Browsing: Microsoft

With 2010 on life support, Ben Kelly and Brett Haggard hook up with Simon Dingle to talk tech. They discuss the launch of Cell C’s new network in Gauteng, discuss ADSL’s local inadequacies, talk about the MacBook Air, and wonder about Xbox Live and Kinect in SA

Consumerisation — the use by business of technologies that were first tested in the consumer market — is one of the IT industry’s buzzwords of the moment. One technology that Microsoft hopes will soon evolve from expensive toy into essential productivity tool is the motion and voice interface featured in Kinect.

Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC will be the first company to launch smartphones running Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 operating system. HTC, whose products are distributed in SA by Leaf

Microsoft is waiting for the department of trade & industry to give it the go-ahead for its empowerment plan where it wants to invest nearly R500m in several local black-owned software development companies.

One of the most curious and unintended side effects of rapid innovation is on language. Rather than making words up, we prefer to frame things in analogy and reference. That’s why we still talk about “opening a window” on a computer, and why we “cut and paste” text and save “bookmarks”

Xbox Live is finally set to launch in SA on 10 November, giving local Xbox 360 owners official access to the service for the first time. The Xbox Live Arcade — a veritable treasure chest of downloadable games — is one of the service’s most attractive features.

Microsoft SA MD Mteto Nyati has been appointed as a nonexecutive director on the board of JSE-listed telecommunications group Blue Label Telecoms. Nyati, who has headed Microsoft’s SA operation for the past two years, takes up the role from today.

Police and governments around the world need to collaborate more closely to develop the security legislation and training needed to combat a growing tide of cybercrime. That’s according to Microsoft’s global chief security advisor, Roger Halbheer.

Microsoft believes that the latest version of Internet Explorer will enable it to recapture market share it has lost to Mozilla’s Firefox browser and Google Chrome in recent years. The beta version of Internet Explorer 9 launched yesterday.

Nokia is replacing its CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, with a top Microsoft executive, Stephen Elop, as the Finnish handset manufacturer seeks to make up for ground it has lost in recent years to rivals such as iPhone-maker Apple and BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion. But already a senior Gartner analyst is questioning the move. “I’m in two minds about this,” says Gartner vice-president Nick Jones.