Windows 7 pre-order in UK almost sold out on day one

Reaction of British users to Microsoft new operating system Windows 7 seem to be far more enthusiastic than the way Window Vista was received. Windows 7 which was made available in the UK today via pre-order service at selected outlets was almost sold out within the first 8 hours users can pre-order the OS.

Amazon.co.uk one of the retailers offering Windows 7 pre-order service said that sales of Windows 7 in the first eight hours it was available outstripped those of Windows Vista’s entire 17 week pre-order period. Customer can keep placing orders for the pre-ordered copy till 9 August, it will be sent out to customers on the 22nd of October, the same day as it goes on sale in stores.
Windows 7 is much cheaper than Vista and almost all previous version of Windows operating system at £50 for the home version, while the professional version costs around £100.

The limited number of pre-ordered copies will be shipped on 22 October, the same day it goes on sale in stores.

Pre-orders are available from a number of retailers, with the period ending on 9 August.

195 Billion Pounds more in Microsoft kitty

Analysts IDC predict that about 177 million copies of Windows 7 will be sold by the end of 2010 world wide. 50 million of this will be sold in Europe. The firm estimates that products and services surrounding Windows 7 will generate $320bn (£195bn).

No upgrade from previous Windows OS
One of the downside of Windows 7 is the fact that it has to be installed on a clean PC, you cannot upgrade from previous versions of Windows OS to Windows 7, you will have to first uninstall previous OS and then install Windows 7.
The version of Windows 7 sold in Europe will not be bundled with Internet Explorer because of EU anti-trust laws against Microsoft.

You can discuss Windows 7 and other computer and software related issues at UK Webmaster Forum.

Windows Azure – Microsoft Clouds Computing

For many years, technology experts forecast that the future of computing is in thin client computing; a large powerful central computer running operating systems and applications while out desktop PC are reduced to mere terminals that only send requests to the central computer for everything we needs, similar to the IBM AS400 model. Alas, reality cannot be more different as Amazon and Google demonstrated with the success of their Internet based software using the so called cloud computing.

Microsoft is playing catch up, but they seem determined to catch up fast, when at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie as announce their own cloud computing platform called Windows Azure. Azure platform will allows developers to create web applications using  Microsoft development tools and deploy them across Microsoft’s data centers. Some of the highlights of Windows Azure features follows:

• Add Web service capabilities to existing packaged applications.
• Build, modify, and distribute applications to the Web with minimal on-premises resources.
• Perform services (large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or large-volume computations, etc.) off premises.
• Create, test, debug, and distribute Web services quickly and inexpensively.
• Reduce costs of building and extending on-premises resources.
• Reduce the effort and costs of IT management
• Option to run Azure on your own computer or Microsoft data centres.

Amazon was credited with the development of the cloud computing platform, with huge data centres processing millions of  transactions from Amazon ecommerce sites around the world, Amazon basically sell off its spare capacity on it servers to a range of customers ranging from small application developers to huge organisations.

Yahoo agrees ad deal with Google

The death of Microsoft interest in taking over Yahoo has lead to Yahoo to tie up a deal it has been negotiating with Google. The agreement will see Google’s advertising technology.
Google ads will appear alongside some Yahoo search results in the US and Canada.Recent talks concluded after Yahoo rejected a Microsoft proposal to buy just its online search business.

Up to £400 additional revenue
Yahoo said the agreement with Google could be worth up to £410m) in additional revenue annually for Yahoo. chairman and chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt said”This commercial agreement provides Yahoo with the opportunity to deliver more relevant ads to users and provide advertisers and publishers with better advertising technology.

Carl Icahn – Yahoo sabotage Microsoft deal

Carl Icahn one of the most vocal of Yahoo shareholder has claimed the Yahoo board deliberately “sabotaged” Microsoft’s bid to buy the internet company.

Investor Carl Icahn claimed the board went to “inordinate lengths” to prevent the $47.5bn (£24bn) merger deal with Microsoft going ahead.

Mr Icahn has said he wants to remove the Yahoo board.
But Yahoo disagree with Mr Carl Icahn, saying that it did not agree to Microsoft takeover because it was not in the best interests of its shareholders.

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