Category Archives: Windows 8

Windows Store Crosses 40,000 Apps Mark

It’s been a while since we last updated the Windows Store app count,last time we checked it had over 35,000 apps almost a month ago and we expected that to exceed 50,000 apps by the month end.

But it seems that the app submission has slowed down a bit.According to MetroStore Scanner site which tracks the Windows Store apps stats currently Windows Store has 40,158 apps.So within a span of 30 days the store has managed to add just over 5000 apps to its kitty which is on a lower side if we compare it with the kind of start it had.
Currently there are Over 28,000 apps in the China Windows Store region while the United States Windows Store regional apps count is just over 26,000 apps.Though there seems to be a drop in the number of apps for the month we can expect better number by the next month end eying the launch of the Surface Pro tablet which is slated for February 9 launch.

Source[MetroStore Scanner]

Reminder:Windows 8 Upgrade Offer Ends in 3 Days!

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It’s been over 3 months for the launch of Windows 8.Initially Microsoft had some lucrative offers going on eying the mega launch of their new operating system.

There were two upgrade offers,one with a price tag of $14.99 for those who have bought their Windows 7 based PCs starting from June 2nd 2012 could avail this upgrade offer to Windows 8 Pro and the existing (those who have bought their windows based system before 2nd June )Windows 7 ,XP and Vista users could avail the $39.99 upgrade offer.

This offer is about to expire on 31st January(3 days from now). so if you haven’t yet upgraded your PC with Windows 8 Pro this is the right time to do it,because from February 1 the Windows 8 upgrade will cost your pocket $119 while the Windows 8 Pro upgrade would cost you $199 !

So head over to Windows Upgrade Offer website and get your Windows 8 Pro license right now?

[Rumor] Windows RT Outlook Client in the Works !

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Microsoft launched the Windows RT platform along with the Windows 8 public release with the release of Windows RT based devices from Asus,Dell,Lenovo,Samsung and their very own Surface RT Tablet.

All the existing Windows RT devices include a special Office Home & Student 2013 RT Preview version which includes Word,PowerPoint,One Note and Excel tools of Microsoft Office.But according to the latest rumor floating around the web coming from ZDNet who has learnt from 3 unnamed sources that Windows RT version of Outlook Client i.e “Outlook RT” which would run on ARM based devices is under internal testing.But according to the sources there is a mixed reaction from different teams about whether this “Outlook RT” Would be commercially made available or not.

Currently there is a Mail Client for Windows 8/RT platform which is not so good as compared to the Outlook Client,there are also talks about the current Mail app being renamed to Outlook app rather than having the RT version of the app,since we already have Office Outlook,Outlook for Windows Phone and the Outlook.com and other members are in favor of bringing the real Outlook RT app to the new and emerging platform.

Source[ZDNet]

Microsoft Earns Record $ 21.46 Billion Revenue in Q2 2012!

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Microsoft Recently announced their earnings for the last quarter(Q4 2012) with a record number of $21.46 billion with a nett profit of $6.38 billion,a tad bit lesser than the profits for the same quarter last year(Q4 2011) which netted $6.62 billion.

These numbers are courtesy the Windows 8,Windows Phone 8 and the Surface tablet launch last quarter.Though they didn’t share any specific details about how many Windows 8 devices have been sold,they mentioned about the Windows Division earnings for the last quarter reaching $5.9 billion which is up 24% For the same quarter a year ago,might give us an indication of where the things are going for Windows 8 and the devices,as we already know that Windows 8 has sold over 60 million licenses till date courtesy the Lucrative upgrade offer from Microsoft.

With their popular Office suite and Surface Pro nearing the release dates we could see even larger profit numbers by the next quarter earnings announcement.

Checkout the Press Release for More details.

Surface Pro to go on Sale from Feb 9 in US and Canada

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Microsoft has now officially revealed the release dates for the Surface Pro,which was supposed to launch in January month,will now be released on 9th February in the United States and Canada.

As announced earlier by the General Manager of Microsoft Surface Panos Panay on The Official Microsoft Blog,the device will go on sale on February 9 through all Microsoft Retail Stores in the United States,Microsoftstore.com,staples and Best Buy,while in Canada it will be available in number of unspecified locations.

The Surface Pro will be available in 64 GB and 128 GB versions with pricing of $899 and $999 respecitively,both the Versions will include Surface Pen,but the users will have to buy the Touch/Type Cver separatly.

Microsoft will also be expanding their Surface RT devices market with 13 additional markets to be added in coming weeks including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Checkout the Details on the Official Microsoft Blog.

Microsoft Sold around 1 million Surface RT’s Last Quarter according to UBS

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Microsoft handsomely launched their first hardware tablet device i.e Surface RT with the public release of Windows 8 and due to early distribution issues there were problems with the Shipments of the tablet eventually forcing Microsoft to change their distribution strategy to allow Non Microsoft channels to sell the devices.

Though we haven’t got any official numbers for the sales apart from the 60 million Windows 8 Licenses sold by Microsoft,according to UBS Analyst Brent Thill Microsoft has managed to sell just 1 million Surface RTs last quarter which is down from his previous estimate of 2 million tablets for the same.

According to Brent primary reason for this is that in the same quarter Apple sold over 20 million iPads so people still choosing iPad over Surface RT and also one of the reasons is the earlier distribution stragegy of not allowing non Microsoft retailers to sell the tablet,though he still feel that with the launch of Surface Pro which runs on a full fledged Windows 8 operating system would help the sales and would give a tough competition to iPad.

The Surface Pro is slated for release later this month with a starting price of $899 for the 64 GB version.

Source[BusinessInsider]

Windows RT Jailbreak allows Mac OS to run on Surface RT!

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Last week we reported that Windows RT platform has been Jailbroken and allows the unsigned ARM compiled desktop apps to run on the platform.But it doesn’t stop just there.

Image Credits [Steven Troughton Smith via Twitter]
According to The recent reports by TheVerge an Irish Programmer Steve Troughton-Smith has jailbroken his Surface RT device with the Jailbreak tool and was able to run Apple’s OSX Server operating system on the Surface RT!

This is just the begining.With some of the XDA developers taking interest in the Windows RT platform we might soon see a Homebrew community growing for this new platform and it would be also interesting to see if Microsoft goes against it or does something like their previous attempts with the Chevron WP team for Windows Phone platform.

Source[XDA Forums]

Dell Latitude 10 Essentials Announced,Starts at $499

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Dell,one of the prime Windows 8 hardware partners,who has already launched a number of Windows 8 devices at launch last year,has announced yet another Windows 8 device.

This is a stripped down version of their Dell Latitude 10,named Latitude 10 Essentials powered by Intel Atom Processor,running Windows 8 operating system.

Here are the differences between the two Latitude tablets,

The 32 GB version of latitude 10 Essentials will go on sale in US in coming months at a starting price of $499 while the 64 GB version has been released at a price tag of $579.
This would be an interesting price bracket for Windows 8 tablets and would eventually force the other competitors to bring their tablet prices down for Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets.

Source[Dell], Via [Microsoft-News]

Panasonic Announces FZ-G1 Windows 8 Toughbook Tablet

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We have seen many a tablets ranging from the likes of Acer W510 to the Asus tablet to the Microsoft Surface RT.microsoft touted about the build quality of the Surface RT testing it with a stage drop at launch as well as the all Skating thingy former Microsoftie Steven Sinofsky did.

But this time around there seems to be a solid competitor in the making from Panasonic,who recently announced a Windows 8 tablet under their Toughbook range.The FZ-G1 Windows 8 toughbook tablet is 4 foot drop resistant,dust trsistamt and water resistant!
Apart from all these amazing features the device also sport good hardware specifications like Intel Core i5 processor and upto 8 GB of RAM support,with storage options of 128GB and 256GB SSD,to go with a Stylus for the capacitive touch screen.

Though this would be a pricy affair when it releases later this year in March with a starting price of $2900.

Via[Neowin],Source[Panasonic]

60 Million Windows 8 Licenses Sold

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It’s been a joyride for Windows 8 for the past few months,since its launch on 26th October 2012.We already got where it was headed when we got the news about 4 Million upgrades in 4 days of its launch and then over 40 million license sold within a month of general availability.

Today as announced At the 11th Annual J.P. Morgan Tech Forum at CES2013 the software giant has managed to sell over 60 million Windows 8 licenses till date.This number includes The sales of Windows 8 OEMs for new devices and the upgrades.

Talking about the Windows Store,as the store inches closer to the 50,000 apps mark,the store has already reached 100 million apps downloads within just two months of General Availability.

Source[Blogging Windows]