Feed: In Depth: Microsoft in 2011: what to expect - AggScore: 27.4

In Depth: Microsoft in 2011: what to expect

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img srchttpcdn.mos.techradar.comimagesmicrosoftlogo200200.jpgp2010 has been a landmark year for Microsoft with success after success. ppWindows 7 now the fastestselling operating system ever. Kinect 2.5 million sold in 25 days. IE9 catching up to Chrome and Firefox on speed and standards support. ppThe Office Web Apps from Office 2010 are built into the new Facebook messaging system. Even Windows Phone 7 has turned out well and Bing has been gaining users in October it had nearly as many visitors as Wikipedia, according to Compete, putting it just outside the top five websites in the US, at least. ppBut what happens next year, with Ray Ozzie gone, Chrome OS hitting the market and tablets galore a rumoured spring release for the iPad 2, the BlackBerry PlayBook by the second half of the year, HP promising webOS tablets and everyone else building on Android with netbookfriendly Gingerbread. ppWas this year a turning point or a flash in the pan for Microsoft ppDont expect Microsoft to break up, go private, buy Adobe or sack Steve Ballmer. ppDont expect the mythical Xbox 720 to finally arrive. ppDo expect Windows 8, IE9, lots of Windows Phone updates and a slew of tablets using various flavours of Windows plus up to six more Microsoft stores, including New York, but probably not London.ppstrongIE9strongppWere expecting Microsoft to launch the release candidate of IE9 not long after CES in January with the final version following at Microsofts MIX Web developer conference in April. ppWe could see some small changes to the look of the interface and the RC will have the do not track option to sign up to lists of ad services you dont want to track you from site to site, but there wont be support for any of the technologies such as WebGL that arent yet standardised. ppimg srchttpmos.futurenet.comtechradarclassificationsworld20of20techimagesMicrosoft2011IE920square42090.jpg altIE9 width420imgppstrongNEW UI strongemThis shot of the new Tracking Protection feature in IE9 also seems to show slight differences to the user interface, with squaredoff tabsemppThe excellent performance, full hardware acceleration and good HTML5 support will make IE9 successful, but while this puts Microsoft back in the browser game Chrome and Firefox will carry on rolling out much faster updates. ppMore importantly for Microsoft, the HTML5 support in IE9 is crucial for new services like Bing Maps, Office Web Apps and Office Live improvements and the cloud connection and synchronisation planned for Windows 8. ppThink of IE9 as a stepping stone to the cloud for businesses first, but for consumers as well.ppstrongWindows Phone 7 updatesstrongppTalking of updates, Windows Phone 7 will get copy and paste early next year along with support for the CDMA standard used on two key US mobile networks details will be announced at CES. ppparam param nameallowFullScreen valuetrueparam param nameallowscriptaccess valuealwaysparam embed srchttpwww.youtube.comvgxjeEpOJbMchlenfs1 typeapplicationxshockwaveflash allowscriptaccessalways allowfullscreentrue width420 height315 embed objectpThere are rumours that a second update allowing some multitasking for thirdparty apps and more customisation is currently in beta and will be announced at Mobile World Congress in February weve heard suggestions that updates might come as often as quarterly to help Windows Phone catch up to competitors, which could have the update shipping as soon as May. ppAt the same time, Microsoft will announce some updates to Silverlight in Windows Phone. The public beta of Silverlight 5 for the PC which adds remote control, variable speed playback with pitch correction and hardware acceleration for H.264 video is due in the second quarter of 2011 with the final version coming before the end of the year. If any of the Silverlight features for Windows Phone are the same, dont expect to see them on the phone much sooner than that. ppFurther down the line is a major update to the Windows Phone browser bringing a major overhaul of standard support and new approaches to make significant advances in performance, power consumption and bandwidth utilization and a search experience that will be the key tool you use to plan and complete your day to day activities. ppThat sounds like Windows Phone 8 and while it might not arrive in 2011, the way the team is growing suggests Microsoft is going to keep giving Windows Phone the resources it needs to compete. ppIf the updates keep coming and the handset manufacturers can actually ship more devices, Windows Phone has a good chance of getting reasonable market share in 2011.ppstrongWindows tabletsstrongppWere not sure we can say the same for tablets. Although a handful of Windows 7 slates have appeared this year from smaller players and perhaps somewhat begrudgingly from HP, expect to see bigger names producing tablets once Intels Oak Trail processor is available. ppThe fiveinch Ocosmos gaming tablet probably wont make it out of Korea instead, from what Intel has been telling OEMs, well see 10inch models that are less than half an inch thick, with proximity sensors, hardware acceleration for media that supports 1080p video and wireless connections that get you online in a couple of seconds. ppIntel says there will be 35 Atom tablets coming out in the first half of next year, although some of them might run Chrome OS, Android or Meego rather than Windows 7, using Intels Atom CE4100 system on a chip. ppThe power consumption of Atom means that its going to be hard to match the battery life and weight of an iPad or an Android tablet or what we hear about the PlayBook on Windows 7 systems and our experiences with the ExoPC Slate show that the handwriting recognition that should be the killer feature on a Windows tablet needs a little more work on capacitive screens. ppimg srchttpmos.futurenet.comtechradarReview20imagesTechRadarComputingExoPC20SlatephotosExoPC20on420100.jpg altExoPC width420imgppstrongPLAYING CATCHUP strongemEven the nicest Windows 7 slates are heavier and have less battery life than the iPad or Android tablets will 2011 tablets do betteremppBut if what you want is the power of Windows to run a full browser and play any kind of media, then one tablet rumour weve heard makes sense.ppWe might or might not see TV services on Xbox next year to compete with Google TV and Apple TV, but we will see Windows Media Center settop boxes from Acer and Asus, running on Windows Embedded, delivering a mix of broadcast and internet TV, plus Netflix and maybe even Sky. ppAnd one of the key features in the new version of Windows Embedded along with a much lower price is multitouch support. ppWith Microsoft keeping such tight control over the Windows Phone form factor we dont expect to see a Windows Phone tablet next year, but multitouch tablets running Windows Media Center Embedded are a possibility. ppThe Media Center interface is ideal for fingers and you can put a limited number of apps and games on it already.ppimg srchttpmos.futurenet.comtechradarclassificationsworld20of20techimagesMicrosoft2011mc20tablet42090.jpg altMedia center tablet width420imgppstrongON THE BOX strongemThe familiar Media Center interface will be in settop boxes and maybe on Windows Embedded tablets as wellemppBut unless whatever Microsoft comes out with here is really exciting, we think it will struggle to compete on the tablet front at least until Windows 8 comes along.ppstrongWindows 8strongppGiven how little we know about Windows 8 its all from rumours, leaks and job adverts its impossible to say how significant it will be, although Steve Ballmer has called it Microsofts riskiest product bet. ppAt this point were predicting that well see the Windows 8 beta in the autumn of 2011 and the final version in the late summer of 2012 three years after Windows 7. ppThe most recent rumours give the 64bit version its own 3D interface on systems with powerful enough graphics chips to go with the Kinectstyle gesture control promised in the lead slides and this job ad promises groundbreaking features for making Windows the most stable and trustworthy massmarket OS.ppimg srchttpmos.futurenet.comtechradarclassificationsworld20of20techimagesMicrosoft2011win820gesture42090.jpg altWindows 8 gesture recognition width420imgppstrongMOTION SENSING strongemWalk up to a Windows 8 PC and it will know youre there weve seen Kinectstyle gestures working with PCs in the Microsoft envisioning lab alreadyemppThe danger is that instead of doing something bold and innovative, the Windows team succumbs to incrementalism while Chrome and webOS move towards lightweight, cloudenabled systems that work more like an alwayson phone, but the leaks claim Windows 8 will have much faster hibernation and resume in just a few seconds and use the cloud to back up settings and app details as well for an app store, so well just have to wait and see.ppCertainly, we dont see either Chrome or webOS going mainstream in 2011. Except on tablets, where portability and battery life trump compatibility and power, we dont think Windows has more to worry about from competing operating systems next year than it did this year Chrome OS is obviously incomplete and even though it will evolve quickly, its still completely dependent on you being online. ppAnd while tablets might displace some situations where youll no longer take a laptop with you, for most people theyll be a second or third computer. But if theyre as popular a second computer as some are predicting, Microsoft is going to look rather late to the party until Windows 8 comes along. ppMicrosoft is going to take a beating in the home storage market, too. Despite gutting the product by removing the Drive Extender disk replication feature from the next version, Microsoft is still promising to ship the Vail updates to Windows Home Server in the first half of 2011 along with the new versions of Small Business Server that are the reason for dropping Drive Extender and well see the first Vail home servers at CES. ppimg srchttpcdn.mos.techradar.comclassificationscomputingupgradesandperipheralsstoragenetworkedstorageimageshpmediasmartlaunch420100.jpg altWindows home server width420imgppAlthough Steve Ballmer said hell look into the issue, it doesnt seem likely that Drive Extender will return and unless one of the PC manufacturers does something really innovative with it, Vail looks like a fail.ppstrongLife without OzziestrongppLong term, its an open question as to how Microsoft will fare without Ray Ozzie and indeed without Robbie Bach, ex head of the entertainment and devices division. ppOzzies influence has been most obvious in the business products, where the move to the cloud is now entrenched in Microsoft consciousness, but hes also been responsible for helping prioritise user experience the principle thats made Kinect more significant than Surface and thats made Windows Phone and a truly engaging device to use. ppAnd the social computing FUSE Labs team he set up which has been coming out with the kind of innovative web tools such as Montage that you dont usually associate with Microsoft is now part of Microsoft Research, although with the same team in place. ppBachs teams produced the Xbox, Kinect and Windows Phone but then they also ran Windows Mobile into the ground, shipped the DOA Kin phone, allowed the red ring of death to happen and disappointed everyone by making us think Courier was real or even possible. ppBut those departures arent likely to have much effect on the products we see in 2011, which were already well under way before either departure. ppIts the direction of the company over the next five years that might falter without them. For the next twelve months, Microsoft still looks good but it also faces plenty of challenges. pppimg width1 height1 srchttprss.feedsportal.comc669f415081s1096cbb2mf.gif border0div classmfrelatedpRelated StoriespulliMicrosoft to launch Windows 8 tablets at CES 2011liliIn Depth Tablets in 2011 what to expectliliIn Depth The 10 biggest gadget letdowns of 2010liliIn Depth Windows 8 tablets rumours what you need to knowliliIn Depth BlackBerry PlayBook OS up closeliuldivdiv classmfviraltable border0trtd valignmiddleimg srchttpres3.feedsportal.comimagesemailthis2.gif border0 tdtd valignmiddleimg srchttpres3.feedsportal.comimagesbookmark.gif border0 tdtrtabledivbrbrimg srchttpda.feedsportal.comr88739665414u49f415081c669s1096cbb2kg9253840434445656768141143170172188189191a2.img border0img srchttpfeeds.feedburner.comrtechradarmobilecomputingnews4dCyMndxgVE height1 width1a targetblank relnofollow hrefhttpfeedproxy.google.comrtechradarmobilecomputingnews3dCyMndxgVEstory01.htmTechRadar Mobile computing newsa

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