AllThingsD » Steven Sinofsky

Near-Final Version of Windows 8 Due in Early June

Ina Fried — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 03:43:39 +0000

A near-final “release preview” version of Windows 8 is due in the first week of June, Microsoft confirmed late Monday.

Windows unit President Steven Sinofsky made the announcement at a Windows Developer Days event in Japan.

The release preview follows two earlier test releases, including a “consumer preview” version issued in February.

Although Microsoft hasn’t confirmed a release date for the final version of Windows 8, it is widely expected to be released in time to arrive on PCs this fall.

Windows 8 is a huge bet for Microsoft, as the company is counting on it not only to power mainstream PCs but also to help battle the threat posed by the iPad and other tablets. It features a radically overhauled interface, first shown at last year’s D9 conference, as well as a built-in Windows Store for selling apps.

In addition to computers running traditional processors from Intel and AMD, Windows 8 will also power new tablets and laptops running low-power ARM processors.

The company said last week that Windows 8 will come in a few different flavors, including consumer and pro versions, as well as Windows RT — the name for the version that runs on ARM-based computers.

Microsoft Opts Against 31 Flavors for Windows 8, but Still Adds Unfamiliar Tastes

Ina Fried — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:30:07 +0000

Microsoft plans fewer different packages of Windows 8 than it has offered with past incarnations of its flagship operating system.

In a blog post late Monday, Microsoft said it will offer only two main options for Windows 8 on traditional PC processors — Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. Microsoft will also have an enterprise version for large businesses with volume-licensing deals.

The big change with Windows 8 is an all-new version for computers running the ARM-based chips more commonly found on smartphones and tablets than in full-fledged computers. That flavor, known as Windows RT, includes a version of Office, but won’t be able to run other traditional Windows apps.

All flavors of Windows 8 will be able to run new-style Metro apps designed for the new operating system, but only Intel- and AMD-powered machines will be able to run older programs.

Microsoft didn’t disclose how much it will charge for the new Windows, nor would it confirm when the operating system will arrive, though it is widely expected later this year.

While still presenting consumers with several options, the move is a notable slimming down for Microsoft, which has in the past also had options like Home Basic, Home Premium, Starter, Ultimate, Media Center and Tablet PC Editions.

Redmond has come under fire in the past for offering so many different pricing options with Windows. Windows 7 had nearly as many versions as Windows Vista, though most customers were steered toward the Home Premium or Pro versions of the operating system.

And while it won’t have a “Starter” version of the operating system as such, Microsoft is doing much the same thing with Windows 8, adding it would have a “local-language-only edition of Windows 8” for China and “a small set of select emerging markets.”

That option gives Microsoft a way to offer cheaper prices in high-piracy areas while maintaining its profit margins in its more mature markets.

Microsoft also reiterated in the blog post that Windows RT will have many of the features consumers tend to expect from Windows, but won’t have some key business-oriented features, such as the ability to join a corporate domain.

That version also won’t contain Windows Media Player, the music- and video-playing app that has been a staple of Windows.

Windows 8, in all its versions, will come standard with Metro applications for managing email, calendar, photos, instant messaging, music and videos. In general, developers will have to distribute their Metro apps using a new Windows Store that is built into the new operating system.

A consumer preview version of Windows 8 was made available at Mobile World Congress in February and a near-final release candidate will follow at an unspecified date. Developers were given an earlier test version last fall.

Microsoft Says Hola to Windows 8 Beta in Barcelona

Ina Fried — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:52:36 +0000

Aiming to show its mobile chops, Microsoft is using the world’s largest cellphone show to debut a new test version of Windows 8.

The “consumer preview” version will feature a number of advancements over the early developer version released last fall. Perhaps most notably, this version will include the built-in app store that will be part of the next Windows. (Only free apps will be available, Microsoft has said.)

Windows 8 is one of the biggest bets in the company’s history. Aiming to respond to competition from both Macs and iPads, among other factors, Microsoft is making some big changes to its flagship operating system.

In particular, Windows 8 will be available (albeit with some different capabilities and compatibilities) on both ARM and traditional PC processors.

Microsoft has brought over the tiled Metro interface first introduced on Windows Phone (a look first shown at our D9 conference last year) and is introducing an entirely different type of application. In most cases, new-style apps will be distributed only through the Windows app store.

Earlier this month, Microsoft confirmed that Windows on ARM — complete with the next version of Office — should show up on new PCs around the same time as the operating system comes for PCs with chips from Intel and AMD.

However, Office and Windows 8 itself will be the only traditional desktop apps that run in Windows on ARM.

We’ll have live coverage of Microsoft’s Windows 8 event starting around 6 am PT. If you can’t wait to get some Windows 8 news, Microsoft has posted a guide for businesses on some of the corporate-oriented features contained in the new test build.

Earlier:

3:12 pm: Things haven’t kicked off. You haven’t missed anything. Just got situated.

3:12 pm: The event is at a swank venue overlooking Barcelona. Microsoft covered over a swimming pool to build this temporary facility.

Here’s the view from outside the event:

3:18 pm: “Please take your seats,” booms the invisible voice. “The show will begin shortly.”

The show?

3:20 pm: If you haven’t already, check out this story, which reviews some new business details about Windows 8, including a “Windows to Go” feature that lets Windows run on a thumb drive.

3:21 pm: Windows exec Tami Reller kicking things off, noting to half the crowd that they are on top of the pool.

It’s not my half, so we should be safe.

3:22 pm: Cue Windows President Steven Sinofsky. “We are really excited to be here,” Sinofsky said, before correcting himself to use Microsoft-preferred parlance of “super-excited.”

3:23 pm: Hits key points for Microsoft about Windows 8: Bold reimagining, from chipset to interface and application model.

Today, there are too many trade-offs, Sinofsky said.

We’re choosing between performance or battery life, consumption or content creation, touch or keyboard-and-mouse.

Win 8, I’m sure he’s about to say, is no-compromises.

Yep. Just said it.

3:26 pm: Okay. Here we go, changes in Windows 8 since the developer preview.

“Lots of the product” wasn’t done with developer release, Sinofsky said.

3:28 pm: Since developer preview, 100,000 code changes to Windows 8.

“It’s much more polished, much more refined,” he said.

“Windows 8 is a generational change in the operating system,” Sinofsky said. “Things are different than the last time we made a generational change with Windows 95.”

3:31 pm: Uh-oh. Sinofsky says one plus one, when it comes to apps in Windows 8, equals three.

I’ll tell you this, if that’s the case, I don’t want to use the calculator app.

3:32 pm: Demo time. It’s Julie Larson-Green, who heads design and vision for Windows 8, and Antoine Leblond, the VP who has headed up the Windows Store that is built into Windows 8.

3:34 pm: Larson-Green demoing, starting with login screen, including photo-based password that they have shown. Boots to start screen with a bunch of apps, including Kobo, some Xbox live games, as well as tiles for friends and Web sites.

“I can have as many as I want,” she said.

3:37 pm: The goal, she said, is that everything should be “fast and fluid,” and she said all features and tweaks were judged to make sure they lived up to that.

3:38 pm: Among the preinstalled apps in preview is Xbox Live Games, although that demo generated two error messages (but fast and fluid ones).

3:39 pm: Now demoing Cut the Rope, which its developer has taken from an HTML5 app to Windows 8.

3:40 pm: Windows 8 has a video and music store built-in, with rent and purchase options.

3:41 pm: Switching apps is easier than hitting alt-tab, as in traditional Windows. That was fast, but not so fluid. Now, choosing among open apps is a swipe away.

3:42 pm: There’s a people app that connects to Facebook, Windows Live, Twitter, Google and Exchange. This seems to work very similarly to the way they work on Windows Phone, which is to say nicely.

3:45 pm: Systemwide sharing allows apps to share with one another and share to services.

“That is a quick peek at Windows 8 running on this tablet PC,” she said, handing off to Leblond to show it on a laptop.

“Windows 8 isn’t just about tablets and touch devices,” Leblond said.

He’s showing things on a Lenovo Ultrabook.

Logs in with a four-digit PIN code, another of Windows 8’s login options.

3:49 pm: If you are taking a drink every time you hear “fast and fluid,” you are already too drunk to read this.

3:55 pm: Now he’s demoing the familiar desktop in Windows 8. He shows Office. (For you Windows nerds out there, it’s labeled “Build 8250.”)

3:57 pm: Desktop is just another app, Leblond says, showing how a Metro-style app can run next to the desktop.

All of the things you know and love in Windows 7 are still there, Leblond said.

Larson-Green is back to show an Acer all-in-one with touch and keyboard.

And she logs in with a password this time.

Cool thing is all the stuff from her other machine is there on this machine, just by signing in to that machine with the same Windows Live account. (Not instantly, I don’t think, but still.)

SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage, is integrated too.

Here’s the desktop app, by the way:

The consumer preview is now available, Microsoft says on its Web site.

4:04 pm: We’re getting a tour of the store from Leblond. I’m multitasking and reading the just-issued press release, too.

4:05 pm: Not much in the press release that looks new to me. New preview version of Internet Explorer 10; test ARM hardware being made available only to select partners, as they said earlier this month.

There’s also a mention of sharing across Windows 8 and Windows Phone, but they haven’t talked about that onstage yet.

Okay, back to the event. Leblond reminds audience that during beta — err — consumer preview, only free apps will be in the store.

4:07 pm: Leblond notes that the company had an apps contest to allow a few small app developers to join the big names in the Windows Store. There are eight winners, but they flipped by too fast for me.

SigFig and Air Soccer are a couple of them.

4:10 pm: Not surprisingly, some folks are telling me on Twitter that Microsoft’s servers are getting hammered, and downloads are going slow.

Patience, people, patience. (I know, I’m not patient, either.)

By the way, everything Microsoft has shown today could have been done on ARM, I believe. The only desktop app shown was Office 2010. (Slight difference: Office 15 will be built into Windows on ARM.)

4:11 pm: While OS is pretty ready, Sinofsky said, the add-on apps are at an earlier stage. Probably going to be updated, look may change and others may be added.

4:13 pm: Charms feature that allows for sharing among apps that don’t know about one another is kind of like a modern, cloud-connected clipboard.

One of the demos, for example, was a USA Today article being shared to WordPress.com.

4:14 pm: Talk shifts to hardware, with Sinofsky previewing some of the stuff partners have been working on.

Coming on stage is Mike Angiulo, who heads up some of the work with hardware makers.

Angiulo shows a Windows 8 ARM tablet.

4:19 pm: The “fast and fluid” thing has reached epidemic proportions.

4:21 pm: Angiulo showed a very brief glimpse of Office 15 on Windows on ARM.

I have a feeling people will be going back in the replay a lot to see that part.

I’ll spare you my blurrycam shot. I looked at it. Even I can’t tell which app it was.

Angiulo holds up a next-generation Intel Ultrabook, as well. It’s silver, and says “Ultrabook” on the hinge.

Inside, Angiulo said, is mobile broadband, touchscreen and Ivy Bridge chip.

4:25 pm: Demo of fast start-up, which Angiulo says can be done in as little as eight seconds from “cold boot.”

4:26 pm: Cool laptop with motorized door that flips down to reveal ports.

For road warriors, Sinofsky said, “ports aren’t an option. You really, really need them.”

4:27 pm: Second-generation Samsung Series 9 is the latest in the hardware wheel-of-Windows 8-fortune.

Next up, carbon fiber Dell XPS 13, a 13-inch laptop in a 12-inch design.

Not just fast boot and resume, Angiulo said. Network connectivity can happen in under a second.

Other wireless networking features — cost-aware network switching to auto-switch from mobile broadband to known Wi-Fi or your carrier’s Wi-Fi.

4:31 pm: In many cases, Sinofsky promises, your PC will be able to log back into a known network before a user types in their password (for those who need a password to resume).

4:32 pm: Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga, an interesting device from CES, makes an appearance. It can fold into a tablet, laptop, as well as a presentation-style mode.

Trivia time: Microsoft Mouse turns 30 this year, Sinofsky said.

Giant 82-inch Gorilla Glass screen in the back isn’t a monitor, but a Windows 8 PC from Jeff Han’s Perceptive Pixel. He’s the guy who builds that high-end CNN touchscreen.

They also demo NFC-pairing of a wireless speaker.

4:41 pm: Windows 8 can treat a bunch of hard drives like one big physical drive, as part of “Storage Spaces.”

4:43 pm: Last demo was actually done on a Windows 7 PC that was running Windows 8 off a flash drive using the “Windows to Go” feature that leaked out earlier today, thanks to a business guide posted to Microsoft’s Web site a wee bit early.

More Windows 8 enterprise talk at CeBit in a few days, Sinofsky promises.

4:46 pm: 4:46 pm: “Touch PCs are on the way, in all shapes and sizes,” Sinofsky promises.

Notes that it won’t have to be a trade-off of touch or mouse-and-keyboard. Can have both, or keyboard and mouse only, when you want it.

4:48 pm: Sinofsky starting to wrap up, it seems.

4:48 pm: Consumer preview in five languages — English, German, French, Japanese and simplifed Chinese.

Sinofsky is his trademark vague on timing, noting that the next milestone is the release candidate.

“We delivered the consumer preview just as we promised,” he said, noting that it was being downloaded almost immediately in more than 70 countries.

Coming up on the blog: System requirements and other details not offered up today.

And … that’s it.

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More on Windows on ARM: Highlights From Sinofsky's 8,600-Word Opus

Ina Fried — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:27:22 +0000

We’ve already covered the highlights of Microsoft’s Windows-on-ARM news Thursday, namely that it will have a desktop mode, but only for Office, Internet Explorer and Windows itself.

However, there are some other interesting nuggets amid Steven Sinofsky’s epic blog post, which just posted.

There won’t be an “off” button for Windows-on-ARM (WOA), nor will there be various sleep modes.

One of the new aspects of WOA you will notice is that you don’t turn off a WOA PC. WOA PCs will not have the traditional hibernate and sleep options with which we are familiar. Instead, WOA PCs always operate in the newly designed Connected Standby power mode, similar to the way you use a mobile phone today. When the screen is on, you have access to the full power and capabilities of the WOA PC. When the screen goes dark (by pressing the power button or timer), the PC enters a new, very low-power mode that enables the battery to last for weeks.

Microsoft wants a say in how the Windows-on-ARM hardware works, much as it does with Windows Phone.

To those familiar with the Windows Phone 7 approach, the chassis specification, WOA shares some of those elements. The specifications being implemented for WOA allow for more diversity across many dimensions, combined with the same commitment to engineering and product excellence—all while running the same OS binaries across WOA PCs.

In order to test Windows-on-ARM, Microsoft first had to do so on phones, since no ARM tablets yet existed.

Early in the development of WOA, the only hardware we had were existing ARM devices such as phones (ARM tablets didn’t yet exist). We just thought you would enjoy a few fairly early photos I captured of debug WOA all loaded in RAM (unretouched). Note: This is not a product plan or even a hint at a product.

Sinofsky defends Microsoft’s decision not to let more existing Windows programs run in the Windows desktop.

If we enabled the broad porting of existing code we would fail to deliver on our commitment to longer battery life, predictable performance, and especially a reliable experience over time. The conventions used by today’s Windows apps do not necessarily provide this, whether it is background processes, polling loops, timers, system hooks, startup programs, registry changes, kernel mode code, admin rights, unsigned drivers, add-ins, or a host of other common techniques.

Microsoft is making some test Windows-on-ARM machines available to developers, but they don’t give much of an idea what real ARM-based Windows devices will look like.

To run this release, a low volume of test PCs specifically designed for WOA will be made available starting around the next Windows 8 milestone. These devices are for developers and hardware partners, and do not represent consumer form factors, by any stretch of the imagination. They have diagnostic tools and ports. They are designed to be opened and debugged. They do not have the final components or firmware (or power or thermal management) that a commercially available device will use. They are made of low-cost plastic. You might have seen devices similar to these on display at CES or demonstrated there, and all of our previous demonstrations have used some form of these test PCs. These PCs do represent WOA and the experience—but they no more represent the final experience than does the current state of x86/64 Windows 8. They will be running the same branch of Windows that will be made available to x86/64 testers at our forthcoming development milestone.

Windows on ARM, Complete With Next Version of Office, to Arrive With Rest of Windows 8

Ina Fried — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:01:50 +0000

After being somewhat less than clear about its Windows-on-ARM plans, Microsoft answered a number of lingering questions on Thursday.

In an interview, Windows unit President Steven Sinofsky said that the first ARM-based machines running Windows 8 should show up around the same time as the first Windows 8 machines running traditional PC processors from Intel and AMD. He didn’t give a time frame for when that would be, but PC manufacturers and chipmakers have said they expect it to arrive later this year.

Sinofsky also said that the Windows-on-ARM machines will come with several Office apps — Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote — that have been tuned to run in a very battery-efficient manner. But Sinofsky said that, although those applications will run in the traditional Windows desktop, they will be the only programs allowed to do so, other than components of Windows itself.

“There are no other compiled dekstop apps that are available,” Sinofsky told AllThingsD. All of the other apps for Windows on ARM will be the new-style “Metro” apps.

Windows 8 for Intel and AMD chips, by contrast, will be able to run all of the kinds of programs that have traditionally run on Windows, inside a Windows 7-like desktop environment.

Although Microsoft has said that its focus around Windows 8 would be around new-style “Metro” apps, there had been significant question as to whether, and under what circumstances, programs designed to run in a classic Windows desktop might be able to run.

Windows on ARM will have the desktop as an option for Internet Explorer, the Office apps and various system functions, such as the control panel, file management and other built-in features of Windows. Sinofsky also said that the version of Internet Explorer for Windows on ARM won’t support plugins such as Adobe Flash, noting the trend in the industry away from supporting Flash on mobile devices.

Sinofsky is also penning a several-thousand-word blog post on the subject — long even for someone known for his lengthy posts. In it, Sinofsky said, he goes into more detail on the company’s plans for Windows on ARM, as well as its rationale for some of the decisions it has made.

“There have been a lot of questions,” Sinofsky said. “I want to do my best to answer them.”

Sinofsky had already ruled out some sort of emulation mode for running older Windows apps on ARM chips, noting that the whole point of running Windows on the same kinds of ARM-based chips used for phones and tablets was to gain the kind of power efficiency those chips can deliver.

Microsoft has said it will deliver an updated “consumer preview” test version of Windows 8 on Feb. 29, with plans to tout the software at an event in Barcelona. However, that test version, like a developer preview released last fall, will be available only for machines running traditional Intel and AMD chips.

Sinofsky said the company is working with chipmakers Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments to provide a limited number of test machines to those that make software, hardware and peripherals. The machines are aimed at developers, though, with easy access to the internals, and the company has no plans to make those machines available to enthusiasts, corporate customers or other testers.

Microsoft first announced its plans to allow Windows 8 to run on ARM-based machines at CES 2011.

At the time, it showed a demo of some Office apps running on ARM chips, but showed little else of its plans for the operating system. Months before, it talked about other features of the operating system. Several months later, at our D9 conference, it showed the new Metro interface for Windows, as well as its plans to feature a whole new kind of application, and its plans for a built-in store to sell these new apps.

While the goal is to have Windows-on-ARM machines out at the same time Windows 8 lands on new traditional PCs, Sinofsky noted that there is a lot of work to be done to get the entire PC ecosystem ready.

“We’re building a whole new product, on a new platform, with new partners,” he said.

Update: Sinofsky’s blog post is up, all 8,610 words of it.

Interview: Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky on Why a Windows Store Makes Sense

Ina Fried — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:00:39 +0000

Although Windows 8’s built-in app store represents a big shift for how developers sell their wares, Microsoft’s top operating-system executive characterized it as a natural evolution.

Users had been accustomed to scouring retail store shelves, but Windows President Steven Sinofsky said expectations have shifted, and consumers are looking to download the programs they need.

“What has dramatically changed over the years is digital distribution of software,” Sinofsky told AllThingsD in an interview Tuesday, shortly after Microsoft announced its plans for the marketplace at an event in San Francisco.

The Windows Store is a key component of Microsoft’s biggest overhaul in years for its flagship operating system. In addition to changing the way apps are sold, Microsoft is also changing the way they are programmed, and expanding the types of chips on which programs will run.

Microsoft is looking to deliver the operating system in fairly short order — on Tuesday, the company said a beta would be available in late February. Windows 8 is widely expected to arrive late next year, though Sinofsky declined to say anything about when the final version would ship.

Well, I asked, is it fair to say that things are going well?

“I always feel great,” Sinofsky said. “I get to come to work every day and see the build from the night before, and every day we do more stuff.”

I also got clarifications on a few nerdy details.

First of all, Microsoft has not changed its plans to make the store mandatory for developers looking to sell new-style Windows 8 apps to individuals. Businesses and developers will have their own means for delivering programs to users, though Sinofsky said Microsoft is not yet ready to detail just how that will work.

“When we get to beta, we will detail the mechanism,” he said.

Sinofsky also clarified that the Windows Store won’t be ported backward to run on older Windows versions. Though understandable, given that the marketplace is designed for all-new apps, the move means that Microsoft will have to build from the ground up when it comes to recruiting developers and building a user base.

That leaves Microsoft vulnerable to a chicken-or-egg problem at launch, though it can count on the fact that hundreds of millions of machines are sold each year, with the vast majority running the latest version of Windows.

Sinofsky would not address a question that has been making the rounds on Windows sites in recent days — whether Windows 8 machines running ARM processors will be able to run classic desktop-style applications.

Microsoft has demonstrated a classic desktop running on an ARM chip, though the company stressed that was merely a technology demonstration; Sinofsky declined to comment on Microsoft’s plans in that area.

And while Microsoft detailed the cut it expects to take from the Windows store (30 percent on apps or 20 percent once they generate $25,000 in sales), the company isn’t offering any guesses on just how big that business could be.

At last January’s CES, Microsoft confirmed its plans to have Windows 8 run on the ARM-based chips that power smartphones and tablets, along with the Intel and AMD chips that have traditionally been used. At our D9 conference in June, Sinofsky showed off the new look of Windows 8; the company added further technical details and issued an early preview release at its Build developer conference in September.

Microsoft Promises Windows Store Will Offer "A Bigger Bite of the Apple"

Ina Fried — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:43:46 +0000

Microsoft is set to offer more information later on Tuesday about the app marketplace that will be built into Windows 8.

Windows watchers might also get an update on just when to expect a full-fledged beta of the software. An early technical preview was released at the company’s Build developer conference in September.

AllThingsD will have live coverage of the event starting just before 4 pm PT.

In the meantime, check out our story from earlier this week, as well as from when Microsoft first debuted Windows 8 at our D9 event in June.

And now, the Windows 8 store event:

4:02 pm: Folks are still milling about. Guessing start time will be closer to 4:15.

4:08 pm: The event is at a swank Mission District art gallery, a perfect spot for those aspiring to hipness.

4:13 pm: Still waiting, though there are plenty of vegetarian crepes and chicken empanadas if anyone is hungry.

4:17 pm: Still no people on stage, though I do count five laptops.

Windows President Steven Sinofsky and Windows Web Services VP Antoine Leblond are on hand.

4:25 pm: We’ve been given the five-minute warning. (I threatened to call it the first Windows 8 delay if things don’t start soon.)

4:30 pm: Things are kicking off, with Leblond taking the stage.

4:31 pm: Leblond says he has five things to talk about: The store’s design, reach, business model, transparent terms for accepting apps and the economics.

“We’re going to give you a bigger bite of the apple,” Leblond said, promising the best economics of any app store.

4:33 pm: Leblond is recapping what Microsoft has said about Windows 8 — it works on ARM and x86 chips, small and big computers. “It’s the biggest and most significant developer opportunity ever,” he promises.

4:35 pm: Key difference will be that Windows Store will offer free trials. “The best advertisement for your app will be the app itself,” Leblond says.

4:38 pm: Demo time. So far, it’s the expected, with things like “top rated,” “top paid,” “top free,” “top new releases” and “rising stars.”

First partner mentioned is Disney, which is bringing its online books and magazines to Windows 8. I’ve also seen tiles for Evernote and Wordament, a Boggle-like game previously made for Windows Phone.

4:42 pm: A demo shows the game Cut the Rope being converted from trial to paid without out a second download and with the user’s place being saved.

4:43 pm: “We’re super excited to have this app on Windows,” Leblond says, adding that the Windows version, unlike Android and iOS versions, was all written in HTML5 and JavaScript. ‘You can build hardcore games using these technologies,” Leblond says.

4:46 pm: Windows Store apps will be able to be deep-linked to, and will show up in search engines, Leblond says. Also, the new version of Internet Explorer, IE10, which will be built into Windows 8, will add a button to the browser for apps that are in the Windows Store.

“Apps aren’t just locked inside the store,” Leblond says.

4:48 pm: Leblond is trying to make the case for the scale of Windows, noting there are 1.25 billion PCs on the planet.

“It’s a ridiculously huge number,” he says, noting it exceeds the count of cars on the planet.

He adds that there will be 400 million new x86 PCs in the next 12 months. Of course, for developers, the key will be the number of Windows 8 machines.

Leblond is now comparing Windows numbers to Apple and Android numbers, using sales over the last two years. “Apples to apples to apples,” he says.

Microsoft has shipped 500 million Windows PCs since Windows 7 shipped, compared with 247 million Android devices, 152 million iOS devices and 30 million Macs. “The reach of Windows is just so much bigger,” he says, noting that all of those rivals combined don’t add up to the number of Windows machines sold. “That’s what you get to participate in by developing Metro-style Windows apps.”

4:54 pm: Getting a demo now of the Chinese store, with an app from Renren that uses various touch gestures.

4:55 pm: Leblond: We will localize the store in all the languages Windows is localized in, (more than 100) payment mechanisms in 230 markets. In the top 40 markets, we will have local pricing and will pay developers in 20 different currencies.

4:57 pm: Next, Microsoft is showing how the store works with enterprise apps.

5:01 pm: Enterprise apps can apparently be used without going through the store. But, according to Microsoft’s past statements, all other Metro apps have to be sold through the app store. Not clear if that has changed or if there is only an exception for IT-deployed apps.

5:02 pm: On to business model talk. Rivals have too many constraints, Leblond says, pointing specifically to how Apple stands between publishers and their customers and takes 30 percent.

“We’re going to take a different approach,” Leblond says. There will be mechanisms for in-app purchases and trial apps built into the store, but you won’t have to use them if you don’t want to, Leblond says.

5:04 pm: Demo of Animoto, a video editing and production app with a mix of free tools and those that require upgrading to a paid version.

5:08 pm: Next demo shows a publisher, the Daily Telegraph, able to handle its own subscription back end using its authentication and purchasing mechanisms (something Apple doesn’t allow).

“It’s not an app you could have on the iPad,” Leblond says — at least not without giving Apple a cut and using their authentication and payment mechanisms.

Next example is eBay, which uses PayPal for payment.

5:12 pm: Next up is Wordament, an example of an ad-supported app. Developers are free to choose whichever ad platform they want, Microsoft says.

5:14 pm: Leblond is on to the process Microsoft will use for approving apps. Leblond says there are two extremes, the Android Market with virtually no checks ahead of launch; and Apple, with its stringent, sometimes opaque processes.

Methinks Microsoft is going to position itself in between. Yep, so says Leblond.

To do that, Microsoft will offer developers the tools Microsoft will use to check their code. “It is the same checks that we are going to use.” Microsoft showed some of this at its Build conference in September. Developers can see where they are in the process, including time estimates on how long each stage typically changes.

Microsoft will also offer developers some download and sales stats, and other usage information, including how often one’s app has crashed and where those crashes are occurring. “We’re going to show you all that stuff,” Leblond says.

5:18 pm: We’re still waiting for the big question — just what cut Microsoft plans to take.

Here we go.

Leblond said the goal was to return the most money to developers. Pricing can be from $1.49 to $999.99. “A thousand bucks is just too much for an app,” he says.

Microsoft will start out with taking a 30 percent cut, but Redmond’s cut will drop to 20 percent as soon as the app makes $25,000 from sales and in-app purchases .

Google’s Chrome Web Store, though, takes just 5 percent.

Apple, meanwhile, gets a 30 percent cut for its Mac and iOS app stores.

5:25 pm: Store will debut with a beta of Windows 8 in late February 2012. Free apps only at first. App submissions will be by invite only, it says.

“We want great apps, and we want great apps in our store,” Leblond said, wrapping up the event.

As Skype Skips Through Approvals -- What's the Deal With the Deal?

Kara Swisher — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:50:17 +0000

As expected, the European Commission approved Microsoft’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype late last week.

Next, the deal for the popular Internet communications company — which had previously been cleared by U.S. regulators — is likely to officially close later this week (paperwork!), said several sources close to the situation.

Now, of course, comes the hard part — which is whether Microsoft can successfully integrate the more nimble Skype into the belly of the software beast and allow it to thrive.

Some key questions:

How smoothly can Microsoft integrate Skype into its existing products, such as its unified communications platform, Outlook mail and Hotmail, Office, Messenger and Xbox Live? And, perhaps most of all, Windows Phone devices?

That said, will Skype also get to do what it needs for its own success beyond Microsoft? That includes working with mobile rivals Apple and Google, who now dominate the smartphone market, as well as many others. It has already managed to buy GroupMe group messaging start-up for $85 million, just months after its own acquisition in May.

And can the division — which will be led by Tony Bates, Skype’s CEO and now a Microsoft president — operate successfully located mostly away from the power center of Redmond, Wash.? Skype has a substantial office in Silicon Valley, as well as key engineering units in Estonia and Stockholm.

In that vein, will Microsoft be able to hold on to new talent like Bates and Skype’s geek squad, all of whom have substantial choices elsewhere? Like a lot of large tech companies, Microsoft is not known for being able to hold on to those who come in from the outside, in large part due to its insular culture of longtime execs.

In other words, how big a welcome will Microsoft’s other powerful presidents — such as Windows division head Steven Sinofsky — give Bates and company?

Steve Ballmer Gets a "B" Grade From Microsoft's Board

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:45:36 +0000

Software giant Microsoft just filed its annual proxy statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and it contains the assessment by the company’s board of directors of CEO Steve Ballmer.

Ballmer takes home a base salary of $682,000, and his bonus doubled it to just shy of $1.4 million. But it could have been higher. The board had the authority to award Ballmer a bonus worth up to 200 percent of his base salary and decided not to, opting instead to keep it at 100 percent.

But see, it’s not about the money. This is all the equivalent of change found under a couch cushion when compared to the worth of Ballmer’s holdings of Microsoft shares, which are worth about $14 billion or so. It’s about what Microsoft’s board thinks, especially at a time when some people have started to argue that it’s time for a change at Microsoft’s top.

There is, for instance, the issue of Windows Mobile, which Ballmer readily admits isn’t selling “as well as we would have liked.” And what about that 2 percent decline in Windows revenue?

The board’s verdict:

For fiscal year 2011, the Compensation Committee recommended and the independent members of our Board of Directors approved an Incentive Plan award of $682,500, which was 100% of his target award. The award was based on his performance 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.

Yay Ballmer. So how did the rest of the senior management team do? Here’s what the board says in the proxy filing.

CFO Peter Klein: He got $3.6 million, which was 120 percent of his target award, and credit for focusing on operating expenses and on the capital allocation plan, which resulted in $16.9 billion of cash returned to shareholders by way of share buybacks and dividends. He also did the due diligence on the Skype acquisition.

Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Office Division: Annual revenue from the division increased 17 percent to $20 billion; Office 2010 was the fastest-selling version in the product’s history; and Office 365 got out the door. Plus Sharepoint, Exchange and Lync had “double digit growth.” Based on his fiscal year 2011 performance, DelBene received an incentive plan award of $7.25 million, 132 percent of his target award.

Steven Sinofsky, president Windows and Windows Live: Revenue is falling slightly in this group because of the decline in consumer PC sales, but Windows 8 is on the way. For all this Sinofsky, got $6.3 million or 90 percent of his target award.

Kevin Turner, COO: With Microsoft reporting annual revenue of $70 billion and operating income of $27 billion, up 13 percent, Turner earned an incentive plan award of $9.63 million, 110 percent of his target.

What We Just Learned About Windows 8

Ina Fried — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:05:52 +0000

The new look of Windows 8 has been known for a few months — ever since Windows President Steven Sinofsky and VP Julie Larson-Green showed it at D9 in June. However, much of the operating system has remained top-secret until this week, when Microsoft is sharing the details at its Build developer conference in Anaheim.

AllThingsD is covering the event, including live coverage of Tuesday’s keynote speech.

In the meantime, here are a few new things that Microsoft is detailing about Windows 8 this week:

Picture logins
Windows 8 allows users to log in using either a PIN or password, but adds an option allowing users to look at a photo and make dots or lines on it as their login. (Hint: Using a face and dotting the eyes and drawing a line where the mouth is represents the equivalent of making your password 1-2-3-4.)

New way to connect apps
Microsoft calls these “contracts,” and they allow applications to talk to one another without either having to be aware of the other. Instead, one app agrees that it wants to be a search engine and another app decides it wants to build search into its application.

“Lucky” Charms
By swiping a finger in from the right edge of the screen, users have access to a consistent set of options, including search and a settings menu, as well as persistent options for sharing content via various tools.

[ See post to watch video ]

Deep integration with Windows Live
Microsoft will use its suite of online services to allow users to access photos stored on SkyDrive, Facebook and Flickr just as if they were stored locally. Windows 8 will similarly blend instant messaging, contact information and calendars across multiple services via the cloud.

Connection to other Windows PCs
Users will be able to easily transfer all of their settings from one machine to another just by logging in to Windows Live. Furthermore, Windows 8 supports direct access to all of a user’s PCs. (I would assume the other PC has to be running in order to access it.)

The Windows Store
An app store icon was visible in the D9 demo, but Microsoft didn’t comment at all on it. Now we know how the store looks — it’s a Metro-style app — as well as how it will work for both consumers and developers. Also, it will stock both new-style programs as well as classic desktop applications. Microsoft wasn’t forthcoming on the business details — such as what percentage it plans to take — but some documents make reference to a revenue-sharing arrangement. The store will support free and paid apps, as well as in-app payments.

The Windows Store will be the exclusive way for consumers to get Metro-style apps and for developers to sell such programs, I’m told. (Businesses will be able to create and distribute internal Metro-style apps for employees.) Traditional-style desktop apps will continue to be sold in the same ways they have been, though developers can create a landing page in the Windows store for such programs.

Built-in antivirus software
Windows has had antimalware built in for some time, and has offered free downloadable antivirus software for a while now. However, with Windows 8, the antivirus component is built into the operating system as well. The company does promise that the security program, Windows Defender, will play nice and take a back seat if a user installs third-party antivirus software.

Microsoft Releases First Test Version of Windows 8

Ina Fried — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:05:03 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

After playing coy for several months, Microsoft is finally letting developers get their hot little hands on a test version of Windows 8.

At its developer conference in Anaheim, Calif., Microsoft is detailing the new software and offering a preview version of the forthcoming operating system. Although the company is giving the early code to developers, Microsoft isn’t saying when the operating system will ship.

What is clear is that Steve Ballmer wasn’t kidding when he called Windows 8 one of the company’s riskiest bets in some time. Microsoft has laid out an ambitious goal for Windows 8, stating that it wants the operating system to be as at home on a tiny touch-only tablet as it is on a large, powerful desktop hooked up to several large displays.

To reach this goal, Microsoft is pushing developers to write a whole new type of application, designed to occupy the full screen and be extremely touch-friendly.

“Windows 8 is a bold reimagination of what Windows can be,” Windows unit president Steven Sinofsky said in a briefing with journalists on Monday. Sinofsky showed a peek at Windows 8’s new interface at D9 in June, but the company has released few technical details until this week.

The changes to Windows are immediately obvious from the moment it boots up. In addition to hopefully starting up more quickly, the operating system launches to a lock screen that displays a photo and login information, as well as a glance at status information such as calendar appointments, incoming mail and other messages.

Once users log on — either through a password, PIN or by making certain gestures on a photograph — they are taken to a start screen that bears more resemblance to Windows Phone 7 than to the traditional Windows desktop. From there, users can run various programs, including many new-style Windows apps that are designed just for Windows 8.

The familiar Windows desktop is there to run traditional programs, such as Office and Photoshop, but what was the entire Windows experience is now just an app that runs alongside new-style Windows apps, which run full screen and have none of the familiar menus such as “file” and “edit.” Instead, controls for the new apps are hidden until a user swipes the top or bottom of a screen. Swiping the right side brings up a series of universal “charms” designed to allow common actions such as searching and sharing, which can work across applications. Swiping in from the left side allows users to flip between open applications.

The other big change coming to Windows 8 is on the chip side. Microsoft has already said that Windows 8 will run on the same kind of ARM-based chips that power smartphones and tablets. However, the key question here is how far Microsoft has gotten.

“The progress is phenomenal,” Sinofsky said on Monday. “Everything you are seeing works equally well on ARM today.”

That said, Microsoft is showing mainly new stuff, as opposed to the kinds of older applications that will need to be tweaked or rewritten entirely to run on ARM-based chips. Sinofsky said that, in general, Windows on ARM is designed to run the new-style applications, rather than classic Windows applications. Back in January, Microsoft did show a technology demonstration of Office running on an ARM-based machine, although Sinofsky declined to elaborate on whether an ARM version of Office will be released.

It is unclear when developers will be able to get their hands on an ARM-based version of Windows 8. As for the version that runs on Intel and AMD chips, Microsoft didn’t give dates, but Sinofsky said to expect this developer preview to be updated periodically and then followed by a single beta version, followed by a near-final release candidate and then the final release.

With Windows 7, a similar process took about a year to go from developer preview to final release.

Gearing Up for Microsoft's Big Week

Ina Fried — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:30:39 +0000

For years, Microsoft has faced the theoretical concern of Windows becoming less relevant in a world where the computer was one device among many, rather than the centerpiece.

With the rise of the smartphone and the emergence of the tablet, that threat has become real. Now, as the pressure mounts, Microsoft is due to make its case for why Windows can not only hang on to the desktop, but finally deliver on the tablet promises it has been making for a decade.

At a developer conference in Anaheim, Calif., the company is expected to offer a great deal more detail on Windows 8 — the next version of the operating system first shown at our D9 event in June. Windows 8 boasts a touchy-feely new interface, literally, along with a whole new means for writing Windows apps. Also, in a shift, Windows will run on the same kinds of ARM chips that power many of today’s smartphones and tablets.

With the changes, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky says Microsoft is in a position to deliver a “no compromise” operating system that is equally at home on small tablets and powerful desktops.

Some are hoping that Microsoft would go a step further and announce some sort of plan to allow Windows Phone apps to run on Windows 8. That, however, seems unlikely. While Windows and Windows Phone may someday converge, for now the two remain on different architectures.

Whatever Microsoft has to say, AllThingsD will be on hand to make sure our readers don’t miss a beat.

Redmond will also be talking about its bottom line, holding a financial analysts’ meeting on Wednesday. And since it is bringing out its big guns, AllThingsD is doing the same, with Kara Swisher joining me in Anaheim to bring her wit and wisdom to that part.

Windows for the App Age: Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky's Full D9 Interview (Video)

Peter Kafka — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:13:49 +0000

Microsoft’s Windows operating system is still dominant but creaky. It needs to adapt to a world where tablets and cloud computing are going to be a very big deal. Steven Sinofsky, who runs Windows for Redmond, thinks his upcoming release will solve that.

Sinofsky unveiled Windows 8 at the D9 conference earlier this month. Here’s the full video of his appearance, including his demo of the upcoming OS, as well as questions and answers with Walt Mossberg and conference attendees.

[ See post to watch video ]

Apple's Lion and Microsoft's Windows 8 Both Show Mobile's Influence

Ina Fried — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:12:50 +0000

In the past week, both Apple and Microsoft have laid out their next computer operating systems. In both cases, the features and design of the software are influenced heavily by what is going on in the phone and tablet markets.

Although both Windows 8 and Mac OS X Lion aim to bring a more phone-like operating system to notebooks and laptops, each has centered on different aspects of the mobile operating system.

With the Windows 8 design shown at the D9 conference last week, Microsoft has focused heavily on the way programs are organized and launched on phones, using a start screen that closely resembles Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft didn’t go into great detail on Windows 8, but among the features it did show was a lock screen that appeared to have notifications similar to those found on a phone. It also showed the ability from within newly redesigned Windows apps to access documents like photos without having to hunt through the traditional Windows file system.

Apple, meanwhile, previewed Lion on Monday, showing a number of elements that are migrating to the Mac from iOS, including the automatic saving of documents, push notifications and greater multitouch gesture control. Apple had talked about bringing the best of iOS to the Mac when it first talked about Lion at a “Back to the Mac” event last October.

Both Apple and Microsoft have noted immersive, full-screen apps as one compelling feature from mobile operating systems that has a place on the desktop as well. Both also have built-in app stores, a notion popularized by Apple on the phone.

There are other mobile influences in both products. Windows 8, for example, will be the first version of Windows to run on ARM-based processors, common on mobile devices. As for Lion, it is the first Mac OS X release that won’t come on disk, instead being offered for download via the Mac App Store.

Although Apple would clearly like to capitalize on the popularity of the iPad and iPhone, for Microsoft the need to add mobile features is perhaps even greater, as the company is counting on Windows 8 not only to take on the Mac, but also to regain ground lost to both the iPad and Android in the tablet space.

Lion is, of course, much further along, with developers getting a new release this week and general availability slated for next month. Microsoft has only showed a glimpse of Windows 8, with a wide release not expected until next year and the first beta unlikely to come before a September developer conference.

For a look at what Windows 8 has in store, here’s the video of the demo from D9 last week:

[ See post to watch video ]

Complete coverage:

Microsoft's Windows 8 Demo From D9 (Video)

Ina Fried — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:19:28 +0000

You’ve heard about it and now you can see it.

Here’s the full Windows 8 demo from Microsoft Windows Unit President Steven Sinofsky and VP Julie Larson-Green.

For more on Windows 8, check out our analysis, as well as a post on several factors still unknown about the forthcoming operating system.

[ See post to watch video ]

Steven Sinofsky Talks Windows 8 and More at D9 (Video)

Ina Fried — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:14:10 +0000

While much of the attention was focused on the demo of Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky had a lot to say about Microsoft and Windows in general during his on-stage appearance at D9.

Among the topics he addressed were his thoughts on security and the fact that Microsoft wasn’t on Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s “Gang of Four” key platforms, a list made up of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook.

[ See post to watch video ]

Sorry, Windows 8 May Look Different, But It Will Need the Same Security Software

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:30:10 +0000

It may look completely different, but unfortunately, Microsoft’s new Windows 8 platform will be the same when it comes to being vulnerable to outside attacks.

At the D Conference today, where Microsoft gave its first glimpse of Windows 8, Walt Mossberg asked Windows President Steven Sinofsky, “What about security? Will I have to install some anti-virus program on this lovely thing?”

The short answer: Yes.

“It will always be a good idea to run security software,” Sinofsky said. “If you think your machine’s not a target, you’ll find out pretty soon that it is.”

Sinofsky added that having security software on the device doesn’t have to be a painful experience. It’s possible to use it without getting constant pop-ups and nagging renewal notices. “I think it’s possible to write security software that you never see until something bad happens,” he added.

Three Things We Still Don't Know About Windows 8

Ina Fried — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:15:16 +0000

Although we learned a bunch of things about Windows 8 on Wednesday, there is still a lot that we don’t know.

In an exclusive demo at D9, we did get a good look at the Windows 8 desktop as well as the guiding principles for the operating system as a whole. Microsoft showed an operating system that borrows much from Windows Phone 7 on the design side and aims to be equally at home on a tablet, desktop or laptop.

But there are many questions about Windows 8 that remain unanswered. Here are just a few key ones.

1. When will Windows 8 ship?

2. Where will competitors be by that time?

3. How well will these Windows 8 machines work when running a whole bunch of old programs?

There’s also the question of just how well–even when running on ARM-based chips–Windows 8 will do when it comes to characteristics like long battery life and instant boot-up that have been hallmarks of iOS and Android devices.

Also unclear is what else Microsoft has in store for Windows 8. In an interview, Steven Sinofsky stressed that this is a major release of Windows and there are a lot more changes being made throughout the operating system. Expect to learn a lot more about those at Microsoft’s mid-September developer conference in Anaheim, Calif.

Exclusive: Making Sense of Our First Look at Windows 8

Ina Fried — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0000

On Wednesday, Microsoft offered the first glimpse of Windows 8, a sneak peek that reveals much about both the influences and the strategic goals of the major overhaul of Microsoft’s 25-year-old operating system.

The fundamental goal with the new operating system, which is being shown for the first time at D9, is to create something that is equally well at home on an 8-inch tablet as it is on a powerful desktop attached to a huge monitor.

“It’s ‘no compromise’ and that’s really important to us,” Windows President Steven Sinofsky said in an interview with AllThingsD.

At the heart of the new interface is a new start screen that draws heavily on the tile-based interface that Microsoft has used with Windows Phone 7. All of a user’s programs can be viewed as tiles and clicked on with the touch of a finger.

Windows 8 essentially supports two kinds of applications. One is the classic Windows application, which runs in a desktop very similar to the Windows 7 desktop.

The other type of application, which has to be written in HTML5 and Javascript, looks more like a mobile application, filling the full screen. Internet Explorer 10, which is part of Windows 8, has already been configured to run in this mode, as have several widget-like apps for checking stock prices and weather.

Although Microsoft didn’t offer any details, the start screen that it is showing on Wednesday includes a prominent link to a store, ostensibly confirming that Microsoft plans to get in the business of directly distributing Windows programs, much as Apple has on both the iPhone and Mac.

Sinofsky noted that there were a few things that the iPad showed were missing from Windows–most notably a touch-first interface and an app distribution mechanism and new business model for developers. Windows 8, as the product is currently code-named, is designed to address all three of those issues, while preserving compatibility with decades of existing Windows programs.

Although Windows 8 is clearly influenced by the iPad and other mobile devices, the plan for the new operating system has been in the works since Windows 7 shipped in July 2009–several months before the iPad was first shown.

“We really did take a step back after Windows 7,” Sinofsky said. “We were clearly influenced ourselves by phones.”

Microsoft has also done work with the classic Windows desktop to make it more touch friendly, including using a new kind of “fuzzy hit targeting” to adjust for the fact that fingers are far less precise than a mouse. The goal, says chief designer Julie Larson-Green, is that classic apps, though designed for a keyboard and mouse, work well with touch. Apps taking advantage of the new programming layer, she said, are designed for touch first, but also work well with a keyboard and mouse.

Windows is growing more flexible in other ways. Microsoft said back in January that the next version of Windows would support ARM-based chips from Nvidia, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, in addition to the traditional Windows processors from Intel and AMD. Though Sinofsky and Green used Intel-based machines for Wednesday’s demo at D, Microsoft plans to demonstrate some of the ARM-based designs later today at the Computex trade show in Taiwan.

On a technical note, Sinofsky stressed that after decades of ever-increasing system requirements that characterized Windows releases through Vista, Microsoft is once again building an operating system that demands fewer resources than its predecessor–a trend started with Windows 7, which worked on all Vista-compatible systems.

A key question is how well this new Windows will stack up against a new generation of “post-PC” devices running Android, Apple’s iOS and other operating systems.

There are other unanswered questions as well, including just when Windows 8 will be ready. Sinofsky declined to say, but said Microsoft will have a lot more to say about Windows 8 at a developer conference in mid-September in Anaheim, Calif.

Microsoft Windows President Steven Sinofsky Introduces the New Look of Windows

Ina Fried — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:21:51 +0000

At D6, Microsoft gave the world its first look at Windows 7, the successor to the much maligned Vista. Now, three years later, the world into which that OS launched has changed drastically. The growing popularity of tablet PCs and the advent of the cloud are placing new demands on the world’s most ubiquitous OS, requiring Microsoft to evolve and refashion it.

As Windows president, Steven Sinofsky has a better perspective on this transition than anyone. Not only did he extricate Microsoft from the Vista miasma, he’s the guy who wrote the book on Windows 7. Literally.

[ See post to watch video ]

3:45 pm: Don’t worry. You haven’t missed anything yet. He should take the stage in about five minutes. This will be the spot so you don’t miss a thing. Lots more coming in just a bit. We promise.

3:47 pm: Ina Fried here. I’m with John P. and we’re tag-teaming to bring you live, exclusive team coverage of the impending Windowsfest.

3:48 pm: There really won’t be a live stream, though of course we will have lots of pictures and video highlights ASAP as well. (ina)

3:54 pm: And we’re off. Walt takes the stage.

3:54 pm: Moving right into the session, he welcomes Sinofsky to the stage. Sinofsky comes bearing gifts: sugar-free candy.

3:55 pm: Walt: How do you feel about not being in the “Gang of Four” that’s running the Internet?

Sinofsky: You know, I’m watching it and feeling like the guy who’s in “The Voice” and not winning it.

3:56 pm: Plus, he says, nothing that starts as a “Gang of Four” ends well.

3:57 pm: Walt: You have missed a couple things, your company has missed a couple things that have gone on.

Sinofsky: We definitely didn’t do the iPhone.

Walt: You missed the first wave of super smartphones, consumer tablets, etc. What’s going on? I know you have smart people.

Sinofsky: There are always things we are doing well.

You picked two of the things we didn’t do particularly well. We’re not out of the game.

3:59 pm: You don’t think it is a systemic issue?

Sinofsky: I don’t think so.

On phones: We aren’t there yet. But we’ll just keep trying.

4:00 pm: As to Windows, Sinofsky says they are going to be showing some things today.

4:01 pm: And here is what they are showing: Windows 8. Here’s my first look and interview with Steven Sinofsky.

And yes, it’s called Windows 8, though that is only the code name.

4:03 pm: Sinofsky is noting how Windows has gone from a 100MHz processor to something that can run servers in data centers.

Now, the company is looking to scale Windows in a different direction.

4:04 pm: Sinofsky talks about how Tablet PC and Media Center were other examples of how the company has evolved Windows along the way.

Walt points out that those were two failures.

Sinofsky notes that they were adopted by some and show how flexible Windows can be.

4:05 pm: Touch, he notes, came with Windows 7, which was first shown at D.

As for why Microsoft did touch the way it did with Windows 7, Sinofsky notes that there wasn’t an iPad then, or another touch-screen slate.

“Clearly the world changed underneath it,” he says.

4:06 pm: Walt wonders about Windows’ legacy issues. It’s this big bulky thing. But when you flip on your iPad or your Android tablet, these things feel much faster. Why are you sticking with Windows instead of turning to another OS?

Sinofsky: The thing that’s most fascinating about Windows is its evolution. it’s grown up with hardware and at some point it reached a plateau…and what happened was we were doubling the system level resources…and so we looked really hard at this and we realized we could change the OS without increasing the system requirements.

4:10 pm: This is a big deal. Windows 8 won’t require any more hardware oomph (memory, disk space graphics, etc) than Windows 7. Plus, as noted back in January, it will run on both Intel and AMD, as well as ARM-based chips.

4:12 pm: Wait for it….We’re just going to call it a code name. We’re just calling it Windows 8 for now.

They had lots of big meetings. Should there be a code-name like Firestorm.

Your code names are always better, Walt says.

4:13 pm: Demo coming in 1 minute, Walt says.

4:13 pm: Sinofsky talks about legacy support.

Walt: You mean like viruses or craplets?

Sinofsky: Or printing. Solid-state and disk support.

As for Windows 8, he says it is a reimagining of Windows, an example of coloring outside the lines.

4:15 pm: “We have an approach that is different” but builds on the value of an OS that sells 400 million or so units a year.

Laptops, slates, desktops all can run one operating system.

4:16 pm: “A word we used a lot in developing it is ‘modern.’”

Walt: And every program that runs in Windows 7 will run in Windows 8?

Sinofsky: It’s Windows. Everything just runs. (Ina: That’s true of Windows 8 on Intel. Windows on ARM, not so much, I believe.)

4:17 pm: Julie Larson-Green comes out for the Windows 8 demo, with a big lucite “bread box” screen–that is, a screen with a bunch of visible hardware.

4:18 pm: Larson-Green: “A lot has happened since Windows 95″–the last major overhaul of the Windows user interface. “We wanted to reimagine how you use Windows.”

Windows 8 starts with a lock screen, similar to a phone, with a clock, upcoming calendar item and notification.

Swipe up from the bottom and you get a start screen very similar to Windows Phone 7, with similar kinds of Live Tiles.

Definitely Microsoft has designed its own style, she says.

Apps have their own tiles. Important: There is one for a Windows Store.

Apps using “new windows” programming are built in HTML and Javascript. Windows 8 runs both those apps and ones written in traditional Windows code.

4:21 pm: She’s showing a couple of apps designed for new Windows–stocks, weather, etc.

There’s a set of menus on the right hand side that Kara and Walt want more details on. The buttons are “search,” “share,” “start,” “connect” and “settings,” though she won’t offer up any details.

“We have a whole developer conference,” Sinofsky says.

Microsoft plans to share more at its Build conference in mid-September in Anaheim.

Now she is showing Internet Explorer 10, which has been built to run as a “new Windows” app.

4:23 pm: There is an on-screen keyboard with arrow keys and some other things that have been annoyingly missing from past on-screen keyboards from Microsoft and others.

4:24 pm: Demo screen is a 10.6-inch, 720P screen.

The keyboard can also be split with keys on each side making it easier to thumb type.

As for existing Windows apps, you can open them from the Start screen and they open into a familiar Windows 7 desktop–which looks almost identical to Windows 7.

4:25 pm: Walt: Why didn’t Office move to the new Windows?

Larsen-Green: “They may do some things in the future” but people shouldn’t have to give up programs they know and love.

New-style apps can access all Windows stuff.

One new demo app is a Twitter client called Tweet-o-rama that can grab photos using the new interface as opposed to an old-style dialogue box.

4:27 pm: Overheard in the D9 cave. “It’s like the Kin.” Guessing that’s not the reaction they are hoping for.

4:27 pm: Even when old-style Windows apps are open, users can swipe the screen to move to different apps and have new-style and old-style apps run side by side.

4:28 pm: Larson-Green says users can choose how their start screen looks, making icons for whatever they want. Companies can put the things they want their employees to have.

4:30 pm: Microsoft showing Windows 8 here running on four Windows 7 machines, three of which are touch. One is the touch-only Asus eeePad. Another is a Lenovo x220T tablet with touch while one is a touchless machine.

Hundreds of millions of machines will run Windows 8, Larson-Green says.

4:32 pm: Walt and Kara are grilling the Windows duo on why not move Office and other apps to the new Windows look so users don’t have to go back and forth between the two new looks.

“It’s just jarring,” Kara says. “It’s a jarring shift.”

4:33 pm: While we are learning a lot about Windows 8, here’s my post on three things we aren’t going to get answers to today.

4:33 pm: Sinofsky and Larsen-Green agree that this is the biggest change since at least Windows 95.

Walt says even bigger.

“It doesn’t look anything like the menus and the icons.”

Walt: And when is it coming out?

Sinofsky: Can I use the earlier answer that it is a defense department secret?

Right now, we are focused on getting the release done. Every two to three years is a good release schedule (Windows 7 was released in October 2009).

“It won’t be this fall,” he says.

4:35 pm: Next milestone is Microsoft’s Build developer conference in September in Anaheim, Calif.

Larson-Green: On how big a change Windows 8 is–”It is a big change, but it is not a big change,” she says, because everything is compatible.

Walt says that company followers may see the lineage from Windows Phone, Xbox, Media Center, Zune and other products. But the average consumer, he suggests, will be shocked.

4:37 pm: Walt: You’re going to offer developer tools so apps can look like this? Absolutely, says Sinofsky, adding that the APIs will also link into some new services.

4:39 pm: Here’s a link to a post that Microsoft has put up on their Web site.

Microsoft also has a YouTube video on building Windows 8.

Microsoft has also put up a Web site for that Build conference in Anaheim.

4:38 pm: Walt: If you’re a developer, is there a philosophic difference between touch-centric apps and those that use the mouse?

Larson-Green says the solution is to design for touch and then allow the OS to translate that input from the mouse if necessary.

Sinofsky chimes in, noting that it’s important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. “The mouse and the keyboard aren’t evil. They’re just tools….And they have their uses.”

4:42 pm: Sinofsky: “Your finger doesn’t have the resolution to manipulate, say, Photoshop. There are a number of applications that require the greater precision offered by the mouse….So I think that one of the things that’s intriguing is that if you have a Windows tablet and then you plug a keyboard into it it becomes a Windows laptop.”

4:43 pm: Walt wonders about security. Am I really going to have to install some antivirus program on these devices? Will that continue?

Sinofsky: I think it will always be a good idea to run security software. If you think your machine’s not a target, you’ll fid out pretty soon that it is.

4:44 pm: Back to the “full Windows” experience issue. Does bringing the full Windows to the tablet experience mean that you’re bringing all the operating system’s security issues to it as well?

Sinofsky dodges, says he simply doesn’t see operating system security ever not being an issue.

4:47 pm: Walt: Will all these new devices start up as fast as a MacBook Air or iPad?

Sinofsky suggests they probably will, but won’t say definitively.

4:48 pm: Moving on now to the Q&A.

What about a compatablity layer that allows older Windows apps to run on ARM?

Sinofsky says, as he did in January, that there won’t be emulation layer.

“That turns out to be technically really challenging.”

4:49 pm: Where is Silverlight in all this?

There’s still a place for Silverlight, says Sinofsky. “The browser that we showed runs Silverlight and it will still run on the desktop.”

4:52 pm: Microsoft plans to talk more about Windows on ARM at an event in just a bit at Computex in Taiwan.

4:52 pm: A question about the Gang of Four from Tim O’Reilly. A big part of what those companies have is the data that they’re harnessing to build a service that gets better as people use them. Microsoft has this data as well, but it doesn’t seem to be using it as much. Shouldn’t Microsoft be integrating all this data into its core services?

Sinofsky: We are. Microsoft’s data assets do inform its core design to some extent.

4:55 pm: How is Windows 8 different from TouchSmart? Isn’t this just a layer on top of Windows?

Larsen-Green is adamant. It’s not a layer. It’s Windows. It’s a seamless experience, she adds, noting that you can still access the file system and other core systems.

4:57 pm: Could an OEM make a tablet in which the user would never see “traditional” Windows?

Larsen-Green: You can’t turn the desktop off. You can choose never to go there…but it’s always there.

4:59 pm: Likewise, by the way, you can’t really turn off the new Windows. It is the start screen.

D9 World Premiere Tonight

John Paczkowski — Tue, 31 May 2011 17:45:40 +0000

If you work in tech, or are a fan of it, the first of the summer blockbusters is here.

At 6 pm PT Tuesday, D: All Things Digital 9 kicks off, beginning three days of candid, no-holds-barred conversation with tech’s thought leaders. Hewlett-Packard CEO Léo Apotheker, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, DARPA director Regina Dugan, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows division, and others will all take the D stage in the coming days, and we’ll be covering every moment of their appearances right here with as-it-happens, all-access coverage of the conference.

Liveblogs, videos, streaming video, attendee interviews, photo galleries–you’ll find them all here in the days ahead.

Join us here this evening for what promises to be the first of several fascinating, unscripted conversations: Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Now Appearing @ D9: Microsoft's Windows President Steven Sinofsky

Kara Swisher — Mon, 23 May 2011 18:41:05 +0000

With only a week to go before the ninth D: All Things Digital conference debuts in California, we’re announcing the addition of Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky to an already heavy-duty line-up of speakers.

One of the five Microsoft presidents–it’s kind of like the kingdoms in HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” but without big, clangy swords–he runs the flagship Windows and Windows Live division.

More importantly, Sinofsky is the guy who overhauled Office and then led the team that bailed Microsoft out of the Vista debacle.

The longtime company veteran–who joined Microsoft in 1989 as a software design engineer–will talk about the future of Windows in the era of all kinds of new devices and the cloud.

If you want to get some insight into his thinking, Sinofsky also wrote a book about the making of Windows 7–titled “One Strategy: Organization, Planning, and Decision Making”–that’s a very compelling read well beyond management wonk types.

We expect Sinofsky to be just as interesting onstage at D9 too, along with other top tech and media speakers including Google’s Eric Schmidt, Bob Iger of Disney, Silicon Valley legend Marc Andreessen, Netflix’s Reed Hastings and more.

Microsoft talks ARM at CES

Ina Fried — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:19:00 +0000

As expected, Microsoft on Thursday showed off Windows running on new kinds of processors, specifically those that use an ARM core.

“The next generation of Windows is going to evolve on new hardware,” said Windows unit President Steven Sinofsky.

Before the demo though, Sinofsky traced the history of Windows, noting that from 1992 through Windows Vista the system requirements increased significantly from one version to the next. With Windows 7, though, Microsoft held most technical requirements steady and even lowered some of them.

As for the demo of the new stuff, Sinofsky began with a few caveats.

“We are calling this a technology demonstration,” he said, cautioning it wouldn’t show any new user face stuff or address pricing, timing, etc.

Sinofsky said it is too soon to talk about what requirements will be for the next version of Windows, but said the company is keenly aware of the need to have Windows running on ever-smaller devices.

Update 1:25 pm Microsoft has three demos and it is saving Windows on ARM for last. It’s starting by hoeing off some new PCs running on the current version of Windows–Windows 7.

The second demo will be an update of touch input on Microsoft’s tabletop Surface computer, and the final one will show Windows running on ARM.

1:33 pm The next-generation Surface is thinner and uses infrared cameras inside the screen’s pixels instead of a big projector, allowing for devices that can be either a tabletop or mounted vertically. It will be cheaper as well, though Microsoft doesn’t say how much the machines will cost. First-generation Surface machines had a price tag in the thousands of dollars.

On to the chip demos.

Microsoft starts by showing a development board using a next-generation Intel design running Quicken.

Okay, nod to Intel complete.

Next up is Office running on an ARM chip. This demo is on Microsoft Word and has it printing to an Epson printer. Microsoft shows demos of chips from Qualcomm, Nvidia and Texas Instruments.

On the Nvidia machine, Microsoft shows hardware, accelerated browsing in IE9 running on a Tegra 2 processor, as well as running PowerPoint and an “Iron Man” movie preview.

1:48 pm Asked by Mobilized what work still needs to take place to make Windows on ARM a reality, Sinofsky says that it is the case that programs compiled for x86 processors won’t immediately run on ARM chips, but said the company isn’t ready to talk about the programming model. He does say it is unlikely Microsoft would use virtualization to make old programs, suggesting there will be some work for developers.

Sinfosky says that Microsoft has done the work to enable Windows to run and create a framework for third parties to build software and device drivers.

As for the timing, Sinofsky doesn’t give a date, but does reiterate that Microsoft these days aims to have a new release of Windows every 24 months to 36 months. “I don’t think it’s that long away,” he says. He notes some people want Windows releases faster while other large customers would rather have more time between releases. “Somewhere [around] 24 to 36 months between releases seems about right.”

The ARM compatibility will go into the next release of Windows, but Sinofsky takes time to point out to Mobilized that once again, he isn’t calling it Windows 8.

“This is the next generation of Windows,” he says.

Sinofsky Named Windows Division President (Official Announcement and Memo)

John Paczkowski — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:41:06 +0000

Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Microsoft Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, was given a bump-up in title today. TechFlash reports that Sinofsky was promoted to president, joining Stephen Elop, Bob Muglia, Qi Lu and Robbie Bach as the fifth company executive with that title. The official announcement and all-hands memo, below:

Microsoft Promotes Steven Sinofsky to President, Windows Division
Tami Reller to lead Windows Marketing and Finance

REDMOND, Wash. — July 8, 2009 — Microsoft Corp. today promoted Steven Sinofsky to president of the Windows Division. Sinofsky, a 20-year Microsoft veteran, most recently led the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, contributing to the Oct. 22 availability of Windows 7.

As president, Sinofsky assumes responsibility for the Windows business including both the engineering and marketing functions for Windows, Windows Live and Internet Explorer.

“Steven Sinofsky has demonstrated the ability to lead large teams that deliver great products. The work he and the team have done in getting ready to ship Windows 7 really defines how to develop and ship world-class software,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “He is a perfect fit to lead the Windows group.”

Sinofsky began his career at Microsoft in 1989 in engineering and has held multiple positions on Microsoft product teams. His full biography can be found here.

In addition, Tami Reller, currently chief financial officer (CFO) for the Windows Division, will take on the additional responsibility for marketing. Bill Veghte will be moving to a new leadership role in the company to be announced later this year. The transition between Reller and Veghte is timed to take place in late July when Windows 7 reaches the release to manufacturing (RTM) milestone.

Reller joined Microsoft in 2001 as part of the acquisition of Great Plains Software Inc. Reller was the CFO of Great Plains at the time of acquisition and had previously served in a number of senior marketing, sales and general management roles. Since joining Microsoft, she has held a variety of leadership positions including corporate vice president of marketing for Microsoft Business Solutions, where she was responsible for the launch of the Microsoft Dynamics brand. She will report to Sinofsky and will retain her responsibilities as CFO.

“In addition to her in-depth knowledge of the Windows business, I’m excited that Tami will bring to Windows her experience in marketing and finance, along with a history of fostering a strong and profitable partner ecosystem in business software,” Sinofsky said.

Jon DeVaan will continue in his role as senior vice president, reporting to Sinofsky. DeVaan managed the engineering team responsible for creating the core components of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

And now, the all-hands memo from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

Windows is one of the franchise brands and products for Microsoft. Each new version of Windows is a visible and significant milestone for the company. We will soon finish Windows 7 and hand it off to our partners for general availability on October 22nd.

With this transition, we want to ensure we are setting up for the next release and continue the market leadership and momentum that we have with Windows today. Accordingly, I am pleased to announce today that Steven Sinofsky will be promoted to President of the Windows Division. Windows 7 is receiving terrific feedback from customers, partners, analysts alike, and the entire Windows team has done a great job.

With this promotion, Steven assumes responsibility for the Windows business including both the engineering and marketing functions for Windows, Windows Live and Internet Explorer. Jon DeVaan will continue in his role as senior vice president, reporting to Steven. In this role, Jon will continue to manage the engineering team responsible for creating the core components of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and is responsible for the PC ecosystem engagement and technical readiness.

We are also pleased to announce today that Tami Reller, currently CFO for the Windows Division, will take on the additional responsibility of marketing for the Windows Division. Tami brings a strong background in delivering successful brands to market, most recently with the introduction of Dynamics in her previous role as marketing vice president for MBS. Tami takes over the marketing responsibility from Bill Veghte who will take a new leadership role in the company to be announced later this year. Bill and Tami will work closely together through this month to ensure we deliver on the momentum currently building for the launch of Windows 7.

Under Bill’s leadership, the team has re-energized our approach to marketing and selling Windows and the PC, built stronger relationships with our partners and has laid the right plans for delivering Windows 7 into the market. In particular, the “I’m a PC” campaign has really helped energize the brand and create emotional connections between our product and our customers. Bill has a long track record of success at Microsoft in a variety of capacities and we look forward to his continued contributions.

As we start the new fiscal year, we do so with a full slate of great products, healthy businesses and strong leadership. We would like to recognize Steven, Bill and Jon for their leadership of Windows and congratulate Tami on her new expanded role.

Steve

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's Full Memo to the Troops About New Reorg

Kara Swisher — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:46:06 +0000

Here is the full memo Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent out to the troops about the big changes in its organization, including the departure of Platforms and Services Division President Kevin Johnson, in which he addresses Apple, Yahoo, Google and more:

From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:30 PM
To: Microsoft–All Employees
Subject: FY09 Strategic Update

With FY08 complete, I want to discuss my priorities for the year ahead and share my thoughts about the key strategic topics that are on everybody’s mind, including Windows, competition with Apple and Google, our software plus services strategy, and Yahoo.

I also have news about an organizational change and a transition in our Senior Leadership Team.

First, I want to thank you for your hard work and the dedication you showed during the past 12 months. FY08 was a milestone year. Our revenue jumped $9.3 billion to more than $60 billion. Operating profit grew 21 percent to $22.5 billion.

These outstanding numbers are the direct result of your commitment to the priorities I outlined last July. A lot has happened since then, but our fundamental strengths, challenges, and strategic goals remain largely the same. Therefore, my priorities are consistent with last year. In FY09 we must continue to:

1. Invest in the right opportunities;

2. Expand our presence with Windows, Office, and developers;

3. Drive end user excitement for our products;

4. Embrace software plus services; and

5. Focus on employee excellence.

By focusing on these five areas, we can continue to grow revenue, increase profit, and expand our market share. These priorities are also critical as we work to address key issues surrounding our business in the coming year:

· Windows: The success of Windows is our number one job. With SP1 and the work we’ve done with PC manufacturers and our software ecosystem, we’ve addressed device and application compatibility issues in Windows Vista. Now it’s time to tell our story. In the weeks ahead, we’ll launch a campaign to address any lingering doubts our customers may have about Windows Vista. And later this year, you’ll see a more comprehensive effort to redefine the meaning and value of Windows for our customers.

We also have to drive developers to create rich applications for Windows. With Internet Explorer and Silverlight, we have great tools for creating applications that run everywhere. But we also need to make sure developers have the .NET skills to write unique Windows applications using Windows Presentation Foundation. To keep today’s Windows applications alive, vibrant, and exciting, we need both—applications that run everywhere and rich client applications.

· Apple: In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We’ll do the same with phones—providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences.

· Business and enterprise: Our enterprise and server business has never been stronger—today we are on the verge of becoming the number one enterprise software company. We need to continue to push on all fronts—mail with Exchange, business intelligence with PerformancePoint, virtualization with Hyper-V, and databases with SQL Server. We have to drive our enterprise search capabilities, our unified communications solutions, and our collaboration technologies. And we must continue to compete against Linux in key workloads such as Web servers and high performance computing.

· Software plus services: Some people think software plus services is all about search. But it’s really about changing the way software is written and deployed. The future is about having a platform in the cloud and delivering applications across PCs, phones, TVs, and other devices, at work and in the home. It’s also about driving change in business models through advertising, subscriptions, and online transactions. Software plus services is a huge opportunity for us to deliver new value on the desktop and the server to all of our customers. This year at PDC, you’ll hear more about our cloud platform initiatives and the next versions of our Live and Online technologies.

· Google: We continue to compete with Google on two fronts—in the enterprise, where we lead; and in search, where we trail. In search, our technology has come a long way in a very short time and it’s an area where we’ll continue to invest to be a market leader. Why? Because search is the key to unlocking the enormous market opportunities in advertising, and it is an area that is ripe for innovation. In the coming years, we’ll make progress against Google in search first by upping the ante in R&D through organic innovation and strategic acquisitions. Second, we will out-innovate Google in key areas—we’re already seeing this in our maps and news search. Third, we are going to reinvent the search category through user experience and business model innovation. We’ll introduce new approaches that move beyond a white page with 10 blue links to provide customers with a customized view of their world. This is a long-term battle for our company—and it’s one we’ll continue to fight with persistence and tenacity.

· Yahoo: Related to Google and our search strategy are the discussions we had with Yahoo. I want to emphasize the point I’ve been making all along—Yahoo was a tactic, not a strategy. We want to accelerate our share of search queries and create a bigger pool of advertisers, and Yahoo would have helped us get there faster. But we will get there with or without Yahoo. We have the right people, we’ve made incredible progress in our technology, and we’ll continue to make smart investments that will enable us to build an industry-leading business.

As I mentioned earlier, I have important organizational news. Today we are announcing that the Platforms and Services Division will be split into two businesses: Windows/Windows Live and Online Services. We are also announcing that Kevin Johnson will leave the company. He will work to ensure a smooth transition.

Since 1992, Kevin has been a key contributor to many of this company’s most important achievements. As president of the Platforms and Services Division, Kevin has built an incredibly talented organization and laid the foundation for the future success of Windows and our Online Services Business. Over the last 16 years, through everything from his work as head of the company’s worldwide sales, marketing, and services efforts, to his leadership in transforming our field operations and repositioning the company to focus on opportunities in emerging markets, Kevin has played a vital role in this company’s success. There is no doubt that his passion and dedication will be missed.

Effective immediately, Steven Sinofsky, Jon DeVaan, and Bill Veghte will report directly to me to lead Windows/Windows Live. In the Online Services Business, we will create a new senior leadership position and conduct a search that will span internal and external candidates. In the meantime, Satya Nadella will continue to lead Microsoft’s search, ad platform, and MSN engineering efforts, and Brian McAndrews will continue to lead the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group. Both Windows/Windows Live and the Online Services Business are led by a strong group of executives on the technical and business side who have the talent and experience to address the challenges we face and drive the next generation of growth and success.

Looking ahead, I see an incredibly bright future for our company. As I said at the June 27th Town Hall for Bill, we are the best in the world at doing software and nobody should be confused about this. It doesn’t mean that we can’t improve, but nobody is better than we are. Nobody works harder than we do. Nobody is more tenacious than we are. We’re investing more broadly and more seriously than anybody else. Our opportunities to change the world have never been greater.

I look forward to working with all of you as we focus on our five priorities in FY09.

Steve

AllThingsD » Steven Sinofsky

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