One of the interesting omissions from Microsoft’s recently launched Windows Phone 8 operating system is the lack of a notification center. Android and iOS both include a system to collect the various alerts triggered by applications, but Microsoft is lacking that crucial element. During a session on notifications at Build today, Microsoft’s Thomas Fennel strongly hinted that the company is considering a notification center for Windows Phone.
“Because we ran out of time,” admitted Fennel, after being questioned on the lack of notification center by an audience member. “It’s very very important to me… we get tons of feedback from developers that they want something like that as well. I promise we’re thinking very very hard on that one.”…
Microsoft launched its all-new Outlook.com late last month, but Mac users and fans of IMAP were left out in the cold. Although Microsoft has never officially supported IMAP in Hotmail, a large number of users have always called for its inclusion. Explaining its decision not to support IMAP in Outlook.com, a team member, answering questions on Gizmodo this week, says “IMAP is an old protocol that supports only mail syncing (not calendar and people).” Despite the lack of support, the Outlook.com team also hint that it may support the protocol in future.
“I expect we’ll support IMAP for Outlook sometime down the line,” says the Outlook representative. The same rep also admits that Microsoft’s “client support on the Mac isn’t great” and…
Microsoft’s first Zune hardware launched in late 2006, around five years after the initial Apple iPod hit the market and less than a year before the iPhone changed the smartphone industry. Former Microsoft executive Robbie Bach, in charge of Zune at the time, says he would skip portable media players if he could launch Zune again. “The portable music market is gone and it was already leaving when we started,” admitted Bach at an entrepreneurs’ event in Seattle last week. “We just weren’t brave enough,” he says, accepting that Microsoft ended up chasing Apple without a compelling reason for consumers to purchase Zune hardware.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
Microsoft admitted on Monday that initial sales of Windows Phone 7 had been lower than the company anticipated.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer previously admitted that sales had been “very small” during his keynote address at the Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this year. “We’ve gone from very small to very small but its been a heck of a year,” admitted Ballmer. “A year ago, Microsoft had no Windows Phone. In the last year we’ve sold millions of phones.” However, Ballmer stopped short at saying that the sales had not met company targets.
Microsoft’s proxy statement to the U.S. securities and exchange commission on Monday reveals that initial sales of Windows Phone 7 devices were a factor in Ballmer’s bonus for 2011:
“Appraisal and other relevant information considered by the independent members of the Board, including: Mr. Ballmer’s performance against his individual commitments; the operating income performance of the Company relative to 25 large technology companies (a group that includes most of our Technology Peers); successful product launches including Kinect for Xbox and Office 365, enhancements to Windows Azure and Bing; continued progress positioning the company as a leader in the cloud and cloud-based infrastructure; key partnerships with Facebook and Nokia; significant progress in development of the next generation of Windows; work toward the successful acquisition of Skype; lower than expected initial sales of Windows Phone 7; the 2% decline in revenue for the Windows and Windows Live Division; the need for further progress in new form factors; and an overall strong financial year in which Microsoft reported record revenue of $ 69.9 billion, record operating income of $ 27.1 billion, and record earnings per share of $ 2.69 representing 12%, 13%, and 28% growth, respectively.”
Ballmer picked up 100% bonus, out of a possible 200%, and a pay rise of 2%. Despite the admission, it’s not all doom and gloom for Windows Phone. Microsoft recently released its Windows Phone 7.5 update for existing devices. The company revealed on Monday that it is now available for 50% of devices and all devices are expected to receive the update by the end of October. Nokia is also expected to unveil several Windows Phone devices at its Nokia World event in London later this month. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7.5 update is sturdy upgrade that brings the platform on par with its competition. With 30,000 apps in the bank, and the focus on developers, Microsoft will be hoping that its “Mangofied” apps really start to take off shortly.
Microsoft admits to ‘lower than expected’ sales of Windows Phone 7 originally appeared at WinRumors.com.
The Contagio security blog posted evidence back in February of targeted attacks against government and military officials on Gmail. Today, nearly four months later, Google has finally admitted this is true: hundreds of personal accounts have been compromised by hackers it believes to be working out of Jinan, the capital of China’s Shandong province. The accounts include those of “senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists.” The hijackers’ aim appears to have been to spy on their targets using Google’s automatic forwarding function. But unlike the PSN fiasco, Google insists its internal systems “have not been affected.” Instead it seems the hackers used a phishing scam, possibly directing users to a spoof Gmail website before requesting their credentials. Google says its own “abuse detection systems” disrupted the campaign — but in a footnote right down at the bottom of their official blog page they also credit Contagio and user reports.
Google admits sensitive email accounts have been hacked, some users knew months ago originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 05:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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China Telecom admits talks for CDMA iPhone China Telecom partly put to bed rumors of a deal with Apple by acknowledging that it was in talks for the iPhone. Chairman Wang Xiaochu said his company was “in touch” for a possible deal but couldn’t say how far along any deal might be. The current carrier, China Unicom, has an exclusive that ends this year…. Read more on MacNN
Google Books now finds, defines, translates text Company beefs up its Google e-books by enabling readers to search for occurrences of a highlighted word as well as call up a definition or translation. Originally posted at News – Digital Media Read more on CNET
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Lexar Reveals Dual-Slot Card Reader for UDMA CF, SDXC and SD UHS-I This sassy little number is presented by Lexar today for dual-card reading, supporting UDMA CF, SDXC and SD UHS-I memory cards as well as being backwards compatible with your standard CF, SD and SDHC memory cards. This reader of course uses USB 3.0 for it’s super speedy delivery at 500MB per second, this card reader [...] Read more on SlashGear
Network Products Guide Names Array Networks Winner of the 2011 Hot Technology Award and the 2011 Best Application … Array Networks Inc., (TWO:3664) a global leader in application, desktop and cloud service delivery, today announced that Network Products Guide, … Read more on Finanzen.net
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VMware Is The New Microsoft, Just Without an OS In the past 10 years VMware has executed a remarkable strategy to topple enterprise software incumbents and emerge as an ecosystem kingpin. More recently, the company has plunged head first into cloud computing from infrastructure to applications. Time and again, it seems as though VMware is beating Microsoft at its own game. But a look deeper reveals that is no surprise. Read more on OSNews
Microsoft ‘Mango’ Unveiling on May 24th in NY According to ZDNet, the unveiling of its Microsoft‘s new ‘Mango’ Windows Phone update will be taking place in NY on the 24th of this month in a VIP preview. Mango, which may be called the Windows Phone 7.5, is expected to launch late summer or early fall and is rumored to include an HTML5 compliant [Full Story…] Read more on NYConvergence
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It seems like the ongoing rivalry between Facebook and Google has taken a turn for the subversive. Last night, a spokesman for the social network confirmed to the Daily Beast that Facebook paid a top PR firm to spread anti-Google stories across the media and to encourage various outlets to examine allegations that the Mountain View company was violating user privacy. The PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, even offered to help blogger Chris Soghoian write a critical op-ed piece about Social Circle — a service that allows Gmail users to access information on so-called “secondary connections,” or friends of their friends. Social Circle, in fact, seems to have been at the epicenter of Facebook’s smear campaign. In a pitch to journalists, Burson described the tool in borderline apocalyptic terms:
“The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day-without their permission.”
Soghoian thought that Burson’s representatives were “making a mountain out of a molehill,” so he decided to prod them about which company they might be working for. When Burson refused to spill the beans, Soghoian went public and published all of the e-mails sent between him and the firm. USA Today picked up on the story, before concluding that any claims of a smear campaign were unfounded. The Daily Beast‘s Dan Lyons, however, apparently forced Facebook’s hand after confronting the company with “evidence” of its involvement. A Facebook spokesman said the social network hired Burson to do its Nixonian dirty work for two primary reasons: it genuinely believes that Google is violating consumer privacy and it also suspects that its rival “may be improperly using data they have scraped about Facebook users.” In other words, their actions were motivated by both “altruistic” and self-serving agendas, though we’d be willing to bet that the latter slightly outweighed the former. Google, meanwhile, has yet to comment on the story, saying that it still needs more time to wrap its head around everything — which might just be the most appropriate “no comment” we’ve ever heard.
Facebook admits hiring PR firm to smear Google originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 May 2011 07:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Microsoft’s Mundie unsure on tablets, admits slow to act Microsoft’s research and strategy chief Craig Mundie at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia event cast doubt on the long-term viability of tablets. He wasn’t sure the iPad or its kind would “remain with us or not” and instead repeated Microsoft’s existing strategy of Windows notebooks and Windows Phone handsets. A notebook would be a “portable desk,” he said, while the smartphone … Read more on MacNN
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Exodus continues: Microsoft marketing chief Mich Mathews to leave The recent exodus of high- and mid-level Microsoft managers continues today with the upcoming departure of global marketing chief Mich Mathews, who announced Wednesday she is planning to leave Redmond this summer. Mathews is senior vice president for the Central Marketing Group and is responsible for Microsoft’s $ 1 billion, according to Advertising Age, in annual [...] Read more on seattlepi.com
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