Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft has so alienated Windows RT tablet manufacturers with its own-brand Surface that OEMs are abandoning the platform, insiders claim, with HP leading the way in ditching its roadmap. The PC company had intended to launch a number of Qualcomm-powered Windows RT models, it’s said, but according to SemiAccurate‘s sources HP dropped its plans after Microsoft’s handling of Surface and OS licensing.

Rumors that Microsoft’s Surface agenda was fueled by a general sense of disappointment over what it saw OEMs developing broke earlier this week, with analyst’s sources claiming that apathy had been the company’s motivation to go it alone. “If Microsoft had seen compelling enough plans from [PC makers],” Moor Insights & Strategy’s Patrick Moor said, after talks with Windows RT OEMs, ”they wouldn’t have needed to do this.”

However, this new batch of rumors suggests that rather than just prepare Surface as a “Plan B” of sorts, Microsoft actively took what it knew of each OEM’s Windows RT tablet – and what flaws in each it had identified – and used that knowledge to prepare its own range. Meanwhile, Microsoft also supposedly liberated its own designers and engineers from having to abide by the same restrictions that third-party OEMs were required to operate under.

Surface also stands a chance of being priced more competitively than rival Windows RT tablets, because Microsoft supposedly will not be paying the roughly $90-per-unit licensing fee. In short, a decision that was seemingly intended to motivate OEMs into being more imaginative with their Windows hardware could well have backfired spectacularly.

HP is not the last to jump ship, it’s said. Although no other specific names are mentioned, the sources apparently claim that “just about every OEM out there is scrapping one or more [Windows RT] designs, with most renewing Android efforts with every resource at their disposal.”

Update: HP confirms the decision; more here.

HP reportedly first to ditch Windows RT tablet plans over Microsoft’s Surface is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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The Q1 earnings news from RIM of layoffs and a delay in its next generation of handsets has unsurprisingly led to some rumors from the usual “people familiar with the situation,” according to Reuters. The options reportedly being considered by the board probably also won’t shock you, like the possibility of following former co-CEO Jim Balsillie’s plan to open up its network to others and / or or sell it outright. An alternative path comes from Microsoft and Steve Ballmer, who has reportedly been putting a full court press on the folks in Waterloo to pull a Nokia and bring their arms to the Windows OS camp. That choice is reportedly less attractive because it would mean giving up technology independence, but we’ll see how long that feeling lasts if future earnings projections remain similarly dismal.

Reuters: RIM could open up BlackBerry network to others, join up with Ballmer originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 02:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft has been promising a cheap-and-cheerful upgrade path to Windows 8 for those who buy new PCs. But what about that five-year-old PC in the basement? If the historically well-connected Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet is right, the upgrade path will go further back — much further. Although upgraders will still want Windows 7 if they need to carry over absolutely everything, tipsters claim that settings can transfer from releases as old as Windows Vista SP1. Those with truly ancient PCs (we’re looking at you, corporate customers) can even bring over personal files from an OS as dated as Windows XP SP3. Like we saw last time around, some of the 7-to-8 upgrade rules are a bit Byzantine — 7 Professional users can’t step down to the non-Pro Windows 8 release, for example, and it’s equally verboten to change language editions or move from 32- to 64-bit code without a full-scale reinstallation. The extra-long olive branch will be slightly unusual for Microsoft if it’s confirmed, but then the company is also trying to move along a user base that in some cases has clung to XP for more than a decade. Redmond is no doubt eager to get rid of our dependency issues.

Microsoft reportedly plans Windows 8 upgrades all the way from XP, wants us to just let go of the past originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When it came to light that Microsoft was planning to remove the Start button from Windows for good, many ardent fans of its functionality were unhappy. Now, Microsoft has explained why it made the choice to ditch the button, which has graced PC desktops for over 17 years. More »

Microsoft’s been dishing out details on all kinds of goodies we’ll see in Windows 8, and the Photos app is the latest to get the behind the scenes treatment from the Building Windows 8 blog. If you downloaded the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, then you got to check out a trial version of Photos — and its four-column Metro UI that can access your local pics, plus those from Facebook, Flickr and SkyDrive. In the Release Preview, Microsoft’s given users who install the SkyDrive desktop app — regardless of OS — the option to have all their photos archived automatically in the cloud. That means all those photos are then accessible via the Photos app on any Windows 8 device. The app’s also gained the ability to import photos directly, and sharing them’s gotten easier as the Share charm now lets you send them as attachments or SkyDrive links. Want to know more? A fuller accounting of the Photos app awaits at the source, as does a video showing off all the fresh features.

Microsoft dishes details on Windows 8 Photos app originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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