Microsoft posts

Microsoft is throwing its hat into the niche-social arena by going after students in a bold and likely-futile move with so.cl (pronounced “social”). “With So.cl you can share your search and help others discover what they might be looking for,” they say on their website. “Fun commentary and discussions usually follow.” This is a bad idea. People do not want to share their search. College students are hooked in to Facebook and have study groups already positioned there. Microsoft does not have the clout to be able to muscle their way into social the way Google has and the way Apple could, not because…

They say you can tell a lot about a company by the type of people that work for it. Are they young or old? Conservative or liberal? Creative or analytical? These and other data points about employees can help to create a profile of a company, which is exactly what Kiss Metrics did with Google and Microsoft. By examining some of the habits, preferences, and demographics between the two competitive companies, a clearer comparison profile can be established. We learned that Google employees are less likely to be married or have children while Microsoft employees were less likely to buy Doritos or make…

HP has not had much luck in their early attempts at penetrating the tablet market after launching and subsequently canning their WebOS TouchPad in less than 2 months. They’re hoping that luck will change and they are officially making Windows 8 their operating system of choice after rumors surrounding the partnership were leaked last month. It will be comparable to the iPad but with minor improvements such as a thinner body and longer battery life to try to succeed where Android tablets have failed: cracking the full-size tablet market that Apple completely dominates. Rumors of a smaller iPad…

It could be a play to increase the number of Internet Explorer users. It could be a differentiator between them and Playstation. It could be both. Either way, Xbox 360 users may soon have a Kinect-driven full version of Internet Explorer available to them for full web browsing in between games of Call of Duty. By applying voice and gesture control, Kinect integration may have people surfing the web while waving wildly and screaming madly. There is no time frame laid out at this point, but expect to hear something before E3 in June. Related articles Rumor: Kinect-enabled Internet Explorer browser…

With any payment plan, you will likely pay more than you would if you bought the product up front. That’s the case with the latest offer from Xbox, but don’t expect people to shy away from the deal that includes a $99 Xbox 360 bundle with Kinect. To get the deal, one will need to sign a 2-year agreement for Xbox Live at $14.99 a month. This makes the total package come to $459 spread out over 3 years. By contrast, if someone paid $299 for the standalone Xbox 360 + Kinect and prepaid for 2 years of Xbox live for $120, they would spend $419. There are bargains available on both the bundle (we found one for $259) and…

There is value in Yahoo. It’s real and tangible. While conventional wisdom would look at the trends and the follies of the beleaguered tech firm as a sign that they would be a bad investment, there’s another perspective that knows that now is the best time to buy. I know. I’ve been there. No, I’ve never worked for a huge tech firm. I have, however, been a part of a company with loads of potential but other challenges that made us ripe for acquisition at a bargain-bin price and the results were incredible for everyone involved. Today’s Yahoo has seen a string of CEO and board follies that make AOL leadership…

There’s a reason why mothers shouldn’t judge their children in beauty pageants, why chefs rarely run the business side of restaurants successfully, and why Steve Jobs had to be fired and rehired before making Apple the biggest tech company in the world. Pride and prejudice get in the way of sound decisions sometimes, and when Yahoo didn’t take the $44.6 billion offer from Microsoft in February, 2008, many people pointed to co-founder Jerry Yang as the reason they hesitated and eventually lost the opportunity. As Yang himself said, the consolation prize of working out a search deal with Microsoft…

There are certain brick and mortar outlets that simply refuse to go down without a fight. Barnes & Noble is one of them and they are partnering with a powerful force to help them make up ground with their Nook eBook reader: Microsoft. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="216" caption="Image via CrunchBase"][/caption] As subsidiary that is currently unnamed will see and investment of $300 million coming from Microsoft to help eBook and educational book sales. In return, Microsoft receives 17.6% equity, valuing the company at $1.7 billion. For B&N, it’s an opportunity to have…

When Microsoft won the auction that brought over 925 US patents from AOL’s portfolio, there was clear indication that Facebook wanted in on the action. They got their wishes today and Microsoft was able to get what they wanted and have half of it paid for through Facebook’s purchase of 650 of those patents. “Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,” said Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel for Microsoft. “As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain…

Essentially everyone has a smartphone now. If you don’t, don’t feel badly – my phone is intelligent enough to function but doesn’t have all of the fancy additional features of an iPhone or Android. For those of you still waiting to jump into the world of smartphone users, Microsoft (yes, really, Microsoft) is trying to convince the world that it has the best and only real option for you. Let me preface this by saying that I don’t know anything about the new Nokia Lumia 900 that will be made available in new colors through AT&T this weekend on April 22, 2012. What I’d really like to focus…