Question Raise From Facebook's Phone Will Fail

Facebook’s supposedly forth coming smartphone, reported by All Things D, paints the picture of a company that either thinks it can do no wrong, is feeling incredibly squeezed by Apple and Google.
The impression created is that Facebook is weaker and has more problems than most people imagine. Not good with an IPO supposedly around the corner.Since Walt Mossberg’s site gets all the best leaks, I am betting the report is as true a story as Facebook is willing to tell 12-18 months pre-launch. But if their story is a tad off, the alternate reality is more interesting and might be more successful.

The same sort of hubris that makes Facebook believe the world is clamoring for it to be in the smartphone business will eventually be its downfall. Facebook has more corporate ego than Microsoft could ever imagine and it will come back to haunt the company in the form of big legal challenges.


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Microsoft Sets Rival to Google Apps

With a new package of online applications called Office 365 launching Tuesday, Microsoft Corp. is courting customers who have resisted running some of the company's most lucrative products: small- and medium-sized businesses.

If the Redmond, Wash., software maker succeeds with its online applications among those customers, it could tap into a new wave of growth for the venerable Office franchise, which is already used by more than one billion people world-wide, according to Microsoft.

The company also faces competitive issues: Google Inc. has won more converts to a rival set of online applications called Google Apps among small and mid-sized businesses than among large companies, according to analysts.

Office 365 includes the latest versions of Microsoft's familiar suite of productivity applications—Word, Outlook, Excel and others—combined with online versions of related software for server systems that most people never see. That includes Exchange for messaging, SharePoint for collaboration and Lync for conferencing and communication.

For roughly $6 per user a month, Office 365 customers will get the traditional Office applications, either accessing them through a Web browser or by installing them on their PCs. Microsoft will run all of the servers that manage the Office applications in its own data centers.

Even if they run the Office productivity applications, the targeted customers—which usually have 500 or fewer employees—have been especially reluctant to install and run Microsoft's Office server programs, in large part because of the costs associated with maintaining technology support staff and purchasing hardware.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303627104576412223191996248.html#ixzz1QXq4VKl5

Microsoft Head Announces Windows 8 Release

Microsoft leader Steve Ballmer announced that the next version of his company’s operating system – Windows 8 – will be available in 2012.

At the Microsoft Developer Forum in Tokyo on Monday, Ballmer said the software giant is hard at work producing Windows 8, which is also expected to hit tablet computers, PC Magazine reports.

Ballmer has yet to comment on rumors regarding the features of the new OS.

But he did hint that "there will be a day in the future where it will be hard to distinguish a phone from a slate, from a PC.”

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http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/23/microsoft-head-announces-windows-8-release/#ixzz1NFAm6Pxb

Microsoft to buy Skype for $8.5 billion

It could be the most expensive call Microsoft Corp. has ever made.

In acquiring Internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion, the technology giant is seeking new ways to make money as its core computer software business faces a growing threat from a new generation of powerful mobile devices.

But some analysts believe the Skype deal, Microsoft's largest ever, could become a multibillion-dollar dud, as it once was for EBay Inc. The online auction site acquired Skype for $3.1 billion in 2005 but then sold most of its stake in the phone service after failing to wring a profit from it.

"The question is, what's the point here?" said James E. Schrager, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. "They seem to be buying an interesting company to which Microsoft doesn't really add anything."

In explaining the purchase, Microsoft said it would weave Skype's Internet and video calling services into its Windows smartphone, Xbox gaming console, and Office e-mail and document software, allowing users to more easily call their friends and colleagues. Microsoft said it hopes to extract more revenue from Skype by showing users colorful advertising as they make calls.

Wall Street investors were not convinced, however, and Microsoft's stock lost about 1% in regular trading, falling to $25.67. The stock is down 8% so far this year, while the technology market overall is sharply higher.

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-microsoft-skype-20110511,0,5652246.story

Microsoft Near Deal to Acquire Skype

Microsoft Corp. is close to a deal to buy Internet phone company Skype Technologies SA for between $7 billion and $8 billion—the most aggressive move yet by Microsoft to play in the increasingly-converged worlds of communication, information and entertainment.

A deal could be announced as early as Tuesday, people familiar with the matter said, though they cautioned that negotiations aren't yet final and a deal could still fall apart. Including Skype's long-term debt, the total value of the deal is about $8.5 billion.

Representatives for Microsoft and Skype declined to comment.

Buying Skype—a service that connects millions of users around the world via Internet-based telephony and video— would give Microsoft a recognized brand name on the Internet at a time when it is struggling to get more traction in the consumer market.

Microsoft has invested heavily in marketing and improving the technology of its Bing search engine. While it has made some market share gains over the past year, Google Inc. still dominates the search market with more than 65% of U.S. searches going through its site.

At a value close to $8 billion, the Skype deal would rank as the biggest acquisition in the 36-year history of Microsoft, a company that traditionally has shied away from large deals. In 2007, Microsoft paid approximately $6 billion to acquire online advertising firm aQuantive Inc. Many current and former Microsoft executives believe Microsoft significantly overpaid for that deal. But they are also relieved that Microsoft gave up on an unsolicited $48 billion offer for Yahoo Inc. nearly three years ago. Yahoo is valued at half that sum today.


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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576313932659388852.html#ixzz1Lv8JqB7S

10 Crazy Stories About Bill Gates From Paul Allen's New Book (MSFT)

Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen has a memoir called "Idea Man" coming out today. In it, he reveals some amazing stories about his friend Bill Gates.

Early excerpts from the book portrayed Gates as a tough negotiator who talked Allen into receiving a smaller share of the company they founded together.

But the memoir also contains some lighter anecdotes about Gates in his childhood and the early days of Microsoft. If you're only familiar with Gates in his elder-statesman charity role, you may not recognize the hard-charging thrill seeker who built the most profitable tech company in history.

In high school, he went dumpster diving to try and get source code.

In high school, Gates and Allen honed their programming skills on a DEC minicomputer owned by a local company, C-Cubed. But as students, they didn't have access to as much information as the company's employees, which frustrated them. So at night, Allen would boost the smaller Gates up to the top of the company's dumpsters, where he'd look for interesting stuff. Once, they found a printout of the TOPS-10 source code, and it unlocked a lot of secrets.

They also hacked the company's accounting file to try and get free computing time.

As the charges mounted up for their borrowed computer time, Gates and Allen began looking for a way to access one of the free accounts at C-Cubed. They somehow got access to an administrator password, and used it to steal the company's internal accounting file. (Allen doesn't go into detail about how they got the password.) They were hoping to decrypt the file to get one of the free accounts, but they got caught and the company booted them.

He wrote his high school's scheduling program to book him into an English class with all girls.

One summer, Gates contracted to write a class scheduling program for his high school. He made sure to "preload" himself into an English class with a dozen girls and no other boys.

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http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-bill-gates-2011-4#ixzz1Jwa9qeum

Microsoft should make Google the April Fool

Google has given Microsoft a great competitive opening, and it's one the software giant shouldn't let go. Opportunities like this just don't come `round often enough, or so rightly timed.

Twice in about a week, Google has cracked down on Android licensing. From one perspective, the search and information giant is asserting needed leadership. From another, Google is closing the door on so-called openness of its software. Either way, Microsoft has a hook to grab developers and encourage further OEM adoption of Windows Phone 7.

Quick recap: Last week, Google revealed that it wouldn't immediately release Android 3.0 as open source; there was no real time horizon given. My analysis "Honeycomb tests Google's 'Open Principles'" questions whether the search and information giant broke promises made to the open-source community. From the standpoint of controlling fragmentation, withholding Honeycomb makes business sense, however.

Something else: According to a report from Bloomberg Business Week, Google also is cracking down on which handset manufacturers get access to Android. They'll need Android chief Andy Rubin's blessing to get the newest operating system version, according to the report. For a mobile operating system that's supposed to be open, Android suddenly looks closed. Again, there is business justification -- Google trying to diminish Android fragmentation. However, handset manufacturers like HTC or Sony may find Google suddenly resistent to skinning Android with their own custom user interfaces. They use these skins to differentiate the experience between their phones from others running Android; perhaps no longer.

Google is between a rock and a hard place, and Microsoft should put on the squeeze.

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http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Microsoft-should-make-Google-the-April-Fool/1301690774

How Nokia and Microsoft will carve up mobile services

Nokia smartphones will be running Windows Phone, but the company is hoping to hang on to some of its service-provider identity even as Microsoft grabs the choicest morsels.

Nokia tried hard to redefine itself as a provider of services, which is what everyone wants to be these days - hardware margins are tight and most software platforms are being given away for free. Over the years, Nokia has launched a plethora of services, including PIM synchronisation, cloud storage, and its very own instant messaging service – all of which eventually got lumped together under the Ovi brand but never really gelled as a coherent offering.

Recently, the Finns started killing off some of the more esoteric offerings, such as the cloud storage service, and they farmed others out to better-equipped companies, which included dumping Ovi e-mail and messaging with Yahoo. Ovi will no-doubt continue to provide services for non-smart phones, and the 150 million Symbian handsets Nokia expects to ship during the transition, but much of the service offering will now be handed over to Redmond.

Nokia gets to keep mobile mapping, while Microsoft gets handset advertising, an area in which Nokia has never showed much interest. Nokia also gets free rein to take Google and Apple to the cleaners over mobile patents, while Microsoft gets to poke Intel in the eye one last time.

These days, it's almost possible to feel sorry for Intel, which must really hate the mobile industry. First, the company pissed money into WiMAX, which got killed off by the network operators in collusion with Qualcomm. Then Microsoft announces that desktop Windows will be ported to the ARM architecture used by every other chip manufacturer, and now, Intel's attempt to undermine Microsoft with its own mobile platform is in tatters with MeeGo redefined as a "project" by Nokia and kicked into the "longer term".

Not that Nokia has much to celebrate, with Microsoft taking some of the best services for itself as well as collecting OS royalties. Contact and calender synchronisation will inevitably end up with Redmond, on smartphones at least, as will e-mail. The Ovi store gets integrated into the Windows Marketplace. We're not sure that that means. Perhaps developers will be able to submit applications to either company, but more likely, Microsoft's store will take advantage of the operator billing that Nokia has been able to put into place.

Ovi Music could survive. Microsoft has no problem with alternative content providers as long as they integrate with the appropriate Windows Phone 7 hubs, but we've yet to hear any details on that.

Ovi Maps will be the location technology of choice, on Nokia's handsets at least. It's not clear what happens to other Windows Phone 7 manufacturers which is where things get interesting. Bing Maps is currently well integrated into the Windows Phone 7 experience, automatically linking to contact addresses and calender appointments. Bing Maps can also be utilised by third-party developers through a Silverlight control, and we have to assume the same functionality will be available on Nokia handsets using Ovi Maps instead. With a consistent interface, and Microsoft getting the advertising revenue, one has to wonder why Nokia would be so keen on providing maps anyway, other than to justify the $8bn or so the Finns spent on Navteq in 2007.

Nokia has never shown much interest in mobile advertising, which is surprising when Google spent $750 on AdMob, and Apple shelled out $275 on Quattro for its iAd platform. Even Opera managed to find $8m to buy up Ad Marvel. Nokia owns Novarra, which already optimises – and inserts advertising into – mobile browsing sessions for Vodafone UK and Yahoo, but Nokia seems happy to hand over the whole smartphone advertising business to Microsoft's adCenter.

In return Nokia gets "significant" and "substantial" amounts of marketing dollars, and a doorway into America. Like all European stars Nokia has always been desperate to make it big in America, sometimes embarrassingly so, and this deal will likely put it there, but America changes people, and the Nokia that succeeds there will not be the Nokia we remember.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/14/nokia_microsoft/