Ray Ozzie has started blogging again, and in his first post, he discusses something he found buried in his home office: "a wonderful artifact from decades ago – a folder of collaterals from the Windows 1.0 launch event." He's scanned the materials and posted them them at docs.com. As he notes, "November 20, 2010 [is] the 25th anniversary of Windows."
I enjoy that the materials appear to have been created with a typewriter (more likely a printer with fixed, typewriter-style fonts). Also the halting English of MICROSOFT SHIPS WINDOWS RETAIL. The press release suggests that Windows Write and Paint were "a special introductory offer" and would thus be later removed and offered for sale.
This is why I was a Commodore fan in those days. :)
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As many of you know, I calculate PC market share each quarter using a combination of IDC and Gartner figures, since each calculates things a bit differently. And as many of you also know, I have a hard time understanding the free pass that Apple gets with the media. So it may interest you to see these two things coming together in a kind of peanut-butter-cup perfect storm of sorts: Media outlets far and wide are reporting that Apple has suddenly vaulted into third place, from a market share perspective, in the US, and doing so without qualify that claim at all. But what none of these fantastic headlines reveal is that this is only true if you listen to IDC. Gartner says Apple is still in fourth place in the US. (Both agree that Apple is well outside the top five worldwide, at least.) So. What do you see when you calculate PC market share using a combination of both sets of numbers? Stay tuned.
Update: It's a tie for third place. Both Acer and Apple own 7.2 percent of the US market.
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Microsoft enabled the SmartScreen reputation service in the IE 9 Beta this week.
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Starting November 10, Microsoft will make available localized versions of its Xbox LIVE service (including Games for Windows LIVE) in nine new countries: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and South Africa.
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Some kind of announcement is coming next Tuesday morning from the Microsoft Office division, and you can watch it live. I'm guessing they replaced Stephen Elop?