After weeks of "major restructuring" rumors, Microsoft is confirming a company-wide reorganization on Thursday. In a large staff memo, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer details how the company is aiming for a "One Microsoft," by altering its organization around the "devices and services" vision. The restructuring is massive and touches every corner of Microsoft, shifting its executives into different roles.
Terry Myerson will lead a new operating systems engineering group that will span across console, mobile device, and PC. Myerson used to lead the Windows Phone group at Microsoft, but will now oversee the development of Windows across the various ways it's used at Microsoft, including the Xbox OS. Julie Larson-Green takes over a new devices and studios engineering group. Larson-Green took over from former Windows chief Steven Sinofsky to run the Windows division. Her new role will see her lead a group with all hardware development out of Microsoft, including Surface, Xbox, and all PC-related accessories. A separate applications and services engineering group will be led by Qi Lu, focused on the apps, services, and search products from Microsoft.
On the enterprise side, a new cloud and enterprise engineering group led by Satya Nadella will oversee back-end technologies like datacenter, database, and other enterprise IT-related technologies. Nadella will also run Microsoft's tools and datacenter development, construction, and operations. Microsoft is keeping Eric Rudder in charge of the company's massive Research efforts, while Rick Rashid is moving away from Research into the operating systems group.
Marketing will now be led by Tami Reller, former Windows CFO, who will focus on a new marketing group. Mark Penn, the former Clinton electioneer behind Microsoft's anti-Google campaign will "take a broad view" of the marketing strategy according to Microsoft. COO Kevin Turner will continue leading the worldwide sales, field marketing, services, support, and stores.
Tony Bates, former head of Microsoft's Skype division, takes a bigger role that leads the business development and evangelism group. Bates will focus on partnerships like Yahoo and Nokia, while taking the many evangelist groups at Microsoft under his control. Finally, Amy Hood will lead a finance group reporting to Kevin Turner, while the legal group will be run by general counsel Brad Smith. HR responsibilities will continue under Lisa Brummel.
Overall, the changes are sweeping and huge for Microsoft as the company looks to change its structure and management in key areas to try and focus on a Microsoft that works together across divisions, rather than one that has traditionally competed internally. As part of the changes, former Office chief Kurt DelBene is retiring from the company. Ballmer rallies the troops several times in his memo, outlining "One strategy, united together, with great communication, decisiveness and positive energy is the only way to fly." He notes the company's successes, "but we all want more," he says. It's lots of change for Microsoft's 90,000+ employees, and Ballmer simply signed off his company-wide email with "Let’s go."
Source: http://foxhippo.com/698356
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Windows Phone tweaks back Lumia 1020's 41MP camera
Microsoft had to change its Windows Phone 8 architecture to accommodate the Nokia Lumia 1020p's super high-res image capture and processing.
Nokia's new Lumia 1020 may be a Windows 8 phone, but Microsoft's OS division had to do some shuffling before the phone's enormous 41-megapixel camera could work.
First, Microsoft had to tweak Windows Phone 8 architecture to let the Lumia 1020's camera software processes two images, Windows Phone SVP Joe Belfiore said in an interview Microsoft posted online: one that captures a terrific amount of visual detail, and the condensed 5-megapixel version that's actually small enough to upload and e-mail.
In addition, Microsoft also had to code Windows Phone 8's photo viewer to improve its zoom capability in order to handle the far greater information stored within the larger resolution Lumia 1020 shots.
These changes also equipped Nokia's own camera apps, which include the controls to manually change exposure settings as well as extra features like HDR and panorama modes.
Now, did it really take a year and a half to change up the Windows Phone 8 architecture enough to get the 41-megapixel experience of Nokia's 808 PureView Symbian phone transferred over to a Lumia device.
On the Microsoft side, Windows Phone 7, the OS at the time Nokia became a mostly-Windows Phone shop, just didn't have the chops to handle image processing at high levels, and despite knowing about Nokia's 41-megapixel aspirations from the get go, it apparently took some work for Windows Phone 8 OS to gain that capability, too.
On Nokia's side, I suspect they had to tame that huge bulge created by the camera module in the original phone, which undoubtedly took engineering work to pull off, before they could get enough carrier interest to sign on for the device.
Source: http://foxhippo.com/299873
Nokia's new Lumia 1020 may be a Windows 8 phone, but Microsoft's OS division had to do some shuffling before the phone's enormous 41-megapixel camera could work.
First, Microsoft had to tweak Windows Phone 8 architecture to let the Lumia 1020's camera software processes two images, Windows Phone SVP Joe Belfiore said in an interview Microsoft posted online: one that captures a terrific amount of visual detail, and the condensed 5-megapixel version that's actually small enough to upload and e-mail.
In addition, Microsoft also had to code Windows Phone 8's photo viewer to improve its zoom capability in order to handle the far greater information stored within the larger resolution Lumia 1020 shots.
These changes also equipped Nokia's own camera apps, which include the controls to manually change exposure settings as well as extra features like HDR and panorama modes.
Now, did it really take a year and a half to change up the Windows Phone 8 architecture enough to get the 41-megapixel experience of Nokia's 808 PureView Symbian phone transferred over to a Lumia device.
On the Microsoft side, Windows Phone 7, the OS at the time Nokia became a mostly-Windows Phone shop, just didn't have the chops to handle image processing at high levels, and despite knowing about Nokia's 41-megapixel aspirations from the get go, it apparently took some work for Windows Phone 8 OS to gain that capability, too.
On Nokia's side, I suspect they had to tame that huge bulge created by the camera module in the original phone, which undoubtedly took engineering work to pull off, before they could get enough carrier interest to sign on for the device.
Source: http://foxhippo.com/299873
Friday, July 5, 2013
Microsoft Will Pay Ex-Windows Boss Steven Sinofsky For His Unvested Stock Worth Over $14 Million Today
Microsoft has agreed to cash out 418,361 shares of unvested stock awarded to ex-Windows boss Steven Sinofsky before he left the company on November 12, 2012.
If all of them were paid out today, with the stock trading at ~$34, Sinofsky would be getting $14.2 million.
Those were part of the terms of Sinofsky's retirement revealed in a form filed to the SEC and spotted Wednesday by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley.
Specifically, Microsoft will pay Sinofsky for all of his outstanding unvested stock granted prior to its fiscal year 2013, which just ended in June. He'll also get half of the stock awarded for his performance during fiscal year 2013, it said.
Microsoft will pay Sinofsky over time, through August 2016. He'll get the market price on the day the stock is payable so if the stock falls, it will be less than $14 million and if rises, he'll get more.
The SEC agreement also revealed other terms of Sinofsky's retirement. He can't take a job with one of Microsoft's competitors before Dec. 31, 2013. He was forbidden from poaching Microsoft employees or customers, from bashing Microsoft and from revealing Microsoft's intellectual property secrets. They both agreed not to sue each other, too.
Vesting is typically used to ensure that an employee will stick around. In this case, Microsoft PR told Foley that given Sinofsky's 23 years at the company, Microsoft offered him "the economic value of the stock awards he earned during his employment, similar to the retirement benefits we provide employees who work at least 15 years and retire at 55 or older."
With this agreement, Sinofsky is also obligated to help Microsoft "with intellectual property litigation until January 1, 2017," Microsoft PR pointed out. Sinofsky has been involved with at least two such lawsuits in the past few years, Foley reports.
Source: http://foxhippo.com/496469
If all of them were paid out today, with the stock trading at ~$34, Sinofsky would be getting $14.2 million.
Those were part of the terms of Sinofsky's retirement revealed in a form filed to the SEC and spotted Wednesday by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley.
Specifically, Microsoft will pay Sinofsky for all of his outstanding unvested stock granted prior to its fiscal year 2013, which just ended in June. He'll also get half of the stock awarded for his performance during fiscal year 2013, it said.
Microsoft will pay Sinofsky over time, through August 2016. He'll get the market price on the day the stock is payable so if the stock falls, it will be less than $14 million and if rises, he'll get more.
The SEC agreement also revealed other terms of Sinofsky's retirement. He can't take a job with one of Microsoft's competitors before Dec. 31, 2013. He was forbidden from poaching Microsoft employees or customers, from bashing Microsoft and from revealing Microsoft's intellectual property secrets. They both agreed not to sue each other, too.
Vesting is typically used to ensure that an employee will stick around. In this case, Microsoft PR told Foley that given Sinofsky's 23 years at the company, Microsoft offered him "the economic value of the stock awards he earned during his employment, similar to the retirement benefits we provide employees who work at least 15 years and retire at 55 or older."
With this agreement, Sinofsky is also obligated to help Microsoft "with intellectual property litigation until January 1, 2017," Microsoft PR pointed out. Sinofsky has been involved with at least two such lawsuits in the past few years, Foley reports.
Source: http://foxhippo.com/496469
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Microsoft rolls out first Windows 8.1 bug fixes
The new updates correct glitches in Windows Store apps and Internet Explorer 11, among other items.
The Windows 8.1 Preview has received its first set of bug fixes less than a week after its debut.
Rolled out Tuesday, the six updates address several issues, two of which are rated important and four rated as recommended items.
One of the important updates is simply a virus definition update for Windows Defender, the default security program for Windows 8 and 8.1. The other update improves the compatibility between Windows 8.1 and several third-party programs, such as AutoCAD, Parallels Desktop, Norton security software, and AVG Internet Security.
Among the four recommended updates, the first one fixes a problem with Windows Store apps crashing upon launch. The second one says it "improves the robustness of data files in Windows 8.1" but doesn't indicate exactly what that means. The third update resolves a bug that prevented Google account holders from signing in through certain applications. And the final update addresses an issue that kept IE 11 users from resuming file downloads.
The same updates are available for users of the Windows RT 8.1 Preview. As always, Windows users with automatic updates turned on need not do anything for the updates to install. Those with automatic updates turned off will need to access the Windows Update screen in the Updates & Recovery section under PC Settings to manually trigger the updates
Source: http://foxhippo.com/533492
The Windows 8.1 Preview has received its first set of bug fixes less than a week after its debut.
Rolled out Tuesday, the six updates address several issues, two of which are rated important and four rated as recommended items.
One of the important updates is simply a virus definition update for Windows Defender, the default security program for Windows 8 and 8.1. The other update improves the compatibility between Windows 8.1 and several third-party programs, such as AutoCAD, Parallels Desktop, Norton security software, and AVG Internet Security.
Among the four recommended updates, the first one fixes a problem with Windows Store apps crashing upon launch. The second one says it "improves the robustness of data files in Windows 8.1" but doesn't indicate exactly what that means. The third update resolves a bug that prevented Google account holders from signing in through certain applications. And the final update addresses an issue that kept IE 11 users from resuming file downloads.
The same updates are available for users of the Windows RT 8.1 Preview. As always, Windows users with automatic updates turned on need not do anything for the updates to install. Those with automatic updates turned off will need to access the Windows Update screen in the Updates & Recovery section under PC Settings to manually trigger the updates
Source: http://foxhippo.com/533492
Windows 8's Windows Store hits the 100,000 app milestone as it gains momentum
Children have a way of growing up fast, and the new kid on the app-store block certainly hasn’t bucked that trend. Late on Tuesday, Microsoft announced that the Windows Store has crossed the 100,000 app threshold, mere days after the company’s big Build conference and a scant eight months after the launch of Windows 8.
Sure, the store didn’t hit that mark in the three months that one ambitious Microsoft executive predicted, but the Windows Store did reach 100k apps faster than both Google Play and iOS’s App Store (albeit long after those markets established a consumer thirst for apps). And, after a somewhat sluggish start and an extreme slow down shortly after the holidays, it’s no small accomplishment for the Windows Store to hit 100,000 apps so soon after its conception.
The Windows Store isn’t complete despite hitting the lofty number. There’s still a general dearth of big-name apps, and both the quality and the quantity of specific slices of the store can be … questionable, as I covered in-depth earlier this year. Read: A lot of those apps are pretty spammy, or rip-offs playing off the name of more established software and services.
Things have gotten better since then, however. From video to music to games and business, most people will be able to find enough apps to scratch their mobile itch—and many, many more apps have been released since those round-ups were written. There is still work to do, but the bones are there. Desktop aficionados will even find modern-style conversions of old favorites like WinZip and (soon) the VLC media player.
Yes, the Windows Store has 100,000 apps, and it’s a major milestone—but numbers alone do not an app store make. Quantity is nice, but quality is the true differentiator.
And Microsoft finally seems to be putting the pedal to the quality metal. The company has long been wooing developers to the Windows Store, and the number of new apps spiked in the days before Build. And it’s not just small fish swimming down the Windows 8 river; premier offerings like Facebook, Flipboard, Foursquare, and more are going to land on Windows 8 in the coming months, while stars like Twitter and MLB.tv have already landed.
Even better, those apps will have some fancy new digs to call home. The Windows 8.1 update includes a bevy of new apps, including a completely revamped Windows Store with a whole new look, personalized recommendations, a UI that minimizes needless scrolling, and—finally—short text descriptions below each app in the menu screens.
You’d think that hitting 100,000 apps would be the perfect time to pause, take a breath, and reflect on what you’ve done. For Microsoft, all the hard work is just starting to hint at a payoff now that this milestone has been reached.
This is no time to let up steam: Windows 8 and the modern UI lives or dies by the Windows Store. At 100,000 apps strong, Microsoft is just starting to build momentum, and it must be maintained. If Microsoft continues along the trajectory it’s on, in time, the Windows Store could become a source of strength rather than a source of contention.
Source: http://foxhippo.com/969945
Sure, the store didn’t hit that mark in the three months that one ambitious Microsoft executive predicted, but the Windows Store did reach 100k apps faster than both Google Play and iOS’s App Store (albeit long after those markets established a consumer thirst for apps). And, after a somewhat sluggish start and an extreme slow down shortly after the holidays, it’s no small accomplishment for the Windows Store to hit 100,000 apps so soon after its conception.
The Windows Store isn’t complete despite hitting the lofty number. There’s still a general dearth of big-name apps, and both the quality and the quantity of specific slices of the store can be … questionable, as I covered in-depth earlier this year. Read: A lot of those apps are pretty spammy, or rip-offs playing off the name of more established software and services.
Things have gotten better since then, however. From video to music to games and business, most people will be able to find enough apps to scratch their mobile itch—and many, many more apps have been released since those round-ups were written. There is still work to do, but the bones are there. Desktop aficionados will even find modern-style conversions of old favorites like WinZip and (soon) the VLC media player.
Yes, the Windows Store has 100,000 apps, and it’s a major milestone—but numbers alone do not an app store make. Quantity is nice, but quality is the true differentiator.
And Microsoft finally seems to be putting the pedal to the quality metal. The company has long been wooing developers to the Windows Store, and the number of new apps spiked in the days before Build. And it’s not just small fish swimming down the Windows 8 river; premier offerings like Facebook, Flipboard, Foursquare, and more are going to land on Windows 8 in the coming months, while stars like Twitter and MLB.tv have already landed.
Even better, those apps will have some fancy new digs to call home. The Windows 8.1 update includes a bevy of new apps, including a completely revamped Windows Store with a whole new look, personalized recommendations, a UI that minimizes needless scrolling, and—finally—short text descriptions below each app in the menu screens.
You’d think that hitting 100,000 apps would be the perfect time to pause, take a breath, and reflect on what you’ve done. For Microsoft, all the hard work is just starting to hint at a payoff now that this milestone has been reached.
This is no time to let up steam: Windows 8 and the modern UI lives or dies by the Windows Store. At 100,000 apps strong, Microsoft is just starting to build momentum, and it must be maintained. If Microsoft continues along the trajectory it’s on, in time, the Windows Store could become a source of strength rather than a source of contention.
Source: http://foxhippo.com/969945
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