S. Somasegar VP at Microsoft

Its very rare to see an executive of such high level come down to meet with developers and mix and mingle with them. Its people like Somasegar who connect and engage with the community that increases the appeal Microsoft has as a Company and separates them from Apple or Google. A down to earth person he candidly answers all the questions that were fired at him.

He began by explaining Microsoft’s Vision and how they always plan and develop things which would be relevant 5 years down the line, the next version of .NET 4, Visual Studio 2010, new features introduced the completely redesigned UI based on WPF for the IDE. Most of the discussion centered around .NET and the developer tools. But Missing from the whole talk was Windows Mobile. While I been a .NET developer for 3 years before I quit to become a freelancer, I was more interested in what Microsoft was doing with Silverlight and its Mobile Platform, and how they were looking to compete with the iPhone OS and Android Platform.

Yes We Screwed up with Windows Mobile

I pointed out Windows Mobile and the lack of innovation and stagnation with regards to features, User Experience, Design and interface his answer was extremely candid and frank. “Yes we screwed up Windows Mobile, and let it stagnant. In fact you are being very polite in pointing this out.” He went to say how the initial vision of Windows Mobile had been long term and well planned but along the way the lost the game.

Microsoft Secret Plans For Windows Mobile, Silverlight for Mobile

While he was very mum and secretive about what Microsoft had planned for Windows Mobile, he did let out that a few things about what Microsoft was doing for the mobile platform, they had revamped the whole Windows mobile team and rebooted the process similar to what they had done with Windows Longhorn. I see it more like a comparison of what happened with Windows Vista Vs Windows 7.

Some of the Key Points he made were.

1. Rebooted Windows mobile Strategy.
2. Brand New Windows Mobile Team
3. Microsoft is laying its bet on SilverLight
4. Silverlight for mobile will be the competitor for iPhone and Andriod.
5. Silverlight for Mobile will be announced at MIX 2010

Things Microsoft got wrong

• They are too late in the game.
• They are taking too long to come out with a competing product and keeping with the trends.
• Billions spent on R&D hard to believe nothing concrete on the Mobile front has come out yet
• Clear Disconnect between Microsoft Design team and products. Do they even have a Design R&D team?

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3. Microsoft and Facebook Announce Partnership
4. Prism and XUL Could Have Been A Silverlight And Adobe AIR Killer
5. Internet Explorer 9 and SilverLight 4 Announced Breaking News

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Microsoft, Software, Technology Tags: iPhone, Microsoft, Mobile, Software, Web-Development

(Note: you require to have Java installed also in case you are testing the office 2007 demo you’ll need to install the plugin)

But I managed to get hold of another demo of Office 2003 which runs on any browser with support for java. These are not web based application think of them as remote desktop on a browser to access these applications with minimal overhead in terms of Bandwidth and memory (Considering that office 2007 is so huge and requires a lot of memory).

Below is the full Office 2007 suite running in IE 6.0. (You can even see IE 7.0 right at the back)

Office 2003 Outlook and PowerPoint Running inside FireFox on Ubuntu.

I am sure you have heard of desktop Virtualization (Vmware, Parallels, Virtual PC 2007, XEN source, Virtual Box) using which you can run a whole Operating System in a virtual environment on your computer. I already mentioned a year back that Virtualization is the future. Its one reason why Macs have started to become more popular since you can easily run multiple OS without the need to reboot the system.The full Ubuntu Linux OS running inside a window(Vmware Player) on Windows XP.

Application Virtualization

The Company called CITRIX is behind this technology. The company was started by an Ex-IBM developer there product called the Citrix® Presentation Server™ enables Applications Virtualization. This is the same company that recently acquire XenSource.

They are currently building XenDesktop which will take application Virtualization main stream.

I can think of a couple of reasons why Microsoft doesn’t want to put too much emphasis on this technology right now.

1. Its based on Java and Open Source Technologies.
2. Microsoft does not own this technology.
3. Scalability and performance Issues.
4. The Technology is too commercialized and only one company holds a monopoly over it.
5. Cost

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2. Use Free Virtualization Softwares To Run Mutliple OS’s
3. Flock The Web 2.0 Social Browser To Be Forever In Beta?
4. Microsoft Launches Killer RIA Say Goodbye to Flash
5. The SilverLight Poster and more on Silverlight and Microsoft

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Microsoft, Software, Technology Tags: Microsoft, Web 2.0

• Windows Home Server 2008
• New Microsoft Zune models
• Halo 3
• Windows Live services

Since the attention is focused on Apple, here are it’s earnings, market share and sales:

• On the Apple earnings call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer cited some research from Strategy Analytics placing the iPhone as the “fourth highest selling handset in the U.S. market in the September quarter.” (The Motorola V3 was No. 1).

• Apple has sold 1.4 million iPhones in a little over a quarter. It took the iPod more than two years to reach the same number of sales. The price cut helped it reach that number, by nearly doubling the daily sales of the iPhone. And Apple says it is on track to sell 10 million iPhones by next year.

• Of those 1.4 million iPhones, Oppenheimer estimates 250,000 (or 18 percent) were unlocked to work on networks other than AT&T. (That explains why Apple was so aggressive in bricking those iPhones. Apple only gets paid by AT&T for iPhones connected to its network).

• The iPhone starts selling in the UK (with O2) and Germany (with T-Mobile) on November 9th, and in France on November 29th (with Orange).

• iTunes has now sold 3 billion songs, and 100 million TV shows.

• Apple’s retail strategy continues to power an increasing portion of its sales. In the September quarter, 57 percent of Apple’s sales were direct through its stores or Website, compared to 53 percent a year ago.

[Credit/data: Tech Crunch]

This post is by Michael. Find out more about him HERE

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4. Video Of Apple iPod 6G Interface – Fake Or Real?
5. Why Apple Is Good at User Experience And Design

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Apple, General Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod, Mac, Mac OSX, Microsoft

lets start with this quote from radiowalker

it’s a metaphor. Microsoft is not going out of business anytime soon, but it is ceasing to matter in terms of the future of software.

I suggest you read this excellent article from Joe Wilcox Titled The Great Double Standard I have posted a few selected quotes.

This week, a number of tech journalists gave glowing reviews of Leopard. They received the software on Mac Book Pro laptops provided by Apple. Nowhere have I seen anyone gripe about conflicts of interest. But when Microsoft’s PR agency sent bloggers preloaded Vista notebooks ahead of the operating system’s launch, there were ridiculous accusations of attempted bribery. The accusations made it difficult for those receiving the Vista units to say anything positive about the operating system.

The blogosphere will praise Leopard as the next best thing ever and use it as more proof why Vista sucks (It doesn’t). Meanwhile, there will be little good said about Microsoft’s colossal 2008 fiscal first quarter results. Those people acknowledging the earnings results will blame Microsoft for trying to kill Linux and babies in Africa as reasons for its success. The perception: When Microsoft competes, it cheats.

Between Google, Apple and Microsoft who would you choose? I wouldn’t choose any of them because they are businesses and that what they will remain till the end.

Thanks to Joe Stagner for the link to the Microsoft Watch article.

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5. Breaking News Microsoft Announces Release Of Microsoft Surface.

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Microsoft Tags: Microsoft, Software

1. They have the technology and resources.
2. They can learn from all the mistakes that Apple Seems to be making with the iPhone.
3. The Windows Mobile Marketplace is already well established.
4. Developers will find making native application far easier for a windows mobile.

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1. Microsoft We Screwed Up Windows Mobile, iPhone Competitor Silverlight Mobile 2010
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3. Good Bye Apple You Suck Really Bad
4. Apple Numbers
5. Gee, And I thought Microsoft Was dead?

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Design, Hardware, Microsoft Tags: Microsoft, Music

People always seem to be finding loops on Microsoft’s site to get themselves @live email address. This is like the 3rd or 4th time Url hacks have been discovered. I managed to get clazh[@]live.com last year.

1. Go to www.hotmail.com, click on Sign up, and choose a free account, as before.
2. Now, you will be taken to a signup page that shows an @hotmail.com domain for your email address.
3. Go to the address bar, make hmnewuser.aspx read newuser.aspx and look along until you see &hm=1, after removing that hit enter.
4. Your @hotmail magically becomes @live.

Source: Liveside

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4. A First Look At Windows Live Folders Beta
5. Windows Live Spaces Photo Contest Win Gifts Daily

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: Internet, Microsoft Tags: Microsoft

This is how it all started.

When did you get your Zune? Nov 14th, 2006 (launch day)
Why did you get it? Because I was fed up with my Apple iPod’s click wheel and its ability to easily scratch
Where did you get it? Gamestop in Sioux City, IA
What color do you have? Black now but originally brown (I thought the brown’s battery was faulty but it was my computer, I regret it now)
Do you like it, or love it? LOVE IT HERE’S PROOF

If anyone wishes to contact him heres his email and IM and Cell. Hope he has a good time at Redmond.

Anyone who wishes to contact me to talk about my first tattoo and needs any additional proof that it is real and not really good Photoshop skills here is my contact info…
email: mszunefan@gmail.com
Yahoo IM: knowerofmovies
cell #: 712-301-3235

source: microsoft.blognewschannel.com 

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5. Microsoft and Facebook Announce Partnership

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: General, Internet, Microsoft, Technology Tags: Microsoft

Here are some Key points from that Article.

Gates is the cutthroat capitalist. A genius maybe, but one more interested in maximizing profits than perfecting technology. He’s the ultimate vengeful nerd. Ostracized at school, he gets the last laugh by bleeding us all dry.

On the other hand, Jobs has never seemed much concerned with business, though he’s been very successful at it of late. Instead, Jobs has been portrayed as a man of art and culture. He’s an aesthete, an artist; driven to make a dent in the universe.

But these perceptions are wrong. In fact, the reality is reversed. It’s Gates who’s making a dent in the universe, and Jobs who’s taking on the role of single-minded capitalist, seemingly oblivious to the broader needs of society.

Gates is giving away his fortune with the same gusto he spent acquiring it, throwing billions of dollars at solving global health problems. He has also spoken out on major policy issues, for example, by opposing proposals to cut back the inheritance tax.

In contrast, Jobs does not appear on any charitable contribution lists of note. And Jobs has said nary a word on behalf of important social issues, reserving his talents of persuasion for selling Apple products.

Jobs once offered to be an advisor to Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election, and he invited President Clinton over for dinner when Bubba visited Silicon Valley in 1996 — hardly evidence of deep political convictions.

Jobs can’t even get behind causes that would seem to carry deep personal meaning, let alone lasting social importance. Like Lance Armstrong, he is a cancer survivor. But unlike Armstrong, Jobs has so far done little publicly to raise money or awareness for the disease.

Given Jobs’ social detachment, I’m confused by the adulation he enjoys. Yes, he has great charisma and his presentations are good theater. But his absence from public discourse makes him a cipher. People project their values onto him, and he skates away from the responsibilities that come with great wealth and power.

Some Interesting comments from DIGG users.

Menso says: For truth. No matter how much people may dislike Gates/Microsoft, Gates/Microsoft have done much more for people than Jobs/Apple has done for anyone. Although Microsoft is still pretty shady business wise…

th3heretic says: Pretty easy to tell look at Apples policy vs Microsoft’s. Microsoft just wants everyone to run windows, and use xbox 360’s. Apple wants you to run OSX only on Apple hardware, only use their software (itunes, quicktime) with their music play which they want you to get with your mac, they want to own ALL of your digital entertainment not just your pc and console.

Anrkist says: Monopoly?? There’s no competition out there for Windows? Or other countless products that come from MS? I’ve made the choice to use products by his company, they didn’t make the choice for me. If people felt his products weren’t worth using… then they wouldn’t use it. Give people a little more credit then that, stop talking down to everyone with your high & might attitude.
ME is a good example of how the people react when you release a crappy product. They quickly released XP soon after and the people were happy again.
You can then argue that “Windows comes on purchased PCs!! The people don’t have a choice!” – You have the choice to use the Internet and download another O.S. There’s hundreds of choices, people have the options, they just choose not to use whatever else is out there.
You can be Anti-Gates/MS all you want, the fact is his company has helped shape the technology world for the past 2-3 decades & given the growth in technology over those past few years, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

logicwax says: you think plugging in your USB scanner would make your computer automatically install drivers? ha!
Microsoft got things rolling by making sure everyone sticks to a standard. Look at how fragmented Linux is/was between distro’s and windowing systems. Yeah, choice is great……but for the home PC market, microsoft making sure everyone using one OS was what catapulted PCs into every home of america.

tanveer says: Action speaks louder than any words, no matter how ‘reality distortion worthy’ they are!
Its about f’**** time someone in the major tech journal/publishing did away with trendy snobbery of looking bill/microsoft with a biased eye and admitted the truth – which honestly has always been obvious as a day light for anyone interested in the facts and not what’s considered ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ by the fellow ‘tech-savvy’ crowd.
I don’t hate apple, i think they make beautiful machines (albeit pricey – but worth it – except for AppleTV, oh and mighty mouse…and in-your-ear ipod ear buds, iMac keyboards…)
I just can’t stand baseless anti-Microsoft/Bill Gates cow dung!

Highlights of the joint interview with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

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5. How To Win A Free Trip To Microsoft

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: General, Microsoft, Software, Technology Tags: Apple, Microsoft, People

How does Surface work?

At a high level, Surface uses cameras to sense objects, hand gestures and touch. This user input is then processed and the result is displayed on the surface using rear projection.

What is surface computing?

Surface computing is a new way of working with computers that moves beyond the traditional mouse-and-keyboard experience. It is a natural user interface that allows people to interact with digital content the same way they have interacted with everyday items such as photos, paintbrushes and music their entire life: with their hands, with gestures and by putting real-world objects on the surface. Surface computing opens up a whole new category of products for users to interact with.

What are the key attributes of surface computing?

Surface computing has four key attributes:

• Direct interaction. Users can actually “grab” digital information with their hands and interact with content by touch and gesture, without the use of a mouse or keyboard.
• Multi-touch contact. Surface computing recognizes many points of contact simultaneously, not just from one finger, as with a typical touch screen, but up to dozens and dozens of items at once.
• Multi-user experience. The horizontal form factor makes it easy for several people to gather around surface computers together, providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.
• Object recognition. Users can place physical objects on the surface to trigger different types of digital responses, including the transfer of digital content.

Microsoft Surface responds to touch, gestures and objects placed on the surface

Front view of Microsoft Surface

With Microsoft Surface, order a beverage during your meal with just the tap of a finger.

Microsoft Surface puts restaurants, hotels, shopping and theaters at your fingertips.

Use Microsoft Surface to quickly browse through music, dragging favourite songs onto a personal playlist.

View, sort, stack and organize photos with your hands on Microsoft Surface.

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4. Microsoft and Facebook Announce Partnership
5. Gee, And I thought Microsoft Was dead?

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: General, Microsoft, Technology Tags: Microsoft, Technology

• Popfly Facebook Block: Available immediately,
  we’ve added the Facebook block which prodices access to Facebook data
  including the User Profile, Friends, Photos, Photo Albums, and Events.
• Leverage Existing Blocks:
  You can build Facebook applications using Popfly blocks like Flickr,
  Digg, Soapbox, Twitter, Windows Live, Xbox Live, and Virtual Earth.
• Silverlight Support:
  Another big win here is Facebook has native support for Easily build
  next generation applications using Silverlight. With 24 million users
  and 40 billion page views a month, this is a huge, huge win for getting
  native Silverlight support on Facebook
• Visual Studio Support: The Facebook Developer Toolkit enables developers to build applications for Windows, Web, or Microsoft Office.
• Distribution of the Facebook Developer Toolkit.
  The FDT was developed by Microsoft to wrap the Facebook API into a
  managed component. Through this component, developers now will be able
  to drag ‘n drop a Facebook component onto the component tray in Visual
  C# Express , Visual Basic Express and Visual Web Developer (for both
  Whidbey and Orcas). Users will be provided all the source code, sample
  applications including a WPF app and detail documentation.

• Co-branded Landing Page
  on the Facebook developer website. At this site, visitors will be able
  to see Microsoft Visual Studio Express and Microsoft Popfly links.
  Additionally, a series of new pages were developed called Showcase on the Visual Studio Express site.

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4. The SilverLight Poster and more on Silverlight and Microsoft
5. Breaking News Microsoft Announces Release Of Microsoft Surface.

© Arpit Jacob for Clazh, 2007. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Catergories: General, Microsoft, Technology Tags: API, General, Mashup, Microsoft, Programming