When Microsoft released Windows 95 almost 20 years ago, people packed into stores to be among the first lucky buyers to get their hands on this cutting edge new technology. Microsoft had an iron grip on productivity software in the enterprise, but even ordinary consumers were accustomed to paying hundreds of dollars for software. Two decades later, Microsoft is releasing Windows 10. But most people won’t have to rush out and purchase a copy. Anyone with a copy of Windows dating back to Windows 7 can upgrade for free, a first for Microsoft.

The decision to forgo that traditional revenue stream and attempt to broaden the install base of Windows 10 highlights the tough choices Microsoft must make as it tries to claw its way back into the competition for mobile. It also needs to marry the strength of the slowly waning desktop world to its offerings on phone, tablets, consoles, and the cloud. The goal is to create “universal” apps that work on Windows 10 and across Windows mobile, as well as on computing platforms like Xbox and the forthcoming HoloLens.

Along with growing its user base to woo developers, Microsoft hopes it can use a freemium model, giving away more of its core software but monetizing in other ways. The margins will never again be as fat as they were in the glory days of Windows 95, but the number of people who own a personal computing device is now far larger. If Microsoft could capture a significant portion of the smartphone market, the revenue opportunity could be far greater.

“Help me remove this virus from my computer!”

Microsoft rolled out the Get Windows 10 app on June 1 in order to let Windows 7 and 8.1 users know that the new version of its operating system is available free of charge, but since this program showed up all of a sudden on users’ computers, some believe that their PCs actually got infected.

Poor communication?

Needless to say, this isn’t a virus and is actually supposed to let you take advantage of a great promo, but it’s a little bit worrying that pushing such a tool out of nowhere to users’ computers could make some think that they got infected.

AN ENTERPRISING COMPANY has found a loophole for those who don’t automatically qualify for a free upgrade to Windows 10. It’s still not 100 percent clear who is getting what yet, but we already know that enterprise customers definitely aren’t getting a free ride.

Zinstall allows users to migrate to Windows 10 and keep all their settings and programs intact, whereas otherwise they would be required to perform a clean install.

The company uses a sneaky method whereby it upgrades to Windows 10 via a copy of Windows 7, which it bundles in with software to preserve all your settings from start to finish.

The service costs $199, which is exactly the same as buying a retail version of Windows 10, with the advantage of a smooth migration with all your files intact, which will save a fortune in man hours alone for the average SMB.

Zinstall was founded in 2009 and allows users seamlessly to transfer from any version of Windows to any other, which is quite often not possible using an out of the box Windows setting. It uses container files to freeze your old machine’s settings and spit them out into the new version.

The service, complete with all licences and the software, will be available on 29 July when Windows 10 is due to hit the streets

Over the past few weeks, I’ve shared with you our mission, strategy, structure and culture. Today, I want to discuss our plans to focus our talent and investments in areas where we have differentiation and potential for growth, as well as how we’ll partner to drive better scale and results. In all we do, we will take a long-term view and build deep technical capability that allows us to innovate in the future.

With that context, I want to update you on decisions impacting our phone business and share more on last week’s mapping and display advertising announcements.

Phones. Today, we announced a fundamental restructuring of our phone business.
In the near term, we will run a more effective phone portfolio, with better products and speed to market given the recently formed Windows and Devices Group.
In the longer term, Microsoft devices will spark innovation, create new categories and generate opportunity for the Windows ecosystem more broadly.

Mapping. Last week, we announced changes to our mapping business and transferred some of our imagery acquisition operations to Uber.

Advertising. We also announced our decision to sharpen our focus in advertising platform technology and concentrate on search, while we partner with AOL and AppNexus for display.

Analysis: Microsoft is Scaling Back on Windows Phone Dramatically
https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/windows-phone/4512/analysis-microsoft-is-scaling-back-on-windows-phone-dramatically

Yes, we were right to be worried about Windows Phone. Satya Nadella’s email only touches on first-party phones for the short term, buying Microsoft time to transition to a “mobility of experiences” future in which it doesn’t matter which phones its customers use.

Windows Phone is failing

Actually, that’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. The company that makes over 96 percent of all Windows Phone handsets in use just wrote off $7.6 billion related to its Windows Phone assets, and has announced plans to dramatically scale back its mobile operations. And, yes, Windows Phone has fallen to just 3 percent market share worldwide too. Things aren’t going well. Sorry.
Phone business restructuring means a total loss from Nokia purchase

Nadella said that Microsoft was “fundamental restructuring” its phone business. This includes an “impairment charge” of approximately $7.6 billion related to assets associated with the acquisition of the Nokia devices and services businesses last year, plus an additional restructuring charge of approximately $750 million to $850 million. When you consider that Microsoft paid $7.2 billion for the only parts of Nokia that mattered (minus HERE), this is a total disaster. Nokia was going out of business. Now only a tiny part of what used to be Nokia remains. And I believe the remainder is on borrowed time.

Microsoft plugs Westminster as one of its four bridges to the future of Windows Universal Apps
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-plugs-westminster-as-one-of-its-four-bridges-to-the-future-of-windows-universal-apps/

Project Westminster is a way of converting web-based apps into Windows 10 apps. That and three other bridges — to convert Android, iOS, and Win32 programs — are part of Microsoft’s attempt to create the world’s best app store.

Microsoft programmer Kiril Seksenov has published Project Westminster in a nutshell, a short and readable guide to converting web-based apps into Universal Windows Apps that can run on a wide range of Windows 10 devices.

This is just one of the four bridges announced at the Build2015 conference, the others being bridges for Android and Apple iOS apps, and for traditional Windows programs.

What Microsoft calls “Hosted Web Apps” are apps that run mainly on the web, but are packaged and distributed via the Windows Store. This allows for apps that can be updated on the fly (web app publishers just update their servers) but can also exploit local features (such as Live Tiles and Cortana voice commands) and local content.

The main drawback with hosted web apps is that users may try to run them when they don’t have an internet connection. However, Seksenov says: “Navigation to a local page can be done using the ms-appx:/// or ms-appx-web:/// protocols, allowing you to load html/css/JS from inside the package for an offline experience.”

Seksenov says that Project Westminster is “agnostic” to developer preferences and workflows

Programmers can use their favourite text editor, code repository and hosting site. Obviously, Microsoft might prefer it if they used Visual Studio and Azure, but they can use Atom, GitHub and Amazon AWS if they want.

Project Westminster in a nutshell
http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2015/07/06/project-westminster-in-a-nutshell/

While building Hosted Web Apps, Project Westminster is agnostic to the developer workflow that you’ve chosen. Simply put, you can keep using your favorite code editor, source control and hosting service while developing your website.

Once your website is published as a Hosted Web App in the Windows 10 Store you are able to continuously deploy updates by pushing changes to your servers – no need to re-submit your app to the Store. You also gain the opportunity to integrate with the platform by directly calling into the Windows namespace from JavaScript hosted on your servers without the need for packaged code.

Project Westminster represents an evolution in our continued Web App investment. HTML/JavaScript apps have existed on the platform since Windows 8. However, they were restricted to packaged apps.

A Standards approach

Developers who build for the web do so to build apps that run in any browser or on any platform. For that reason we are also contributing to the development of the W3C Manifest for Web Apps. When complete, this will be a single, common manifest that will support web apps in all environments.

In the meantime, Microsoft along with other developers in the community have been supporting a new open source project called Manifoldjs. Manifoldjs is the simplest way to build hosted apps across all platforms. Manifoldjs starts with the W3C manifest and from it, builds hosted apps for Windows 10, along with apps for iOS, Android, FireFoxOS and Chrome.

You can use Manifoldjs to generate apps on the website, or as a command line tool. Once you have node.js installed, just simply type “npm install manifoldjs –g” and you’re set. Find out more about Manifoldjs by visiting the project’s website at http://www.manifoldjs.com .

Microsoft announces restructuring of phone hardware business
http://news.microsoft.com/2015/07/08/microsoft-announces-restructuring-of-phone-hardware-business/

Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to restructure the company’s phone hardware business to better focus and align resources. Microsoft also announced the reduction of up to 7,800 positions, primarily in the phone business. As a result, the company will record an impairment charge of approximately $7.6 billion related to assets associated with the acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services (NDS) business in addition to a restructuring charge of approximately $750 million to $850 million.

Microsoft plans to announce a major new round of layoffs as early as Wednesday, as the company seeks to further cut costs in a shifting technology landscape.

The layoffs are in addition to the about 18,000 employees that Microsoft said it planned to let go a year ago, according to people briefed on the plans, who asked for anonymity because the details were confidential. The new job cuts are expected to affect people in Microsoft’s hardware group, among other parts of the company, including the struggling smartphone business that it acquired from Nokia last year in a $7.2 billion deal.

At the end of March, Microsoft had more than 118,000 employees globally.

Microsoft is not expected to leave the smartphone business in the near term, given the importance of mobile devices in the technology business.

MICROSOFT WILL RELEASE the RTM edition of Windows 10 to its partners later this week, according to a report at The Verge.

It’s a significant milestone, but it would be wrong to call this the ‘finished product’ as Windows 10 is designed to be a perpetual beta, constantly being updated and improved.

That said, the RTM will be the version that will appear in the PCs you buy in the shop, and will be bettered only by bug fixes that happen between now and 29 July when the rollout proper starts.

Microsoft to finalize Windows 10 this week
http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/6/8899919/microsoft-windows-10-rtm

Microsoft is planning to finalize Windows 10 this week, ahead of its official launch later this month. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is currently working on final copies of Windows 10, with a release to manufacturing (RTM) build expected later this week. RTM candidate builds have already been spotted online. Once the RTM build is ready, Microsoft will send the final copy of Windows 10 to its PC partners ahead of a release to the public on July 29th.

Microsoft is moving Windows 10 to a “Windows as a service” model that means the operating system is regularly updated. That’s part of the reason Windows 10 is considered the “final version of Windows,” as regular updates means it’s never really finished.

Minecraft for Windows 10 beta arrives on July 29th launch day
http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/4/8892825/minecraft-windows-10-edition-beta-features