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Month: February 2009 (Page 9 of 10)

Windows Vista ‘New Coke’ of operating systems?

computerworld – Forrester research compared the enterprise adoption of Windows Vista to the disastrous introduction ‘New Coke’ back in July. That’s actually a pretty good analogy. I even think Microsoft will be readily willing to admit it too — as soon as Windows 7 is ready to replace it in the ‘Classic’ sense. Two reports came out this week which show that Microsoft continues to fall in both operating systems and browsers.

It’s been over two years since Microsoft launched Windows Vista, but fewer than 10 percent of PCs in the enterprise are running the successor to the company’s eight-year-old Windows XP. That’s only up from 8.8 percent in July. Still, a very Microsoft-friendly Forrester Research report uses this data to say that 31% of businesses are “Warming to the idea of Vista”.

Perhaps because there isn’t, as of yet, a way to upgrade directly from XP to Windows 7?

Considering that no matter what IT Managers end up putting on their desktops, new PC sales are tallied as Vista sales, that’s not a high number. The only computers that can register as XP sales are the consumer-friendly Netbooks which are essentially useless with Vista on them. Sure Sony bravely puts Vista on their Viao P, but everyone who can get their hands one a can also get their hands on Windows 7.

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Microsoft’s Windows 7 line-up: The good, the bad and the ugly

ZDnet – If you were one of those individuals holding out hope that Microsoft might go the way of Apple and move to one or two SKUs for Windows 7, your prayers have gone unanswered. But there still is some good news in what’s on tap when Windows 7 ships, most likely in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

Microsoft went public on February 3 with its planned version (SKU) line-up — but not pricing — for Windows 7. After receiving an admittedly very quick SKU overview from the Softies yesterday, here are my first impressions of Microsoft’s new SKU plan.

The Good

Microsoft learned a lot of lessons from Vista — among them, that too many SKUs with too few justifications created customer confusion.

Microsoft is putting the bulk of its marketing dollars and muscle behind just two of the Windows 7 SKUs: Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional. “We think over 80 percent of customers will be on those two SKUs,” Bill Veghte, Senior Vice President of the Windows business said. “That’s where we are putting our marketing focus.”

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TapeLink USB transfers old cassette audio to computer

electronista – Alesis has released the TapeLink USB, a dual-cassette deck designed to digitally archive audio. The device allows users to transfer cassette recordings onto a hard disk, flash memory, CD or iPod. Connection to a computer is provided via USB, with support for 16-bit, 44.1 kHz CD-quality recordings. Two different dubbing modes are available for either normal or high-speed dubbing. To protect tapes from damage, the deck also features full auto-stop capability. Users can extract audio from either metal or CrO2 tapes, while LEDs offer a visual reference to the sound levels.

The device comes bundled with three different applications; SoundSoap Standalone Edition (SE) for reduction of background noises such as room noise and electrical hum, Audacity audio-editing software, and EZ Tape Converter to assist with transfers. TapeLink USB is compatible with Mac OS X and carries an estimated street price of $200.

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Cisco goes – what else? – green

Fortune – Silicon Valley powerhouse Cisco became the latest tech company to jump on the green bandwagon this week, with the announcement Tuesday of its new EnergyWise technology. Simply put, EnergyWise is a free update to IOS, the operating system for the company’s ubiquitous Catalyst switches, that enables customers to monitor and regulate energy consumption of any device connected to the network.

According to the company, 300 engineers across various departments have been working on development – funded by Cisco’s (CSCO, Fortune 500) $5 billion annual R&D budget – over the last three and a half years.

“Information technology is responsible for 2% of greenhouse gases. Our vision is to use the network to affect the other 98%,” says Laura Ipsen, senior vice president of public policy and government affairs. “A lot of us in the IT world think about always-on. But we want to go from always-on to always-available.”

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Cell phones permeate personal moments

MSNBC – It’s unseemly, to say the least, to be on your cell during a funeral. But there are folks who do it, as well as take calls during other inappropriate times, including intimate moments or while inside a place of worship.

One of Windows Mobile’s slogans is “Do more of what you want to do — on the go,” but no one at Microsoft likely imagined users would do exactly that: use the phone while on the toilet, during a funeral or even in the midst of “extremely intimate moments.”

Microsoft Australia polled more than 2,500 mobile users in Australia, China, India, Japan and Taiwan and found many of them say they use their cell phones during instances most consider private and off-limits to such intrusions. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

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