Just in time for Spring, Microsoft has released a new Roses Theme for Windows 7. As I live near and visit frequently, the City of Roses: Portland, OR, I appreciate this theme. Roses are very beautiful flowers, smell great and are cool. Not as cool as orchids, but still pretty nice!

Due to “restructuring”, Microsoft has started laying off some of it’s marketing team. If it was up to me, and I was restructuring, I’d be finding these folks some different positions within the company at the very least. If they weren’t good enough to keep, then I can see a layoff, but I’m sure they are throwing away some good talent there. It’s been rumored that the layoffs were coming, and were expected, but sad that they have to pack up their offices and get their resumes out again. Good luck, guys and gals.

One Marketing Manager at Microsoft tweeted on February 1 that the layoffs had begun. “Microsoft to announce major layoffs today as a result of marketing org restructuring,” tweeted Commercial and Communications Sector Lead Maher Al-Khaiyat.

LockerGnome has a great article on Windows optimization tools. You hear the commercials on the radio and see them on TV, and those with little PC experience fall for their tactics. If your PC is slow, there are many freeware and low cost ways of fixing it. Do some research or ask a knowledgeable friend. You may be doing more harm than good when it comes to “fixing” your PC. I’ve used CCleaner for a long time, and have been very happy with it. It’s free and does a great job. Don’t expect any miracles, but it is a great start.

If these “subtle” marketing strategies don’t do the trick, there are more devious methods at hand that scam artist software peddlers can use to sucker in more unwary clientele. One is the ever-suspicious pop-up that displays as a phony alert that there’s something wrong with a system. A few years ago, my partner and I were running a very successful computer business. At the time, business was booming because unfortunate souls had downloaded software or email infected with viruses. To further add to their distress, some of them had attempted to fix their own systems with any number of the optimization scams or gimmicks that were currently out there. Others had installed the optimization tools in an attempt to speed up what they thought were slow PCs.

Are Tablets going to be the downfall of the Microsoft empire? I doubt it. It’s been said before: Linux is going to be the death of Microsoft; Mac OSX is going to be the death of Microsoft; Sony Playstation; Netscape; Firefox… the list goes on. Microsoft will adapt, I’m fairly certain that they will not just stagnate and play dead. They are a smart company, they learn from their mistakes, and they will adapt and overcome the obstacles that are laid in front of them.

I’m not saying it’s going to be an easy race. They may fall behind in some areas, but expecting them to dominate in every aspect of technology (from MP3 players – Zune to video game consoles – Xbox to tablet PC’s) is quite a stretch. Even the best companies out there are great at some things, and mediocre at others. Don’t expect the best products from one company. Look at Pepsi Clear or New Coke. The only way to kill your own company is to NOT adapt and learn from the past (case in point: movie and music recording industry).

Will Microsoft forget about tablets and ignore them and play them off as a fad? No, they’ve made that mistake in the past and it took a lot to overcome it (Internet with Windows 95, for example). I’m sure they are putting a lot of effort into making Windows 8 a success on desktop PC’s as well as tablets.

As with so many monopolies, the end looks like it isn’t going to be some upstart competitor that steals the market from underneath our monopolist. Rather, the market being dominated itself disappears. Not that there ever was a buggy whip trust but if there had been it would have been killed by the car, not upstart buggy whip makers.

Madison, Wisconsin school district will be handing out 1,400 iPad’s this year. All of these are being purchased by Microsoft. Not directly, but due to a settlement for a consumer lawsuit, Microsoft is paying $3.4 million to the school district. While it isn’t a move to show their dislike of Microsoft, it is a punch in the face of sorts.

Whether or not you like Apple or Microsoft, what is the point of an iPad in an educational environment? Text books are available on other platforms, and have been for a while, but Apple is getting attention for their iTextbooks application. There is no fine writing skills, it’s all from the touch of a finger, without the precise and accuracy of a stylus. I have no experience with it in an educational model, other than reading (which tablets are great for – consuming media, not creating it). Any thoughts? Am I missing something?

The School District for the first time plans to buy more than 600 iPads for use in the majority of schools this spring. Another 800 iPads are expected to be in classrooms by next fall, all paid for with money from a state settlement with Microsoft.

With all the chatter with Windows 8, it is easy to overlook Microsoft’s other cash cow: Office. Well, the Office team has been hard at work and have just released the technical preview of Office version 15. A full public beta is expected later this summer. A lot of new features and ways to share information.

At this early point in our development cycle, I’m not able to share too much about Office 15, but I can tell you Office 15 is the most ambitious undertaking yet for the Office Division. With Office 15, for the first time ever, we will simultaneously update our cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and Visio. Quite simply, Office 15 will help people work, collaborate, and communicate smarter and faster than ever before.  

Ilana Smith, a lead program manager for the Windows 8 Engineering System team has written a post talking about the comments and suggestions given by developer preview users and how they are using those to make changes for the upcoming beta. It’s always nice to see developers using consumer feedback and comments to make a product better. Of course, I do notice that there are still a lot of people that aren’t happy about the changes. They still are angry about switching from DOS to Windows, though!

Those posts prompted great discussion and we read the approximately 2200 comments you left. This was wonderful feedback for us, and, along with information from our other feedback channels, we incorporated it into our design process.

Microsoft is really pushing the Kinect in to computing. They are working with vendors to include Kinect sensors within the hardware of laptops. As  long as the applications are there, I see no reason why this wouldn’t succeed. There is a lot going for the Kinect, from gestures to security to gaming. The only thing missing: applications. Without them, the need for the Kinect is dead.

A source at Microsoft has confirmed that the devices are indeed official prototypes of laptops featuring a Kinect sensor. In terms of functionality, there are hundreds of different ways that motion control could be leveraged in a portable. Gaming has the most obvious applications, but a Kinect-enabled laptop could also toggle between programs with the wave of a hand, or media controls could be tweaked with the wag of a finger. What’s more, motion-controlled portables could offer a new way for disabled individuals to interact with their devices.

Nokia has confirmed that it has sold over a million Lumia Windows Phone devices. Great for Windows Phone (yet still less that what Nokia has done in the past). They have started releasing the devices to US users through T-Mobile and AT&T. The new Nokia Lumia 900 is launching on March 18th for a price of just under a hundred bucks. When Verizon starts offering these devices (which based on their track record won’t be for a while), I’ll probably be picking one up. I love my HTC Trophy, but the new Nokia’s look real nice!

The bigger news is the phone’s price: AT&T and Nokia are planning to launch this flagship smartphone at just $99.99 on a two-year contract. That price point would make this sleek smartphone an absolute game-changer for Windows Phone, and it makes sense when you think about how much money Nokia and Microsoft are planning to spend promoting the launch.

Windows 8 does have a lot of challenges with the ARM processors, most of them related to compatibility with x86 instructions. While this is going to be a big issue, I do think that Microsoft knows about this and plans on some kind of emulation on both fronts. They wouldn’t segment the Windows ecosystem, they seem to be trying to do the opposite.

So what does this mean?   That Office 2010 someone bought for $120-350 or that Sims 3 Pets game you bought for $29 in September of 2012 will not run on a ARM-based Windows 8 tablet or notebook. This doesn’t mean that WoA platforms won’t have applications; they will.  Microsoft has gone great pains to develop a new application development environment where developers can write new Metro Windows 8-based applications using a new and slick Visual Studio developer app.  That doesn’t change the fact that none of the legacy apps will work.