Microsoft - Tag Archive

Windows 8 is on the way!

27 Replies Christopher Roberts

I have recently upgraded to Windows 7, which is why I kind of wasn’t that pleased when Microsoft announced (early last week) that it was getting set to launch its next operating system, Windows 8, some time next year – probably around April.


At the Build developers’ conference in California, Microsoft unveiled the new operating system, (no doubt still in early beta stages) and gave us a sneak peak at to what is in store in the next version of Windows.

They stated that the core foundation of Windows 8 was Windows 7, but better! To quote Steven Sinofsky exactly, he said:

…everything that was great about windows 7, well we took that and we made it even better in Windowws 8!

Despite saying this, this version of Windows OS looks like it has had a dramatic overall.

Windows is currently under more pressure than ever before in its long, domineering history. In the past the cheap, affordable and compatible OS, always used to be Microsoft’s Windows. Now however Apple are putting increasing pressure on Windows, along with Google’s new attempt to bring down the giant of Windows in the form of Chrome OS.

Hence why Windows 8 seems to be dramatically different to all previous versions of Windows.

So what is going to be different? Well for starters, for the first time ever, a Windows OS will be compatible with low power ARM-designed processors.

Also, from the glimpses and comments that Microsoft have currently given us/made, it looks like Microsoft are attempting to make Windows a more ‘family friendly’ operating system, in that it’s more of a media based OS. This is probably done to try and steer away from the classical view of Windows in that it is an operating system designed primarily for spreadsheets, documents and other work/business related tasks.

Windows 8 Start Screen

A glimpse at the probably new start screen design for Windows 8

In addition to this, Windows 8 will support touchscreen devices, possible Microsoft’s way of saying “get ready for Windows Tablet guys!” who knows.

Microsoft knows that it has to pull something pretty special out of the bag this time, or it could seriously loose its foot in the computing market, not only due to the increased competition, but also because users are slowly moving away from desktops and laptops, and towards smart phones and tablets.

That’s pretty much all the information I have at the moment, however no doubt we will have loads of updates on Technology Bloggers for you, as soon as we find out more about this new OS 🙂

What do you think and hope for with Windows 8? Do you speculate that it will be another Vista – i.e. slow and laggy, incompatible, riddle with bugs, and hated by many tech gurus, or will it be like Vista to 7, a breath of fresh air?

Desktop Computers Destined for the Scrapheap?

14 Replies AlexS

The IBM Personal Computer (PC) was thirty years old last Friday, and according to those in the know, it might not be around for much longer. A blog post by Dr Mark Dean, one of IBM’s longest serving and most respected computer designers (who helped build the classic IBM 5150) has been making big waves across the technology sector after he claimed that the PC was heading in the same direction as vinyl records and the typewriter, light bulbs and the vacuum tube.

Dr Dean points out that PC’s and cheap laptops have had their time and place but that now they have helped to create a world which needs a new type of device depending on use and form.

Claiming that he himself has moved beyond the PC and only works on a tablet, he notes that PC’s will still be around a while longer but that “they’re no longer at the leading edge of computing.”

He goes on to say that it will not only be tablets and phones that cause the demise of PC’s but also a change of mindset about the place of computing in society and the progress of man. Instead of being about computing they are now a way of facilitating innovation not on the devices themselves, but “in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact.”

When IBM released the 5150 in 1981 it soon set the standard for how PC’s were to look and operate. The computer, which had a massive 16k of ram and cost more than $1,500 was one of the computers that began the ‘PC Era’, that revolutionized the way we work and live.

An IBM 5150 PC

An IBM Personal Computer (IBM 5150)

According to Dean, such a revolution is also underway once again. He is not alone – in another blog about the 30th anniversary of the PC, Microsoft’s Frank Shaw argued that the proliferation of tablets, phones and other such devices was the beginning of a new ‘PC Plus Era’, if not necessarily an indication of the end of the PC and traditional computer devices.

So what do you think? Are you ready to ditch that PC just yet?

Google Chrome Browser Set to Overtake Firefox

37 Replies AlexS

A recent study of online browsing habits in the UK revealed that Google Chrome is now the browser of choice for more than 23% of British internet users. More surprising still was the fact that it is now more popular than Mozilla’s Firefox and is even gaining ground on the current and ever-present browser bruiser, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Currently Internet Explorer has a whopping 45% of the market share in the UK but that figure is down from the year before and the use of IE seems to be constantly declining.

This loss of popularity for the ubiquitous Internet Explorer is even more depressing for Microsoft when you weigh up the fact that the browser comes pre-installed on nearly all UK computers at the moment. Google Chrome’s figures and market share are all the more impressive when you consider that it was only released three years ago.

Commenting on the UK figures Google put Chrome’s increasing popularity down to two things – firstly that they had promoted it with a blitz of advertising across the billboards and televisions of the United Kingdom (Chrome was the only time they have ever put an advert on British television); and secondly that they believed it was the best browser in terms of security and speed.

The Googles Chrome LogoLars Bak, Google’s chief designer on the Chrome browser commented recently that their aim when designing and building Chrome had been to make it the fastest browser possible whilst maintaining maximum security within a minimal design. Bak argued that once people have started using Chrome they will never want to go back to any of the other browsers:

“If a user tries a webpage using Chrome and suddenly it feels really fast and snappy, it’s naturally going to be really hard to go back wards (to a previously used browser).”

Certainly the numbers for the uptake of Google Chrome are astonishing. At the current rate Google Chrome’s success in the UK will be replicated worldwide very shortly. It is already in third place with a market share of 21% across the globe and is expected to overtake Firefox in the next year or so. Similarly it is predicted that it will be challenging IE within two or three years.

Google are banking on Chrome becoming so popular that it will offer a similar kind of ‘Halo Effect’ as the iPod did with Mac computers, and lead them to purchase the new Google Chromebook laptops. The Chromebook will be cloud based, with the Chrome browser being central to a different kind of operating system. Instead of taking up memory storage, data will be cloud based so as to make the Chromebooks as fast and clutter free as possible.