Microsoft to release Windows 8.1 on October 17 ((Complete specs and details about Windows 8.1)

Microsoft has revealed full details about the comprehensive update to Windows 8, now known as Windows 8.1 and formerly known as Windows Blue.

The Windows 8.1 release date is October 17 - it will be available to existing Windows 8 users for free on Windows Update. It will be available to buy in retail from October 18.

Xbox One to welcome individual game makers

Sony's PlayStation 4 won the popular vote at E3 for many reasons, one of them being its emphatic support of indie developers.

Microsoft's policies alienated those same developers, though, and it seems the backlash has caused the company to rethink its policies.

In addition to allowing self-publishing, Microsoft is looking at a new certification process similar to Apple's, with a 14-day turnaround, and it turns out that every Xbox One console can be used as a development unit as well, rather than devs requiring special hardware.

"Our vision is that every person can be a creator," Xbox Chief Product Officer Marc Whitten said in a statement published by Hryb. "That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox Live."

"This means self-publishing," he continued. "This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox LIVE. We'll have more details on the program and the timeline at Gamescom in August."

That's another big shift for Microsoft, and once again it's not unwelcome.

Microsoft is to allow independent games developers to self-publish on its Xbox One games console, in a reversal of its previous policy.

"Indies" will be able to create their own games, publish to the Xbox when they like, and set their own pricing, the computer giant has confirmed.

Microsoft had previously said it would only allow games from recognised publishers on the new console.

The Xbox One, the successor to the Xbox 360, is to be launched in November.

Announcing the policy change Marc Whiten, corporate vice president of Xbox, said: "Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox Live. This means self-publishing."

Microsoft plans to make further announcements about self-publishing in August at the Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany.

The self-publishing U-turn is the first major announcement since Don Mattrick, former boss of the Xbox division, left to be head of games maker Zynga in July.

Development costs

Reacting to the announcement, Will Freeman, editor of Develop, a magazine for the games developer industry, told the BBC: "This is certainly an exciting move by Microsoft and will help democratise games development.

"But making a game is one thing, getting it played by lots of people is another. What really matters is Microsoft's policy towards distribution."

Barry Meade, commercial director of Fireproof Studios, a British Bafta-award-winning games maker, said: "This will be great for diversity, good for Microsoft and good for consoles in general.

"There hasn't been enough innovation in the console sector because of the high costs of development."

Fireproof has been highly critical of console makers in the past, principally because of the high costs and bureaucracy involved in creating games for them, preferring to focus on the cheaper mobile and browser platforms.

Creating a blockbuster console game from scratch and getting it promoted in stores and online can cost tens of millions of dollars, whereas Fireproof's popular mobile game, The Room, cost up to £80,000, says Mr Meade.

Self-publishing

Microsoft's original policy contrasted with that of console rival, Sony, which is seen by many developers as more "indie-friendly".

In May, Sony announced that it would introduce an indie game section in its PlayStation Store and allow self-publishing on the Playstation 4 console, also due for its UK launch in November.

In June, Microsoft stopped charging developers for updating their games on the Xbox 360 in a sign that it was responding to criticism from the indie community.

it also makes a lot of sense. The Xbox 360 barely has an operating system as such things are reckoned. The Xbox One, in contrast, contains all the elements of a modern PC and runs a variant of Windows 8 on top of that. The barriers to compiling and running code directly on the console are much smaller — with 8GB of RAM and an eight-core CPU there’s no intrinsic reason you couldn’t develop for the Xbox One directly on the Xbox One (assuming Microsoft allowed it).

Indie developers respond

According to Retro City Rampage developer Brian Provinciano, however, the news, while welcome, still doesn’t put Sony and Microsoft on an even footing. Provinciano states that Microsoft is still treating Xbox One indie developers like second class citizens, requiring them to use the Windows 8 Store — something a lot of people aren’t willing to bet on at the moment (for some good reasons). He also made comments about Sony allowing developers to harness the full power of the PS4 as compared to Microsoft, implying that Xbox Live indie developers may not have full access to hardware resources — but that’s unclear.

From our perspective, this is a unilateral good move. Microsoft’s comments make it clear that the company is aware just how tarnished its reputation is in the indie community; multiple developers have described working with Microsoft as nightmarish and the company had, until recently, required $10,000 payments if a developer wished to patch a game. The company apparently wants to address this going forward, saying that while it’ll test for major game-breaking bugs, it won’t require programmers to submit to such detailed code analysis or lengthy approval processes (the stated goal is a 14-day turnaround).

It’s fair to ask whether these changes are going to go far enough to repair Microsoft’s tattered reputation with developers, but unlike the first reversal, where the company threw out the popular Family Sharing concept along with a need for 24-hour check-ins, I don’t think there’s a downside here. Kudos to Microsoft for making another difficult choice in the name of building a better end product. The program may or may not need further tweaking, but the important thing is, Redmond really is listening.

Microsoft’s Q2 earnings take $900 million hit due to millions of unsold Surface RT tablets

Microsoft (MSFT) has announced its fourth-quarter (Q2 calendar) and full-year earnings, and the news isn’t fantastic. While its enterprise offerings continue to do well (the Server and Tools division grew 9% this year), the company continues to be hampered by the shrinking PC market — the Windows division, despite the release of Windows 8, saw its profits drop 18% year-over-year. For the complete financial year, Microsoft’s revenue was up 6% to $77.849 billion, from $73.723 billion — but, if we remove last year’s massive $6.2 billion write-down of aQuantive, Microsoft’s revenue (and profits) are essentially flat or slightly down. More importantly, though, Microsoft’s financial report also shows that it took a $900 million charge for “Surface RT inventory adjustments.” Dividing that by the recent $150 price cut suggests that Microsoft could be sitting on as many as six million unsold Surface RTs.

If Microsoft really has six million Surface RT tablets lying around, it’ll be one of the most gloriously magnificent misjudgments in technological history. Early reports from the supply chain suggested that Microsoft had ordered around three million ARM-powered tablets, and industry analysts estimated that between 1 and 1.5 million of them had been sold. There is a possibility that the $900 million charge also includes Surface accessories, but we’re still looking at a huge number of stockpiled Surface RTs — probably between five and six million. Accounting for the ones that have already sold, this means that Microsoft originally expected to sell up to seven million Surface RTs. A highfalutin target for a sluggish tablet with limited functionality, especially when there are Android and iOS tablets in the same price range.

With a new Surface RT tablet expected alongside Windows 8.1 in the fall, it’ll be interesting to see how much of its existing stockpile it can shift. During the earnings call, Microsoft’s CFO Amy Hood said, “We believe this price decrease will accelerate surface RT adoption and position us for better success.” At $350 the Surface RT is certainly more tempting than it was before, but I still don’t know if I would recommend it over an iPad Mini or Nexus 10. We wouldn’t be surprised if, come Microsoft’s Q4 calendar earnings, there’s another huge charge for unsold inventory.

Zooming out, the financial results from Microsoft’s other divisions are a mixed bag. The Online Services division (Bing) continues to make a loss, but this year it made its smallest loss ever (just $1.28 billion). Entertainment and Devices, which includes the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone, saw full-year revenue growth of 6% to $10.165 billion, and a doubling of profits to $848 million this year. Microsoft’s Business division (Office, SharePoint, Lync) had a fantastic quarter (revenue up 14%; profits up 18%), but fairly flat over the full year. Consumer revenues dropped precipitously (27%) due to the tardiness of the PC market, but this was buoyed up by strong business revenues.

CFO Amy Hood said, in response to Microsoft’s generally weak earnings, “We know we have to do better and this is one reason we made the strategic and organizational changes last week. We are confident we are moving in the right direction.” Looking forward, Microsoft issued guidance saying that next quarter will probably be much of the same: Windows will continue to struggle, Entertainment and Devices will decline slightly (until the release of the Xbox One presumably), and Server and Tools and Business will continue to grow steadily. Online Services will grow by double digits, but that’s not saying much.

Microsoft pushes U.S. Customs to enforce phone import ban

Microsoft Corp, which won a ban last year on importing some phones made by a Google Inc subsidiary, filed a motion in a U.S. court on Friday asking the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection to enforce the measure. The U.S. International Trade Commission, which hears a long list of high-tech patent complaints, said in May 2012 that Google's Motorola Mobility infringed a Microsoft patent for generating and synchronising calendar items. It barred any infringing Motorola Mobility device from being imported into the United States. All phones with Google's Android software are affected by the ban, Microsoft said. But Google said that it should have applied to only some Motorola Mobility Android phones. That order was to have gone into effect 60 days after it was issued but, according to Microsoft's court filing, it still has not been enforced. "CBP (Customs and Bureau Protection) has repeatedly allowed Motorola to evade that order based on secret presentations that CBP has refused to share with Microsoft," the complaint said. Google argued that Microsoft tried to broaden the order beyond what the ITC had intended. "U.S. Customs appropriately rejected Microsoft's effort to broaden its patent claims to block Americans from using a wide range of legitimate calendar functions, like scheduling meetings, on their mobile phones," said Matt Kallman, a Google spokesman. A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs declined comment. The filing is the latest salvo in an international smartphone patent war that has embroiled a half dozen companies in lawsuits filed in about a dozen countries. The dispute is a sign that deciding which product infringes a patent is harder now that the world has gone high tech, and that Customs may not have the needed expertise to make that determination and perhaps should rely on the ITC, said Deanna Tanner Okun, a former ITC chairman who is a partner at Adduci, Mastriani & Schaumberg, LLP.

Torrent Software for Windows Phone 8

A native torrent client for Windows Phone 8 in its beta stage has shown up on the Windows Phone Centralforum. The application is available for all the enthusiasts who would like to try and test the features of the upcoming app. The beta version of the native torrent client comes with full features and media playback. Unfortunately due to the limitations of the Microsoft platform you are not able to save you downloaded files to the SD card, but only to the memory reserved for the app for now. If you are interested in getting your hands on the native torrent client for Windows Phone 8, head on to the source link below. You need to contact a member of the forum, who will send you the link for the download. Sadly, there is no word on the availability of the final version of the app in the Windows Phone store just yet. It support torrent and magnet link too !! really nice application. It was one of application I was waiting for the mostThe only sad part, it is not working in background yet. Just in snapp mode. Torrex is a modern BitTorrent client with ability to stream video and audio playback. Using our application you can download any torrents and magnet links and start viewing media content in the built-in media player without waiting for the download completion. Torrex is the only full-featured BitTorrent client for Windows Store today, which supports x86, x64 and ARM architectures (Windows 8 and Windows RT).  “Our goal is to make a high-quality, easy-to-use and handy product. Please, report us about any problems and bugs you find and do not hesitate to inform us about any features you would like to see in future versions of our application. Your opinion is very important for us “ says the company. 

Features
•Streaming: you can immediately start to watch a movie or listen to music without waiting for download completion
•Built-in player: you can watch the downloaded media content without switching to another application
•Download any torrent files
•Download magnet links
•Background music playback
•Snapped mode
•Share contract

Everyone who has ever used torrent swears by it for downloading movies, videos or pretty much anything. Torrent is definitely a boon for the layman – who can afford to purchase movies, songs, eBooks and programs at the exorbitant prices they are offered?

In case you have been sleeping under a rock and don’t know what we are talking about – here’s an explanation. A torrent download is a system of downloading via peer-to-peer networks. How it works is pretty simple. One person who starts a torrent possesses the original file. He then puts it out in the form of a torrent. Now, when somebody downloads the torrent, the download speed is determined by how many people are ‘seeding’ it i.e. lending it download support via their own network at that that time. The more people there are supporting a file, the better speeds you get in downloading the file.Now, we have been using this system of downloading files on PC since but it has also started pouring on phones. While we have used it on Android smartphones, the beta for a native torrent app has just showed up on Windows Phone Central. If you have a Windows 8 phone and are interested in trying out the beta, just leave them a private message with your Live Account ID and they will hit you back with a download. Torrent downloading is the way to go for any smartphone, especially those big screen ones like the Lumia 920 or 520. Once you start using torrent to download on phone, you will forget all other ways of downloading. It is just too convenient and sometimes even faster than direct downloads. Here’s a link to their page.

Windows Phone8 Blue to offer phabelts. Many more features to offer

Microsoft is building up a huge update to Windows Phone. Dubbed Blue, the General Distribution Release 3 (GDR3), will likely land in 2014 with a notification center, improved multitasking and updated core apps in tow. According to sources Microsoft will be releasing some of the improvements meant for Blue later this year - support for larger screens (5" and 6"), 1080p resolution and quad-core chipsets (likely the Snapdragon 600 and 800 series).So it's likely that we'll see Windows Phone 8 phablets with much improved hardware before the end of the year. Microsoft has reportedly been trying to offer speedier updates but had issues with chipset testing and bugs along the way.Meanwhile, Redmond has also released the changelog for the upcoming WP8 GDR2 update - it will bring improved Xbox Music (easier download of music), FM Radio embedded in the Music+Videos app (select phones) and the new Data Sense aoo, which helps you regulate your phone's data usage. There's also improved HTML5 support for Internet Explorer, and the ability to set a Lens as default cameraapp. The GDR2 update will come to the Nokia Lumia lineup as a side dish to the Lumia Amber update, which will bring Smart Camera among other goodies.Windows Phone 8 was a huge update over the initial WP7 bringing support for key features like multi-core processors and microSD cards, but since it launched Microsoft has been very quiet when it comes to updates. The company basically hasn’t released anything major since then. Why is that and what is Microsoft doing, you might be wondering. Whispers say Microsoft has entered “shut up and ship” mode as it has fully focused on delivering a massive Windows Phone Blue update and that’s coming up in 2014.  Windows Phone Blue should introduce huge changes like a new notification center, better multitasking, and changes to the core Windows Phone apps. It is also possible that some of the WP Blue features arrive earlier as part of a GDR3 update coming later in 2013. The biggest novelty coming with it will be support for 5-inch and 6-inch Windows Phone devices with 1080p screens and quad-core chips. Those devices will also come later this year. A lot of the current features will support all future phones so you’ll have nice unified support across devices. Interestingly, Microsoft is said to have wanted to deliver a number of smaller updates to Windows Phone earlier this year, but bugs and other issues have stopped it from doing so. Still, it’s clear that the company is cooperating closely with vendors and Windows Phone chief Joe Belfiore himself has said: "I wrote more than 10 pages of feedback myself on the Nokia Pro Camera app as it was being developed."Microsoft obviously realizes it has a lot of catching up to do, and hopefully it will deliver with updates in the near future. From this point of view, its silence recently might be actually encouraging.

Skype updated again, squashes all bugs

Yesterday Microsoft confirmed a bug in Skype where instant messages were being sent to the wrong person from their contact list. Sometimes it was just a few messages, while other times it was a whole conversation. Today, the company has started releasing patches for the software on the Skype Garage blog in a post titled "Hotfix for multiple Skype clients." Get the latest version of Skype from here: skype.com/go/getskype. The blog post is filed under Windows and I was told this hotfix is already out. When I inquired about the others, it turned out that the Linux version has also already been patched. The affected versions are as follows: Skype 5.10 for Windows, Skype 5.8 for Mac, Skype 4.0 for Linux, and Skype 1.2 for Windows Phone. The versions you want to upgrade to are Skype 5.10.0.116 for Windows, Skype 5.8.0.1207 for Mac, and Skype 4.0.0.8 for Linux.Here's what Skype had to say about the release:

The hotfix addresses an issue that occurs only when a user's Skype client crashes during a Skype IM session, which may in some cases result in the last IM entered or sent prior to the crash being delivered to a different IM contact after the Skype client is rebooted or logged in as a new user. Although we cannot determine precisely how many users may have been affected by this error, we believe the number is small given the very specific circumstances under which the error occurs. In addition, we have fixed File Sending on the desktop versions of Skype where it was not possible to save files for users who have a hard disk drive in FAT32 format.

Skype yesterday released a statement saying it was "rolling out a fix for this issue in the next few days and will notify our users to download an updated version of Skype." This was then followed by an updated statement:

Based on recent Skype customer forum posts and our own investigation over the past couple of days, we have identified a bug that we are working hard to fix. This issue occurs only when a user's Skype client crashes during a Skype IM session, which may in some cases result in the last IM entered or sent prior to the crash being delivered to a different IM contact after the Skype client is rebooted or logged in as a new user.Although we cannot determine precisely how many users may have been affected by this error, we believe the number is small given the very specific circumstances under which the error occurs. At Skype, our customer experience is paramount and we are working hard to release fixes for impacted clients within the next several days.We sincerely apologize to our community for any inconvenience.

It's great to see Skype resolve this problem so quickly. I will update you again when the other hotfixes are released.Skype for Android was recently updated with a major UI overhaul and few new features, but unfortunately, the update also brought a fair share of bugs with all the latest goodies.

Skype has found out the bugs that have its share in the malfunctioning of the app and has rolled out an update that squashes them all. The update addresses a bug that was not allowing users to go online or make, receive calls when their status was set to offline.The latest version of Skype for Android has video enabled for devices that could previously make video calls in version 3.2 and not in the recently rolled out update. Finally, Skype has also improved dialog translations for Russian, Brazilian Portuguese and Traditional Chinese languages.

Microsoft develops a 3D touchscreen

Microsoft has reportedly developed a 3D touchscreen that shows images which can be felt and manipulated.It includes an LCD flat panel screen with force sensors and a robotic arm that moves it back and forwards and by controlling how much resistance there is to a user's fingertip the device can simulate the shape and weight of objects shown on screen, BBC reports.According to the report, Microsoft said that the device can have both medical and gaming uses.Senior researcher Michael Pahud said that when the finger pushes on the touchscreen and the senses merge with stereo vision, if convergence is done correctly and visuals are updated constantly so that they correspond to the finger's depth perception, it will be enough for the brain to accept the virtual world as real.The report said that the company has created a demonstration using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of a brain to show how a medic could navigate through the different slices by pushing their finger against the display allowing them to draw notes and leave a ‘haptic detent’, or force-feedback marker - at certain layers to make it easier to find them again later on.Pahud said that the ‘haptic detent’ can be extended to flag up potential problems is encountering an anomaly like a tumour, because one can change the response based on what they touch.Dr Peter Weller, head of the Centre for Health Infomatics at City University, London, is concerned that Microsoft's screen would not be able to give an accurate enough indication of textures because if it was going to be used in the real world it would have to respond to rapidly changing shapes.Weller further said that if technology like Tactus, which has developed a screen with tiny channels of fluid which allows bumps to pop up to simulate the feel of button, is combined with Microsoft’s innovation it could prove useful for a doctor to do teleconsultancy work adding that it would mean the patient could be in another country or hospital and the doctor could feel their glands or abdomen from a distance, the report added.Work on the project is being carried out at the firm's Redmond campus near Seattle.
Simulated shapes
When a person touches the prototype it pushes back with a light force to ensure one of their fingers stays in contact with the screen.If they then press against it the robotic arm instantly pulls the screen backwards in a matching smooth movement. If they start to retract their finger, it moves it back towards them.Meanwhile a computer adjusts the size and perspective of the on-screen graphics to create a 3D effect.The trick to simulating a physical sense of touch is to adjust the amount of force-feedback resistance.So, in an application which shows graphics representing different square blocks on a wall, a "stone" one requires a relatively large amount of force to push it off the ledge and a "sponge" one less.In addition, the kit can be used to provide a sense of shape by adjusting the screen's position to match a virtual object's contours as a person drags their finger over its surface."As your finger pushes on the touchscreen and the senses merge with stereo vision, if we do the convergence correctly and update the visuals constantly so that they correspond to your finger's depth perception, this is enough for your brain to accept the virtual world as real," said senior researcher Michael Pahud.His team have used the technique to allow users to feel the shape of a virtual cup and ball, among other objects, while viewing them using special glasses to get a stereo-vision effect.
Touch-and-find tumours
Microsoft suggests one use for the device would be to allow doctors to explore body scans.It has created a demonstration using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of a brain to show how a medic could navigate through the different slices by pushing their finger against the display.It also allows them to draw notes and leave a "haptic detent" - or force-feedback marker - at certain layers to make it easier to find them again later on.In time, the researchers suggest, this could be extended to flag up potential problems."I could imagine receiving haptic feedback when you encountered an anomaly, such as a tumour, because we can change the response based on what you touch," said Mr Pahud."You can have different responses for when you touch soft tissue versus hard tissue, which makes for a very rich experience."
Bumpy screens
One medical tech expert said the project showed promise, but added that previous efforts to try to use touch-based feedback in robotic surgery and other health-related equipment suggested it was not yet responsive enough to be reliable.In particular, Dr Peter Weller, head of the Centre for Health Infomatics at City University, London, said he was concerned Microsoft's screen would not be able to give an accurate enough indication of textures. "If you were moving your finger over a surface that was rough the screen would have to go up and down very quickly to be able to give you that impression," he told the BBC."The examples that they give are all very smooth - squares and cylinders and all that - but if it was going to be used in the real world it would have to respond to rapidly changing shapes."Others are working on different ways to provide touch-feedback. California-based Tactus, for example, has developed a screen with tiny channels of fluid which allows bumps to pop up to simulate the feel of buttons.Dr Weller suggested that if this or other such technologies could be combined with Microsoft's current research then its screen could indeed find its way into use."I think their example of the brain scan is a bit artificial, but where I could see it being useful would be for a doctor doing teleconsultancy work," he said,"It would mean the patient could be in another country or hospital and the doctor could feel their glands or abdomen from a distance."

Zynga buy head of Microsoft Xbox business on a yearly package of $50M

Don Mattrick, the head of Microsoft  Xbox business who will be placed in Zynga the provider of social gaming services replacing founder Mark Pincus as chief executive next week, will get a hefty, largely stock-based compensation package of about $50 million in coming years, the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday. In his first year, Mattrick will receive a base salary of $1 million, a sign-on cash bonus of $5 million and a 2013 bonus of $2 million, or the average bonus of Zynga's other executives, the company said.To compensate for shares he lost in leaving Microsoft, Mattrick will receive a make-whole grant of $25 million, or about 9 million restricted stock units that will vest over the next three years. These shares are currently valued at over $30.5 million.Zynga stock has soared 11 percent since the company announced on Monday that Mattrick was coming on board as chief executive.At the end of his first year, Mattrick will get 45.32 percent of his 9 million restricted stock units, valued by the company at about $11.3 million based on the June 26 price. This takes his salary in his first year to a total of $19.3 million.Zynga is also giving Mattrick an inducement grant of 1,785,714 restricted stock units with a target value of $5 million and an option to buy 7,357,143 shares with a target value of $10 million that will vest at the end of his third, fourth and fifth term of employment.Mattrick is expected to make about $14.3 million in his second term and about $8.4 million in his third term as chief executive.If the company is pleased with Mattrick's performance, he is eligible for grants of new stock with a target value of $7 million in 2014. In following years, the company's board can award him new stock grants, but will try to keep the target value at $7 million.Credited with building Microsoft's Xbox business into a gaming powerhouse, Mattrick officially takes over on Monday as chief executive at Zynga, known for it's "Farmville" games.Mattrick's new role leading a company that publishes social media-based titles and smartphone games will be a marked departure from his long career in the world of big-budget, packaged console games.Mattrick headed successful franchises such as "FIFA" during his 15 years at video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc (EA.O). He joined Microsoft in 2007.At Microsoft, Mattrick helped turn the Xbox business into a profitable venture after years of operating losses, eventually propelling the device into the top selling console in the United States.Zynga shares closed nearly 5 percent higher at $3.42 on the Nasdaq on Wednesday

Age of Empires on Smartphones ........... soon

                 

  Microsoft corp will offer its popular Age of Empires game for Apple inc's iPhone and other Android powered smartphones through a tie up with Japan's Klab inc, seeking to have a growth in the mobile gaming world. Microsoft's gaming is currently dependent on its Xbox franchise but the mobiles are now a better "gaming console". While the tech giant have released a few mobile games for iOS and Android like Wordament, Age of Empires is the most popular game beyond its own consoles. Klab will develop a mobile version of 'Age of Empire' whichwill be RELEASED before the end of MARCH. It will be released in English worldwide and then later with other languages and on Windows

Oracle and Microsoft to rain togeather on a cloud partnership?

                         It seems to help the companies that are in distress has always been the secondary task of Microsoft. In times of distress, companies facing trouble always lock arms with Microsoft to recover from blows received in the marketplace (dont forget apple pre-iPhone and also Nokia which once was the world's no1 handset maker). On June24, Microsoft will do it again , this time with Oracle in a sector that will help them both bigtime: the cloud
                      Oracle has the powerful enterprise hardware -- survers storage and switches -- and the parallel database to run Microsoft's azure cloud management system and windows8 apps. Oracle has long interoperated with Windows server systems, .NET and Microsoft Office.
                       As newer cloud based solutions continue to pour into the enterprise space, old-dog software vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle (does anyone remember HP, IBM and Dell?) have to get creative. Once a foe always a foe not being the current situation, they are now looking to combine talents and fight to retain marketshare against the filled newcomers from all around the globe. The 2 founders, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison are partners in charity ' Giving Pledge' , this might just be a beginning of a beautiful friendship. It is clear that Oracle is declining but can the cloud save it?