Archive for the ‘Microsoft’ Category

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Report Suggests Decline in Microsoft’s Windows 8 Software Sales (MSFT)

Friday, December 28th, 2012

Report Suggests Decline in Microsoft’s Windows 8 Software Sales (MSFT)

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A report released on Thursday suggests that software company, Microsoft Corporation(MSFT) may be taking a hit with their Windows 8 software, having a direct affect on ODD manufacturers.

Digitimes reported that as a result of declined sales of the software, many manufacturers in the optical disk drive (ODD) business will see negative effects in the next quarter.

The decline in PC sales are expected to reduce purchases on ODD equipment by 5-10% in the first quarter. The report also stated that although Japanese manufacturers are estimating a flat quarter, manufacturers in US, China, and Taiwan are being conservative with their production.

However, sources estimate that Intel(INTC) will see improved earnings in the second half of 2013.

Microsoft shares were mostly flat during premarket trading Thursday. The stock is up 3.5% YTD.

The Bottom Line
Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) have a 3.43% dividend yield, based on last night’s closing stock price of $26.86. The stock has technical support in the $24-$26 price area. If the shares can firm up, we see overhead resistance around the $28-$29 price levels.

Microsoft Corporation(MSFT) is not recommended at this time, holding a Dividend.com DARS™ Rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars.

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks, as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here.

for more info:http://www.dividend.com/news/2012/report-suggests-decline-in-microsofts-windows-8-software-sales-msft/

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Microsoft’s latest patent licensee: Android embedded device maker Hoeft & Wessel

Friday, December 21st, 2012

Microsoft’s latest patent licensee: Android embedded device maker Hoeft & Wessel

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Microsoft has struck yet another patent-licensing deal with a company using the Android operating system.
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The latest licensee, Hoeft & Wessel AG, isn’t a household name, at least here in the U.S. The German IT vendor makes devices and terminals for the public transportation, logistics and retail industries that rely on Android as their embedded operating system.

The two companies aren’t sharing details of the agreement, beyond the fact that Microsoft will receive unspecified royalties from Hoeft & Wessel. Microsoft announced the arrangement with Hoeft & Wessel on December 11.

Microsoft is continuing its campaign to convince PC and device makers running Android and Chrome OS that they should license Microsoft’s patents to avoid licensing disputes in the future. Microsoft officials have not made public a list of the Microsoft patents on which the company claims Android infringes.

Over the past few years, Microsoft has signed patent-licensing deals with a number of key OEMs and ODMs (original design manufacturers) using Linux, Android and Chrome OS, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Buffalo, Compal, General Dynamics, HTC, LG Electronics, Pegatron, Samsung, TomTom, and Velocity Micro, among others.

Update: Microsoft also announced a similar patent-licensing deal on December 11 with EINS SE, which makes Android-based tablets sold under the Cat brand in Germany.

for more info:http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-latest-patent-licensee-android-embedded-device-maker-hoeft-and-wessel-7000008620/

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SmartBear Adds Test Automation for HTML5, Rich Media for Visual Studio 2012, .NET

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

SmartBear Adds Test Automation for HTML5, Rich Media for Visual Studio 2012, .NET

SmartBear Software’s latest update brings devs continuous testing capabilities for next-gen desktop and web apps running HTML5, ASP.NET and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). TestComplete 9.1 supports Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, Windows 8 and IE 10. IDN speaks with SmartBear’s Goran Begic.

SmartBear Software’s latest update brings devs continuous testing capabilities for next-gen desktop and web apps running HTML5, ASP.NET and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). TestComplete 9.1 supports Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, Windows 8 and IE 10.

“Modern web applications must function on multiple browsers and operating systems so dev teams need testing tools that offer tight integration with the .NET platform to make them more productive,” SmartBear’s senior product marketing manager Goran Begic, told IDN.

TestComplete 9.1 aligns its continuous testing and integration feature with advancements in the latest edition of the Microsoft Visual Studio platform. It lets devs automate functional testing of HTML5 web content similarly to how they test a Windows desktop or web applications, Begic added.

Begic listed these key benefits to the TestComplete 9.1 update:

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Integration with the “build” process in Visual Studio. “TestComplete tests are integrated in Visual Studio test projects, and all Visual Studio integration capabilities are usually a couple of clicks away. There is no need for custom interfaces and integration points to be built and maintained,” Begic said.

Faster testing, troubleshooting. “Team Foundation Server (TFS) integration, together with project level integration reduces the time required for fixing of defects, which is typically the biggest time sink in a project,” Begic said. Failed tests can be associated with defects and work items in TFS. This lets devs access tests from within their environments without having to worry about the correct setup. This easy access ensures correct reproduction of scenarios that lead to unexpected behavior, he added.

Automation. Devs can automate filling out forms that use new Input types or conduct searches (of numbers, email, semantic elements) and verify the data.

Extended testing capabilities. Adds keyword testing framework, recording capabilities (based on object recognition), object recognition technology and broad support for third party libraries (including ComponentOne, Developer Express, Infragistics etc.).

Inside SmartBear’s Support for
Rich Media, HTML Desktop Devs
“We see a need for testing rich media content, scripts and logic, as well as style. This is multiplied by the number of platforms on which web applications need to be tested. That was really the motivation behind the development of cross-browser testing capabilities, where tests can be created in one browser and run on any other supported browser,” Begic said.

HTML5 testing is a clear and growing demand among devs, Begic added.

“We see a clear trend toward adoption of HTML5/JavaScript/CSS3 as a platform of choice for new projects. Web applications are required to run on different browsers, operating systems and hardware platforms, including mobile,” Begic told IDN. The recent HTML5 support joins existing support for Ajax, Java, ASP.NET, Silverlight and Flash/Flex. “As new web technologies gain adoption in the marketplace, we will support them as well,” Begic said.

That said, SmartBear’s support for HTML5 web applications does not currently extend to mobile apps, Begic added. “At the moment we provide support for cross-browser testing on the desktop, and we have a roadmap for extension of this support to mobile platforms. Mobile is an integrated part of our web strategy, and it includes both applications running in browsers as well as mobile apps,” Begic said.

He wouldn’t pinpoint when TestComplete will deliver on those mobile capabilities, except to say, “The speed with which we will transform the roadmap into product capabilities will largely depend on the needs of our users.”

Begic also put SmartBear’s desktop-centric focus on HTML5 by sharing some historical context. “BHTML5 technology, while being very relevant for mobile development largely because of platforms such as PhoneGap, was originally aimed at serving desktop primarily. The advantage of HTML5 for the desktop was to provide rich internet experience for users directly through browser implementations,” Begic told IDN.

In recent times, the mobile aspect of HTML5 has come to the forefront “because of lack of standard interoperable RIA options such as Flash or Silverlight across different mobile OSes,” he added. TestComplete 9.1 is available immediately. More than one million developers, testers and operations professionals currently use SmartBear tools.

for more info:http://www.idevnews.com/stories/5534/SmartBear-Adds-Test-Automation-for-HTML5-Rich-Media-for-Visual-Studio-2012-NET

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Microsoft says botnet kingpin worked for antivirus vendor

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Microsoft says botnet kingpin worked for antivirus vendor

Four months after dismantling the nasty Kelihos botnet, Microsoft says it has tracked down the central figure behind it– naming Russian citizen Andrey N. Sabelnikov as a new defendant in its civil case over the botnet.

Microsoft announced the news in a blog post. The company alleges that Sabelnikov wrote the code for the Kelihos malware and was responsible for the operation of the botnet, which did everything from distributing spam to stealing financial information and orchestrating stock scams.

Here’s the kicker: Prior to his current employment as a freelancer for a software development and consulting firm, Sabelnikov ”worked as a software engineer and project manager at a company that provided firewall, antivirus and security software,” according to Microsoft’s newly amended lawsuit.

That would be ironic, but not surprising, given the wealth of information Sabelnikov would have gleaned in such a job. One tactic allegedly used by the Kelihos operators was distributing fake antivirus software.
The legal documents don’t identify the antivirus and firewall company where Sabelnikov worked, or the consulting firm where he now freelances. However, the suit say he has a computer programming degree from the St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrument Engineering.

Microsoft previously settled with the original defendants in the case, Dominique Alexander Piatti and dotFREE Group, who owned domains allegedly used to control the botnet. The company says it was able to identify Sabelnikov as the alleged operator thanks to their cooperation, as well as new evidence.

(more…)

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Microsoft 1, Google 0

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Microsoft 1, Google 0

It was no accident that Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) earnings were good and Google’s bad (NASDAQ: GOOG). The assumption that search is one of the best businesses in the world has proved inaccurate. The notion that paid operating software and hardware sales are bad businesses has turned out to be wrong. The tide of tech has turned in Redmond’s favor.

Microsoft’s sales in the past quarter did not improve much — from $20 billion to $20.9 billion. Earnings were down very slightly to $6.6 billion. But the world’s largest software company is nearing the end of its Windows 7 product cycle, and Windows 8 is on the horizon. The strength of its earnings were in its Servers & Tools division and Business division. These signal the health of corporate and enterprise IT spending. Google has tried to enter this field with its apps products and failed. Microsoft’s products have the appeal of completeness and are fully finished. The power of its numbers in these areas was confirmed by IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) strength in the same sector

Google’s earnings were impressive on their face. Sales rose 25% to $10.6 billion. Earnings were up very modestly from $2.54 billion to $2.71 billion. The margins were unimpressive. Wall St. reacted by dropping shares by 10%. The strangest thing about the company’s numbers was that the employee count at Google rose from 31,353 at the end of September to 32,467. This happened as Google dropped out of a number of is faltering businesses. It would seem the size of its workforce ought to decline. Google has decided to invest in a future that may be severely limited.

Google’s figures were hurt by the movement of search to mobile devices from the PC. Yield per click on its text ads dropped 8% from the same period a year ago. Some analysts believe that click activity on mobile devices is poor. Google may be the leader by far in mobile search. The victory appears to have caused damage to its margins.

Google’s other major push into mobile is its Android operating system. Its adoption has been extraordinary. Android growth has outpaced the increase in the use of Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) OS, and Microsoft barely has as foothold in the market. Google has not found a way to make money on Android, and the software is under patent attacks, mostly from Microsoft. An open source operating system that was supposed to be free has turned out to be expensive for its adopters. Most have agreed to pay license fees to Microsoft for its intellectual property. Microsoft may have found the mobile OS business more profitable than Google, even though Windows mobile OS growth has been nonexistent.

(more…)

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