While Microsoft has been extremely busy over the past twelve months in developing and announcing new features and additions to its software roster, many were anxiously wondering when the Redmond outfit intended to whet the appetites of the gizmo-loving faithful with some new hardware, and yesterday at the rather unorthodox MSFT gathering, the software maker delivered with aplomb by announcing a unique device which not only threatens the future of the struggling ultrabook market, but also lights the proverbial blue touch paper at the tablet market, which currently only really consists of Apple's iPad.
After a quite incredible barrage of rumor and speculation, Steve Ballmer has officially announced Microsoft Surface, which will be the Redmond company's first effort in the increasingly-relevant tablet market. Given the poor performance of most competitors to the iPad, the significance of its introduction to the market could be huge, and here, we take a run-down of its vital statistics.
Desperately trying to stay relevant in an industry that is doing its best to leave them behind, Microsoft is set to hold an event on June 18th for what is being called a 'major new announcement' from the company.
Microsoft has been somewhat coy with regards to Office 15, or Office 2013, but towards the end of its Tech-Ed 2012 keynote, it gave a little more insight into the upcoming version of Office. Set to be called Microsoft Office: Office 2013 RT, it was demonstrated only very briefly, but did appear to serve to confirm the rife rumors that it will indeed be landing next year.
The standout feature of the upcoming Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft has to be the sumptuous Metro user-interface, and with the Release Preview having arrived in the past few days, Google has added to the anticipation of end-user release by giving us a little preview of how its popular Chrome browser will look once it's been Metro-fied.
Well, it's officially here: The last pre-release build drop before Windows 8 is released to manufacturing has arrived. Dubbed the Release Preview, the build sports quite a few noteworthy changes and improvements over the Consumer Preview.
While we don't officially know what Microsoft will be introducing to the major Windows Phone 8 Apollo update that the company plans to drop later this year, people are as usual making mockups of what the future OS could look like. Now normally, I dismiss concepts as they are usually either impractical, ridiculous, or both, but this one is actually a pretty simple idea that can help boost the consistency between Microsoft's desktop and mobile OSes.
Although we're closing in on the end of Q2 already this year, there's still plenty for us tech enthusiasts to look forward to. Microsoft's release of the Windows 8 operating system is one of them, and according to a number of reports, the Release Preview (formerly referred to as the Release Candidate), has been built, which means the end-user release of Windows 8 is now in sight.
Although Microsoft has born the brunt of much criticism throughout the tech industry over the years, the Redmond-based software maker has had a comparatively good last couple of years. The Xbox 360 is the number one console, Windows Phone is growing steadily, and the Windows 8 Consumer Preview dropped earlier this year to widespread critical acclaim.
With Windows 8 set for launch later this year, the debate is still raging on about the relatively radical design changes implemented by Microsoft in the OS. Now, before I go on, I want to note that I'm not the type that's resistant to change. Improvement and progress is welcome, and I really don't mind adjusting to changes of any sort. But, the issue isn't with people like me; it's with users that struggled to understand Windows as it was before these radical changes.
