for front-end Web developers. That’s the Ember stuff.

Here, I’ve got the Handlebars. This is a client-side template. You can see right off the bat that I’ve got syntax highlighting for my Handlebars or my Moustache templating. And I’m going to go ahead and fire this up, and I’ll put IE off to the side there, and I’ll put VS over here.

And I’m going to log into my geek quiz app. See if I can type my own name a few times here, friends. There we go. And this is going to go and fetch a trivia question. See, it said, “loading question.” And then it says, “How many Scotts work on the Azure team?” Which is a lot, believe me.

You’ll see that that’s coming from this bound question tile. So we’ve got client-side data binding right there.

Now, I need to figure out what the buttons are going to look like. I’ve got the question, but I don’t have the buttons. I could start typing the HTML; that’s kind of boring. But I could use Visual Studio Web Essentials, which takes the extensibility points in Visual Studio and extends them even further.

And I could say something like hash fu dot bar and hit tab. And now I’ve got Zen Coding, also known as Emmet, built in with Web Essentials.

So that means I could go and say, you know, I need a button. And button has a button trivia class, but I need four of those buttons.

And then, again, I hit — you like that, kids? (Applause.) Then I hit refresh, and you’ll notice that my browser is updating as I’m going.

But that’s not really good. I need more information. I really want the text there that says “answer,” and I want to have answer one, answer two, answer three. So I’ll go like that. And then hit refresh, and then we’re seeing it automatically update.

So that looks like what I want it to look like. But I want to do that client-side data binding. So I’m going to take this here, and I’m going to spin through that JSON that came across the wire. So I’m going to go open Moustache, and I’m going to say for each, and again, syntax highlighting, great experience for the client-side developer.

I’m going to say for each option, and then we’ll close up each here. And answer one, just like question title is going to be bound. So I’m going to open that up, and I’m going to say option.title. And then when a user clicks on that button, we’re going to have an Ember action. I’m going to say the action is call that send answer passing in the question and then passing in the option that the user chose.

I just did an update with the hotkey, how many Scotts work on Azure? 42. How old is Guthrie? He is zero XFF because he’s quite old. What color is his favorite polo? Goldenrod, in fact, is my — no? I’m sorry, Goldenrod is the next version of Windows, Windows Goldenrod. So my mistake there.

That’s a pretty nice flip animation. Let’s take a look at that. I’m going to go ahead and hit control comma again and type in “flip.” Go right into the flip CSS. You’ll see that that animation actually used no JavaScript at all. That, in fact, was done entirely in CSS, which can sometimes be hard to figure out, but with Web Essentials, I can actually hover over a rule, and it’ll tell me which version of which browser which vendor prefix supports. (Applause.)

So that’s pretty hot. I’m going to go ahead and right click and hit publish. And because I’ve got the Azure SDK installed, I can do my publish directly from Visual Studio. We’re going to go and load our Azure website. Hit OK. It brings the publish settings right down into Visual Studio. And I can go and publish directly from here.

So now I’m doing a live publish out to Azure directly from Visual Studio. It goes and launches the browser for me.

And I can click over here on the Server Explorer, and Windows Azure actually appears on the side now. I can start and stop virtual machines, start and stop websites; they’re all integrated inside of the Server Explorer.

That’s my website. I can double click on it, and again, while I can go to the management portal, I can change my settings, my .NET version and my application logging without having to enter the portal.

So back over into my app, when I sign in, I know that people are going to be pushing buttons and answering questions backstage. I want to see that. I put in some tracing. So what I’m going to do is right click and say view streaming logs in the output window.

This is the Visual Studio output window. And I’m just going to pin that off to the side. And then as I’m answering questions, and it looks like someone backstage is answering questions as well. I’m getting live streaming trace logs from Azure fed directly into Visual Studio. (Applause.)

Now, you know that we’ve also rewritten the entire authentication infrastructure and made it based on OWIN, which is the Open Web Interface for .NET. It’s an open source framework that lets you have pluggable middleware. So identity and authorization has been rewritten in a really, really clean way. And it allows us to do stuff that we really couldn’t do before and extend it in a pretty funny way.

And I think that every good sample involves a QR code, right? Don’t you think? This will bring the number of times that you’ve seen a QR code scanned in public to three. (Laughter.)

So what I want to do is I want to install this QR sample because I know people are going and checking out these trivia stats. And I’ve got SVG and SignalR giving me real-time updates as people are answering trivia questions.

I’m logged in right now as CHanselman. I want to take this session and I want to deep link into an authenticated session on a phone and then view these samples and take them with me.

So I’ve gone and used NuGet to bring in the QR sample. And now I’m going to go and publish that again to the same site. This is an incremental publish now. So this is going to go and send that new stuff up to Azure.

And then I’ll bring up my phone here. I’ve got my phone. And my camera guy, he follows me around. And I’m going to click on trivia stats. And here are the real-time trivia stats.

And then I’m going to click on transfer to mobile up here in the auth area. And we’re going to do is we’re going to generate a QR code. I’m going to then scan that code, and we get a deep link that pops up generated by ASP.NET that’s then going to bring me in IE, and now I’ve got SingnalR, SVG, and Flot all running inside of my browser and I’ve jumped into my authenticated session using OWIN, ASP.NET, and HTML5. It’s pretty fabulous stuff. (Applause.)

So we’ve got the promise of one ASP.NET; we’ve got browser link, bringing all of those browsers together with Web standards using SignalR. You saw Web Essentials as our playground that we’re adding new features to Visual Studio 2013. We can make Azure websites easily in the portal, publish directly from VS, logging, SignalR everywhere. Thanks very much, I hope you guys have fun. (Applause.)

SATYA NADELLA: So I hope you got a great feel for how we’re going to completely change or revolutionize Web development by innovation in tools, in the framework, and in the Web server in Windows Azure. And round-tripping across all three such that you can really do unimaginable things in a much more productive way.

We have over 130,000 active websites or Web applications today using Azure websites. Some big-name brands — Heineken, 3M, Toyota, Trek Bicycle — doing some very, very cool stuff using some of this technology.

I’m very, very pleased that we’re using all of that feedback to announce the general availability of Windows Azure Websites. This has been in preview now since last Build, and we’ve had some tremendous amount of feedback from all of the customers who have been using it. Many of them, obviously, in production. But now you can start using it for full SLA and enterprise support from us. So we’re really, really pleased to reach this milestone. Hope you get a chance to start using it as well. (Applause.)

I’m also pleased to announce the preview of Visual Studio 2013. You got to see it yesterday, today, and you’ll see a lot more of it. It’s just pretty stunning improvements in the tool itself. And combined with the .NET 4.5.1 framework update, you now have the previews of both the framework and the tools, and we really encourage you to give us feedback like you did the last time in your app development, and we’ll be watching for that.

So now I want to switch to mobile. Now, when you think about mobile-centric application development, the key consideration perhaps more than anything else is how do you build these mobile apps fast? And since there’s not a single mobile experience or application you’re building which doesn’t have a cloud backend, then the natural question is: What can we do to really speed up the building of these cloud backends?

And that’s exactly what Azure Mobile Services does, which is we provide a very easy way for you to build out a backend for your mobile experiences and applications. We provide a rich set of services from identity to data to push notification, as well as background scripting.

And then, of course, we support all of the platforms, Windows, Windows Phone, Android, IOS, as well as HTML5.

To show you this in action, I wanted to invite up onstage Josh Twist from our Windows Azure Mobile Services team. Josh? (Applause, music.)

JOSH TWIST: Thanks. We launched Windows Azure Mobile Services into preview in August last year. And in case you weren’t familiar, mobile services makes it incredibly easy to add the power of Windows Azure to your Windows Store, Windows Phone, IOS, Android, and even Web and HTML applications.

To prove this to you, I’m going to give you a demo now of how easy it is to add the cloud services you need to an IOS application using this map.

Here we are in the gorgeous Azure portal, and creating a new mobile service couldn’t be easier. I click, new, compute, mobile service, create. I enter the name of my mobile service, and then I choose a database option.

And I want to point out, look at this new option we have here. You can now create a free 20-megabyte SQL database. Which means it’s now completely free for developers to work against Mobile Services with the 10 free services and that free 20-megabyte SQL database.

Now, I’ve already created a service we have here today that we’re going to use called My Lists. If I click on the name, I’m greeted by our quick start, which is a short tutorial that shows me how to build a to-do list application.

Now, I selected IOS, but this same mobile service could simultaneously power all of these platforms.

We’re going to create a new IOS application. And since it’s a to-do list app, I need a table to hold my to-do list items.

And then I’m going to download a personalized starter project. So here it comes. That’s a little zip file. And inside that zip file I’m downloading from the portal is an Xcode project. So if I double click this, it’ll open up in Xcode, and then we’re going to take a look at the source. Because what we’ve done is we’ve pre-bootstrapped the application to be ready to talk to Mobile Services. You’ll see it already contains the URL for my new mobile service.

So what I’m going to do is launch this in the simulator. And what we’ll see here is a little to-do list application that inserts, updates, and reads data from Windows Azure with each operation being a single line of code, even in Objective-C.

So I’m going to create a little to-do list item here to add to my tasks. Let’s just save that. So now that’s saved in Windows Azure. To prove that to you, I’m going to switch over to the portal. We take a look at the data tabs, and you’ll see I can drill into the table, view all of my data right here, and there’s the item I just added saved safely into a SQL database in Windows Azure.

Now, we have so many cool features in Mobile Services. Here’s another one. I can actually add a script that executes securely on the server and intercepts those CRUD operations.

So what I’m going to do here, just to give you a quick example, is I’m going to add a time stamp to items that are being inserted. So I simply say item dot created equals new date. I’m going to save that. And right here from the portal, that’s going to go live into Windows Azure and be updated in just a few seconds. So it’s done.

Switch back to the app. Let’s insert a new item. That’s now saved. So if I switch back to browse, we’ll see that data again, but notice how we’ve automatically created a new column, and we’ve got that extra piece of data in there that executed on the server.

Now, we have this amazing script editing experience here in the browser, but not everybody wants to edit code in the portal. And so we’ve added a new feature to Windows Azure Mobile Services that allows you to manage all of your source assets using Git Source Control.

So I’m going to show you how to enable that. We go to the dashboard. Just down here under quick glance, we’ll get an option to set up source controls. So I’m going to click on that and kick it off.

Now, this can take a minute or two. So while that’s running, I’m going to give you a tour of some of the other new features we’ve added to Mobile Services recently.

One of our most-requested features was the ability to have service scripts for execute on the server but not in conjunction with HTTP CRUD operations where I can create an arbitrary REST API.

We’ve added that feature, and it’s called Custom API. So I can now create a completely arbitrary REST API in a matter of minutes with Mobile Services.

We also have a scheduler that allows me to execute scripts on a scheduled basis. So I can execute these every 15 minutes, every night at 2 a.m., whatever I prefer. And we also make it incredibly easy for you to authenticate your users with Microsoft Accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. It’s just a single line of code in your applications.

Now, our source control’s still running here. So what I’m going to do actually is switch to another service, not make you guys wait.

So we have one here where I pre-configured Git. So if we go to the configure tab, you’ll see what we have here is a Git URL. So I’m going to copy this to the clipboard and then switch the terminal. And we’re now going to pull all of the source files down from the server repo onto my local machine.

That’s going to take just a few seconds. It’s going to pull those files down so I can now work on them locally with my favorite tools.

So I’m going to just drive into this directory here and show you what the tree looks like. So you can see we can see all of the API files, the scheduler files, and my table files including that insert script that we just edited in the portal.

Let’s take a look at that in Sublime. And you can see there’s that change. Now, we can make more changes here. I’m just going to comment this out and save it. And then I’m going to do a Git push to push that back up. So let’s commit it to the tree. And then Git push, and in a matter of seconds, that change will go live into Windows Azure.

So enough with the Mac. Let’s talk about what’s happened since preview. We’re now supporting tens of thousands of services in production on Mobile Services to all kinds of scenarios from games to business applications and consumer engagement applications.

I want to talk to you today about one of my favorite applications that we have in the store. And it’s from a company called TalkTalk Business. TalkTalk Business are one of the U.K.’s leading telephony providers for businesses. And these guys have a serious focus on customer service. So they’ve created a Windows Phone app and a Windows Store app.

Let me show you the phone application now. So here’s the app on my Start screen. If we launch it, you’ll see we get an instant at-a-glance view of my billing activity, my account balance. I can see all of the services I can use with TalkTalk Business, and I get real-time delivery of up-to-the-minute service alerts.

Now, it should come as no surprise that best-in-class applications like this need best-in-class services. And this is actually built using Mobile Services and is live in the U.K. stores today.

Now, they also have a Windows Store application. And I actually have a replica of that project here on my Windows machine.

And you can see the project’s open in the next version of Visual Studio 2013. One of the capabilities this app has is it lets me manage my user profile.

Now, let me show you some of the code that does that. So over here in this file, you can see where we upload the user profile when we make a save. Notice how that’s just a single line of code to write that data all the way through to my database.

And here we load a user profile into the UI, again, with a single line of code.

Now, these guys also have tables and scripts. And I want to show you those, but instead of switching out to the portal, let’s do it using the new Server Explorer in Visual Studio 2013.

So I can open up the Server Explorer here, dive into Windows Azure, notice the new Mobile Services tab, expand that, and we’ll see enumerated all of our Mobile Services.

There’s my TalkTalk service. And if we open this, we’ll see all of the tables that are backing that service, including my user profiles table down here.

If we look in that, we’ll be able to see all of my scripts. The best thing is I can now edit them here in Visual Studio.

So I launched the script editor. I can make a change. And then when I hit save, this is going to deploy live to Windows Azure directly from Visual Studio in a matter of seconds. It’s done. (Applause.)

So the next thing I want to do is app push notifications for this application.

Now, setting up push traditionally is quite a few steps. I have to register my application with the Windows Store. I have to configure Mobile Services with my credentials to call Windows Notification Services. I have to require a channel URI on my client and upload that to Mobile Services so it’s ready to send the push.

Let me show you just how easy we’ve made this in the next version of Visual Studio.

I simply right click, add push notification, and this wizard is going to guide me through all of the steps necessary. So I’m just entering my credentials there for the Windows Store. And then it’s going to ask me to choose which application I want to associate. So I’m going to choose this one.

The next step, I’ll be asked to choose which mobile service I want to configure. I’m going to choose TalkTalk, and we’re done.

What’s going to happen now is this is going to make some changes to my mobile service and to my client application. In fact, it’s going to prewire a test notification so I can be superbly confident that everything is wired correctly and going to work. And to try that out, all I have to do is launch the application.

Let’s try that now. It’s going to take a second to deploy. And then what we should see is a push notification arrive in the top-right corner. And there we go. So that’s how easy we’ve made it now to add a push notification to your application with Mobile Services and Visual Studio 2013. (Applause.)

The next thing I want to do is create an ability for the administrators at TalkTalk Business to actually send these service alerts. And these guys use a Web portal. So let’s switch over to their Web project.

So here it is in Visual Studio. And you’ll see we have an index HTML file. Let’s open that up.

Now, notice how we pre-configured this with the Mobile Services JavaScript SDK that we added recently. It now means it’s super easy to add Mobile Services to your Web and HTML hybrid applications.

We’ve already added the client. So all I need to do now is add the code to invoke the service API that sends those messages. So let’s try that. So I start client dot invoke API. I need the name of the API I’m calling, which is send alert, in this case. And then since I’m doing a post, I need to specify the body. Body is service alert. And we’re done.

So I’m going to save that and launch it in the local browser. Now, since we’ve already pre-configured the client to receive push notifications, we can actually test this whole scenario end to end right here on this machine.

So what I’m going to do is send out a service alert for email in the midlands and western region that says SMTP upgrade complete. And when I hit send notification I should get a push notification in the top-right corner that was initiated from a website. And there we go. (Applause.) Thank you.

You can see just how easy it is to add some incredible capabilities to your apps using Windows Azure Mobile Services. I really can’t wait to see what you guys do with this. I’ll see you at 2:00. (Applause.)

SATYA NADELLA: Thanks, Josh.

As Josh was saying, we’ve been in preview, and we’ve got some tremendous feedback. We’ve had over 20,000 active apps on Azure Mobile Services to date, and TalkTalk Business is something that Josh showed. There’s a cool app written by Aviva, which is an application that collects telematic data from a mobile app and gives you a real-time quote based on your driving habits for your car insurance, which is a fascinating application, and there are many, many applications like that, which are getting written on top of Azure Mobile Services.

So I’m really, really pleased to announce the general availability of Azure Mobile Services today. We think that this is going to really help in your mobile development efforts across all devices, and we look forward to seeing what kind of applications you go build.

So now to take you to the next section, which is all around cloud scale and enterprise grade, let me invite up onstage Scott Guthrie. Scott? (Applause.)

SCOTT GUTHRIE: Well, this morning we looked at how you can use Windows Azure to build Web and mobile applications and host them in the cloud.

I’m now going to walk through how we’re making it even easier to scale these apps, as well as integrate them within enterprise environments.

Let’s start by talking about scale. Specifically, I’m going to use a real-world example, which is Skype.

Now, Skype is one of the largest Internet services in the world. And over the last year, they’ve been working to migrate that service to run on top of Windows Azure.

One of the benefits they get from moving to Windows Azure is that they can avoid having to buy and provision their own servers, and instead leverage a dynamic cloud environment.

Like most apps, Skype sees fluctuations in terms of load throughout the day, the week, even different parts of the year. And in a traditional datacenter environment, they need to deploy a thick set of servers in order to handle their peak load.

The downside with this, though, is that you end up having a lot of expensive, unused compute capacity during non-peak times.

Moving to a cloud environment like Windows Azure allows them to, instead, dynamically scale their compute capacity based on just what their service needs at any given point in time. And this can yield enormous cost savings to both small and especially to very large services.

Now, with Windows Azure, you’ve always been able to dynamically scale up and scale down your apps, but you had to typically write custom scripts or use other tools in order to enable that. What we’re excited to announce today is that we’re going to make this a lot easier by baking in auto-scale capability directly into Windows Azure. And this is going to make it easy for anyone to start taking advantage of these kind of dynamic scale environments and yield the same cost savings.

I’d like to invite Charles Lemanna onstage to show it off in action. (Applause.)

CHARLES LEMANNA: I’ll be giving a quick demo of the brand-new autoscale feature that supports Windows Azure Compute Services.

First, I’ll cover the website autoscale, then the cloud services, and then the virtual machine.

So if I navigate to the website you saw earlier from Scott Hanselman’s demo, the geek quiz website, we see all the normal metric information that Windows Azure is collecting for his deployment. In this case, CPU time, response time, and network traffic.

But now there’s a new prompt to configure autoscale for this particular website. In the past, when the website would get lots of traffic, people would come in and take the quiz. Scott would have to go in and manually drag the slider to increase his capacity so his response time is not impacted.

However with autoscale, I’m able to now configure a basic set of rules that will manage the capacity from my website automatically.

I can configure an instance count range with a minimum value that we’ll always honor, as well as a maximum value. In this case, we’ll never go above six instances, so you can be sure you won’t get a giant bill.

Next, you can also configure a target CPU range. In this case, I say choose 40 to 54 percent, and what that means is the autoscale engine for Azure in the background we’ll be turning off and turning on website instances so your CPU always stays in that range. In other words, if you go below 40 percent, we’ll turn off the machine to save you money, and if you go above 54 percent, we’ll turn on a new machine so none of your users are impacted.

And just like that, I click save, and Windows Azure will manage my website, scale, and capacity entirely on its own. (Applause.)

Next, I’ll hop over to the cloud service autoscale. I just have a simple deployment here with a Web front end where my customers can come and, say, place T-shirt orders or other memorabilia. And this front end puts items into a queue, which I have a background worker role, which will go and pull items from this queue and process them for billing or shipping.

For the Web role, I’ve already configured autoscale based on CPU, just like you saw for websites with an instance range and a CPU range. But I also can configure a scale up button, which impacts the velocity by which I increase my capacity. I’ve chosen to scale up by two instances with only a five-minute cool down because I want to respond immediately and quickly to spikes in customer demand.

For my background worker role, it’s a little bit different. I don’t care as much about CPU; I care about how many items are waiting in the queue to be processed, how many orders I have to go through.

In this case, I’ve already configured autoscale based on queue depth by selecting a storage count and queue name, as well as the target number of items in that queue per machine.

In this case, as the queue gets bigger, we’ll add more machines. Imagine it’s the holidays and a bunch of new orders come in; we’ll make sure you have enough capacity to process it in real time.

And imagine it’s a Sunday night and not as many people are coming to your website and placing orders. We’ll go down to your minimum to save you even more money on your monthly Azure bill.

Lastly, I’ll hop over to virtual machines. Virtual machines are just like cloud services in that you configure autoscale for a set of virtual machines based on either CPU or queue.

For the virtual machines, you can choose minimum-maximum instances, and we’ll move you up and down within that range by turning on and turning off those machines. And with the recent announcement of no billing while the machine’s stopped, you don’t have to worry about being charged in this case.

As you can see, it just took a few minutes to configure autoscale across all these different compute resources. And that’s what the power of autoscale brings to Windows Azure. In just a few minutes, you can make sure your cloud application runs, stays up and running for the lowest possible cost. Thank you. (Applause.)

SCOTT GUTHRIE: So as Charles showed you, it’s super easy to configure autoscale and set it up so you can really take advantage of some great savings. He also mentioned, two of the improvements that we made earlier this month is the ability now to stop VMs without incurring any billing compute charge, as well as the ability to now bill per minute. This means that if you run your site or you run your VM for only 20 minutes, we’re only going to bill you for the 20 minutes that you actually run it instead of the full hour.

And when you combine all these features together, it really yields a massive cost savings over what you can do today in the cloud, but in particular, also over what you can do in an on-premises environment.

We’re really excited to announce that the preview of Windows Azure Autoscale is now live. And you can actually all try it out for free and start taking advantage of it today. (Applause.)

So let’s switch gears now and talk a little bit about enterprise integration and some of the things that we’re doing to make it even easier for you to build cloud apps and integrate them within your corporate or enterprise environment. Whether you’re an enterprise building your own apps or you also hear a little bit about how we’re enabling ISVs that are building SaaS-based solutions to sell into an enterprise environment and monetize even more effectively.

There are a whole bunch of services that we have built into Windows Azure in the identity space that makes it really easy to do this kind of enterprise identity integration so that you can define an Active Directory in the cloud using a service we call Windows Azure Active Directory.

You can basically have a cloud-only directory, meaning you only have one directory, and it’s in the cloud, and you put all your users in it.

What’s nice about Windows Azure Active Directory though is it also supports the ability where you can synchronize it with an on-premises Active Directory that you’re running on Windows Server. And this is great for enterprises or corporates that already have Active Directory installed. And it allows them to very easily synchronize all their users into the cloud and allow cloud-based applications to start using that directory very easily to authenticate and enable single sign-on for all their customers.

And what’s nice about Windows Azure Active Directory is it’s built using open standards. So we support SAML, OAuth, as well as WS Federation, which makes it really easy for you as developers to start authenticating and enabling single sign-on within all your apps using existing libraries and protocols that you already use.

So what I thought I’d do is actually walk through a simple example of how this week we’re making it even easier in order to take advantage of that.

So what I’m going to show here is just a simple example where we have a company called Contoso that has an Active Directory on premises. And they’re going to basically spin up an Azure Active Directory running inside Windows Azure. And they can synchronize their directory up into the cloud. That means all their users are now available there.

And what they can then do is they can start to build apps, whether they’re mobile apps, Web apps, or any other type of app, deploy them in the cloud, and now any of their employees when they go ahead and access that application can enable single sign-on using their existing enterprise credentials and be able to securely login and start using that app. Let’s go ahead and walk through some code on how we do that.

So what I’m standing in front of here is the Windows Azure Management Portal, which you already seen Scott and Josh and Charles walk through earlier today.

What I’m going to do is click on this Active Directory tab that’s within the portal, which allows me to control and configure my Windows Azure Active Directory.

And what you can see here is the Contoso directory has already been created. I’m creating directories inside Windows Azure; it’s actually free; it doesn’t cost anything. So every developer they want can create their own directory, and companies can very easily go ahead and populate their directory with their information.

You can see here this directory; I already have a number of users that are stored within it. If I want to, I could directly inside the admin tool create new users and manage them through the admin console.

I could also click that directory integration tab and then set up a sync relationship with my on-premises Active Directory. That means every time a user is added or updated inside my on-premises Active Directory, it’ll be automatically reflected inside Windows Azure as well.

So once I have this, I basically have a directory that I can use within my applications to authenticate users.

So let’s build a simple app using the new Visual Studio 2013 and the new ASP.NET release coming out this week and show how I could basically integrate that within a Web app.

So I’m going to use the same Web application template that Scott showed earlier. Call this Simple App.

I can choose whatever frameworks I want within it. I can also click this change authentication dialog box that Scott touched on briefly in his talk.

And what I’m going to do is I’m going to click this organizational accounts tab. And I can go ahead now and enter in the name of the domain of my company. You’ll notice inside this dropdown we’ve added support so that both for internal apps within an enterprise that want to target a single company, they can do it. We also support the ability if you want to develop a SaaS application and target multiple enterprise customers, you can go ahead and select that as well. (Applause.)

I can then go ahead and just enter the password here. What I’m doing here is just registering this application with Windows Azure. And I just hit create project, and what this is literally going to go ahead and do now is create for me an ASP.NET project using whatever framework that I wanted to specify as registering that application with Windows Azure. So it’s basically saying I’m going to do secure sign-on with it.

And now if I go ahead and run this application in the browser, it’s going to launch, and one of the first things you’ll see it do is because I’ve enabled Active Directory single sign-on, it’s just going to automatically show me a single sign-on screen. And right now, I’m on the Internet, so that’s why it’s going to prompt me with this in HTML. I can also set it up if I was in an intranet environment where I wouldn’t have to explicitly sign in.

But right now, I can sign in. And I’m just going to say Contoso Build.com. If I do this now, I’m logged into this ASP.NET. I’m logged in using my Active Directory account that the employee has. And I’ve literally in a matter of moments set this thing up where I’m actually now using the cloud in order to actually use a single sign-on provider.

What this means is not only can I run this thing locally, but I can now just right click and hit publish, and I can publish this as a website, I can publish this as a virtual machine or in a cloud service. And now any of the employees within my organization that access it are integrated with their existing enterprise security credentials and can do single sign-on within the application. (Applause.)

So this makes it really, really easy for you now to build your own custom applications, host them in the cloud, and enable enterprise security throughout.

What we’re also doing with Windows Azure Active Directory is making sure that not only can you host your own applications, but we also want to make it really easy for enterprises to be able to consume and integrate existing SaaS-based solutions and have the same type of single sign-on support with Active Directory as well.

This is great for enterprises because it suddenly means that they can go ahead and take advantage of all the great SaaS solutions that are out there, and they can start to integrate more and more apps with less friction into their enterprise environment. And it’s really great from an ISV and developer perspective because it now means that you can go ahead and build SaaS solutions and sell them to enterprises at a fraction of the friction that was required today. That makes it much easier to go ahead and show the value quickly, makes it much easier to onboard your enterprise customers, and at the end of the day, enables you to make a lot more money.

So what I’m going to do is walk through an example of how this works. So we’re going back to the Windows Azure portal. And we’ve got our users, like we had before here. I’m now going to click this applications tab as well. And what the applications tab does is it’s going to show me all of the apps that have been registered with this directory. So any of the custom apps that I would build would show up here.

You’ll notice also inside this list, we have a bunch of popular SaaS-based solutions that have already been registered with Contoso as well. So we’ve got Box, Basecamp, and many others.

What I can do now inside the Windows Azure portal if I’m an administrator of the directory is I can go ahead and just click add. Click this manage access to an application link. And what we’re integrating is SaaS-based directory of existing SaaS-based solutions that this organization can now seamlessly integrate as part of their Windows Azure Active Directory system.

So, for example, I could do popular ones like DocuSign or Dropbox or Evernote.

We’ve got ones you might not expect at a Microsoft conference. We’ve got Google Apps. We’ve got Salesforce.com. We even just for giggles enabled Amazon Web Services. (Laughter.) Some of these we’d like you to use more than others. (Laughter.) But regardless, you can add any of these, and basically once you just click add, they’ll show up in this list. And then all you need to do in order to integrate your single sign-on with one of these apps is drill into it.

So in this case here, I’m going to drill into Box. Basically, I can just hit configure. I can say I want to enable my users to authenticate the Box using my Windows Azure Active Directory. Just paste in my Box tenant URL, which is the URL I get from Box. And I just download and upload a cert in order to make sure that we have a secure connection.

And once I do that, I then basically have integrated my Active Directory with Box. I can then go ahead and hit configure user access. This will bring up my list of all the users within my Windows Azure Active Directory. I can then go ahead and click on any of them, click enable access.

You’ll notice we’ve even integrated if the SaaS provider has roles defined within their application, I cannot only give this user access to Box, but I can actually map which roles within the Box applications they should have access to. And then hit OK and then literally in a matter of seconds, that user is now provisioned on Box and they can now use their Active Directory credentials in order to do single sign-on to that SaaS application. (Applause.)

So I’m going to switch gears now and go to another machine. So I was showing you kind of the administrator experience for how an administrator would login or enable that. I’m now going to kind of show you the end-user experience of what this translates into. And once we set up that relationship with that particular employee, that employee can go ahead and just go to Box directly and use their Active Directory credentials to sign in.

Or one of the other things that we’ve done which we think is kind of cool is integrated the ability so that the company can expose the single dashboard of all the SaaS applications that they’ve configured that employees can just go ahead and bookmark.

So in this case here, going ahead and logging into this. So this is kind of an end-user experience. All of the apps, SaaS solutions, or custom apps that the administrator of Active Directory has gone ahead and said you have access to will show up in this list. So you can see the Box app that we’ve just provisioned shows up here now. And as more get added, we’ll just dynamically show up.

And then what the user can do is just go ahead and click on any of them in order to initiate a single sign-on relationship. And that’s how easy now our Contoso employee is now logged into Box. And they can now do all the standard Box operations now using their Active Directory against it. (Applause.)

The beauty about this model is not only is it super easy to set up, you saw both on the administrator side, as well as on the developer side, it’s really, really easy to integrate. But it also means from an enterprise perspective, they feel a lot more secure. It means that if the employee ever leaves the organization or their account is ever suspended, they basically lose all access to the SaaS applications that they’ve been using on the company’s behalf. So the company doesn’t have to worry about the data leaving or the employee still able to kind of login and make changes to their data. So it enables a very nice model there.

And I think from a developer perspective, you know, one of the things to think about in terms of what we’re enabling here is not only is it easy, but it’s going to enable you to reach a lot of customers. We have more than 3.2 million businesses that have already synced their on-premises Active Directory to the cloud and more than 68 million active users that login regularly using that system.

That basically means as a developer, as a company that wants to sell to enterprises, you’ve got an awesome market that you’re now able to go ahead and sell to and makes it real easy for you to monetize.

And what I thought I’d do is actually invite Aaron Levie, who is the co-founder and CEO of Box to actually come onstage and talk a little bit about what this means to Box and some of the kind of possibilities this opens up for them.

AARON LEVIE: Hey, how you doing? (Applause.) How’s it going? So I’m really excited to be here. At Box, we help businesses store, share, manage, and access information from anywhere. And we’re big supporters of Microsoft. We build for the Windows desktop, we build on Windows 8, build on Windows 8 Phone. We love to integrate our work with SharePoint. Unfortunately, they haven’t returned our email yet, but maybe spam filter, we don’t know what’s going on there.

But it’s really exciting to see sort of an all-new Microsoft. I think the amount of support for openness and heterogeneity is incredibly amazing. I think you normally wouldn’t have seen a development preview on top of a Mac or whatever. I was actually afraid that Bill Gates was going to drop down from the ceiling and rip it off. So that was really exciting to see.

So we’re really excited to be supporting Windows Azure Active Directory. It helps reduce the friction for customers to be able to deploy cloud solutions, and we think it’s going to be great for developers. We think that’s going to be great for startups and the ecosystem broadly.

SCOTT GUTHRIE: Yeah, we were talking a little bit earlier about some of the friction that it reduces. I don’t know maybe you could talk as an enterprise SaaS solution what that friction is like, and how does something like this help?

AARON LEVIE: Yeah, I mean, if you think about how the enterprise software industry for decades basically if you wanted to deploy software or technology in your enterprise, you had to build this sort of massive competency in managing infrastructure and managing services and managing new software that you want to deploy. And there was so much friction for implementing new solutions into your business. So any new problem that you wanted to solve, you had to have the exact same amount of technology that you had to implement per solution.

Even harder was getting things like the identity to integrate and getting the technology to actually talk to each other. The power of the cloud is that any business anywhere in the world — and we’re talking millions of businesses that now have access to these solutions — can instantly on-demand light up new tools.

And so what that means is when you have lower friction, when you have more openness, we’re going to see way more innovation. And that creates an environment where startups can be much more competitive, where we can build much better solutions, and I think the ecosystem broadly can actually expand. And the $290 billion that is spent every year on enterprise software today on-premises can massively move to the cloud, and we can actually expand the amount of market potential that there is between the ecosystem.

SCOTT GUTHRIE: That’s awesome. You know, we’re kind of excited on our side in terms of the opportunity both kind of to enable that kind of shift. How we can use Windows Azure, how we can use the cloud in order to provide sort of this great opportunity for developers to basically build solutions that really can reach everyone.

You know, I think one of the other things that’s just nice is sort of how we can actually interoperate and integrate with systems all over the place. And that’s across protocols, that’s across operating systems, that’s devices, that’s even across languages. And I think as Aaron mentioned, it’s going to open up a ton of possibilities. And at the end of the day, I think really provide a lot of economic opportunity out there, hopefully for everyone in the audience.

AARON LEVIE: Cool.

SCOTT GUTHRIE: So thanks so much, Aaron.

AARON LEVIE: Thanks a lot, appreciate it. See you. (Applause.)

SCOTT GUTHRIE: I’m really excited to say that everything that we just showed here from a developer API perspective, you can start plugging into and taking advantage of this week. We’ve got a lot of great sessions on Windows Azure Active Directory where you can learn more, and you can start taking advantage of all the tools that we are providing in ASP.NET and with the new version of .NET and VS to get started and make it really easy to do it.

We’re then going to go ahead and soon have a preview of the SaaS app management gallery that you can also start loading your applications into, and we’ll start taking advantage of as an enterprise. So we’re pretty excited about that, and we think, again, it’s going to offer a ton of opportunity.

So let’s switch gears now. We’ve talked a little bit about identity and how we’re trying to make it really easy for you to integrate that within an enterprise environment. I’m going to talk a little bit about the integration space more broadly, and in particular talk about how we’re also making it really easy to integrate data, as well as operations in a secure way into your enterprise environment as well.

And we’ve got a number of great services with Windows Azure that make it really easy to do so.

One of them is something that we first launched this month called Windows Azure BizTalk Services. And I’m pretty excited about this one in that it really allows me to dramatically simplify the integration process. For people that haven’t ever tried to integrate, say, an SAP system with one of their existing apps, or ever tried to integrate an SAP system with an existing SaaS-based solution, there’s an awful lot of work involved in terms of doing that both in terms of code, but also in terms of monitoring and making sure everything is secure. And these types of integration efforts can often go on for months or years as you integrate complex line-of-business systems across your enterprise.

What we’re trying to do with Windows Azure BizTalk Services is just dramatically lower that cost in a really quantum way. And basically with Windows Azure BizTalk services, you can stand up an integration hub in a matter of minutes inside the cloud. You can do full B2B EDI processing in the cloud so you can process orders and manage supply chains across your organization.

We’re also enabling enterprise application integration support so that you can very easily integrate lots of different disparate apps within your environment, as well as integrate them with cloud-based apps, both your own custom solutions, as well as SaaS-based apps that your enterprise wants to go ahead and take advantage of.

You know, we think the end result really is going to be a game-changer in the integration space and opens up a bunch of possibilities.

So what I thought I’d like to do is walk through just sort of a simple example of how you can use it. So I’m going to go back to our little Contoso company.

And they want to be able to consume and use a SaaS-based app that does travel management. We’ll call it Tailspin Travel. And they want to be able to do single sign-on with their employees so that their employees can login using their Active Directory credentials.

But to really make it useful, they also want to be able to tie in their travel information and policies with their existing ERP system on premises, and that poses a challenge, which is how do you securely open up your ERP system and enable a third party to have access to it? How do you monitor it? How do you make sure it’s really secure?

And so that’s where BizTalk services comes into play. So with BizTalk services, you can go to Windows Azure, you can very easily and very quickly stand up a Windows Azure BizTalk service. And then we have a number of adapters that you can go ahead and download and run on-premises to connect it up.

In particular, we have an SAP adapter. We also have Oracle adapters, Siebel adapters, JD Edwards adapters, and a whole bunch more. So, basically, without you having to write any code, you can actually just define what we call bridges, which make it really easy and secure for you to go ahead and expose just the functionality you want.

That SaaS app or your own custom app can then go ahead and call endpoints within Windows Azure BizTalk Services using just standard JSON or REST APIs, and then basically securely go through that bridge and execute and retrieve the appropriate data.

Again, it’s really simple to set this up. What I’d like to do is just walk through a simple example of how to do it in action.

So what I have here is kind of the end-user app that our Contoso employees will use. It’s a Web-based application. Again, our Tailspin Travel. You’ll notice that the users are already logged in using the Windows Azure Active Directory already within the app. So this app could be hosted anywhere on the Internet.

I could then create new trips as an employee, or I could go ahead and look at existing ones that I’ve already booked. So here’s one, this is the return trip from Build. Right now, I’m flying in economy. I don’t know, maybe it would be nice to get upgraded. So I can go ahead and try to enter that.

But you’ll notice here at the top when I do it, a few seconds later, I’ve got a policy violation that was surfaced directly inside the Tailspin Travel app. And basically it just was saying I can’t just do this myself; my manager actually has to go ahead and approve it. And it’s coming directly out of the SAP system of Contoso.

So how did this happen? Well, on the Tailspin Travel side, this is the SaaS app, they’re building it in .NET. This is basically a simple piece of code that they have, which allows them on the SaaS side to actually check whether or not this trip is in policy.

Basically, the way they’ve implemented it is they’re just making a standard REST call to some endpoint that’s configured for the Contoso tenant. And this doesn’t have to be implemented with Azure, doesn’t have to be implemented with .NET, it can be implemented anywhere. And it’s just making a standard REST call. And depending on that action, the SaaS app then goes ahead and does something.

So how do we implement this REST call? Well, we could implement it in a variety of different ways on Windows Azure. We could write our own custom REST endpoint and process the code and handle it that way. We have lots of great ways to do that. Now, the downside, though. The tricky part of this is not going to be so much implementing the REST API; it’s actually implementing all the logic to flow that call to an on-premises SAP system, get the information validated, and return it.

Again, that would typically require an awful lot of code if you needed to do that from scratch.

What I’m going to do here is switch here to the other machine. And walk through how we can use BizTalk services to dramatically simplify it.

So you can create a new BizTalk service. Go ahead and just say new app service, BizTalk service custom create. I could say Contoso endpoint. And literally just by walking through a couple wizards here and hitting OK, I can basically stand up my own BizTalk service inside the cloud hosted in a high-availability environment literally in a matter of minutes.

And for anyone who’s ever installed BizTalk Server or an integration hub themselves, they’ll know that typically that does not take a couple minutes. And the nice thing about the cloud is we can really kind of make this almost instantaneous.

Once the service is created, you get the same kind of nice dashboard view and quick start view that you saw Josh with Mobile Services. And so there are ways that you download the SDK. You can also monitor and scale up and scale down the service dynamically.

And then as a developer, I can just launch Visual Studio. I can say new project. I can say I want to create a new BizTalk service, which will define all the mapping rules and the bridge logic that I want to use.

This is one I’ve created earlier. You’ll notice here on the left in the Server Explorer we have a number of LOB adapters that are automatically loaded inside the Server Explorer, so I can connect through my SAP system directly and do that.

Add it to the design surface, and then I can create these bridges that I can either define declaratively; I can also write custom code using .NET in order to customize. Basically, I can just double-click it. This little WYSIWYG designer here lets me actually map the REST calls that I’m getting from that Tailspin Travel SaaS app, transform it, and then I can basically map it to my SAP system.

And you can see here in our schema designer, we basically allow you to do fairly complex mapping rules between any two formats. So here on the right-hand side, I have my SAP schema that’s stored in my on-premises environment; the left-hand side here, there’s that REST endpoint. This is a very simple example with a lot of these integration workflows. You might have literally thousands of fields that you’re mapping back and forth.

Once I do the mapping, though, all I need to do is just go ahead and hit deploy, and this will immediately upload it into my BizTalk Azure service and at that point, it’s live on the Web. I can then choose who do I want to give access to this bridge? And I can now securely start transferring just the information I want into and out of my enterprise.

For an IT professional, they can then go ahead and open up our admin tool. They can see all the bridges that have been defined. And then one of the things that we also build directly into Windows Azure BizTalk Services is automatic tracking support. And what this means is now the IT professional can actually see all of the calls that are going in and out of the enterprise. It’s all logged; it’s all audited so it’s fully compliant, and they can basically now keep track of exactly all the communication that’s going on to make sure that it’s in policy.

Literally, you saw all of this sort of a simple example here, but this really starts to open up tons of possibilities where you can integrate either with other SaaS out there that your organization wants to use, or as you want to start building your own custom business application and host within Windows Azure, you can now securely get access to your on-premises line-of-business capabilities and very securely manage it. (Applause.)

And I’m excited to announce that everything we just showed here, as well as everything I showed when I created that Active Directory app, is now available for you to start using. You can go to WindowsAzure.com, and you can start taking advantage of Windows Azure BizTalk Services today. (Applause.)

So I talked a little bit about how we’re making it easy to integrate enterprise systems with the cloud, both on the identity side as well as the integration side. The other side of enterprise grade services that we’re delivering fall into the data space. And here we’re really trying to make it easy for you to store any data you want in the cloud, any amount of data you want in the cloud, and be able to perform really rich analysis on top of it. And so with Windows Azure storage, we have a really powerful storage system that lets you store hundreds of terabytes, or even petabytes, of storage in any format that you want. We have NoSQL capabilities that are provided as part of that as well as raw block capability. With our SQL database support, we now have a relational engine in the cloud that you can use. You can very easily spin up relational databases literally in a matter of seconds and start using the same ADO.NET and SQL syntax features that you are familiar with today.

We also a few months ago launched a new service that we call HD Insight. This makes it really easy for you to spin up your own Hadoop cluster in the cloud, and that you can then go ahead and access any of this data that’s being stored and perform map reduce jobs on it. And what’s nice about how we’re doing HD Insight, like you’ve seen with a lot of the openness things that we’ve talked about throughout the day, is it’s built using the same Hadoop open source framework that you can download and use elsewhere. We’re actually contributors into the project now.

And with Windows Azure, it’s now trivially easy for you to spin up your own Hadoop cluster, be able to point at the data and immediately start getting insights from it, and starting to integrate it with your environment. And so I think in the next keynote later today, you’re actually going to see a demo of that in action. So I’ll save some of that for them.

But the key takeaway here is just sort of the combination of all these capabilities in identity integration and data space really we think are game-changers for the enterprise, really enable you to build modern business applications in the cloud. I think they’re going to be a lot of fun to use. So we look forward to seeing what you build.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

SATYA NADELLA: Thanks, Scott.

So one last thing I want to talk about is Office and Office 365 as a programmable surface area. We talked a lot about building SaaS applications using services, Scott talked about it. But what if you were a large developer, line-of-business application developer, or a SaaS application developer and could use all of the power of Office as part of your application? And that’s what we’re enabling with the programming surface area of Office.

What that means is the rich object model of Office, everything from the social graph, the identity, presence information, document workflows, document libraries, all of that is available for you to use using modern Web APIs within your application. You can, in fact, have the chrome either in the Office client or in SharePoint, and you can have the full power of the backend in Azure. And, of course, the idea is here is to be able to do all of that with first-class tool support.

To show you some of this in action, I wanted to invite up onstage Jay Schmelzer from our Visual Studio team to show you some of the rapid application development in Office.

Jay, come on in.

JAY SCHMELZER: Thank you. The requirements and expectations and importance of business applications has never been greater than it is today. Modern business applications need to access data available inside and outside the organization. They need to enable individuals across the organization to connect and easily collaborate with each other in rich and interesting ways. And the applications themselves need to be available on multiple different types of devices and form factors.

As developers, we need a platform that provides a set of services that meet the core requirements of these applications. And we need a toolset that allows us to productively build those applications while also integrating in with our existing dev ops processes across the organization.

What I want to show you this morning is a quick look at some things we’re still working on inside of Visual Studio to enable developers to build these modern business applications that extend the Office 365 experience leveraging those services available both from Office 365 and the Windows Azure platform.

And, of course, doing it inside of a Visual Studio experience that allows the developer to focus on unique aspects of their business, and their application, not spending as much time in boilerplate code.

To do that, we’re going to focus on the human resources department at Contoso, who has been using Office 365 to manage the active job positions across the organization. And we want to create a new application that allows individuals in the company to submit potential candidates for open positions from within their Office 365 site using whichever device they happen to have available at the time.

To do that, we’ll switch over to Visual Studio, and we’ll see that we have a new Office 365 Cloud Business app project template available to us. This project goes and builds on the existing apps for Office and apps for SharePoint capabilities that are surfaced as part of that new cloud app model Satya was talking about. And it provides us a prescriptive solution structure for building a modern business application.

I mentioned data is a core part of this, and you see we’ve already started creating the definition for a new table that we’ll use to store our potential candidates. What Office 365 Cloud Business apps does for us is surface additional data types that provide access to these core capabilities of the Office 365 and Windows Azure platform.

Some examples of that we see here that the referred by is typed as a person, giving us access to all the capabilities in Office 365 associated with that Office 365 or Azure Active Directory user. The document, their resume, is stored as a typed document. So we can store it in a document library, and it leverages the rich content management and workflow capabilities associated with Office documents.

We also need to be able to go and pull in data from elsewhere. In our case, we want to go and grab data from that existing SharePoint list the human resources team is using to manage active positions, so that our users can choose a potential position they think those candidates are appropriate for. You see, I’ve already added that, so it’s in my project.

We’ll just go and connect it up between the candidate and our job postings, specify the relationship, and say OK. And now we have this virtual relationship between our Office 365 list and our SQL Azure Database.

OK, the next thing we want to do, though, is really enable that people interaction. If you notice, when I look over here at the candidate, if I select this, you’ll see right from here I have the ability to have the application interact with my corporate social network on my behalf as I’m doing interesting things in the application.

So we have the data model defined. The next thing we need to do is create the UI model. Users of business applications today expect a modern look and feel, a modern experience, but they also want it to be consistent. Visual Studio gives you great ways of doing this for providing a set of patterns that are going to be consistent across your applications. We’ll select a browse pattern, just choose, or the default pattern, choose the table we care about, and now let Visual Studio go and create for us a set of experiences for browsing, viewing, editing and updating that candidate information.

So we have our data model. We have our UI model. The last thing we want to do is go in and actually write some business logic. In this case, back on the entity designer, we’ll go in, and we’ll leverage the data pipeline where we can interact with data moving in and out of the application. In this case, we’ll use our validate. And what we’ll do is, we’ll just go in and make sure that the only folks that can go and actually set or modify the interview date are members of the HR department. And here’s another example where we see the power of surfacing those underlying platform capabilities. I’m able to reach in to the current user, into their Azure Active Directory settings, and grab the current department and validate it against the checks we want to make.

Let’s go ahead and set a breakpoint here. I think we’re probably in good shape. Anyway, so we’re going to launch the application, and Visual Studio is going to go package this up, send the manifest off to our remote Office 365 developer site, and then launch our application. We have no candidates yet, so we’ll create a new one. Last night when we were talking about this stuff, Scott seemed pretty excited about what we’re doing. So maybe he would be an interesting person for us to work with.

When I go in and actually start specifying who it is that’s going to refer this person, you see I’m by default getting the list of the users available on this Office 365 site because I typed that it’s a person. So we’ll select Jim there, one of our team members, go ahead and upload a document that is Scott’s resume. And we’ll specify an interview date, maybe we’ll go out here into September.

The last thing we want to do is go choose which of the positions we think is appropriate to Scott. He’s going to be new to the team, so we’ll maybe choose a little more junior role for him so that he can be successful. We hit save. If we’d actually set that breakpoint, we would see our business logic would have been executed, and we would be able to get that rich debugging experience you’ve come to know and expect from Visual Studio.

We now see we have our candidate. When I drill in and look at it, you see that we’re getting that consistency of experience. I’m getting presence information for the person. When I hover over it, we see the contact card. A little misplaced, but if I want to have a conversation with Jim right now, I can go ahead and do that right from within the application just because we’ve leveraged those underlying capabilities. Of course, in the document we can see the properties of the document. We can view it in the Web application right from the site, or we can follow it if we want to do that as well.

I noticed one thing here; I’ve got this extra ID showing up. So let me go flip over to Visual Studio, and we’ll look at the View Candidate page. And just like we can with any other Web development, we can just go in here and while the application is running we’ll just remove that. We’ll save those changes, flip back over here, just kind of do a little quick refresh, and now when I go in you’ll see that, hey, that extraneous value is no longer there.

The other thing you’ll notice is that in addition to the values we specified for our SQL data, we also have built in the ability to do the basic tracking of, hey, who was the last person who created or modified this record, just core requirements of a business application.

The last thing we’ll look at is on the newsfeed we’re going to click over to that, and you’ll see that the application has gone and interacted on my behalf, right, and entered things into our internal social network, letting people know that, hey, I just submitted somebody as a potential new candidate. So if you folks want to follow them, and so forth.

OK. Our application is looking good. It’s time to go get it integrated with our existing dev ops processes. To do that, we’ll just go over here to the solution explorer, we’ll right click on the solution, and we’ll start by adding this to source code control. In this case, we’ll add it to our Team Foundation Service instance. We’ll go right click; we’ll go check in all these changes that we just made, and while that’s happening I’m going to switch over and take a look at some of the build environments we have established in our Team Foundation Service.

In this case. we’ll see that we have an existing build definition for HR jobs. If I look at that definition, we’ll see that the things I can do is I can switch it to now be continuous, so that as we check in code we can go move on. The other interesting thing is here we’ve got a custom process template that understands how to take the output of the build and deploy it into our Office 365 test site. So this is all just basic power, and this is all built on the underlying technologies and capabilities inside of Visual Studio. That also means we can extend this beyond the SharePoint experience into the Office client experiences, as well.

So here I’ve also built a mail app that allows me to go and prepopulate information in the application from the content of the mail and shove it right into creating a new user, without having to go directly into the application. Hopefully with that, you got a really quick look at some things we’re still working on in Visual Studio, to enable developers to build modern business applications, extending the Office 365 experience, building on the capabilities of Office 365 and the Windows Azure platform.

Thank you very much.

SATYA NADELLA: Thanks, Jay. Thank you.

So hopefully, you got a feel for how you can rapidly build these Office applications, but more importantly, how you could compose these applications you build with, in fact, your full line of business application on Azure and enrich your SAS app, or your line of business enterprise app. I’m very, very pleased to announce that there is a subscription of my Office 365 Home Premium for 12 months that’s going to come to you via email later this afternoon. We hope you enjoy that subscription. (Applause.)

And I know everyone in the room is also perhaps an MSDN subscriber. So we are continuing to improve MSDN benefits. One of the things that we are doing with Windows Azure is to make it very, very easy for you to be able to do dev tests. So now you can use your dev test licenses on Windows Azure. In fact, the cost and the pricing for that is such that you can probably share something like 97 percent of your dev test expenses. We’re also going to give you credits based on your various levels of MSDN. So if you’re a premium subscriber, you get $100, which you can use across your VMs, databases, as well as doing things like load testing. So fantastic benefits I would encourage everyone to go take advantage of it. And also to reduce the friction even further, we have now made it possible for any MSDN subscriber to be able to sign up to Azure without any credit card. I know this is something that many of you have asked for. We’re really pleased to do that. (Applause.)

We had a whirlwind tour of the backend technologies. Really with Windows Azure, we think we now have a robust platform for you to be able to do your modern application development for a modern business. It could be Web, mobile, or this cloud scale and enterprise grade. So hope you get a chance to play with it. We welcome all the feedback, and have a great rest of the Build.

Thank you very, very much.

END

Windows 8.1: Mind boggling opportunities, finally some appreciation by the media

June 27, 2013 10:58 pm / 4 Comments on Windows 8.1: Mind boggling opportunities, finally some appreciation by the media

… this is how I can summarize what I’ve seen on the launch (live streamed, towards the end of the post there is the embedded video record with speech transcript) …
and also how the first media reactions could be summarited.

First The Windows 8.1 Preview is here! [WindowsVideos YouTube channel from Microsoft, June 26, 2013]

Find out more: http://preview.windows.com

Second a video summary of the launch by a mainstream media Microsoft builds new features into Windows 8.1 [CNETTV YouTube channel, June 26, 2013]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer previews the company’s new Windows 8.1 operating system for tablets and PCs. Ballmer also highlights the return of the Start button, new Outlook functionality, Bing integration and gesture controls.

Media reactions in the first 15 hours:

Specific reactions:

Windows 8.1 Preview provides a window into the future of Windows [CNETTV YouTube channel, June 26, 2013]

We take a quick look at some of the more high-level changes coming with Windows 8.1.

Windows 8.1: The Five Most Exciting New Features [UPROXX, June 26, 2013]

… Native 3D Printer Support (!) … Boot To Desktop … SkyDrive Gets An Overhaul … Apps Get APIs … Universal Search …

Windows 8.1 hidden features [networkworld YouTube channel, June 27, 2013]

From PC World: There’s a lot to learn about Windows 8.1. We’ll show you some of the coolest hidden features you need to know about.

26 Awesome Features in the Windows 8.1 Preview [Gotta Be Mobile, June 26, 2013]

… Start Screen Backgrounds … Start Menu … Start Button … Integrated Bing Search … Revamped Windows Store … New Start Menu Settings … Lock Screen Sideshows … More Start Screen Color Options … Boot to Desktop … Internet Explorer 11 … Snapped States … Resizable Live Tiles … Help Tutorials … Xbox Music App … New Apps … Outlook RT … Fingerprint Support … Default Device Encryption … Photo Editing … Synced Apps across Devices … File Explorer … Built-in SkyDrive … Lock screen Alarms & Added Detailed Status … Better Portrait Support for Tablets … Disabling Hot Corners … Automatic App Updates …

10 New Features in Windows 8.1 Preview that saved my Surface RT [Scott Hanselmann (Microsoft), June 27, 2013]

… BEING ABLE TO USE YOUR DESKTOP WALLPAPER AS YOUR START MENU BACKGROUND … SEARCH EVERYWHERE … FREAKING OUTLOOK 2013 … SMARTER WINDOWING … WAY EASIER CUSTOMIZATION … BETTER ALL APPS VIEW … MORE COMPREHENSIVE SETTINGS … REMOVABLE DISKS IN YOUR MUSIC AND VIDEO LIBRARIES … SMARTER NOTIFICATIONS AND QUIET HOURS … THE READING LIST …

3D printing:

3D Printing with Windows 8.1 [Shan Ruk YouTube channel, June 26, 2013]

Breakout session at Build 2013 by Kris Iverson, Principal Software Design Engineer. 3D printing is a high profile and transformational technology, and Windows now includes support for 3D printers. This session provides everything you need to know to add 3D printing capability to your apps and to integrate 3D printer devices with Windows.

Read also: 3D printing with Windows [The Official Microsoft Blog, Jun 26, 2013, 11:00 AM]

Windows 8.1 will feature native support for 3D printing [VentureBeat, June 26, 2013, 9:00 AM] pre-written
Microsoft’s big 3D printing push: From retail to Windows 8.1 [VentureBeat, June 26, 2013, 10:51 AM]
Why 3D printing in Windows 8.1 is huge for Microsoft and entrepreneurs [VentureBeat, June 26, 2013, 3:53 PM]
Windows 8.1 Makes 3D Printers as Easy to Use as Inkjets [Laptopmag.com, Jun 26, 2013 01:26 PM EDT]
Windows 8.1 to natively support 3D printers [Neowin.net, June 26, 2013]
Windows 8.1 Cranks Up Support for 3D Printing [Mashable, June 26, 2013]
Microsoft adds native 3D printing support with Windows 8.1 [TNW, June 26, 2013]
Windows 8.1 to support 3D printing through native API [Engadget, Jun 26th, 2013 at 12:00 PM]
Microsoft Adds Native 3D Printer API To Windows 8.1 [WebProNews, June 26, 2013]

Bing as a platform (this is first 24 hours, as otherwise would be less, in order of relevance as per Google search):

Microsoft reveals 3D mapping, Bing voice controls [CNETTV YouTube channel, June 26, 2013]

Microsoft shows off new 3D-mapping capabilities and voice command integration for Bing at its Build conference in San Francisco. Bing VP Gurdeep Singh Pall demonstrated the features by asking voice search “who is the architect,” while looking at a museum on a map demo. The answer quickly popped up.

Read also:
– Bing at Build 2013: Weaving an Intelligent Fabric [on Search Blog by Gurdeep Singh Pall, Corporate Vice President, Bing; June 26, 2013]
– Bing will open up more of its APIs and controls via new developer platform [The Fire Hose news coverage blog by Microsoft, June 26, 2013, 11:00 AM]
– Two new Bing apps will be included in Windows 8.1 preview [The Fire Hose news coverage blog by Microsoft, June 26, 2013, 11:00 AM]
– Introducing The New Bing Developer Center and Services [Bing Dev Center Team Blog, Jun 26, 2013, 11:00 AM]

Microsoft broadens Bing beyond simple search [InfoWorld, June 27, 2013]
One Bing to Rule Them All: Microsoft Opens Up Bing for Apps [Mashable, June 26, 2013]
Bing Translator comes to Twitter‘s official Windows Phone app [Engadget, Jun 27, 2013 at 5:29 AM
Windows Phone 8 Twitter app gets translation function [Pocket-lint, June 27, 2013]
Microsoft enlists Bing to enhance Windows 8.1 apps [Computerworld, June 26, 2013 05:14 PM ET]
Microsoft Releases New Bing Windows 8.1 App: Health & Fitness [WMPoweruser, June 27, 2013]
Microsoft Details New Windows 8.1 Bing App: Food & Drink [WMPoweruser, June 27, 2013]
Microsoft Releases Windows 8.1 Preview, Unveils ‘Bing as a Platform’ [Redmond Channel Partner, June 26, 2013]
The Microsoft Build 2013 Recap: Windows 8.1, Bing and new features [The Slanted, June 26, 2013]

All other:

Windows 8.1 will finally add Retina-like display support [The Verge, June 26, 2013 12:00 pm]
Windows 8.1 focuses on small tablets – but they’re not PCs, says Ballmer [PC Pro (UK), June 26 2013 at 18:11]
Build 2013: 3D imagery coming to Windows 8.1 Maps [Softonic, June 26 2013]
Microsoft Will Bring 3D Imagery To Bing Maps For Windows 8.1, Will Launch With 100 Cities [TechCrunch, June 26, 2013]
Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 Preview Introduces A Smarter Virtual Keyboard For Touchscreens [TechCrunch, June 26, 2013]
Microsoft’s New Camera App For Windows 8.1 Lets You Take Photo Sphere-Like Panoramas [TechCrunch, June 26, 2013]
Microsoft premieres new panorama feature for Windows 8.1′s updated camera app [Digital Trends, June 26, 2013]
Windows 8.1: Meet the new and vastly improved Windows Store [Ars Technica, June 26 2013, 7:50pm CEDT]
Microsoft shows off 3D imagery, architecture trivia for Windows 8.1 Maps [Engadget, Jun 26th, 2013 at 1:38 PM]
IE 11 on Windows 8.1 preview supports HTML5 Netflix streaming right now [Engadget, Jun 26th, 2013 at 6:01 PM]
Microsoft announces Visual Studio 2013 preview: now available for download, 5,000 new APIs in Windows 8.1 [Engadget, Jun 26th, 2013 at 1:04 PM]
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 appears with 5,000 Windows 8.1 APIs [SlashGear, June 26, 2013]
Microsoft teases touch-based Office apps for Windows 8.1 [The Verge, June 26, 2013 12:00 pm]
Microsoft teases Metro-style Office apps for Windows 8.1 [Pocket-lint, June 26, 2013]
Redesign headed to Windows 8.1’s Xbox Music app later this year [Polygon, June 26, 2013]
Windows 8.1 Preview to Get Facebook Metro App [Softpedia, June 27, 2013, 08:12 GMT]

Overall reactions (in order of relevance as per Google search):

Windows 8.1’s little changes are a huge improvement [CNNMoney blog, June 26, 2013, 4:31 PM ET]
Hands-on with Windows 8.1 Preview: Windows 8 done right [Ars Technica, June 26 2013, 6:33pm CEDT]
Windows 8.1′s Start Button Isn’t A Start Button [TechCrunch, June 26, 2013]
With Windows 8.1, Microsoft Wants To Own The Kitchen, As Well As The Living Room And The Office [TechCrunch, June 26, 2013]
Microsoft Builds a Friendlier Windows 8.1 at Developer Conference [Wired, June 26, 2013]
With Windows 8.1, Microsoft Makes Some Asked-For Fixes [All Tings Digital, JUNE 26, 2013 AT 9:00 AM PT] pre-written
Windows 8.1 Puts Microsoft On Track For A Better Year In 2014 [Forbes, June 26, 2013, 3:47PM]
Windows 8.1: It’s Getting Better And Stronger — Just Not Fast Enough [ReadWriteWeb, June 26, 2013]
With Windows 8.1, Microsoft Steps Back Toward Operating System Relevance [ReadWriteWeb, June 26, 2013]
Windows 8.1 is all improvements, little innovation [Digital Trends, June 26, 2013]
If You Hated Windows 8, Microsoft’s Attempt To Fix It Won’t Change Your Mind [Business Insider, June 26, 2013, 6:17 PM]
Windows 8.1 first look: Finally, Windows the way you want it [Computerworld, June 26, 2013, 8:55 PM EDT]
Windows 8.1 fixes problems, adds new features, but touch screen is still the focus (hands-on) [CNET, June 26, 2013, 9:00 AM PDT] pre-written
Windows RT 8.1 preview: all the additions you’d expect, but no desktop removal [The Verge, June 26, 2013, 08:30 pm]
Microsoft reveals Windows 8.1 brings back the Start button [Know Your Mobile, June 26, 2013]
Microsoft releases Windows 8.1 beta, brings back ‘start’ button [First Post, June 27, 2013]
Huge enterprise potential for Windows 8.1 seen [IT World Canada, June 26, 2013]

The one which had #1 relevance by Google search:
Review: Windows 8.1 Widens Gap With Older PCs [The Big Story of the Associated Press by Ryan Nakashima, June 27, 2013, 1:47 AM EDT]

probably because also appeared on The Washington Post, ABC News, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Indian Express, CenturyLink, and NPR just in 2 hours after AP published this review (so more news organs will republish it later, for sure)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer says the latest update to Windows is a “refined blend” of its older operating system for PCs and its new touch-enabled interface for more modern, mobile devices.

After some hands-on time with it, the update seems to me like a patch over an ever-widening chasm.

The issue is that there are over a billion personal computers that use some version of Windows as it existed until last October, when Microsoft unveiled Windows 8. All those PCs are responsive to mice and keyboards, not the touch screens and other input methods like voice and gestures that represent the future of computing. Making it easier to cross that bridge is one of the goals of Windows 8.1, a preview version of which Microsoft released Wednesday.

After spending several hours with devices running Windows 8.1, it remains unclear to me whether a touch-based environment is what traditional Windows users want to accomplish the productive tasks for which they’ve come to rely on Windows.

But Microsoft has added to 8.1 a grab bag of fun features that make the free update worthwhile.

One way Microsoft reaches into the past is by reviving the “Start” button in the operating system’s traditional “Desktop” mode. It appears as a little Windows icon at the bottom left corner of the screen.

However, other than the location and its general look, the button doesn’t do what it once did. A single tap brings you back to the “Modern” interface, instead of the traditional Start menu, which used to bring up a whole host of convenient items like recent programs and commonly used folders.

An extended press brings up a list of complex settings functions — the kind that most people would probably rather leave to their tech department if they are fortunate enough to have one.

So, instead of bringing back a familiar environment, the revived “Start” button is mainly just another way of directing you to the new one.

Another way Microsoft attempts to appease its established PC user base is by allowing people to launch their computers directly into the “Desktop” environment. But again, with no way to access programs except through the “Modern” interface, there is little cause for celebration among traditionalists.

The main changes in Windows 8.1 offer an easier way to function inside its “Modern” environment, better more integrated search results, and a hint of what’s possible in the future.

One feature that makes the new environment easier to navigate: Now, a screen called “All Apps” is just a swipe away from the “Modern” tile screen. Swiping up literally displays all the apps on the computer, not just the ones that you have made as favorites on the start screen. In the past, you had to swipe up from the bottom edge and tap another button to get there.

Unfortunately, the “All Apps” page feels like too much. An array of icons easily covers two full screens. Although you can re-organize the apps into categories or alphabetically, there are too many to make it easy to use.

It’s easier to use the search function, which can either be brought up by swiping in from the right edge, or just typing when in the “Modern” tile screen.

Entertainers get terrific new billing in Microsoft’s improved search function. Type in an artist’s name, say Lily Allen, and Windows 8.1 brings up a lively and colorful sideways-scrollable page that shows big photos, her birthdate, and a list of songs and videos followed by decent-sized renditions of websites.

Clicking on a play button alongside a song instantly plays it. You don’t have to own the song, because Microsoft throws in the feature as part of its Xbox Music service — which inserts ads unless you pay a monthly fee. You can queue up all the top songs and even add them to a playlist for listening to later.

Windows 8.1 can also run on smaller devices, including Acer’s Iconia W3, which has an 8.1-inch screen measured diagonally and works with a wireless keyboard that also acts as a stand. In the past, screens had to be about 10 inches or longer diagonally.

Some add-ins didn’t really excite me. The ability to resize the split-screen, which lets you do more than one thing at once, lacked pizazz. On the Acer and even Microsoft’s own Surface Pro, you can only split the screen in two, and only at fixed intervals. With the update, the screens can be half-and-half or roughly cover one-third or two-thirds of the screen, instead of one taking up a sliver as in Windows 8.

Another feature is a predictive text function. Windows 8.1 offers up three predictions for words you are typing on an onscreen keyboard when in certain apps like Mail. To me, the feature seemed to be more annoying than useful, even though you can select the options with sideways swipes on the space bar.

Yet another feature turned the camera into a motion detector. In one demo, Microsoft’s new “Food and Drink” app lets users swipe through a recipe with mid-air hand gestures. In practice, this often failed, sometimes turning pages in the wrong direction or not reacting at all. Still, it’s a way to struggle through a recipe if your hands are coated with sauce.

At Wednesday’s presentation, Microsoft executives previewed future Windows functions that could come in handy, including voice recognition in apps and contextual understanding of spoken questions.

For example, corporate vice president Gurdeep Singh Pall demonstrated a prototype travel planning app that not only showed 3-D overhead views of cities but gave computer-voice tours of various monuments. Speaking the question “Who is the architect?” brought up a webpage showing the answer, simply because the building that the architect designed was in view in the maps app.

“Apps are going to have eyes, they’re going to have ears, they’re going to have a mouth,” said Pall.

As of this month, Microsoft says its new Windows platform will have 100,000 apps, and the company made it clear it hopes developers make even more, incorporating some of the new tools it has made available to them.

Ballmer said in his keynote he hopes that Windows 8.1 also offers a “great path forward” for users of the millions of programs that work on older versions of Windows. By showing off a variety of enticing features of the new interface, however, it’s clear that path leads through the “Modern” world.

Windows 8.1 Preview now available [Microsoft press release, June 26, 2013]

Microsoft Corp. today announced the immediate availability of the Windows 8.1 Preview, the next update of the Windows operating system, at the company’s developer-focused Build conference. As part of the conference’s keynote speech, the company outlined the reach, design and economic opportunities for developers to build differentiated, touch-based apps for the Windows platform, including new developer tools and increased support. Company executives also highlighted new top apps coming to Windows, including Facebook, Flipboard and NFL — clear evidence of the steady app momentum for Windows, which is experiencing the fastest growth across any platform.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was joined on stage by Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows, and other company executives to demo the Windows 8.1 Preview, focusing on key areas of personalization, search powered by Bing, increased functionality for businesses, new in-the-box apps and more.

“With Windows 8 we built a new Windows, reimagined from the chipset to the experience. It was an ambitious vision, and with Windows 8.1 we refine it,” Larson-Green said. “Windows 8.1 will support the widest range of tablets and PCs and demonstrates how responsive we can be for customers. The preview we are releasing today is an important step for partners around the world that are building the next generation of Windows devices and apps.”

Antoine Leblond, corporate vice president of Windows Program Management, also took the stage to outline how Windows 8.1 provides additional opportunity for developers to design, build and market their Windows Store apps. He reinforced the best-in-class economics — developers keep 80 percent of the revenue for the lifetime of the app once it crosses the $25,000 revenue threshold. He also highlighted new updates, including the following:

Redesigned Windows Store. The Windows Store has been completely redesigned in Windows 8.1 to reach engaged customers and connect them more effectively and quickly to the apps they want. This includes increased merchandising opportunities for apps and better discoverability based on an individual’s preferences, as well as new search controls from Bing in the user interface. App listings have a new layout with refined navigation and more related content.

More monetization opportunities. Windows 8.1 delivers new opportunities for developers to build and monetize apps and engage users. Leblond introduced Windows Store gift cards, an easy way for consumers to purchase apps, books, games and content. Customers will be able to load their Microsoft Account with stored value in their local currency and make purchases online from the Windows Store. For developers in China, the Windows Store will support Alipay, meaning local developers will have new options to generate additional revenue.

Leading experiences. Windows 8.1 offers developers a canvas to present and develop compelling app designs. Windows 8.1 apps can work together to share data, share the screen and deliver richer customer experiences across a range of devices, including new 8-inch-and-below form factors.

Beyond Windows 8.1, Microsoft showcased how developers can take advantage of tools and resources across the company to build differentiated experiences for their customers across Microsoft devices and services, including the following:

Bing as a platform. The new Bing platform builds upon the large investments Microsoft has made in the core technologies behind Bing.com to be embedded as intelligent services into Microsoft devices, Microsoft services and third-party apps that people use every day. In addition to providing the Search experience in Windows 8.1, Windows Phone, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Office, Bing Developer Services are now available that enable third-party developers to leverage Bing technology to create amazing experiences in their own services and Windows and Windows Phone applications. More information is available here.

Releases of Visual Studio 2013 Preview and .NET 4.5.1 Preview. Timed to the next wave of Windows, Visual Studio 2013 offers the ideal toolset for building rich modern applications that run on Windows 8.1. With a range of new features, Visual Studio 2013 makes it easier and faster for developers to create applications and services using modern lifecycle practices that span mobile devices and the cloud. Microsoft also announced a preview of .NET 4.5.1, enabling developers to build next-generation applications for devices and services while innovating their existing core business applications. Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1 previews are now available for download here. More on Visual Studio can be found here.

Windows Phone developer opportunity. Microsoft today announced that shipments of Windows Phone grew six times faster than the rest of the smartphone market over the past year. Sprint also announced plans to add Windows Phone 8 to its 4G LTE network this summer with the HTC® 8XT and the Samsung ATIV S Neo™. With the release of Windows Phone 8, customers are now downloading more than 200 million apps per month and generating more than twice the daily app revenue. To help give developers the best return on their investments, the next release of Windows Phone will be designed to run the same apps that developers are building today and support the same familiar tools and skills. For a limited time, developers can register with Windows Phone Dev Center for only $19.

Courtesy of Microsoft and Intel Corp., attendees at Build received the first 8-inch Windows-based tablet, the Intel® AtomTM Z2760 processor-based Acer Iconia W3 and a Microsoft Surface Pro, with all the horsepower of the third-generation Intel® Core™ processor in a sleek tablet form factor. With new levels of performance, battery life and versatile form factors enabled by Windows 8.1 and Intel Architecture, these devices offer developers the chance to quickly get started building Windows 8.1 apps that will scale across form factors of all sizes. Among other giveaways, attendees received 100 GB of extra SkyDrive storage for one year, making it easy to store and access their files from anywhere.

The Windows 8.1 Preview is available for download beginning today. More information is available at http://www.preview.windows.com.

Additional information from Microsoft:
– Windows at Build 2013 [Blogging Windows, June 26, 2013]
– Get started building apps on Windows 8.1 Preview [Windows App Builder, June 26, 2013]
– Windows 8.1 Preview is here [Blogging Windows, June 26, 2013]
– Windows 8.1 Preview Product Guide [June 26, 2013]
– Day one running Windows RT 8.1 Preview on Surface RT [Surface Blog, June 26, 2013]
– Kinect for Windows new generation developer kit program [Kinect for Windows Blog, June 26, 2013]
– Build 2013 and Visual Studio 2013 Preview [Somasegar’s blog, June 26, 2013]
– Announcing the .NET Framework 4.5.1 Preview [.NET Framework Blog, June 26, 2013]
– Introducing IE11: The Best Way to Experience the Web on Modern Touch Devices [IEBlog, June 26, 2013 9:59 PM]
– Designing the Visual Studio 2013 User Experience [Visual Studio Blog, June 27, 2013]
– What’s new in Visual Studio 2013 Preview for authoring Windows Store XAML [Visual Studio Blog, June 27, 2013]

Microsoft’s Build 2013 Dev Conference Day 1 – Windows 8.1 Preview launch [BogenDorpher YouTube channel, June 26, 2013]

Speech transcript: Steve Ballmer, Julie Larson-Green, Antoine Leblond, and Gurdeep Singh Pall: Build 2013 Keynote [June 26, 2013]

Remarks by Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer; Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President, Windows Engineering; Antoine Leblond, Corporate Vice President, Windows Program Management; and Gurdeep Singh Pall, Corporate Vice President, Information Platform & Experience Management; San Francisco, Calif., June 26, 2013

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft Corporation, Steve Ballmer. (Cheers, applause, music.)

STEVE BALLMER: Well, thanks. It is exciting to have a chance to kick off this Build Conference here in Moscone Center in San Francisco. It’s hard to get a room in San Francisco, let alone a room for 6,000 of your favorite friends. So we really appreciate and welcome all the folks who are joining us here today in person.

We estimate we have about 60,000 people also watching live on webcasts. Frankly, we actually have quite a bit to show you today, and we’re pretty excited about it. The world is so dynamic, and the amount of incredibly interesting and exciting and valuable work that we’ll get a chance to show you today from Microsoft and from our innovation partners, hardware vendors, software developers, it’s really, really amazing.

Probably won’t show you a lot of Office 365 and Xbox and Skype because we’ve been kind of sharing that separately, but we’ve got a whole lot of Windows, a whole lot of Windows Phone to talk to you about, a whole lot of Windows Azure, and I think you’ll really get a sense on some of the amazing and cool stuff that’s coming really, really fits together very, very nicely.

I will say probably the No. 1 thing that I’m excited about, and the No. 1 thing that I’m happy to be able to do, is to welcome you back to a Build Conference so quickly after the last Build Conference. (Applause.)

And that’s not even so much about the conference, but it’s about the rapid pace of innovation. If there’s not one other message that I reach you with in my opening remarks, it’s about the transformation that we are going through as a company to move to an absolutely rapid release cycle — rapid release, rapid release.

I’ve talked externally about the transformation that we’re going through as a company who’s a software company to a company that is building software-powered devices and software-powered services. And the only way in which that transformation can possibly be driven is on a principle of rapid release.

It’s not a one-time thing. We’re certainly going to show you Windows 8.1 today. But you can think of that in a sense as the new norm for everything we do. For Windows releases, in addition to what we’re doing with devices through our partners, what we’re doing with Azure and Office 365, rapid release cadence is absolutely fundamental to what we’re doing, and, frankly, to the way we need to mobilize our ecosystem of hardware and software development partners.

So the first thing I want everybody to do, whether you actually do it physically in this room, we’ll test the Wi-Fi network, but I want everybody to take the opportunity to go download the Windows 8.1 Preview edition and the version of the Visual Studio tools that allow you to do first-class development for Windows 8.1.

Remember, we put Windows 8 systems in market just the end of last year. It was literally November when we started to see Windows 8 systems really coming to the fore. And yet, what you see and what we will show you as we demonstrate Windows 8.1 to you is you see a heck of a lot of movement, a heck of a lot of innovation, a heck of a lot of responsiveness all coming to market in a very, very rapid timeframe, and with a toolset that ought to enable all of our developers to flourish, to do great work, and help continue to fill out the portfolio of applications that are available for Windows 8.

Now, we’ve been moving quickly not just with Windows but also with our Windows Phone software and what we’re doing with our OEM partners. So in addition to the Windows 8.1 Preview, the first thing I want to have a chance to show you is the incredible range of new devices that our partners are bringing to market with Windows Phone. These are incredibly, incredibly beautiful devices.

You see here a range of new devices. These are a couple of new Nokias, the 928 and the 925, polycarbonate and polycarbonate and aluminum body. They have absolutely the finest camera technology in the market available today. They have beautiful screens. They’re thin, they’re light, they’re available on a wide range of networks, and all have come available here within the last month or two.

The software, in my mind’s eye, is beautiful. It’s beautiful, and it looks like the same software that we have on Windows tablets, Windows PCs, Windows notebooks, and even on our Xbox systems.

An additional product that I think is worthy of mention is the Nokia 521. It, too, is a beautiful product. This product will be sold outside of the United States, primarily in countries where the phone operators do not subsidize; that is, they do not reduce the price of the phone, but this phone will be sold for just over $150, which is really quite amazing for a product that’s this beautiful, this gorgeous, and at this time, an inexpensive price.

We’re also pleased to announce today in conjunction with Sprint and with Samsung and HTC that for the first time, Sprint will be making new Windows 8 Phones available on its network. The HTC 8XT and the Samsung ATIV S Neo are coming available on the Sprint network, filling out the range of options that our customers here in the United States have been looking for, a family of beautiful Windows Phones available on every network in this country and around the world. And we’re really proud of the work that our hardware partners are doing on this collection of beautiful new phones.

It’s not just about phones, though. It’s also about transformation and innovation in the fundamental hardware that we think of as the Windows device.

I’m almost not sure whether to talk about Windows devices today, Windows PCs, Windows tablets, Windows notebooks — the PC, the Windows device of today doesn’t look a lot like the PC of five years ago or 10 years ago or 15 years ago. And it’s really been in this short seven months since we launched Windows 8 and we turned on the switch with our hardware partners that we’ve seen an explosion in the range of innovative new devices that are being designed with Windows inside.

For the first time today, we’ll really spend some time showing you small tablets running Windows. You will all receive, those of you here in person, you will all get an Acer Iconia 8.1-inch Windows 8 machine. (Cheers, applause.)

Antoine Leblond will show you one here in a minute, but it’s a very small tablet. It’s a full Windows 8 device. It has full entertainment, full PC capability. It comes with Windows Office preloaded, and literally is flying off the shelves in terms of volume and appreciation. A perfect device for students, a small, very light device, and yet you can add a keyboard, you have Microsoft Office and the full range of PC applications, enabling kids to do homework and have a little entertainment at the same time.

This small tablet form factor is very important. I wouldn’t call them PCs, but there will be Windows small tablets. You’ll see it, you’ll touch it, you’ll feel it, and we’re going to see a proliferation of Windows small tablet devices here over the course of the next several months.

This is innovation that had to be unlocked. We had to do work in Windows, and our partners have had to do work in the semiconductors and in their system design to really bring the small tablet form factor to life.

Second, when we brought out Windows 8, we talked about touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, and more touch. When you went into the stores last Christmas to look for a Windows 8 machine, most of them didn’t have touch.

And yet, what we’ve seen in that timeframe is a real focusing by our industry ecosystem on bringing Windows 8 touch systems to market: Windows 8 notebooks, Windows 8 touch all-in-ones, touch notebooks.

Touch is incredibly valuable in what I might refer to as a traditional PC form factors. The advantages of being able to touch your all-in-one, or even the notebook, the notebook that maybe you use all day, every day with the mouse and the keyboard powered down, writing code, the ability in a more casual moment to reach out and touch is so obvious, and yet it’s really only in the Windows family that we have a range of touch notebooks.

And you will see in what we show you here onstage, and in what you’ll see now in stores, you will see literally an outpouring of new devices that are notebook computers in every respect, and yet have touch fully integrated and accessible.

One of the things we have certainly seen in our user research is customers who have Windows 8 on touch systems are much, much happier than other Windows 8 customers, and in fact, are even much happier than our Windows 7 customers. And so really getting the ecosystem to come forth with a full product line of Windows 8 touch PCs is incredibly important.

The other category of innovation that we’re going to show you some here today, I guess I’ll call a workhorse two-in-one tablet. I don’t know whether to call it a tablet, I don’t know whether to call it a PC, because really this family of devices really does a first-class job at both of those things.

I continuously bring in and try new machines. The newest machine I’ve tried, which Antoine will demonstrate later, is this Helix device from Lenovo. It’s a Core i7 machine. It has all of the security features, PCM, encryption that anybody would ever want.

I find that I get at least a full day of work in terms of battery life. It is light. It’s about two pounds. It has built-in pen. You say, “How can this possibly be a full-day battery life with a Core i7?” Well, it’s touch, it’s pen, but it also has a keyboard with built-in battery that turns it literally into the most — oops, I should put it down more carefully in demo areas — it literally makes it the most powerful PC and the most powerful, capable, lightweight tablet that you could carry.

Should we call that a PC? Should we call that a tablet? What I call it is all Windows, all the time. And I think it really reaches out and touches a need that a lot of people feel.

How many of us have gone to a meeting with somebody who brought a tablet and then when it comes time to actually take notes, writes them down on pencil and paper, or can’t get at the spreadsheet that they really need to do their work, or try to use it terminal emulator mode, or can’t write the document really, or they take half an hour to set up and turn their tablet back into something that approximates a PC?

This new category of two-in-ones is what I think all of our developers at Microsoft will want.

A lot of times, people just want the desktop, they want a powerful PC or notebook, and yet from time to time, you want to be able to kick back with a lightweight, ink-enabled tablet, and we can go both ways with this powerful two-in-one tablet combination.

Third area that I want to highlight where we have a lot of innovation that you will see showcased here during the Build Conference is in the area of applications. It really again has only been seven months since we’ve launched Windows 8, and the number of applications that we see coming into the store is phenomenal.

But it also to me is gratifying to see that developers are doing really great work for Windows 8. Flipboard will be announcing their new applications. They’re known, of course, for very intuitive, visual design. And Mike McCue, who’s the CEO of Flipboard, says, “We aspire to not just create the best Windows application possible, but the best version of Flipboard possible.” This new range and family of Windows devices enables that kind of application innovation.

Facebook will bring an application to the Windows 8 environment. They’re very focused on mobile. That’s good. (Applause.) That’s very good.

Mike Chambers, director of engineering at Facebook, says, “Facebook has always believed in connecting everyone, everywhere, on every device. Given our strong and longstanding partnership with Microsoft, this is an exciting way to advance that vision.”

The NFL, we recently struck a deal with the NFL to bring its content and applications to a broad set of Microsoft devices, including all Windows tablets, PCs, et cetera. And today, the NFL will be announcing that their Fantasy Football experience will be available across the range of Windows 8 devices.

These join applications just announced even in the last week from Vivo, from Viclone, from Time Out, from Tesco Groceries, Disney’s new game Where’s My Mickey, and many, many more.

Within this month, I think we’ll pass the 100,000-application mark in the Windows Store. But of course, as important as those 100,000 applications are, they join a list of literally millions of applications that people use on Windows today. In our instrumented versions of Windows, with your permission, when you feed us back data, we get to see kind of the numbers of applications that we have instrumented versions. And we literally have data that shows us approximately 2 to 3 million applications in production on Windows on a daily basis.

They haven’t all been moved to the modern user interface, they’re not all in the store, but they are essential to the way all of us work and get stuff done every day. And they will move, and they will migrate, and they will continue to be the basis and the evolution for the productivity that drives all of us in our daily lives around the world.

The importance of those desktop applications was never more reinforced to us than in the course of the last six months. Since we announced and shipped Windows 8, suffice it to say we pushed boldly in Windows 8, and yet what we found was that we got a lot of feedback from users of those millions of desktop applications that said, if I was to put it in coffee terms, “Why don’t you go refine the blend here?” Let’s remix the desktop and your modern application experiences. Let’s balance them better. Let’s complete them better. Let’s make it easier to start applications the way we’re used to with the millions of desktop applications that we use to be productive every day.

So what we will show you today is a refined blend of our desktop experience and our modern user interface and application experience.

You will see that we bring back the Start button to the desktop. (Cheers, applause.)

You will see that if you want to boot to the desktop, you can boot to the desktop. (Cheers, applause.)

You will see that we have, nonetheless, enriched the Start screen and Start menu, but we have brought back the flexibility for you to see all of those many, many applications that you use every day at a simple and quick glance.

You will see that we have built into the user experience more multitasking options, so you can have more things up on the screen like you’re used to in desktop mode. You can use more screen real estate with multiple monitors. We said, “Let’s reblend the desktop and the modern experience, and let’s recognize the fact that it’s not just these hundreds of thousands of new applications that are in our store and support the modern touch user interface, but let’s also make sure that we have a great path forward for the people using the millions of desktop applications in the world.” So we have refined the blend of those two things, and we’ll show you that here later today.

The last big thing I want to highlight in terms of what we’re doing in Windows 8.1, we’re doing with Bing. We have put an incredible amount of energy, innovation, brain power into our Bing search engine. And we’ve built absolutely an unbelievable product. We have consistently improved the experience to the point where today in the United States we win blind taste tests if you compare results between Bing and Google.

We have gained market share consistently since the launch of Bing here in the United States.

But the time has come now to also use Bing in new ways, to use Bing to harness it, to help improve the fundamental usability of Windows devices and Windows applications.

So, with Windows 8.1, I would say Bing is inside. Our shell experience is powered by Bing. You’ll see that we’re opening up Bing as an application development platform for all of you as Windows developers so that you can use all of this investment we’ve put into crawling the Web and understanding entities. You can use that, see that, and build that richness into your applications running on top of Windows.

So I would say we have moved from Bing super and outside you’ll see Bing inside the whole family of Windows devices and the cool, new applications that all of you are building.

To show you some of these innovations, to demonstrate them to you, we’re going to have Julie Larson-Green, who runs our Windows group, Antoine Leblond, who runs program management and kind of design conceptualization for Windows, and Gurdeep Singh Pall, from our Bing team, come on out and show you some of the exciting innovation that I got a chance to talk to you about. I’ll rejoin you in a little bit, but welcome, Julie, and enjoy the show. (Applause, music.)

JULIE LARSON-GREEN: OKOK, thanks, Steve. So I’ve got a demo to show you, but the most exciting feature that you’ll see is the fact that we’re here in eight months with an update that shows how much more responsive our engineering has become.

Now, I remember when I was here at the developer conference for Windows 7, and we were really proud of that release. It unlocked a whole new generation of PCs called ultrabooks, and those were the best ones that were ever made at the time. They were really a breakthrough product.

And then I came back exactly three years later to unveil Windows 8. And it was about enabling another generation of PCs, tablets that can do everything.

Windows 8 was the most ambitious vision for Windows ever, one that introduced a new platform, experience, app model, and more.

So today, I’m going to show you Windows 8.1. It’s an update that refines the vision of Windows 8 and is responsive to the latest industry trends, from supporting the newest silicon to the widest range of devices at the same time we’ve been delivering continuous improvements.

We have had over 800 updates to Windows since we launched in November that address everything from performance, efficiency, to the look and feel and new features in the product. We designed 8.1 to feel natural and everything from the new mini small tablets up to large, powerful work stations. And so I’m going to give you a glance at all of those things.

Right here, I have the one that Steve was talking about, the Acer 8-inch. I’m going to go over and show you a little bit about how we’ve designed the system to work really great with these devices.

I’m going to use the one connected to the projector. Here I am with the new Start screen for the small device. Works great in portrait mode. These devices are really easy to carry around in your bag or your purse and great for reading. So we have Nook Reader right here.

But we didn’t really just stop there, we also rethought the way that you can be productive on these small devices and came up with some innovative ways to use an onscreen keyboard.

So I’m going to go to Twitter. No Internet connection; that will make it hard to tweet. And right away, you see an application that was designed or an app designed for this 8-inch portrait form factor.

So here’s the onscreen keyboard, and I’m at the Build keynote, started at 9:00. I’m going to tweet that. So as I start typing, immediately you start to see the suggestions at the top. It has B, Build, Bing as suggestions for me.

Normally, I would take my hands away from the keyboard, go to the top, press one of those, and continue typing.

With Windows 8.1, we’ve added gestures to the onscreen keyboard. So, as I slide my finger on the space bar, it selects across. I see the one that I want, I tap, and it gives me the word. (Applause.)

I can do that again. So I’m just going to slide my finger on the space bar right across and tap and the word. I’m going to type “at.”

Another way that we do gestures is on the keypad itself. So one of the things that’s most annoying about an onscreen keyboard is going to the keypad for numbers and then coming back and typing. So instead, with Windows 8.1, I can use a gesture to slide up and put in a number. So here I go with 9. Slide up — whoops, I slid the whole thing — slide up for the colon, zero, zero — and show you what I’m doing here. I’m going to press and hold on the question mark. Now I can slide in any direction to get my exclamation point or pound sign or anything else I want, and it’s just that easy. (Applause.)

So when we launched Windows 8, it was on these larger tablets, really tablets that can do everything. And it was all about making you productive and helping you get things done that you wanted to go do. Some of the things that we’ve improved in Windows 8.1 are around email, around searching, what Steve talked about before, and also with entertainment. So I’m going to take you through some of those things.

Let’s go to my email. Now, we’ve got a big update that hopefully many of you got in February for the mail client. We added all kinds of new capabilities, and we’ve been improving it ever since. What I’m going to show you here are some of the capabilities that help you really manage your inbox content and the innovations we’re putting in when we release. This isn’t in your preview build, but it will be there in the fall when we come out.

So right away, I have what’s called the power pane here on the left-hand side. It makes it very easy for me to filter and find things that are in my inbox. So I press on social, and it gives me all my social updates all at a glance. I can see everything that’s been coming from my Facebook feed or anything else that I have connected here.

I have my favorite people that I can get to really quickly or get to an individual.

I also have newsletters. If you’re like me, you’re getting many of these newsletters every day; sometimes many times a day and it fills up your inbox. So we’ve added the capability to sweep these away.

So if I go and select one of these, I’ve got LivingSocial, use the sweep command, and I can delete them all at once. I can delete all but the latest. And then as they come in, it automatically will update and set it aside for me so I don’t have to manage all that content all at once. So I’m going to go ahead and delete all of these and sweep them away. (Applause.)

So Steve was talking about Bing and how Bing powers Windows. And we introduced the Search charm in Windows 8. And the Search charm in Windows 8, it can search through a variety of contexts. What we’ve done in 8.1 is make it the one box that just does it all. It’s the place you’re going to go for everything. It’s like the modern command line to your system. It can bring back results from the Web, from your local drive, from the control panel, from apps on your system. It’s the one place you go to get to everything you want to do. And with 20 billion searches that were done in the U.S. alone in one month, we know it’s the way that people like to use their PC.

So here I am with all those results. I have my SkyDrive, Store, everything that starts with “S.” I’m going to continue typing, and we’re going to go get some results for San Francisco.

So this smart search brings back the results from everywhere. So I have the weather, I have maps, I have attractions that are popular and known to be in San Francisco. I have Web results with little pictures of the pages that I would get. And so it’s a one-stop shop to find out everything I might want to do in the relevance of things in San Francisco.

So I’m going to go look at the weather. And part of the search experience is it just takes me right to the weather. I can look at the city, look at the temperature and go right back to search. I can go right to a map of the city. I have little stars of things that I’ve selected here. I’m going to select on a restaurant, Aziza. And built right into the whole search experience is the ability to go look at that restaurant, find the menu, go to OpenTable, make a reservation, making it very easy and seamless. Search is not just a list of links; it’s things you can do.

So I’m going to go over here and search for something else. There’s a band playing this week that I’ve heard of called Fitz & The Tantrums. I’ll show you another one of these. This is like an app that’s been built on the fly for Fitz & The Tantrums. It tells me the genre. I can play songs. I can read about it, look at videos, find things on the Internet, just very quickly and simply get that built right up for me.

And I can play things right from here. So I’m going to play this song, 6:00 a.m. (Music plays.) So I didn’t own that song. That used the Xbox Music app to go find the song and play it for me and stream it for me automatically without me having to do anything, because free music streaming comes with Xbox Music. It’s built into Windows 8.

So the Xbox Music app has been completely redesigned to focus on playing content. We were focusing on discovery before, but really what you want to do with a music app is you want to go and play. And so it starts from your collection. I also have a new radio feature where I can create playlists, create new stations and enter artists.

And I have this one new feature that is so cool, I’ve never seen this before in any kind of music app. I’ll show you how it works.

I’m going to go back here to the browser, and this is just a regular music Web page. It’s just a site on the Internet. You guys can go there now and take a look at it. It has the lineup for the Second Wave Festival, and it just lists all the bands that are going to be playing.

I can share the site using the charms to the music app. It’s going to automatically comb through that website and create a playlist using the streaming music from all those bands. And then when I go back there, I automatically have a playlist all created for me. (Applause.)

Pretty cool. OK, so those touch machines, tablets, you’re using them, you’re touching them all the time. Pretty soon, every screen you have is going to be touch.

Here is this all-in-one. It’s a great 27-inch Dell PC touch machine. And we’re finding these more and more in public areas of the home. They’re in the living room; they’re in your kitchen. They’re sitting here, and we’ve made them much more beautiful in Windows 8.1 with a live slide show of all your pictures.

So these pictures come from SkyDrive where your pictures are stored, or from your local hard drive, and they just go with you. They’re organized by date. So if your birthday was this week, next year at the same time, pictures from that birthday event are going to show up there.

But it’s not just sitting around looking beautiful. It’s also ready to go at a moment’s notice. On the lock screen — (tones). Ah, Jensen, right on cue. OK, did you see what I did there? I opened it right from the lock screen without being logged in.

JENSEN: Hi, Julie. That’s pretty cool.

JULIE LARSON-GREEN: Yeah, you can do that with camera as well. You can just slide down from the top with your tablet and take a picture without logging in.

JENSEN: Yeah, you didn’t have to enter a password or a PIN or anything. You just got instant video chat right from the lock screen on any device.

JULIE LARSON-GREEN: Absolutely. I’ll talk to you soon, thanks.

JENSEN: Bye.

JULIE LARSON-GREEN: Bye. (Cheers, applause.)

OK, Start screen. So Steve talked some about the Start screen and all the capabilities of the Start screen. It is designed for all sizes of screen. It looks great on this big screen. I have all the things that I do every day sitting right here. I have a beautiful background, and we’ve added lots of personalization. I’ll show you a couple of things here.

I’m going to go to this dragon one, this bright, colorful one and show you — see how I’m sliding the tile and the dragon is moving behind there? I’ll do one more. So that’s a robot. Now, watch on the bottom here as I move and the gears are turning. And you can just customize it to look any way you want.

Now, when you install apps from the store, they’re going to go into all programs. And we made all programs much easier to get to. It works just like it does on Windows Phone. So as I scroll up to the top, all programs are just right there. I just swipe up and swipe back down. (Applause.) I’ll do that again.

And when you’re in this view, you can filter and sort by a number of different things. We can sort by date installed, by most used, by category, making it easy for me to find all the things that are on my system.

And when you’re in this view, you can filter and sort by a number of different things. We can start by date installed, by most used, by category, making it easy for me to find all the things that are on my system.

So I’m going to go by date installed. And you see the little “new” that I just recently installed Urbanspoon, and it’s ready there for me to go.

So I’m going to talk a little bit about SkyDrive and the services that are backed up behind Windows 8.

So I talked before about having your photos in the cloud, in SkyDrive, making it easy for you to get your beautiful lock screen. And SkyDrive is where you’re going to store all of your documents, your photos, your music, and everything that you want to keep, all the content that you want to keep on your system.

We also have a number of other services that come with Windows that roam your content across, that roam your apps across your settings, your favorites. We also have Outlook, which powers your email, and the Xbox Music and Video service. And they’re all available from all of your Windows devices, even your Windows Phone.

So I’m going to go here into pictures and show you a couple new things. So we have picture editing built right into Windows 8.1. So there’s a bunch of presets that make it very easy for you to go and customize the look of your photo. We have some detailed ways to go do that. I’m going to play with the saturation and desaturate it here.

These are some of the new controls that you’ll find when you start creating your applications, a bunch of these kinds of cool, new things for your apps. Makes it very easy to go and create a beautiful interface on top of the pictures.

There’s going to be all kinds of new apps coming in Windows 8.1. Every app in the box is either new or updated and refined from 8.0.

I’m going to show you one here. Oops, wanted to keep going a little further. There we go. It’s called Food and Drink, and it’s a new app that has everything you can find about cooking. It has tips and techniques; it has videos of chefs; it has recipes; it has a shopping list, meal planner. It also has another very cool new feature. So when I get in here, you know, this is sitting in your kitchen, you’re using your tablet and you’re cooking. Your hands are sometimes kind of messy. And so we’ve learned by doing and watching people do this that it would be really nice to add something that we call hands-free mode.

So I’m going to press the hands-free mode. It’s going to turn on the camera. And then I’m going to be able to use the camera itself to go ahead and advance through the recipes. So I’m going to sit here and go, without touching the screen, no messy hands. (Applause.) Pretty cool. So you’ll find all kinds of new things.

So this screen is big, but it’s really not the biggest screen that I have in my house. The biggest screen in my house would be my television. And Windows 8.1 makes it really easy for you to stream content from one device to another.

So I’m going to open up the Xbox video, and I have Star Trek playing here. And I’m going to play it to my Xbox One. Swipe out to devices, play, Xbox One. (Video plays.) I never get to finish watching that movie; I only get to see that much.

OK, so you guys out in the audience, you build applications. Steve was talking about the importance and the power of the desktop. So I’m going to show you some things about working on the desktop.

Here we are booted straight into the desktop, which is an option for you in Windows 8.1. We love the desktop, we’re proud of the desktop, and we’ve been making refinements to the desktop to bring the modern world and the desktop world together.

So as I go down to the new Start button down here on the bottom left-hand corner and click it, it brings up the Start screen. I’ll do that for you again. And see how the tiles float right over the background for your desktop. So it’s very seamless and smooth, not at all jarring.

And then from here you can get into your all programs, and you can choose to default to this view. You can default to your desktop applications or all apps and get right here and continue working in a very quick and efficient way. You can see four times more apps on the screen at a time than you ever could with a Start menu, making it really easy to find what you want to go do and go do it.

Another part of being on the desktop is about windowing and multitasking, and we’ve added improvements in 8.1 for that as well.

So I’m going to go ahead and launch Outlook. And I have an email message here with a link in it. I’ll click that link. And we’re going to automatically go ahead and snap those two side by side. I’ve been using this, and it’s a really incredible way to work, especially on large-screen monitors.

So here I am. And you’re no longer constrained by the one-third/two-third split. It can be any size you want. (Applause.) Great.

And it doesn’t stop there. I can also right-click on a link and open in a new window and have more than two things on the screen at a time. (Cheers, applause.) So I can compose my email and view an email at the same time.

So if you’re a developer, you’re probably also using multimon, right? And so we’ve made a ton of improvements there as well. Check this out.

So I have eight windows on two monitors, one PC — powering two monitors; it’s OK to clap. (Applause.) So you can set it up exactly how you want. You can resize those windows, you can move them from one to the other, and they’re blended together in a way that makes it really, really productive for you to go and work.

Speaking of productive, there’s one set of applications that are really synonymous with productivity and have been on the PC forever, and that’s Office. And so I have a preview of an alpha version of PowerPoint that I’m showing for the very first time to show you the power of the Win RT platform and how our applications are moving forward into the modern world.

So I’m going to launch PowerPoint. This is a Win RT version of PowerPoint. I’m going to go ahead and dock it at the top. And right now, what we have working is a viewer. So I’m going to browse the SkyDrive, the default place to go and get files from, open this presentation, and you’re going to see right away the transitions, high-quality graphics, video. PowerPoint is a pretty resource-intensive application. So this really shows the power of what you could do in Windows RT.

And then there are also the benefits of being a modern application for PowerPoint. It can show up in the store; it gets automatic updates to your apps automatically and that’s new in Windows 8.1. You can take advantage of the system and participate in notifications and contracts, and of course, you get touch. And all of this works on both ARM and x86 from the smallest, tiniest tablet to the largest, most powerful work station. So it’s all there ready for you to get going and building great new apps. So 8.1 is Windows 8 refined.

And I’m going to ask Antoine Leblond to come out now and get us started on showing you how to do it. Thank you very much. (Applause, music.)

ANTOINE LEBLOND: All right. That was a great look at the new features and experiences in 8.1

What I want to do now actually is I want us to look below the covers at the great developer improvements we’ve made in 8.1 that power those experiences.

So whether you’re a hardware developer or a software developer, we’ve got some great improvements and amazing advancements for you in 8.1. These will help you create beautiful, powerful, responsive, and delightful touch-friendly apps that are really efficient with system resources and have great performance.

Your existing apps will run better on 8.1. So having people upgrade is a real benefit to you. And that’s why we made the upgrade free.

And then when you migrate your app to 8.1 and update it in the store, it’ll run even better than before for your customers.

Of course Windows continues to offer developers a unique array of choices. You have your choice of programming languages and presentation technologies so that you can use what you know to write native Windows 8.1 apps. You can write first-class, high-performance apps using HTML and JavaScript, C# and XAML or C++ and DirectX. And you have your choice of business model via the Windows Store.

And in 8.1, there are actually literally over 5,000 new APIs for you to take advantage of and unleash your creativity with. Windows 8.1 has a lot of surface area, and BUILD is devoted to sharing that with you. The Windows team has put together over 100 sessions for you to see at the conference or on demand later.

So what I’m going to try and do here is I’m going to try and actually give you a bit of a sampling of some of the great things that you’re going to get to learn about over the next couple of days.

Let’s jump right in. Now, the best place to start talking about developer investment is obviously with tools. So we’re going to start with a preview of the next version of the world’s best development tools, and that’s Visual Studio.

So Visual Studio 2013 makes it incredibly easy to develop next-generation mobile and connected apps and support devices and services across our entire platform.

Just like the Windows team, the Visual Studio team has been operating at a faster release cadence, and that means that the developer preview of 2013 is available today for you to download. So you have to go check that out.

There’s a lot in this version of Visual Studio, and I’m going to show you just a few of my favorite new things here.

Now, this is going to be a test of how many developers we really have in the room. I’m going to start by talking about performance a little bit. Knowing how your app performs is obviously a really important part of delivering a great experience to your customers. With mobile devices, it’s actually more important than ever. So it’s not only about how fast your app is, but if you think of things like mobile broadband, for example, you really want to know how network efficient your app is. Or you want to know, for example, how your app will affect the battery life of the device that it’s working on.

So, in Visual Studio 2013, we’ve built some powerful performance analysis tools directly into the tool.

So we’re going to start here. This app is called Supernova. All it does is actually downloads a bunch of photos of known supernovas from the Web and then displays them in a nice grid.

And what I’m going to do is I’m going to do a little performance analysis on this app.

So I’m going to go to the debug menu, and I’m going to pick performance and diagnostics. And here it lets me pick what kind of report I want to do. And I’m going to pick one that’s really cool, my energy consumption report. I’m going to do that and I’m going to hit start.

So now what it’s going to do is it starts up my app. And in the background, it’s actually profiling its energy consumption.

So we’ll go back to Visual Studio now. I’ll hit stop collection. It’s going to build the report for me.

Now, have a look at how cool this is. What this chart is showing me, it’s actually showing me the power consumption of my app in milliwatts. How would you have done this before? The red bar is actually the total consumption. You can see in yellow is the consumption from the CPU. Gray is the consumption from the display. You get a really, really good sense of how your app is actually using power on the device.

This doughnut chart at the bottom here just sort of shows me the relative consumption from those different parts of the device. And it even tells me here down at the bottom that this app would run on my device for 9.17 hours before the battery runs out. So really, really cool diagnostics and information for me to make my app even better for mobile devices. (Applause.) Good, it gets better, it gets better.

I want to talk about async debugging for a second. Now, this is the test of developers. Another feature we added to Visual Studio 2013 are some great tools around async debugging. So in Windows 8, we did a lot of work to let you write procedural async code, right? So you don’t have the spaghetti code with callbacks all over the place. Really neat stuff, but it’s a little bit tricky to debug.

But I want to have a look at a different app. So I’m going to switch over to this different app here. And this is basically an async version or it’s a different version of my Supernova app. And what it does is — I’m just going to run it here. So what it’s doing here, it’s actually showing me some low-res photos of these supernovas. But when I bring up the app bar, there’s a button down here at the bottom that says “full image.” And what that’s going to do when I tap it is it makes an async call to actually go get the high-res images for these supernovas.

Now, I have a breakpoint set here. So I’m going to go tap on this. And I’ve hit the breakpoint. Now, developers in the room, you know what’s going to happen here. If I try to step over this, what’s going to happen is first that async operation gets triggered and starts, control returns to UI processing, so my app stays responsive, and I can keep processing UI events. And only when that async routine is done does control come back to the next statement in here.

Now, today if you do this, what’s going to happen is when you get back there and you look at the call stack, there’s one function on it and that’s it. We’ve completely lost the async call context. So it makes it kind of tricky to actually debug around these async calls.

Let’s try this in Visual Studio 2013, though. I’m going to step over this. Now, look at the call stack down at the bottom. It’s actually preserved the entire async call context for me. (Applause.)

So that retains my ability to actually effectively trace through my code, and it just makes it much, much easier to debug async code.

Now, I mentioned connected apps earlier. Visual Studio 2013 makes it trivial to connect an Azure mobile service to your app and send a push notification. I want to have a look at that now.

We’re going to go back to my first app. And what I want to do is — let’s close this report here. What I’d like to do is actually set up a live tile for this app and have an Azure service that basically monitors the data source, and when a new supernova shows up, it sends the notification down, and the live tile actually shows a photo and a message about a new supernova showing up.

Now, the way I do this is I’m going to go into the Solution Explorer here, and I’m going to right click, and I’m going to go to “add,” and I will select push notification.

Now, this starts up a wizard. I’m not going to walk through the whole wizard. It has about eight to 10 steps, but I’m just answering a bunch of questions in here.

And what this wizard will do is it actually provisions an Azure mobile service for me, pushes all this template code over to it and connects everything together so that I can actually get these push notifications.

What’s even cooler, and I did this earlier so it’s set up this way, what’s even cooler is I can use this new Server Explorer here to actually go look at the server-side code without ever leaving my client project, which is really neat.

Let’s look at insert.js. So this is the piece of code right here that will actually send the notification. I’ve chosen a tile template that basically cycles between an image and two lines of text. And you can see here that’s all it’s setting up. It’s setting up a source for the image and then the lines of text.

We’ll run this. And we’ll give it a second. Now, it’s fired up the service over on the Azure Mobile Service. And the app is running. And if we switch over to the Start menu, we should see our tile. There’s our tile right there. And if you give it something like five to eight seconds here, you’ll see it cycle between the image and between the text. Just like that. That was super easy, just did it through a wizard. How cool is that? (Applause.)

So let’s switch and talk about something different now. I want to talk about the Web platform. Since Windows 7, Microsoft has been a leader in supporting Web standards. And we continue this in 8.1 by adding support for WebGL and MPEG-DASH. So WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3-D graphics without using a plug-in at all. MPEG-DASH is a protocol for high-quality video streaming. It does things like variable bitrate and DRM and things like that. And the Web platform in Windows 8.1 supports both of these.

Because the Web platform powers both IE and the WebView control, it means you have access now to WebGL and MPEG-DASH content, both in the browser and in your native apps. So let’s have a look at that.

I’m going to start in IE here. And what you’re seeing here is a page with WebGL content in it. So this is a beautifully rendered 3-D object. You can see the lighting and the shadows and all that stuff. And using touch pointer events I can actually interact with it.

And it’s super nice. It’s really smooth because it’s hardware accelerated and all the rendering on the Web platform is actually hardware accelerated. So that’s really neat.

Now, let’s do something different here. I’m going to come over here and I have an app that’s running. And we’re going to dock it right next to it.

Now, this on the left is a native app, right? It’s got the same code, the same markup, the same experience in it. And it’s running in WebGL, too. So this shows you how easy it is to take code that I’ve written for a website and bring it over to a native app almost seamlessly and make it work in the native app.

Now, the cool thing about this, because it’s a native app and it’s running in the WebView controller, I can put multiple WebView controls on my canvas.

So let’s get rid of this window. Let’s tap next here. Now, here’s a place where I actually have four WebView controls up in my native app. The two at the top are both WebGL controls. The one on the top left is the one we just saw, this one is a panorama. I can, of course, interact with these. I can actually interact with both of them at the same time. And then at the bottom, what you’re seeing are two 1080p streaming videos that are streaming over MPEG-DASH.

The one on the right, actually, is DRM protected; the one on the left isn’t. But all this stuff is playing at the same time, hardware accelerated, super seamlessly. It’s really, really cool stuff.

And we’ve even done more with the WebView control. So one of the things that many of you have been asking for is to actually be able to compose the WebView controls with other components of the UI.

So we’ve done that. If you see here, when I bring in the app bar, see how it just swipes over? It’s transparent. The content is still playing in the back. It’s super, super cool and lets you create absolutely beautiful apps.

We’ve done more than that even with the WebView control. We’ve added navigation events, we’ve added smart screens so that you stay safe with the content that you bring into those controls. The controls handle offline content. All this makes it easier than ever to build high-performance apps, apps that blend both local and Web content. (Applause.)

OK, now I want to talk about the Windows Store. So the store, of course, continues to offer the best economics of any store out there, period. And we’ve also redesigned it so people can more easily find and buy your apps.

We’ve added support for cash stored value in over 40 markets. We’ve added in-app purchasing for items and consumables. We’ve added app gifting. And we’ve also added significantly better merchandising and promotion powered by Bing. Our goal is to make sure that people know about all the great apps that you write, and then make it easy and flexible for them to buy them.

I want to show you a few highlights. So the first thing, I’m back here at the Start screen, and you can see the store tile up here. And the first thing you’re going to notice is that there’s something missing. There’s not a little update count up in the top-right corner. We are done with those. You will never see those update counts again. We’re done with manual app updating in Windows 8.1. Now apps get updated automatically so that your customers are always running the latest version of your app. (Applause.)

Let’s tap on the tile and go into the store. And you can see here that we’ve actually significantly redesigned how this works.

The first section you see here on the right is a rotating spotlight. So this is a program section where we get to show some great apps.

And then as I pan over to the right, what you’re seeing here are lists. So we know that people love lists as a way to go discover apps. What we’ve done is we’ve brought these lists to the front and exploded them on the front page of the store. So you get to see a lot more apps than you used to, and it makes it much easier to find things and much easier for customers to find your apps.

I want to point out one list in particular here, which is the first one. It’s the picks-for-you list. So this is kind of cool. This is actually a personalized list for you. So it’s built, actually, by the Bing recommendation engine based around signals like apps that you’ve acquired before and ratings, and similar apps that other people have acquired. So it’s a great, great way to actually discover new apps. And of course as a developer it’s a great way to have your apps merchandised to potential customers, so really cool stuff.

Let’s go over here, and I’m going to tap into one of these so we can have a look at the new app description page. So this has been changed a lot also. You see there’s a lot more surface area to show some really high-fidelity screen shots from my app.

As I go across here, you can see some rich ratings and review information. And probably the most important section to talk about here or most interesting section to talk about are related apps and then apps by Microsoft Studios, which in this case is us. So this is a place where you get to cross-merchandise your apps if you have a number of apps in the store. So, again, a great way to have people discover the apps that you’re building and actually sell more and make more money in the store. So great, great, great stuff.

Finally, navigation in the store is much easier. (Scattered applause.) No, you can go ahead. (Cheers, applause.)

Navigation is much easier from anywhere in the store. I can just drop down the app bar, tap on any section, and go right where I want to be. So, again, you can see the list exploded here at the store. All this is designed to make it easier to sell your app and to make more money. (Applause.)

So now what I want to do is I want to talk about the desktop for a minute. So we love the millions of desktop apps that are out there, and we’re absolutely committed to continuing to support them. In fact, we’ve done work in 8.1 to make them work even better on modern PCs.

I’m going to show you an example of that with multimon support. What I have here is a Surface Pro, and it’s connected into this external monitor. Now, the Surface Pro has a really high DPI screen, whereas this 25-inch monitor running at 1080 resolution is actually relatively low DPI.

Now, in the past, Windows has always used one scaling factor for all your monitors regardless of their DPI. It basically picks the scaling factor of the primary monitor, and then that’s what it uses for all your monitors.

And 8.1 now allows each monitor to have its own scaling factor. So you actually get the most use out of the space available to you on your external monitor. (Applause, cheers.)

So watch what happens here. I’m going to start dragging Visual Studio over. And you can see as it peeks into here, it’s scaled really, really highly because it’s got the scaling factor from my primary monitor here on the Surface.

But as I keep going, watch what happens. See how it just scales down? And now look at all the usage I get of the space on this giant monitor. How cool is that? If I’m a Lightroom user, for example, I can just do the same thing here. I bring it over, boom, look at all that space I have.

I’m showing you Lightroom because I just want to show you that these apps didn’t have to be modified at all for this to happen. Windows just takes care of doing the work for you. And these are just nice touches that allow your existing desktop app investments to just keep being great with modern hardware.

Now I want to talk about graphics and games. This is where this gets really fun. We continue to innovate in DirectX to make Windows the best gaming platform out there for both casual and AAA games. And I want to show you something that we’ve been working on with NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. It’s something called “tiled resources.” Now, the best way to explain this is actually with a demo.

So what you’re seeing right now is a model of the planet Mars. Now, this is actually pretty cool. It uses about 3 gigs of data. And this is actually a fairly accurate model. What this does, the data actually comes from the Mars Global Surveyor mission, the satellite that orbited Mars for a couple years and used a laser altimeter to build up a really, really detailed model of the topography of the planet. And that’s the data we’re using here.

Now, the cool thing, if you wanted to build this app, this is just a model of the planet, and I want to be able to zoom in and look around at it, what you would do is you would load all of this data into your graphics card and let the graphics card actually do the hard work of rendering the images. But the problem is it’s 3 gigs of data, and I don’t have that much memory on my graphics card.

So what happens typically is what you would do is you’d sort of down-sample the details so that you can use the memory on the graphics card. And what happens is as I zoom in you’ll see that actually as I get closer you’ll see that it gets a little bit fuzzy. Let’s keep going in here just so you can see it. See as I get closer, it’s kind of fuzzy. There we go.

So now this is where tiled resources help. So tiled resources give you a programmable hardware page table for graphics memory. So what this is going to do is it’s basically dynamically swapping the parts of the data I need into my graphics card to render the scene that I’m actually looking at. So let’s flip that on, and you can see the difference here. Look at that. Now, look at the difference in detail here. And here the cool thing is, we made this demo, and we restricted it to only using 16 megs of memory on that graphics card.

Now, that’s pretty cool, but obviously the motivation for doing something like this is actually to let you make games with really unprecedented amounts of detail. So let’s have a look at another demo here.

What you’re going to see here, so this is a demo that’s built by a company called Graphene. They’re out of Belgium; they’re a games middleware company. And this is running on an NVIDIA GPX 770 card. So this is a good graphics card. It’s one you can go buy today at the store, and it’s easily available. And here, tiled resources are being used to render these two gliders. There’s another one here that’s flying around this one, flying over this absolutely beautiful detailed coastline. It’s way more complex. This one uses about 9 gigs of data, and you can see just how amazing this is.

But watch what happens when I zoom in here. You’re going to get a good sense of the level of detail. Push the button here, and zoom in. And if you look carefully, you can see individual rivets on this thing. You can see smudge marks on the skin. It’s unbelievable the amount of detail that I have here.

And so the best thing about this is this actually will run on tens of millions of DX 11 cards that are out there today. And, of course, that number grows every day. You cannot dream of doing this on iOS or on Android; in fact this is actually only possible on a Windows 8.1 machine or on a next-generation gaming console like the Xbox One. (Applause.)

OK. Now I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about devices a little bit. So, in Windows 8.1, we’ve really invested in giving you great new ways to write apps that interact with this exciting range of devices and peripherals that’s exploding around us right now. One great example of that is 3-D printing. Now 3-D printing is super-hot right now, and Windows 8.1 is the first and only platform to support it natively. And what that means is that we did the work to create the APIs, the formats, and the driver model that makes printing in 3-D just as seamless as printing in 2-D is.

So, with 8.1, you can create an app like this little demo one that I have here that lets you manipulate and create 3-D objects. And then when I’m happy with what I have, printing it is just as seamless and easy as printing to a laser printer. I can just go here to devices, select print. I’m going to select my 3-D printer here. I’m going to hit print. And now, what it’s doing, is it’s sending the data for this face over to the printer. It’s going to take about 20 seconds, because it’s actually fairly rich data. And you’ll see the printer start up here in a few seconds.

Now the printer, this is actually a MakerBot Replicator 2. This thing prints in thicknesses of about 100 microns. So it actually takes quite a while to print something like this face. We’ve got this time-lapse video up here showing me what’s going on. But this stuff is super, super cool.

Here’s the finished result. If you’ve never seen one of these, these are actually really fun to play with. I’m going to toss one down there so folks can play with it. Good catch. And these are really becoming broadly available. This one will be in Microsoft Stores soon. And this other one over here on this side, you can see it go here. There’s this other one over here on this side, it’s made by a company called 3D Systems. It’s called the Cube Printer. And this will be available in Staples soon for under $1,300. It’s really, really broadly available, and these things are particularly fun to play with. (Applause.)

Now, in Windows 8.1, we’ve also added APIs in WinRT that let you interact directly with devices that use their own protocols over either USB or Wi-Fi Direct, or Bluetooth or HIP. I wanted a really cool demo to show you. We’re actually able, we were lucky enough to be able to work with the Lego Education Team to build something using new unreleased Lego MINDSTORMS PV3 platform. Take a look at this little beauty. We’re going to have fun with this.

So those of you who have kids know how popular these are in schools, and if you have kids who have one, I know you’re playing with these also. This is the next generation of that MINDSTORMS platform, and it will allow kids around the world to learn programming skills for the 21st century. So we built this robot. And what we did is, we’ve created a Windows Store app to actually control it. So we’ve got a Surface tablet on this thing; it connects to the robot controller using USB. So it’s pretty cool. It can send it signals and make it do things.

But we actually wanted it to do a little bit more, so what I have here is I actually have a second tablet. And so what I’m going to do is I’m going to use this as a remote control for that. So what it’s doing is it’s actually communicating; this tablet is communicating with that tablet over Wi-Fi, that’s then communicating over USB to the robot controller. And we’re going to see if we can make this thing move. All right. There it goes. How cool is that? (Applause.)

Wait. We actually wanted to do more. So what we’ve done here now is that we’re actually using   I’m going to use the real-time streaming APIs that are new in Windows 8.1, and we’re going to have this thing send a live video feed to that guy. Now this is going to be a video feed of me, so who knows what this will look like. But here we go. Here’s me, and you can see it on the front. It’s getting sent over Wi-Fi directly to that tablet. And I’m just going to go sit in the back now and let this thing finish the keynote for you.

How awesome is that? We could keep going and going and going with this thing, actually. We actually did a lot of work on it. It actually has a sentry mode that uses the Lego Distance Sensor and face recognition software. It actually detects when someone comes within range and gives you a notification. There’s all sorts, it knows how to send tweets. There’s all sorts of fun things you can do.

You combine a device like this with Windows 8.1, and you’re really only limited by your imagination. You can just imagine what kids are going to be able to do with something like this.

Before I wrap up, I would like to spend a couple of minutes just showing you some of the exciting new PCs and tablets. Now, Windows 8 has really spurred some incredible innovation in our PC ecosystem. In just a year, we’ve started to see an explosion of new and unique form factors, design concepts like detachable tablets, like all-in-ones, like portable all-in-ones, like high DPI displays. We’ve got this massive selection now of touchscreen devices in every price point. You can be sure that there’s a PC out there that’s exactly right for you.

And I want us just to have a look at a few specific ones here. The first one I want to show you is, this is the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus. So this thing has a mindboggling 3200-by-1800 13-inch screen, so this is the highest resolution 13-inch laptop in the world. It blows away a MacBook Retina. And it has a touchscreen. (Applause.)

This one actually is really cool. It’s actually also running a fourth-generation Haswell Intel 4 i7 processor. It has 8 gigs of RAM and 256 gig SSD. Samsung says this gets 12 hours on a single charge. How amazing is that? And look at how thin this thing is. (Applause.) Absolutely beautiful device.

Now one of the things I really love is the innovation from OEMs in convertible designs. And I want to show you this one. This is one that Steve was talking about earlier. This is actually the Lenovo Think Pad Helix. So this is a tablet and an ultrabook all-in-one device. And, first of all, it’s a great tablet for work. It has TPM in it. It has BIOS encryption. It has USB 3.0. It has MSC. It’s a great, really powerful machine.

But thanks to this cleverly designed detachable keyboard, once I pop it in here, it’s then just a nice, thin, ultralight ultrabook as well. So it’s just a wonderful, wonderful design. This is a great   for you who love Lenovo keyboards, this is just an amazing machine.

Now let’s keep going. The next one I want to show you is this one. This is the Acer Aspire P3. So this is just a beautiful, powerful tablet, and a really compact design. It’s only about .4 inches thick, weight 1.74 pounds, and it has an Intel Core i5 processor on it. So this thing really, really smokes. It’s fast. You can do a lot of work on this thing. And it also has the unique detachable wireless keyboard that doubles as a protective cover for it.

The next thing I want to show you over here is actually another Acer device. Now this one, this is the Acer Aspire V5. Now this is a full featured laptop. It has a 10-point multi-touch screen. You can see. And it has a pretty powerful AMD dual core A4 processor in it. But the thing that I love about this is it’s under $400. It’s great to see high-quality touch coming to all price points in the PC ecosystem. (Applause.)

The next one I want to show you is actually a Windows RT device. This is the Dell XPS 10. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor in it. It has 4G LTE connectivity. Dell claims an incredible 18-1/2 hours of battery life when it’s docked to its detachable keyboard. And the best part of this one, too, is it’s under $400 as well. And it’s an amazingly thin and light and portable device. I love this thing.

The last one I want to show you is this interesting one. So this is such a great example of innovation in all-in-ones. This is called the Dell XPS 18, and it really brings the best of PCs and tablets together. It weighs less than five pounds. And when I undock it, it has up to seven hours of battery life. So I can carry it around and play games and watch movies and all these things. So it’s just a great, super-innovative device. (Applause.)

So what we have onstage there today is just a really small subset of over 3,000 certified Windows 8 PCs to choose from. It’s really cool stuff.

And I think here comes Julie, so I think Julie has one more that she wants to show us.

JULIE LARSON-GREEN: Yes, I have one more here. This is my Surface Pro, and I really love this device. It does everything. It’s a tablet. It’s a full PC. It’s powerful.

ANTOINE LEBLOND: Yes. I mean with Windows 8.1 and Visual Studio 2013 on it, you really have a great tablet for developers, for building mobile and connected apps. I love my Surface Pro.

JULIE LARSON-GREEN: I love mine, too, and these are all developers in the audience. Do you think they would like one? (Cheers, applause.) So great news, we have one for each of you, and we’d really like to thank Intel for co-sponsoring the Surface Pro for you. (Cheers, applause.)

ANTOINE LEBLOND: All right. So that was my overview of Windows 8.1 for you. We’ve doubled down on fundamentals, filled gaps; we’ve addressed feedback; we’ve expanded the platform in really exciting ways. And now it’s time for you to start exploring all the details. You can go to Preview.Windows.com for all the info you need and to actually download the Windows 8.1 Preview release. And whether you’re working with the Windows Store on desktops, on the Web, every one of your apps is going to benefit from Windows 8.1. If you create PCs or tablets or other devices, Windows 8.1 opens many, many new experiences for you to innovate. And we’re really looking forward to seeing what you will do.

Now, here to speak to you about some more developer opportunities around Microsoft Surface is Gurdeep Singh Pall from the Bing team.

Thanks, everyone.

GURDEEP SINGH PALL: Good morning, folks.

So Steve, Julie, and Antoine mentioned Bing in their talks. So I’m here to talk to you a bit more about Bing. Now Bing, as all of you know, is a beautiful, powerful search engine. Bing is on a roll. Let me tell you about momentum for Bing: 17.4 percent share in the U.S., gaining month over month, Facebook Bings, Yahoo Bings, and Apple Siri Bings. Folks, all these people know something. They’re smart people; they know something. They know that Bing is an incredible product. It’s an incredible product that is built by incredible engineers.

Now, these engineers have not only built a great search engine, they’ve also built some amazing capabilities, an Internet scale infrastructure, machine-learning plant, ability to understand user intent, understand, sort of make sense of, a lot of unstructured content on the Web. Now it turns out that all these things can be actually quite valuable even beyond the search box. For a long time, we’ve had this vision that you can take these capabilities and enable a whole bunch of new experiences; and that was the journey that we started down on a couple of years ago.

Now you can see, of course, search is a huge, huge piece of what Bing is about. But, we started to extract some of the capabilities out. So for example, the Web index and relevance is a huge capability, with lots of potential. Entities and knowledge, the ability to extract, conflate, and to organize entities into an ontology so that you can now start reasoning over information, as opposed to just looking at it as pieces of text. NUI capabilities, natural user interfaces are all about understanding user intent. Now, it turns out that the great work that was done in Bing can be divided into a lot of interesting natural user interface technologies.

And then there is about the real world. The Web has become sort of a proxy for the real world that we live in, and we sort of go back and forth between those. It turns out in Bing we had to tackle that problem. So is there a way that we could take all these capabilities out and then start enabling some first-party experiences? Now Antoine talked about some, and Julie talked about some great features in Windows 8.1, the Search charm, the ability to use Bing to really make apps discoverable in the marketplace. Some examples, we’ve had the translator app, which is this brilliant, new, interesting application on Windows 8. So that’s one example.

When you look at Office, Office 2013 has some award-winning Bing Apps for Office, which allow you to think about Office not just as a set of tools, but also to connect it into the Web and information that naturally belongs inside those applications. We’ve seen the GeoFlow application in Office 2013, which lets you render a lot of content on top of this beautiful real-world canvas. In Xbox 360, some great NUI work was done by Bing. You saw that, how you access entertainment and information, with Xbox One that goes to a completely new level. And then there’s other things like the Windows Phone 8, which has lots and lots of Bing functionality, which is built in.

Now folks, I learned a lesson in the ’90s when I was a developer on the Windows operating system. And that is that if we can do something with an API that is good, third parties can do something with it, which is dynamite. So today, what I’m here to announce with you is the availability of Bing as a platform for you, the developers. (Cheers, applause.)

So let me tell you what all you can do with this. With entities and knowledge, now firstly, with Web index and relevance, we already have a bunch of Bing APIs that are used by tens of thousands of developers today, mostly using the search pattern. Now let’s talk about entities and knowledge. Now think of it as being the brain, the knowledge of the Web, the unbounded knowledge of the Web, is now available to your applications. Let’s talk about natural user interfaces, the ears and the mouth and the eyes. These capabilities, which have never been available for developers in a large-scale way, we are providing through the new Bing platform. And then for the real world, we want to bring a whole lot of new mapping and visualization capabilities, and also capabilities with which you can connect the real world with the virtual world, through a set of APIs and controls.

Now I can talk a lot about APIs, but I thought it might be interesting to show you what you can do with these APIs. Now what we did here is that we put ourselves in your shoes and built an interesting application. This is not a shipping application by any stretch, but it’s an application to exemplify the use of these controls. So this application tackles the very simple task, which is trip-planning task for users. So let me come over here, and I’ll start by, I’ll go to my Windows Phone here, and I have sort of a Trip Companion app, which runs on the phone. So let me go ahead and do something with it. Trip Companion, add Spain to my vacation ideas.

VOICE: Added Spain to your vacation ideas.

GURDEEP SINGH PALL: OK. So you can see that this application on the phone added Spain to my vacation ideas. Now I did that when I was standing by the water cooler with the phone in my hand, and my friend was telling me about the great trips that they had to Spain. Now later on, I’m thinking about my long summer. I’m thinking maybe I need to go pick a trip for my family. So I come back to my desk, and I’ve got my Surface sitting there, and I see the Road Trip Companion app is right here. So let me open that up. Now you’ll notice that Spain, it shows a star, which means that this idea just got added to my apps. So you can see how the Bing platform will work across the family of devices for the user.

So let me click on Spain, and here the developer has created an application experience with Spain in there. They’ve used one of our controls. That’s nice. Let me just browse through and now my friend, who was at the water cooler, was telling me about Valencia. So let me click on Valencia, beautiful pictures of Valencia that you put inside your app. I can browse through them. And this is what I call pretty much what an experience is today.

Now let’s see what we can do when we sprinkle this with the magic of some of our new controls. So you integrated one of our controls, and you have this what looks like a street side view. OK. Let’s see if you can make this more interesting. Let’s create a bit of a virtual tour here.

VOICE: This is the city of arts and sciences in Valencia. It is one of the largest cultural centers of Europe. You could easily spend more than a day here. You must see the Oceanographic, the Prince Philip Museum, and the Queen Sophia Arts Palace here. There are quite a few good hotels nearby. You can check out the views that you get from them to see if you should believe their marketing.

GURDEEP SINGH PALL: OK, great. So that was a little gritty thing, I thought developers would like that. So now you said believe, that’s great, you’ve given me a control where you flew a plane over Valencia, and we got to have it. So OK, fine. Let me see if we can do something more interesting with it.

Folks, can you guys keep a secret? I know you’re all developers, so I trust you guys. What we’ve not announced to anybody yet is that Windows 8.1 Maps app will come with 3-D capability, 3-D imagery. OK. Now, we’re going one step further. (Cheers, applause.) We’re going to go one step further, because we’re going to take this 3-D imagery, all the content we are creating, and enable it through a 3-D control that you can embed inside your applications. I guess that’s what I’m showing you here today, OK. So let me play with this a little. (Applause.)

Let’s see, there are some hotels here. Maybe we can go along the hotels, maybe I can go explore a little bit before I go with it. Now, this takes the idea of going and visiting a city to a whole new level. And you can see how beautiful this imagery is. This is built using cameras that we have built ourselves, with some amazing optics. This is very, very high-resolution imagery. You can see all the details, and these details actually become really interesting, when you really think about interacting with the real world.

Here’s the beautiful building here. There’s some basketball courts. So you can see how this beautiful imagery can actually provide a canvas for a whole lot of interesting things. So let’s see what are some interesting things that we can do. Now you know one of the things about the real world, and especially when you look at the real world in this amazing way, is that it really starts begging the questions that I’ve got lots of questions. I’m going to visit Valencia. I’m going to visit some really beautiful architecture, some churches there. And the question that pops to your head is, “Hey, who designed this thing?”

Now, normally a user would have to change from this application, go to a browser, type in Valencia, type in whatever little context they can put in. But, the reality is the user is looking at your app at a particular object. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could just say who is the architect? Folks, what you see here is that we’ve taken a whole lot of steps away from the user. and we’ve allowed you to create an unbounded amount of knowledge right into your applications, because I could have asked a different question, which would have again gone to the Bing platform, and it would have returned with an entity, which best relates to what you’re looking at.

So let’s keep going. So I’ve decided that Valencia is, indeed, a very nice place. So I’m going to visit it. So I’m going to go ahead and add Valencia to my itineraries. Now while I was standing at the water cooler, this friend of mine said that they had some of the best food when they were in Valencia. I said, well, that’s great. And what does he do? He reaches into his wallet, and he gives me a card. Now this is a little analog artifact that he brought from Valencia. Now if I go put this into my   if I go ahead and put this into my wallet, I’ll probably lose it a week later. And I definitely will not find it when I’m in Valencia. So let’s see if we can do something better.

Let me use some of the functionality in the Bing platform and scan this card, which I can then use later. So I go to scan it. So using the OCR capability that is available through the Bing controls, you can now scan the information, which is wonderful except that I don’t speak Spanish. So let me see if I can do something a little bit more interesting. Great. So now using the OCR capabilities of the Bing platform, and the translator capability, I’ve combined those two things, and now let me go ahead and save this later, so that when I’m in Valencia I won’t forget it. Add this idea for dinner to my itinerary. Great, so now this information, which existed in an analog artifact, is now saved with my itinerary, available for me when I’m in Valencia.

Now, roll forward, and here I am in Valencia now, and I said, hey, I want to go try out some nice places to eat. And I remember that I’d filed some of these things away. So let me bring back my Windows Phone that is with me. And remember I had a Trip Companion app here. So I could say, Trip Companion, find ideas for dinner.

VOICE: Finding ideas for dinner.

GURDEEP SINGH PALL: Great, so now we had extracted that information, translated it, and now connected it to a speech-based search on that information. And now I’ve got it right here, so I can open it up, and you can see that this is exactly what I had scanned into my little artifact.

So folks, what you’ve seen here is a little sample application that we have put together to show you the power of these controls. I really believe that in this coming decade, apps are going to have eyes, they’re going to have ears, they’re going to have a mouth, and that will enable a really, really seamless experience for you as you are trying to create these seamless experiences for your developers.

Now all this is great. I’m very happy to announce this new platform, which is available to you. There’s a new developer portal that you can go really try it on. Next year, I want to be standing here onstage, showing some really interesting apps that you have built, and that’s why we come in to do the work that we do.

Thank you, folks. (Cheers, applause.)

(Video segment.)

(Cheers, applause.)

STEVE BALLMER: Well, about an hour and a half ago, I promised you we had lots to show today. And I hope at this stage, you’ve got a sense of the sort of diversity of what we’re doing, and the speed with which we are trying to do it. With Windows 8.1 particularly, I think we state clearly a new rapid release cadence. I hope you agree, you saw some beautiful, beautiful new phones, some unbelievable transformation in Windows devices, from the PCs we knew and loved, to these new two-in-ones, touch notebooks and very, very small tablets, all very interesting and very capable, in terms of what they permit, in terms of application-level innovation, certainly new applications coming to market, and all of the tools and technologies that both Antoine and Gurdeep had a chance to talk about that will really allow you to do phenomenal new applications, both in the modern style, as well as enhancements in new applications in the desktop style.

We really have paid some attention to this notion of the desktop and modern applications and how people mix and match and use their environments and have made some pretty transformative changes.

And last, but not least, I think building Bing into Windows, and into Windows Phone, then into Xboxes allows not only us but all developers to be able to very rapidly do some of the exciting new kinds of applications that Gurdeep gave you a sense of in his last talk.

So a lot of new things, a lot of new ground, a lot of innovation, and a lot of excitement, all available in the Windows family of devices, from phones to tablets to notebooks to two-in-ones to desktop, I think all very, very exciting.

Tomorrow, we’ll get a chance to talk about a different set of subjects, but also moving at a very rapid rate with a very rapid release cadence. We’ll anchor tomorrow’s discussion in what’s going on in the cloud backend with Windows Azure. We’ll talk to you about new capabilities in Azure that really make it a cloud on which businesses and enterprise can really operate. We’ll talk about the popularity of Office 365, which is a SaaS application, has taken off like a rocket ship. And things that we’re doing to make it extensible by you with customizations, new applications, integration into Active Directory and the security model. We’ll show how that extends beyond Office 365 and Azure to any SaaS application that you want to create, the ability to integrate securely data and identity with on premise and SaaS applications.

And, of course, tomorrow again we’ll talk about tools, tools, tools, because at the end of the day, particularly as the infrastructures that are available to you get more sophisticated, the importance of giving you tools that let you rapidly and simply build this modern style of application, front-end and cloud infrastructure, is increasingly important.

So enthused about the range of things that we get to talk to you about at Build, but before I wrap up, I wanted to show you just one more demonstration, one more demonstration. We’re going to show you an application that’s also a development environment that uses kind of everything we’ve talked about today to some measure. It uses the graphics capabilities. It uses phones and tablets. It runs on Azure, on the backend. And this is a game we first talked about at the E3 Conference just a few weeks ago. We call it Project Spark, and I think it will, again, spark your imagination in terms of some of the things that you can do in this modern environment.

So this is a game that’s also a development environment for building games, but let’s welcome on stage Rusty McLellan and Dave McCarthy from our Interactive Entertainment Group. They’re going to whet your whistle for one final time this morning.

Dave.

DAVE MCCARTHY: Hi, everyone. Rusty and I are excited to be here today to give you a small glimpse at what Project Spark can do across devices on a variety of inputs. Rusty is going to start off by creating a beautiful world on a Windows 8 desktop with touch controls. In less than five minutes, we’ll build a game from scratch via Smart Glass on the recently announced Xbox One.

Project Spark is an open-world digital canvas. It enables anyone to build, play and share whatever they can imagine. It’s a powerful yet simple way to create your own worlds, stories, and games.

Project Spark will be available on Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Windows 8, and through the power of the cloud, it lets you seamlessly carry over your progress and content from one platform to another. It’s an ongoing service with frequent updates and content additions across all of our platforms. Play the way you want on whichever platform you want.

Now, Rusty is just putting the finishing touches here on our game setting. We’ve chosen desert oasis. He’s using our paintbrush to put in some finite detail, a little greenery around the pond there. Let’s put a couple more finishing touches on this, Rusty. We’ll play with the time of day. And let’s do the position of the sun. That’s cool. And then we’ll finish off with placing an enemy for our gameplay scenario. Your choice. He chose the goblin, nice. Place him in there. Excellent.

All right. So Rusty is going to save what he just made for the cloud, and we’ll pick up over here in our living room without losing a beat. Imagine the possibilities that are unlocked by creating away from your console, and then playing your masterpiece over on the big screen. Seamlessly creating back and forth, devices at your ready, just waiting for your next inspiration. This is digital age nirvana.

All right, Rusty, so we’re loading this up on the Xbox One. We want to see our desert oasis, and our little gameplay moment with the goblin here. Rusty is on controller right now. There we are. It looks good.

Now, being across all devices opens up new methods of input and allows us to innovate with games of all types. Even though we’re now playing on an Xbox One, we can use Smart Glass and remote rendering on any Windows 8 device to keep creating with amazing touch controls.

So Rusty, let’s change this controller based action mechanic into something maybe a little less predictable for console gaming.

In Project Spark, we can add behaviors to anything in the world or alter brains that exist on things. I’m going to play around with this goblin brain and make a quick touch game for everyone. So Rusty started by deleting the default brain, and we’re going to build one from scratch. The brain is broken up into a when and a do side. The visual language is simple yet very powerful.

We’re going to tell the goblin here to jump on the ground after a specified time to a height of   what are we going to pick?

RUSTY MCLELLAN: Meters.

DAVE MCCARTHY: That’s good.

Now Rusty is going to change the camera next to a different view. He’s going to start again by deleting our default brain here, and then we’re going to place a sixth camera, and we’ll see how this comes into play in a second. You have to frame it perfectly, Rusty, this is your chance. The scene looks pretty good. Desert Oasis looks nice. All right. Awesome.

Now it’s time to put our controls in. So we’re going to make this a touch-based instead of a controller-based game. So we’ve got our touch mechanic in. And when Rusty touches an object what we want to do is create a visual effect that we’ll pull out of our library here. Let’s let Rusty put this line in. We’ll go into our library and choose an effect. These include things that are both created by our team over in Xbox and some that can be created by the community as well.

Then we want to put one other child rule in, and that will execute after the effect, which will destroy whatever we touch making this our main mechanic. All right. It looks good.

Finally, we’ll use our clone command to make more goblins here. We just can’t have one goblin jumping around. And with more time, Rusty could set up timers, scores, sounds, and so much more.

Rusty, let’s change a couple of those goblins into something different, give it a little visual variety here. The desert, he’s chosen the yeti, interesting choice. So we’ll put a yeti in there, maybe another one. Looking good. Perfect. And then let’s play with the position a little bit, so we get some height variety. There we go.

Now Rusty should be able to swipe or touch these entities and try and defeat them all. There they are. Now in just a few minutes, he was able to create a touch game he started on Windows 8 and completed over on Xbox One with Smart Glass. With Project Spark and Microsoft Services, the power to create across devices, to delight with multiple inputs, and the freedom to do it anywhere has never been easier for developers and players. We’re taking registration for our beta on Windows 8 at JoinProjectSpark.com. And you can also come by and check us out later in the gaming lounge to see the creativity that Project Spark can unlock.

We’d like to finish by showing you a short sample of some of the cross-platform games people just like you have brought to life using Project Spark. Thank you.

(Video segment.)

STEVE BALLMER: Simple point in showing you a little bit of Project Spark, because I think it really helps define what the new world of applications looks like, rich clients, interacting and taking advantage of very rich and sophisticated service infrastructure, and able to be customized and developed upon and enhanced, whether it’s client code or cloud code by literally hundreds and thousands of people around the world.

And whether we’re talking about productivity in the office, enjoyment at home, serious kind of hardcore fun, which I guess Project Spark certainly would be for my 14-year-old, we’re trying to facilitate that kind of deep innovation across everything we do.

Rapid release, an incredible family of devices, with incredible services to back them up, and across the Windows family, we’re really trying to bring together, and allow you as developers to bring together, one innovative experience on every device for everything from work to play to serious fun that’s important in somebody’s life.

As developers, we know you have a lot of choices. When it comes time for choosing the things to choose to build the innovation that people are going to really lean in on, when people really need to get something done, when people really want to plan the trip, when people really need to get some work done, when people want to hard core lean in and have some fun, we think we’ve got absolutely the highest volume platform on the planet. We will sell literally hundreds of millions of Windows devices this year. Windows Phones, Windows tablets, Windows PCs, Windows, Windows, Windows. And while certainly some of the form factors that have been most important traditionally in Windows will see an interesting transition, the rise of new Windows form factors, phones, tablets, two-in-ones, all-in-ones, even in the sense of the future of where we take Xbox and the ability to participate in Windows experiences is unparalleled. And the opportunity as an application developer to use Windows on the device, and Windows Azure in the cloud to build next-generation mobile, connected, experiences has absolutely never been better than it is today.

We appreciate you taking the time and joining us. We appreciate all of the energy you put in to studying and to learning and to innovating on our platform. And I want you to leave with but one thought — the future of Windows is very, very bright.

Thank you. (Applause.)

END

Company	2Q13 Units	2Q13 Market Share (%)	2Q12 Units	2Q12 Market Share (%)
Samsung	71,380.9	31.7	45,603.8	29.7
Apple	31,899.7	14.2	28,935.0	18.8
LG Electronics	11,473.0	5.1	5,827.8	3.8
Lenovo	10,671.4	4.7	4,370.9	2.8
ZTE	9,687.6	4.3	6,331.4	4.1
Others	90,213.6	40.0	62,704.0	40.8
Total	225,326.2	100.0	153,772.9	100.0

Operating System	2Q13 Units	2Q13 Market Share (%)	2Q12 Units	2Q12 Market Share (%)
Android	177,898.2	79.0	98,664.0	64.2
iOS	31,899.7	14.2	28,935.0	18.8
Microsoft	7,407.6	3.3	4,039.1	2.6
BlackBerry	6,180.0	2.7	7,991.2	5.2
Bada	838.2	0.4	4,208.8	2.7
Symbian	630.8	0.3	9,071.5	5.9
Others	471.7	0.2	863.3	0.6
Total	225,326.2	100.0	153,772.9	100.0

(In millions)	FY12	FY11	FY10
Revenue:	$ 18,818	$ 18,787	$ 18,789
Operating Income:	$ 11,908	$ 11,971	$ 12,193

Nokia Lumia 1020
Operating system	Windows Phone 8
HERE location services	Free global HERE Maps and HERE Drive+; Free HERE Transit available in the Store
Display	4.5″ AMOLED WXGA (1280×768), 2.5 D sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass 3, PureMotion HD+, ClearBlack, high brightness mode, sunlight readability, super sensitive touch, Nokia Glance Screen
Battery	2000 mAh battery, wireless charging supported via cover
Processor	1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4
Main camera	PureView 41 MP with optical image stabilization, Resolution: 7712 x 5360. Includes Nokia Pro Camera. Xenon flash for still images, LED flash for video
Front facing camera	HD 1.2 MP wide angle
Memory	2 GB RAM, 32 GB internal memory; 7 GB free SkyDrive cloud storage

Experiencing the Cloud

Tag Archives: Microsoft

The long awaited Windows 8.1 breakthrough opportunity with the new Intel “Bay Trail-T”, “Bay Trail-M” and “Bay Trail-D” SoCs?

From ASUS Transforms Expectations for Mobile Computing with New Transformer Books at IDF 2013 [press release, Sept 12, 2013]:

“The ASUS Transformer Book T100 is the perfect transformation of the Eee PC with full compatibility, detachable touch screen, immersive entertainment and enough battery for all-day computing,” said ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih. “It is truly a game-changer for our mobile lifestyle.”

Transformer Book T100— high-mobility notebook and tablet combined

In retrospective: ASUS: We are the real transformers, not Microsoft [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 17, 2012]

#5 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture, Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

#47 slide of the same SPCS004 presentation as above

Are you aware of $32 entry-level Android tablets available for local resellers around the world? Are you aware that this is the price of Intel’s upcoming in October 2013 Bay Trail-T Z3740 SoC, i.e. a chip only?

#52 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture, Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

#49 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture, Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

Intel HD Graphics architecture– Graphics turbo supported with CPU-GPU power sharing– DirextX 11, OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics core– Support for high-resolution displays (up to 25×16)– Programmable in-order multi-threaded– 4EUs, 8 threads each, SIMD32– >= 667MHz

High-quality, high-performance, low power HD H.264 encoder– High profile support, fast transcode– Separate 3D and media power wells– Video and display post-processing support

Power– Autonomously hardware detects Idle condition, save state and power gate– Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling

#9 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture, Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

And having said this, we have the capabilities, and we know the secret sauce on matchmaking: this stunning architecture and this very advanced process technology manufacturing. That is what I call in that slide here magic. This is our secret sauce. And this is what, exactly what we have done.

And all that leads me to today’s announcement, the introduction of the Bay Trail platform.

Intel Executives and Developers talk about Bay Trail, the Newest Intel Atom Processor 22 nanometer, quad-core system-on-a-chip technology Intel Bay Trail the Newest Intel Atom Processor Tech News Interviews.

The flexibility of the new microarchitecture allows for variants of the SoC to serve multiple market segments, including new Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® processors (“Bay Trail”-M and -D) for entry 2 in 1s, laptops, desktops and all-in-one systems.

Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Processor Series (“Bay Trail-T“) … over 10 hours of active battery life22 Battery life is measured 1080p,10″, 31Whr 13×7 OEM System; FFRD on 38.5 Whr 25×14, 10Mbps h.264 Elephants Dream video. Windows 8 only.

The “Bay Trail M” line … two times faster performance in productivity applications and up to three times improvement in graphics compared to 2-year-old Intel-based value notebooks3

Are you aware of $32 entry-level Android tablets available for local resellers around the world? Are you aware that this is the price of Intel’s upcoming in October 2013 Bay Trail-T Z3740 SoC, i.e. a chip only?

Introducing the next generation Intel® Atom™ Processor (Code named “Bay Trail”)

Abstract

Comparison of Clover Trail vs Bay Trail features

First-ever 22-nm Intel Atom processor

The new first-ever, 22-nm Intel Atom processor is a quad-core system on chip (SOC) with 4 cores/4 threads. With the CPU, graphics, and memory in one package, this modular design provides the flexibility to package a high-performance processor and graphics solution for multiple form factors.

Enhanced battery life

The new processor offers active battery life of more than 10 hours and standby performance of approximately 30 days3.

Graphics and Media Performance

Intel Burst Technology 2.0

Automatically allows processor cores to run faster than the base operating frequency if they’re operating below power, current, and temperature specification limits.

Graphics Feature Comparison

Advanced Imaging and video

Security Features

New business-class tablets built with the Intel Atom processor Z3700 Series are specifically designed for the needs of business and the enterprise. Hardware-enhanced Intel® security technologies and support for software from McAfee offer robust security capabilities.

Intel® Wireless Display benefits on Intel Atom processor

Intel® WiDi enables content-protected HD streaming and interactive usages between tablets and TVs. It supports full 1080p video and low latency gaming, and is Miracast compliant Intel® WiDi can be used to link health indicators as well. A few of the capabilities of Miracast-enabled apps are:

Resources for Developers

Below are links to some resources for programming on Windows 8 that can help you take advantage of the new Intel Atom processor features.

3 Based on a 30W Hour battery on 19×10 resolution on 10.1” display. Higher resolution will require larger battery. Active use measured as 1080/30 fps local video playback. Battery life may differ based on SKU and SoC performance.

1. Based on TouchXPRT*, WebXPRT*, and SYSmark* 2012 Lite compared to Intel® Atom™ processor Z2560. Individual results will vary.

5. Measured using 3DMark* Ice Storm, a 3-D graphics benchmark that measures 3-D gaming performance. Find out more at http://www.futuremark.com.

6. Display resolution is an OEM feature selection. Consult your system manufacturer for more details.

In retrospective: ASUS: We are the real transformers, not Microsoft [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 17, 2012]

I am really excited to be here at the Bay Trail launch to talk about some of the new platforms that Dell can actually innovate from some of the Bay Trail technologies that Intel is bringing out.

And what I want to show you today is, firstly, one of our new Windows 8 eight-inch tablets we’ll be introducing very soon. This system is part of a new family that we’re introducing that are going to really innovate and drive new capabilities into very small new form factors.

The whole family will offer several key benefits.

Firstly, quality, quality Dell is renowned for, products that last a long time but have great performance on the screen and usability. Secondly, battery life. Anybody worry about range anxiety? Am I going to be able to turn it on and be able to use it? This really fixes that.

Security, making sure you’re connecting to a business, or you’re connecting to your home. That data is secure in transit and on the device.

And lastly, to make sure that there is connectivity, a range of 4G and LTE connectivity, so wherever you happen to be, you’ll be able to connect to the wells.

So great features in the products. But more importantly, we think, is actually being able to have fun and easy to-use products.

So with this introduction, I’m actually pleased to announce here at IDF that we’ll be branding our new family of tablets, Venue, the Dell Venue family. Venue means the place where things happen. And to us, this really is the place that things happen and becomes the center of the universe.

So you can actually carry your entire life with you, connect back, use Dell pocket clouds to be able to access content, be able to use your files and applications wherever you happen to be, really excited about them.

And October 2 in New York City, we’ll be announcing the entire range of products.

Microsoft answers to the questions about Nokia devices and services acquisition: tablets, Windows downscaling, reorg effects, Windows Phone OEMs, cost rationalization, ‘One Microsoft’ empowerment, and supporting developers for an aggressive growth in market share

Note: the “fairly aggressive market share assumption” was presented by Microsoft as:

See also Microsoft Nokia Transaction Conference Call with slides from Microsoft Strategic Rationale inserted- ebook – 3-Sept-2013 edited by Sándor Nacsa from those two sources into an ebook format PDF

Microsoft buys Nokia’s handset business for $7.2 bln. Both companies will be hoping it heralds a new era, but overcoming brand weakness will be a huge challenge. For them both, says IHS Senior Mobile Analyst, Daniel Gleeson.

SHOWS: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (REUTERS – ACCESS ALL) (SEPTEMBER 3, 2013)

1. IHS, SENIOR MOBILE ANALYST, DANIEL GLEESON, SAYING:

JOURNALIST ASKING DANIEL GLEESON: ‘Well is this a good deal for Nokia and is it enough to drag it into the 21st century?’

JOURNALIST: ‘So you don’t think that Apple and Samsung and the like will be quaking in their boots?’

JOURNALIST: ‘Sorry, just going to say, Nokia’s shares rose almost 50% this morning. But the company as we all know is still a shadow of its former self.’

JOURNALIST: ‘Does this deal do anything to address I suppose what is fundamental certainly in the public’s perception of both companies, the fundamental premise that neither brand is cool in anyway whatsoever. I mean the brands are very, very weak. Does this do anything to address that?’

Full text of Q&A part of the Transcript of Microsoft Nokia Transaction Conference Call: Steve Ballmer, Stephen Elop, Brad Smith, Terry Myerson, Amy Hood; September 3, 2013 [Microsoft, Sept 3, 2013] to have the full Q&A context

OPERATOR: Walter Pritchard, Citigroup, your line is open.

I’m wondering how this transaction impacts the strategy going forward in tablets and whether or not you need to, in a sense, double down further on first-party hardware in the tablet market. And then just have one follow up.

STEVE BALLMER: Okay. Terry, do you want to talk a little bit about that? That would be great.

TERRY MYERSON: It’s definitely a priority for us to bring Windows to as many customers as we can around the world. Lower-price phones is a strategic initiative for the next Windows Phone release, but we have nothing more really to say now.

STEVE BALLMER: Operator, we’ll move to the next question please, thanks, Walter.

(Break for direction.)

OPERATOR: Our next question is from Mark Moerdler from Sanford Bernstein, your line is open.

MARK MOERDLER: Excellent. And then as follow up on it, what’s your expectation going forward in terms of — I just want to clarify this — the percentage of Windows Phones that will be from OEMs?

MARK MOERDLER: Thank you very much, appreciate it.

CHRIS SUH: Thanks, Mark. I just want to remind you, we do want to get to as many questions from as many of you as we can. So I do ask that you please just stick to one question and avoid long, or multi-part questions, please. Operator, next question, please.

OPERATOR: Brent Thill, UBS, your line is open.

BRENT THILL: Thanks. Just on the cost rationalization. Nokia has 32,000 employees versus Microsoft at 99,000. A considerable bulk of employees. Can you just talk about the rationalization over time and your view how that plays out?

AMY HOOD: Sure. Thanks, Brent. About 18,000 of those 32,000 employees are really directly a part of the manufacturing business. And so I think a better way as you think about the scale and opportunity is to really focus on the percentage of Nokia outside of that.

In retrospective:
ASUS: We are the real transformers, not Microsoft [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 17, 2012]

#5 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T
by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture,
Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

#52 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T
by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture,
Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

#49 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T
by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture,
Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

Intel HD Graphics architecture
– Graphics turbo supported with CPU-GPU power sharing
– DirextX 11, OpenGL ES 3.0 graphics core
– Support for high-resolution displays (up to 25×16)
– Programmable in-order multi-threaded
– 4EUs, 8 threads each, SIMD32
– >= 667MHz

High-quality, high-performance, low power HD H.264 encoder
– High profile support, fast transcode
– Separate 3D and media power wells
– Video and display post-processing support

Power
– Autonomously hardware detects Idle condition, save state and power gate
– Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling

#9 slide of SPCS004 – Technology Insight: Intel® Platform for Tablets, Code Name Bay Trail-T
by Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar – Intel Fellow, Director, Platform Architecture,
Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation

Intel® Atom™ Z3000 Processor Series (“Bay Trail-T“) … over 10 hours of active battery life²2 Battery life is measured 1080p,10″, 31Whr 13×7 OEM System; FFRD on 38.5 Whr 25×14, 10Mbps h.264 Elephants Dream video. Windows 8 only.

The “Bay Trail M” line … two times faster performance in productivity applications and up to three times improvement in graphics compared to 2-year-old Intel-based value notebooks³

Introducing the next generation Intel® Atom™ Processor
(Code named “Bay Trail”)

The new processor offers active battery life of more than 10 hours and standby performance of approximately 30 days³.

³ Based on a 30W Hour battery on 19×10 resolution on 10.1” display. Higher resolution will require larger battery. Active use measured as 1080/30 fps local video playback. Battery life may differ based on SKU and SoC performance.

1. Based on TouchXPRT, WebXPRT, and SYSmark* 2012 Lite compared to Intel® Atom™ processor Z2560. Individual results will vary.

In retrospective:
ASUS: We are the real transformers, not Microsoft [‘Experiencing the Cloud’, Oct 17, 2012]

See also Microsoft Nokia Transaction Conference Call with slides from Microsoft Strategic Rationale inserted- ebook – 3-Sept-2013
edited by Sándor Nacsa from those two sources into an ebook format PDF

*MARK MOERDLER**: Excellent. And then as follow up on it, what’s your expectation going forward in terms of — I just want to clarify this — the percentage of Windows Phones that will be from OEMs?*

*MARK MOERDLER**: Thank you very much, appreciate it.*