Pixotri Technologies: Microsoft gadget 2015

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Thursday, May 7, 2015

Microsoft builds a universal Windows 10

Forget Big Bad Microsoft. The 2015 version embraces everyone, especially those who build apps for Microsoft's competitors.

More than two decades since the software giant from Redmond was first investigated for abusing its desktop operating system monopoly, the company has opened its doors to developers that create mobile apps for rivals Apple and Google.

At its annual Build developer conference last week in San Francisco, Microsoft introduced new software tools to help developers bring their existing iOS and Android apps to Windows 10. The company also spoke about how to bring Web apps and desktop-class Windows apps, such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, to Windows 10.

The announcement was cheered on by the 5,000-strong audience, mostly developers. Among them was Singaporean app developer Jason Chee, 21.

He observed: "Not only do apps port over with minimal changes, they have the ability to leverage on all the Windows features, like Xbox's achievements, which opens up great opportunities for developers on other platforms and consumers of Windows 10."

Microsoft aptly calls these tools "bridges" and revealed that Candy Crush Saga was ported to Windows with minimal effort using these tools.

The company's objective is to attract more developers to Windows, a radical move that it hopes will help it achieve its ambition of having Windows 10 on a billion devices within the next two or three years.

Its CEO, Mr Satya Nadella, spoke about this strategy when he briefed analysts: "We believe that is what will help us deliver more value. It will help developers come to our platform. It makes the entire ecosystem of Windows much healthier."

Windows remains the dominant force in desktop computers and laptops, although the most recent version, Windows 8, holds just 15 per cent of the market. Still, it is doing better than its mobile counterpart, Windows Phone, which has a minuscule 3-per-cent share.

With such a low adoption rate, Microsoft has found it hard to attract developers. It had resorted to paying them to build apps in the past. The lack of apps discouraged buyers from choosing Windows mobile devices.

This chicken-and-egg dilemma is set to change with Windows 10, which is expected to be available by mid-August.

Contrary to expectations, the company did not announce an exact release date at Build, though it is known that the upgrade will be free for the first year for existing Windows 7 and 8 users.

As Mr Nadella put it: "Windows 10 is not just another release of Windows. It is actually an entirely new way for us to think about our hardware OS."

Central to Windows 10 is what Microsoft dubs the Universal Windows Platform. This means that Windows 10 will run on all kinds of devices, from phones to Microsoft's holographic smart glasses.

Windows 10 apps will adapt to the device, with the interface scaling to show the right amount of information for the screen size, or even no screen at all, in the case of embedded computers such as the credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi.

Unlike competing platforms from Apple and Google, which have separate mobile and desktop operating systems, developers will be able to write one version of their apps for Windows 10 to be published in a unified Windows Store.

This new, open and collaborative spirit is not restricted to Windows. Microsoft said at Build that it is releasing Linux and Mac versions of its .NET programming platform.

Of course, whether users will bite after being burned by Windows 8 is still unknown. But at least Microsoft is trying and it has laid out a coherent vision that extends across its Windows, Office and Azure cloud platforms.

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Saturday, May 2, 2015

Our inside look at Microsoft's HoloLens leaves us wanting more

Microsoft's HoloLens, a headset that floats 3D images in front of your eyes and overlays them on top of real-world environments, was the show-stealer of the company's Build developer conference this week. That's despite Microsoft having shared virtually zero new information since the January unveiling regarding how HoloLens works and when it may arrive fully formed.

Yet after experiencing it for the second time in a more realized prototype Thursday, I can say with confidence that the HoloLens is no gimmick. I would buy one now if I could, and if there were any Windows apps that ran on it. Though its release date is a mystery and the apps nonexistent (for now), the HoloLens has the potential to be the first truly successful so-called augmented-reality device -- a distinction that cannot be understated.

Microsoft is making a gamble that the future of computers will be devices that mix natural ways of interacting with the world -- voice, gestures and sight -- into tools for creating, consuming and communicating digitally. It's even tailored its upcoming Windows 10 operating system to be the software that powers everything and anything with or without a screen. Unlike devices such as the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset, which immerses us in 360-degree worlds, the HoloLens wants to blend virtual spaces with real ones -- hence, augmenting them.

To make sure we understood the many ways in which the device could become a new computing platform, Microsoft sat dozens of us down in a large hotel room with desktops running Windows 10. The mission: Help us, step-by-step, develop a rudimentary holographic app using software from game toolkit maker Unity.

Back in January, Microsoft had us wearing crude prototypes that resembled optometrist gear, with wires running out and a heavy pack of components worn around the neck. This go-round, Microsoft had hundreds of fully enclosed, finished prototypes that look just like the version it had on display in its Wednesday keynote presentation.

As was the case in January, the company would not allow photography or video of any portion of the demo.

To demonstrate how developers will create apps for the Windows Holographic platform, Microsoft took us through a series of educational demos by loading code directly onto the HoloLens for each one of the device's key features.

Gaze Control

The most noticeable differentiator with the HoloLens right now is that your field of view is limited, resembling a rectangle the size of a sheet of printer paper held a half a foot in front of your face. That means that none of the 3D objects are picked up in your peripheral vision and they tend to clip off at the edges as you walk around.

That became clear during the first few portions of the demo, when we organized a static platform with floating origami spheres in Unity with a handful of premade assets. Without the HoloLens being able to detect where we were looking, the platform was only viewable in one distinct location and only when we looked at it just right once we put the headset on.

Because the HoloLens can understand the environment -- it has motion cameras and sensors built in -- the platform didn't follow our line of sight, but rather stayed fixed in one location.

After activating the so-called gaze control, however, we were able to direct our line of sight, represented by a red circle, at each distinct object in the scene. (Microsoft had prewritten every coding script in the demo, so this meant we checked a box in Unity to turn it on). Gaze control is one of the five pillars of the HoloLens because it most closely resembles a computer's mouse cursor.

Gesture Control

The next most important feature in Microsoft's toolkit is gesture control, which most closely resembles a mouse click.

When turning on gesture control and adding physics to the spheres in Unity (more checked boxes), we were able to use a simple tapping motion with our pointer finger and thumb to make the spheres fall and land on the surface of the platform. Once they rolled off, however, they were gone forever -- until you reset the program that is.

Don't expect any Minority Report-style full-hand motions any time soon.

Air Tap, as the gesture is called, is the HoloLens' only physical interaction tool as of now. Don't expect any Minority Report-style full-hand motions any time soon. From my experience , it's difficult enough to make sure the HoloLens recognizes even a gesture this simple, and Microsoft won't say yet whether we'll see anything as complex as pinch-to-zoom with the HoloLens.

Voice Control

The HoloLens is an entire computer enclosed within a single headset, meaning it has a battery, a CPU, a graphics processor and what Microsoft calls a holographic processing unit, or HPU. The device also has speakers for putting out sound directly next to your ear and microphones for picking up your voice.

When we enabled voice control, we could talk to the HoloLens through spoken commands as one would speak to Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana software assistants. "Drop the sphere" made the sphere fall, while "reset" let us try again. It's worth noting how bizarre it was to watch an entire room full of people wearing holographic headsets, mumbling phrases to themselves and furiously tapping the air.

Spatial sound

Spatial sound is one of the more interesting HoloLens features because it re-creates the sensation of sound coming from a distinct location, which is instrumental in making virtual objects and sensations feel more real.

Once we activated spatial sound, a serene tune filled the room in a subtle fashion, so discreetly in fact that I told the Microsoft employee walking me through the demo that it wasn't working at first. The truth was that it was quietly playing as if it were being generated across the room, where the floating platform had been placed.

As I moved closer, the audio became louder. When I forced the origami spheres to drop, they made gentle crumpling sounds as if paper were hitting a real physical surface.

Spatial mapping

Microsoft saved the best for last: spatial mapping.

Because the HoloLens is packed to the brim with sensors and cameras that help it see and understand the environment, we were able to turn everything around us within a certain focal distance into a wire-frame object, letting us see the world as the HoloLens perceives it.

From there, we could place our platform anywhere we liked, so long as the HoloLens could map the object and create a concrete wire frame for it. To finish off the demo, we added one final asset to the platform that, once touched by one of the falling spheres, would blow a hole in space. Inside was a cartoonish cavern filled with clouds and flying dinosaurs, like a scene straight out of a Disney film.

Once the 90 minutes were up, we plugged back in the micro-USB cables connecting the HoloLens units with the Windows PCs and were escorted out, having become momentary holographic developers, in Microsoft parlance.

As we left behind Microsoft's most top-secret gadget, walking past the signs barring the use of cameras and smartphones, the takeaway was simple: I want one.

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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Microsoft awarded patent for glasses that know how those around you feel

Every time your shrink asks you: "But how do you really feel?" you muster some sort of response that you hope will steer the conversation elsewhere.

Our true feelings are the last bastion of our selves. They're our last protection against being fully owned by Google and Facebook. As opposed to the current 75 percent stake they share.

Now, however, feelings may become public knowledge. I gasp as I learn that Microsoft this week secured a wearable patent: glasses that can detect the feelings of anyone in your field of vision.

It's entitled "Wearable emotion detection and feedback system."

Its abstract declares that this is "a see-through, head mounted display and sensing devices cooperating with the display detect audible and visual behaviors of a subject in a field of view of the device."

It's a little like those things NBA players wear when they have pink eye. It's a lot more intrusive.

The idea is that you'll be able to tell when that big-toothed smiley salesman in front of you is, in fact, deeply angry. You'll be able to tell if the sullen-looking bartender you're talking to is, in fact, in love.

You'll have to wear them on every first date, so that you can be clear whether the person on the other side of the table really does think you're gorgeous or is just saying so. And just imagine how you'll be able to, finally, finally know what your spouse is truly feeling.

You can surely imagine the science behind this. In Microsoft's words: "During interactions, the device, recognizes emotional states in subjects by comparing detected sensor input against a database of human/primate gestures/expressions, posture, and speech. Feedback is provided to the wearer after interpretation of the sensor input."

Yes, it's just like those non-verbal communication experts they always wheel out at election time, so that you can be informed whether Candidate X is nervous and evasive or whether he's so in love with himself that the world is, for him, a mere mirror of adoration.

It's adorable how the scientists behind this idea speak of humanity. For example: "Emotions have an important influence in human lives, and can influence psychological and social behavior."

Well, quite. If only those behind Microsoft's marketing had realized this for the last decade, the company might not be playing emotional catch-up.

Microsoft hopes, with this device, to know what specific gestures might mean different things in different contexts. In some, nose-picking is an expression of relaxation. In others, a form of passive aggression. You didn't know?

I contacted Microsoft to ask how real are the prospects of such glasses emerging onto human heads. A company spokeswoman told me: "Microsoft regularly applies for and receives patents as part of its business practice. Not all patents applied for or received will be incorporated into a Microsoft product." I have a feeling that she had some feeling about how I felt on hearing this cryptic reply.

May I be open and confess a qualm? If you know someone is wearing a device that is spying on your soul, don't you try and adjust your soul's mechanisms in order to fool the device?

Won't we all be wandering around constantly playing signal subterfuge in order to preserve our privacy.

In other words, it'll be exactly like today.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Interesting October Stock Options for Microsoft

Consistently, one of the more popular stocks people enter into their stock options watchlist at Stock Options Channel is Microsoft Corporation (NASD: MSFT). So this week we highlight one interesting put contract, and one interesting call contract, from the October expiration for MSFT.

The put contract our YieldBoost algorithm identified as particularly interesting, is at the $43 strike, which has a bid at the time of this writing of 95 cents. Collecting that bid as the premium represents a 2.2% return against the $43 commitment, or a 4.7% annualized rate of return (at Stock Options Channel we call this the YieldBoost).

Selling a put does not give an investor access to MSFT’s upside potential the way owning shares would, because the put seller only ends up owning shares in the scenario where the contract is exercised. So unless Microsoft Corporation sees its shares decline 10% and the contract is exercised (resulting in a cost basis of $42.05 per share before broker commissions, subtracting the 95 cents from $43), the only upside to the put seller is from collecting that premium for the 4.7% annualized rate of return.

Interestingly, that annualized 4.7% figure actually exceeds the 2.6% annualized dividend paid by Microsoft Corporation by 2.1%, based on the current share price of $47.79. And yet, if an investor was to buy the stock at the going market price in order to collect the dividend, there is greater downside because the stock would have to lose 10% to reach the $43 strike price.

Always important when discussing dividends is the fact that, in general, dividend amounts are not always predictable and tend to follow the ups and downs of profitability at each company. In the case of Microsoft Corporation, looking at the dividend history chart for MSFT below can help in judging whether the most recent dividend is likely to continue, and in turn whether it is a reasonable expectation to expect a 2.6% annualized dividend yield.

Turning to the other side of the option chain, we highlight one call contract of particular interest for the October expiration, for shareholders of Microsoft Corporation (NASD: MSFT) looking to boost their income beyond the stock’s 2.6% annualized dividend yield. Selling the covered call at the $50 strike and collecting the premium based on the $1.30 bid, annualizes to an additional 5.8% rate of return against the current stock price (this is what we at Stock Options Channel refer to as the YieldBoost), for a total of 8.4% annualized rate in the scenario where the stock is not called away.

Any upside above $50 would be lost if the stock rises there and is called away, but MSFT shares would have to advance 4.7% from current levels for that to happen, meaning that in the scenario where the stock is called, the shareholder has earned a 7.4% return from this trading level, in addition to any dividends collected before the stock was called.

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Monday, April 27, 2015

5 Things Microsoft Corporation Management Wants You to Know

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) shares soared on Friday, rising more than 10% following the release of its fiscal third quarter earnings report. Although Microsoft Windows revenue fell, demand for its cloud services surged, and it logged an earnings per share and top line that exceeded analyst expectations.

In its subsequent earnings call, Microsoft management reflected on its ongoing transformation, underscoring a number of key points investors should be aware of. Below are five of the most important takeaways from the call.

Demand for Office 365 continues to surge

In 2011, Microsoft introduced Office 365, its subscription-based, cloud-based alternative to its traditional Office software. Instead of buying a new suite of Office applications every few years, Microsoft offered its customers the ability to pay for a subscription instead. Demand for Office 365 has been strong since its introduction, and it continued to pick up steam last quarter. During the call, CEO Satya Nadella called particular attention to the success of Office 365 with consumers and a commitment to make Office available on every platform.

Office 365 Consumer added an average of one million new customers per month, and we now have more than 12 million subscribers, an increase of 35% over the prior quarter. We're clearly taking Office everywhere. Core to our mobile first strategy is to ensure that our service endpoints are on every mobile device, and to that end, we have seen continued momentum with more than 100 million downloads of Office on iPhones, iPads and Android tablets.

Windows revenue was down, but activations were up

At least for consumers, the days of paying for Windows are coming to an end. Facing competition from low-cost Chromebooks and mobile devices, Microsoft has offered its hardware partners cheaper versions of its operating system to help keep its platform relevant -- and it appears to be working. Consumer Windows revenue fell 26% during the quarter, but as Nadella pointed out, the number of Windows devices sold rose. Rather than make money on Windows itself, Microsoft is looking to monetize its platform through services.

We're also transforming the consumer Windows business to adapt to the changing market dynamics, including lower price point devices. This quarter, while non-Pro revenue declined, activations were up. Importantly, we are now at a place where we can start to see early signs of how usage increases in services like search and gaming can drive new monetization opportunities over the lifetime of a Windows consumer device.

Business demand for Microsoft cloud services continues to surge

Perhaps the single most important aspect of the last quarter was the performance of its commercial cloud business. Microsoft has a number of enterprise-focused cloud services, including Azure, Office 365 for business, and Dynamics CRM. CFO Amy Hood highlighted the performance of the Microsoft cloud business during the call.

Overall, revenue from our commercial cloud services more than doubled again this quarter. Enterprise penetration is accelerating, with over half of all agreements signed [with customers] during the quarter, including cloud services. Within Office 365, premium workloads now make up more than 50% of the install base, and we are seeing strong attach of our enterprise mobility solutions to Office 365.

Windows is becoming a service

In total, the Microsoft Windows business declined fairly significantly during the quarter. Windows-related revenue contracted 22% on an annual basis. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. Although Microsoft may find it difficult to charge customers for a copy of its operating system every few years, it can monetize its platform through services. During the call, Nadella underscored how Microsoft is thinking about its Windows business longer term.

When we say Windows-as-a-service -- it's actually a pretty profound construct which involves us being able to not only think about what shifts with OEMs, but how do we [monetize Windows] on a continuous basis. If it's the consumer, we have things now in the store. We have subscriptions, we have gaming. And then, when it comes to the enterprise, there is management, security, servicing which is all a unique value. So there is going to be an increasing emphasis in the concept of lifetime value that we can deliver to customers [rather just upfront sales].

Microsoft accounts for cloud business in a much different way than Amazon

During the call, an analyst asked management for its take on the competing Amazon cloud business, Amazon Web Services. AWS is a bit different from the Microsoft commercial cloud, and Amazon accounts for it in a different way. Microsoft includes its subscription-based software, whereas AWS is mostly composed of cloud computing and online storage. Nadella highlighted the difference during the call.

First of all, I don't think that of the comparison between Azure and AWS as the true north for me. I think about the Microsoft Cloud, because even the way we do capital, the way we measure utilization is all with the complete unit, which is of course, all of Office 365 runs on Azure. Azure AD powers all of our Cloud. So it's really its entirety that we think of as our unique value. So that means we have [software-as-a-service] which is a huge component between Office 365 and Dynamics, [platform-as-a-service], which is a huge component of Azure itself. We see many customers who would use even our PaaS services and even AWS . . . for example, you can, in fact, with a single sign-on, using EMS and Azure AD in Azure and use your resources on AWS.

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Thursday, April 23, 2015

Microsoft Beats Analysts' Expectations as Cloud Revenue Jumps

Microsoft Corp., in its second year under Satya Nadella, reported profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates as growth in cloud software sales and more expensive versions of server programs made up for slowing demand for personal-computer products.

Profit, excluding costs related to restructuring and integration, was 62 cents a share on sales of $21.7 billion in the fiscal third quarter ended March 31, the company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts had estimated 53 cents on sales of $21.1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Nadella has been shifting strategy at the world’s largest software maker to focus on cloud and mobile software, including products that work with rival’s offerings. While cloud revenue is growing, a cycle in which companies upgraded computers has run out of steam and Microsoft’s overseas sales have been hurt by a strong dollar and geopolitical concerns in China and Russia.

“They’ve got a growing cloud number that isn’t stopping,” said Mark Moerdler, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. who rates the shares the equivalent of a buy.

Net income fell to $4.99 billion, or 61 cents a share, from $5.66 billion, or 68 cents, a year earlier.

Microsoft rose as much as 3.9 percent in extended trading after closing at $43.34. The shares fell 12 percent in the quarter, while the S&P’s 500 Index rose less than 1 percent in the period.

Cloud Products

Under Nadella, Microsoft has released new services for the company’s Azure and Office 365 cloud programs and brought out versions of its mobile applications for Apple Inc.’s and Google Inc.’s systems.

Microsoft reported that commercial cloud revenue more than doubled for the seventh quarter in a row. Sales in the commercial unit that includes cloud programs was $2.76 billion, compared with a $2.66 billion average estimate of analysts.

Sales of server products and services increased 12 percent with a 25 percent rise in the priciest versions of products such as Windows Server and the SQL database server.

“As our products have improved and you add value at the high end, customers move to the high end,” Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said in an interview.

The results eased investor concerns raised by a shortfall in the previous quarter.

Bounce Back

“The company beat across the board after a jaw dropper last quarter,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets & Co. in New York. “Despite PC headwinds, the company is doing a good job stabilizing the ship on the Windows front while cloud continues to be a major pillar of strength.”

Still difficulties that began last year with a strong U.S. dollar, weaker sales in Japan and geopolitical concerns in Russia and China will continue in the current quarter, Hood said.

With investor and analyst expectations at a “very negative” level, the company managed to surprise, Ives said.

Revenue in the Commercial Licensing division, which includes copies of Windows and Office sold to corporate customers were $10 billion. That compares with a $9.78 billion estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Sales of Windows to PC makers to install on their machines dropped 19 percent for the Pro version and 26 percent for other versions.

Device and Consumer Licensing sales, which include consumer versions of Windows, were $3.48 billion. Analysts had expected $3.45 billion.

Video Games

Devices and Consumer Other, which is made up of products including video games and Internet advertising, was $2.28 billion, while analysts had expected $2.03 billion. That area benefited from a 21 percent increase in Internet search advertising. Microsoft remains committed to profitability for its Bing search engine next fiscal year, said Hood.

Unearned revenue, a measure of future sales, was $20.2 billion, compared with the $20.95 billion average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

The currency fluctuations crimped Microsoft’s sales as they have for other U.S. technology companies. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the U.S. dollar against 10 major peers, gained about 17 percent over the past 12 months. Microsoft said quarterly revenue, which increased 6 percent from a year earlier, would have increased 9 percent excluding the effect of currency rates.

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Microsoft's Surface sales are on the upswing once again

After a very slow start, Microsoft's Surface finally seems to be hitting its stride. The company made $713 million from Surface sales last quarter, a 44 percent jump over last year, according to its latest earnings report. And yes, it's attributing much of that to the Surface Pro 3, which also saw strong sales during the previous quarter. While any bump is good, it's easy for Microsoft to report revenue growth when it's starting from a low point.

Apple sold around $9 billion worth of iPads during the last quarter, for comparison. It's also worth noting that the company's third quarter doesn't include sales of the new Surface 3, which doesn't ship until next month. It'll be interesting to see if that model ends up helping its Pro sibling come next quarter. Before the Surface Pro 3, Microsoft's Surface sales weren't exactly pretty -- at one point it had to write off nearly $900 million in unsold units.

During the company's earnings call today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted that 64 percent of Surface Pro 3 users also use One Note. That's not surprising, since that device's stylus integrates directly into OneNote. Nadella pointed out that the Surface Pro 3's OneNote penetration is also nine times that of any other touch notebook.

Microsoft's Devices and Consumer group, which the Surface is a part of, saw an overall revenue bump of 8 percent compared to last year. It was also helped by strong Office 365 growth (up 35 percent, reaching 12.4 million subscriptions), Bing advertising gains (21 percent), and a 30 percent bump in Xbox Live usage. Oh yah, and it sold 8.6 million Lumia phones, down from 10.5 million from the holiday quarter. It was a different story for Xbox revenues, which fell 24 percent from last year, mostly due to price drops for the Xbox One.

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Microsoft's Q3 results get a lift from Office 365 and Azure

Microsoft has reported better-than-expected financial results for the quarter just ended, helped by strong sales of cloud services like Office 365 and Azure.

Commercial cloud revenue more than doubled from a year earlier, the company announced Thursday, and online services like Bing and Xbox Live performed well.

The results were hurt by the weak PC market, however, with sales of Microsoft's Windows and Office software both declining. That meant that while sales were strong, profits declined from last year.

In a statement, CEO Satya Nadella talked of "incredible growth across our cloud services."

Revenue for the quarter, ended March 31, came in at $21.7 billion, up 6 percent from a year earlier, Microsoft said. That beat the analyst forecast of $21.1 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Earnings were $0.61 per share, down 10 percent from a year earlier but far ahead of the $0.51 analysts had forecast. Microsoft said results would have been significantly better if not for the effects of a strong dollar, which has been affecting most U.S. companies.

Revenue from Microsoft's Device and Consumer segment, which includes Office 365 Consumer, Xbox, Surface and its Lumia phones, climbed 8 percent from the same quarter last year to $9.0 billion.

Commercial revenue, made up of software and services sold to businesses, was up 5 percent, helped by strong growth from Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM.

But sales to businesses of Microsoft's Office and Windows software -- two of its most profitable products -- both declined.

The results are a mixed bag for Nadella, showing that his efforts to grow Microsoft's cloud business are paying off but that Microsoft's fortunes remain heavily tied to the health of the PC market.

Nadella has been reshaping Microsoft since he took over from Steve Ballmer a little more than a year ago. One of his biggest moves was making key Office apps like Word and Excel available for free on Android devices.

He's also said that its upcoming Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for many PC users. That should help ensure a big installed base for the new OS, but it's also left investors wondering what the impact will be on Microsoft's earnings.

Executives may address that question in a conference call planned for Thursday afternoon.

Investors were encouraged by the earnings news, pushing Microsoft's stock up 3 percent in trading after hours, to $44.80.

Among other results from last quarter, Surface revenue of $713 million was up 44 percent from last year, Xbox Live usage grew more than 30 percent, and search ad revenue climbed 21 percent, Microsoft said.

But Windows sales were down across the board, as the refresh cycle from XP drew to a close and customers waited for Windows 10 later this year.

Revenue from Windows Pro licenses sold through PC makers fell 19 percent, while non-Pro revenue fell even more sharply, Microsoft said.

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Microsoft's Outlook for Android app for phones and tablets now generally available

Microsoft is removing the "preview" tag from its Outlook for Android app for phones and tablets, as of April 22.

Microsoft delivered in late January 2015 its first Outlook for Android preview. Outlook for Android, like its Outlook for iOS counterpart, is basically the Acompli product rebranded by Microsoft. (Microsoft bought mobile e-mail startup Acompli in December 2014.)

Since the first preview, Microsoft has updated the Outlook for Android code base 17 times, or more than once a week, Microsoft officials said in a blog post announcing general availability. There have been UI changes, performance, stability, localization and accessibility changes in that time.

The new Outlook Android app supports Office 365, Exchange, Outlook.com, iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and IMAP providers like AOL.com and Comcast.net.

Microsoft plans to replace the Outlook Web Apps for iOS and Android, as well as the Outlook.com app for Android with these new Outlook apps. That won't happen overnight; the Outlook Web Apps and Outlook.com app will remain in the respective app stores for several months. But Microsoft plans to "sunset" Outlook Web Apps and the Outlook.com app for iOS and Android by summer, officials have said.

The new Outlook mail and calendar apps for Windows Phones (currently in preview) is meant to look and feels very similar to the Outlook for Android and iOS apps, even though the Windows Phone versions are not based on the Acompli code base.

The Outlook for Android app is free and runs on Android 4.0 and above. It's available in all markets supported by the Google Play Store. The UI has been translated into 30 languages: English, Norwegian (Bokmål), Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

In other Office for Android-related news, Microsoft is in the midst of rolling out a number of new Intune features allowing administrators to better lock down Office mobile apps on Android, among other new features.

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Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Microsoft releases Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10061 to Fast ring users

Microsoft released Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10061 on Wednesday afternoon with more substantive changes than the prior release, including new Mail and Calendar apps and a raft of improvements to the UI. The first lucky users will only be those in the Fast ring, though.

Windows 10 preview users in the so-called Fast ring get updates sooner, but with a greater risk of bugs. Those users will receive the new build in a Windows Update. Microsoft appears to be taking it easy with this release to minimize issues related to an upgrade bug that cropped up with the prior build, where updates took hours because the installation loaded all the Language Packs. Microsoft provides guidance for reclaiming storage space from the unwanted language packs.

Build 10061 follows soon after Build 10049 rolled out in late March. That build’s main event was the debut of the lighter-weight Project Spartan browser, the replacement for Internet Explorer.

Why this matters: Microsoft’s Technical Preview strategy for Windows 10 has had its rough patches, like the update issues with Build 10049. Overall, though, it’s proven to be a great way to build anticipation and support for Windows 10 by engaging users—and fixing the issues they find—long before the OS rolls out officially.

New apps, new color schemes

The biggest changes in Build 10061 are the new Mail and Calendar apps. A new three-pane email interface features a toggle to quickly flip back and forth between Mail and Calendar. This will make it easier to move between communication and scheduling tasks. You’ll also be able to make your own Swipe Gestures to execute actions like moving, deleting, or marking emails.

Microsoft Word will be the inspiration for what Microsoft's Gabe Aul calls the “email authoring experience.” Users will be able to add tables, photos, and formatting devices like bullets and colored text more easily. The new Mail and Calendar apps will be able to work with Office 365, Exchange, and Outlook.com, as well as Gmail and the IMAP and POP protocols, among others.

Here’s a change everyone will love: The Start menu will be resizable. But Build 10061 also brings visual improvements to the Start menu, Taskbar, and Action Center. Using the Personalization options in the Settings menu, users will be able to adjust the color scheme and transparency of these elements. Microsoft helpfully provides more material, including a new monochromatic scheme called “black system,” and AutoColor, which takes the predominant color from your desktop to use with these elements.

Microsoft has also re-tuned the Taskbar for tablet use. Triggering Tablet Mode in Windows 10 will expand the size of the Start, Taskbar, and Cortana buttons to make them easier to tap.

Virtual desktop users, go nuts: With Build 10061, Microsoft has thrown open the door, allowing an unlimited number. That’s right, unlimited. Should any users go bonkers and fill their display space to bursting, the blog post says a new “overflow experience” will let then move among the virtual desktops with some ease.

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