Futurecat - Michael Karek

Six weeks ago we released the 3rd Internet Explorer Platform Preview as part of the commitment we made at MIX10 to release updated platform previews approximately every 8 weeks. Today, we’re releasing the 4th Internet Explorer Platform Preview and with that sending the signal to partners and developers that now is the time to start getting their sites ready for Internet Explorer 9 Beta.

With this latest platform preview we’ve updated the demos on the Internet Explorer Test Drive site to give you a sneak peak of the sort of web experiences developers will be able to deliver on Internet Explorer 9.

Our new open and transparent approach with the platform previews has been invaluable for getting early and quality feedback from developers. As with previous platform previews, our focus remains on:

• Enabling the same markup to work across browsers
• Delivering all-round performance
• Through Windows and modern hardware, unlocking the next class of experiences for the web with hardware acceleration

Developers and partners have been excited to experience the new IE9 web development and design capabilities, including fully hardware accelerating all graphics and text through Windows, our new Chakra JavaScript engine, as well as our support for modern standards like HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1 and DOM. We’ve received more than 1,300 pieces of feedback from developers and made many changes as a result.

Dean Hachamovitch goes into much more detail about Internet Explorer Platform Preview 4 over on the IE Engineering Blog.

We’re delighted with the response from the developer community to the platform previews and – as Dean mentions– we have seen over 2.5M downloads of the Internet Explorer Platform Previews and over 20M visits to the Internet Explorer Test Drive site.

Between now and the Beta, we encourage developers to test their web sites with PP4 to make sure well they’ll work with the Internet Explorer 9 Beta and begin to reimagine what they can build when they have a browser that is architected to take advantage of your hardware through Windows.

If you want to try it for yourself, you can visit the Internet Explorer Test Drive site, download Internet Explorer Platform Preview 4 and try some of the new demos like IE Beatz, Psychedelic Browsing and Hamster Dance Revolution.

Last night I spent some time with IE Beatz and came up with this beat. If you can do better – and I’m sure you can – why not post in the comments!

Today, we announced at our annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) the availability of the public beta for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1). As Gavriella Schuster and I have mentioned in previous blogs, SP1 for Windows 7 does not contain any new features specific to Windows 7. However, the new features in SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2 benefit Windows 7 by providing a richer Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) experience. For Windows 7, SP1 is simply a combination of updates already available through Windows Update and additional hotfixes based on feedback by our customers and partners. For more information on Windows 7 SP1 and new features for Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, I recommend reading this blog post from the Windows Server Division Weblog.

If you are an IT Professional interested in testing Windows 7 SP1, you can download the public beta via the Springboard Series on TechNet where you will find the download as well as other key deployment and support tools. For everyone else, Windows 7 SP1 will be available in the first half of 2011 through the usual channels.

Business customers tell us that they are already seeing the benefit of deploying Windows 7, and industry analysts agree that there is no need to wait for SP1. According to the IDC Survey “Deployment Opportunities for Windows 7” by Matt Healey, Al Gillen, and Cushing Anderson, Doc #223694, June 2010 - 64.7% of enterprises have already begun or will begin their migration to Windows 7 within the next 6 months and 89% of companies have definitive plans to begin their migration to Windows 7 within a 24-month period. And Forrester predicts that Windows 7 will become the new standard for most commercial PCs within 12 months (Forrester Research 2010):

“With Windows powering approximately 96% of corporate PCs, it’s a no-brainer for most firms to eventually transition to Windows 7.”

After only 7 months in market, Windows 7 had nearly 14% share of the global OS market, according to Net Applications for June 2010. Not only that, Windows 7 has become the fastest selling operating system in history. We recently announced that Windows 7 has sold 150 million licenses. Check out my blog posts here and here for more amazing Windows 7 momentum today.

In short – businesses should move full speed ahead with deploying Windows 7 today.

Along with today’s announcement of public beta availability of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, we also wanted to provide customers and partners with more predictability around the lifecycle of Windows.

Prior to shipping Windows 7, we communicated that end-user downgrade rights provided in the software license terms of Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate editions preinstalled on a new PC would allow a customer to downgrade to either Windows XP Professional or similar Windows Vista versions for 18 months, or until the availability of SP1, whichever came sooner. Generally, PC manufacturers are in the process of ramping down Windows XP downgrade facilitation options that some offer today. As background, an OEM’s ability to generally offer downgrade facilitation options (e.g., preinstalling Windows XP Professional on a new PC that includes end-user rights for Windows 7 Professional) ends on October 22, 2010.

While the majority of customers are actively transitioning to Windows 7, and PC manufacturers are focused on delivering PCs and devices with Windows 7 preinstalled, our business customers have told us that the removing end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional could be confusing, given the rights change would be made for new PCs preinstalled with Windows 7 and managing a hybrid environment with PCs that have different end-user rights based on date of purchase would be challenging to track.

Therefore, maintaining a more straightforward policy would help those customer segments that rely on downgrade rights as part of their migration planning – particularly in emerging markets and customers who may not take advantage of our volume license programs. 

To support our customers’ “unprecedented move” to migrate their PC environment to Windows 7, we have decided to extend downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional beyond the previously planned end date at Windows 7 SP1. This will help maintain consistency for downgrade rights throughout the Windows 7 lifecycle. As a result, the OEM versions of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate will continue to include downgrade rights to the similar versions of Windows Vista or Windows XP Professional.  Going forward, businesses can continue to purchase new PCs and utilize end user downgrade rights to Windows XP or Windows Vista until they are ready to use Windows 7. Enabling such rights throughout the Windows 7 lifecycle will make it easier for customers as they plan deployments to Windows 7.

In the interest of providing more consistency and predictability with how we manage the Windows lifecycle, we are confirming our current policy of allowing retailers to sell the boxed version of the previous OS for up to 1 year after release of a new OS, and that OEMs can sell PCs with the previous OS pre-loaded for up to 2 years after, the launch date of the new OS. This means that since Windows 7 launched on October 22, 2009, retailers will be able to sell the boxed version of Windows Vista until October 22, 2010, and OEMs will be able to sell PCs with Windows Vista preinstalled until October 22, 2011. I also recommend checking out this blog post regarding Windows XP end-of-sales and end-of-support deadlines.

This lifecycle policy has been in effect since before the launch of Windows 7, and it has very little impact on most customers, as many retailers and OEMs have already discontinued sales of Windows Vista in favor of Windows 7. But it does ensure that our OEM and retail partners can discontinue sales of earlier versions of Windows within a predictable timeline. 

We are humbled by the amazing Windows 7 momentum and the positive feedback we continue to hear from customers and partners.

UPDATE 7/13: We’ve seen some confusion regarding the information in this blog post covering the changes we’ve announced to end user downgrade rights so I wanted to update this post with some clarification.

Customers who purchase Windows 7 PCs with end user downgrade rights as provided in the software license terms (EULA) will be able to downgrade to Windows XP Professional on those PCs for the life of the PC. However, customers will not be able to buy a Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate PC with end user downgrade rights after Windows 7 reaches the end of sales date in the OEM channel – which according to the current Windows Lifecycle policy is 2 years after the next version of Windows ships.

These changes are unrelated to our technical support policy. As mentioned in this blog post, extended support for Windows XP SP3 will continue through April 2014. So customers who downgrade their Windows 7 PCs to Windows XP will no longer be able to receive extended support after April 2014. After April 2014, customers will need to either get a custom support agreement or install a more modern OS on those PCs.

And of course there’s also the question of third party applications that run on Windows XP that our customers need as well. Analyst firms such as Gartner are predicting that many third party applications will no longer be supported by their makers after 2011, so we encourage customers to think holistically about their IT infrastructure as they make their Windows migration plans.

Hi, I’m Alex Heaton, Group Product Manager for Windows Intune at Microsoft. Today, I’m happy to share some news about Windows Intune, which is our forthcoming solution for PC management and security. Windows Intune brings together both Windows cloud services and software to keep PC’s well managed and up to date with the latest version of Windows. Windows Intune is the newest addition to Microsoft’s cloud family where — we’re using our experience with cloud services and IT infrastructure solutions like Windows Update to help customers and partners manage their PCs.

It is the first day of Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) and we have great news about how Windows Intune can create new opportunities for partners, as well as pricing and the details on the second public beta that we just opened today.

Second Windows Intune Public Beta

On April 19, Brandon LeBlanc announced the first public beta of Windows Intune, available to more than 1,000 customers and IT partners in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. We saw a lot of excitement from partners and customers and the beta filled up very quickly.

Now we want to give more of you an opportunity to try Windows Intune. Today we are expanding the scope of the beta to 10,000 accounts and increasing the regions to the US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, UK, and Italy.

The goal of this beta is to gather the feedback we need to ensure a quality final release—so we ask that you only sign up for this beta if you are able to test it on at least five PCs . If you just want to take a look, you can check out our videos on the Windows Intune site. To sign up for the beta or watch the videos, please visit the experience Windows Intune page.

Pricing

Today we are also announcing pricing for Windows Intune. Windows Intune will include the cloud management service with integrated antimalware (AV and antispyware) plus Windows 7 Enterprise upgrade rights all in a single subscription for $11 USD per PC, per month.

Businesses get a great deal with Windows Intune for several reasons. Because Windows Intune is built on a cloud service, customers and partners can realize the benefits of having a modern PC management and security system without the upfront software licenses, server hardware, and IT labor costs that are required to setup a traditional on-premise solutions

The value of upgrading to Windows 7 Enterprise alone can more than cover the costs of the subscription. According to recent report from IDC on the benefits of Windows 7, “small and medium-sized businesses with 250 or fewer PCs that are deploying Windows 7 are gaining more than happier users; they are lowering support costs, improving security, and making end users more productive.” Their research found that upgrading to Windows 7 can save $277 per year in IT labor, and $1,123 in end user labor.

Customers and partners also have the flexibility to choose if they want to use an all cloud or hybrid solution to manage their PCs. For an additional dollar per PC, per month, customers have the option to subscribe to the  the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), a collection of on-premise management tools that complete what Windows Intune can do from the cloud.  

More pricing and licensing details are included in the Windows Intune FAQ.

New feature for partners

Windows Intune is a tool that IT pros can buy and use directly, but we expect in many cases partners (IT solution providers) will use it to manage their customers’ PCs. We see this as a great opportunity for partners to use Windows Intune to boost their revenues through Windows Intune sales, using Windows Intune to provide managed service, and assisting customers with Windows 7 upgrades. Since Windows Intune works over the cloud, with no onsite infrastructure required, partners can help their customers from anywhere. We had many partners in the first beta who told us they wanted to use Windows Intune to manage several of their customers all at the same time. Based on their feedback, we’ve added a feature in this beta called the Multi-Account Console, which is designed to help partners manage multiple accounts through the single Web-based console.

From the account selection screen, partners will have an aggregate view of the environments they manage, so they can easily monitor the status and health of client PCs, including Agent Health, Alerts, Anti-Malware, and Updates. Partners can change the filter to view by health status, so customers in need of urgent assistance will rise to the top of the list. This addition makes the experience simple for partners to scale and will hopefully save them time, and ultimately money.

What Partners are Saying

We’re only wrapping up our first public beta, but we’re excited to hear from partners that based on what they’ve seen so far, they think Windows Intune is a powerful new tool that will help them work more effectively and expand their customer base.

One of the partners in our beta program, Christopher Foote, President of JCF Managed Solutions, told us:

“I save about 40% of the time I used to spend managing PC updates, thanks to Windows Intune. It frees me up to focus on developing more custom applications—and bring on more customers.”

Brian Britton, from Microload in London, sees opportunities for Windows Intune to grow his business:

“With the efficiency improvements that Windows Intune will enable, I think we could expand our customer base by at least 10-15 percent immediately.”

Partners and customers also see great opportunities with Windows 7 Enterprise and the upgrade rights that are included in Windows Intune.

Anders Grönlund, marketing and alliance manager of Enfo Zipper remarks:

“Knowing that they have rights to upgrade to Windows 7 on all Windows Intune-subscribed PCs provides an extra incentive for our customers to integrate Windows Intune into their IT environments, It accelerates their decision to make the move—which helps us grow our business faster while providing the best PC management and PC experience to our customers.”

And Ryan McDonnell, IT manager at Levick Strategic Communications says:

“Windows 7 Enterprise is a must-have system for us. Being able to manage one OS saves me time and this solution gives users more ways to control their desktops, perform daily tasks, and work more productively. What’s more, Windows Intune offers another way to upgrade to Windows 7 Enterprise. We’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this because we can now better protect and manage PCs while giving users the latest operating system.”

These are only a few examples of what our partners are saying. For more information on the partner opportunities with Windows Intune, visit the Windows Intune MPN page and check out other case studies from partners here.

Looking forward

Windows Intune will be generally available by early 2011 in all the countries included in this second public beta. Windows Intune will be more broadly available in select European and Latin American countries at launch. In the months following the official launch, we plan on delivering the service in select Asian countries.

As you try out the second public beta, we hope you’ll find that it’s a simple way to keep your PCs managed, secure and up-to-date with Windows 7. Just as we requested in the first beta, we want to hear feedback from customers and partners based on what they’ve seen and learn what they hope to see in Windows Intune to help their businesses and their customers.

Try the Windows Intune beta today and visit www.windowsintune.com to learn more about Windows Intune and experience the beta! We also have Windows Intune technical resources and a support forum on our Springboard Series on TechNet.

It’s here! Hot on the heels of the Hotmail roll-out, the new Windows Live Essentials is now available for public beta testing. Windows Live Essentials beta requires Windows Vista or Windows 7, and is available in English, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, or Spanish.  Get it here!

 
As previously announced, this release of Essentials is focused on two things: connecting Windows 7 to the cloud services you already use, and making everyday tasks simpler, so that you can do more on your PC.

Connecting Windows 7 to the cloud

We’ve designed Essentials to connect your Windows experience to the web services you already use – not just the ones from Microsoft. The new betas of Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Writer, and Messenger connect to photo and video sharing (SkyDrive, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, SmugMug), social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin), email (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail), blogging (Spaces, WordPress, Blogger), and document productivity (Office Web Apps) services. And the new Windows Live Sync keeps your files synchronized across multiple PCs and in the cloud.  You can even directly access your PC over the web with Sync’s new remote desktop feature.

Making everyday tasks simpler and enabling new possibilities

People like to get creative on their PCs as much as they like seeing what everyone else has been up to. Whether it’s Retouch, Panoramic Stitch, or Photo Fuse in Photo Gallery, Auto Movie in Movie Maker, or photo email in the new Windows Live Mail, we think you’ll be excited by the new additions to Essentials that make advanced tasks, well, easy. If you haven’t yet tried Photo Fuse to merge together the best of several photos, it’s a lot of fun.

You can also view this video on YouTube

We hope you’ll enjoy the new Essentials beta. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

- Piero Sierra
   Group Program Manager, Windows Live Essentials

P.S. We’re loving all the comments here, but for feedback and bug reporting, here are some links you might want to try.

• Give general feedback > http://feedback.live.com
• Report a bug > http://windowslivehelp.com

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Keeping up with our commitment to developers to release updates to the Internet Explorer Platform Preview approximately every 8 weeks, today we released Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3 at an event in San Francisco. Together with representatives from top web sites, OEMs and silicon companies we showed what it looks like when you marry powerful hardware with top web site developers on a browser architected for the next generation of web experiences.

The Internet Explorer Platform Preview allows developers to test the new Internet Explorer 9 web development and design capabilities including our new JavaScript engine – codename Chakra – as well as our support for standards like HTML5, CSS3, SVG 1.1 and DOM.

At our event at the “12 Gallagher Lane” gallery in San Francisco, Ryan Gavin and Rob Mauceri from the IE team introduced Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3 to the assembled press and enthusiasts with some new demos on the IE Test Drive site (www.ietestdrive.com) site. Over on the IE Engineering blog, Dean Hachamovitch digs into “What’s New” in Platform Preview 3 in his blog post. Developers are sure to be excited by the inclusion of the <AUDIO>, <VIDEO> and <CANVAS> tags from the HTML5 specification with Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3 taking full advantage of the underlying hardware in your PC to render <VIDEO> and <CANVAS> elements.

The Platform Previews remain targeted primarily at web developers and designers, but they aren’t the only ones excited by this milestone. Ryan and Rob were joined by representatives from top web sites, OEMs and silicon companies who showed off what they could do with a browser architected for the next generation of web experiences. Partners included AMD, NVIDIA, Asus, and Dell. In a comment for this blog, Chris Keating, Senior Product Manager from IMDb said :

“IMDb is committed to helping fans discover, enjoy and share compelling entertainment related content. Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3 created an opportunity to showcase our content to fans on a new, visually engaging platform.”, Chris Keating, Senior Product Manager, IMDB

We’ll be following this post with guest posts from NVIDIA, ASUS and AMD who also participated in the event.

If you want to see the sort of thing that developers can do when the browser uses the full power of your PC, watch* some of the demos below or grab Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3 from www.ietestdrive.com and take the demos for a spin yourself.**

Enjoy!

* We wanted to honor the support for HTML5 video in Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3 by using HTML5 video for the demo. If your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video or the H264 codec, this post should automatically allow you to watch the video using Silverlight.

** As mentioned in the Platform Preview FAQs, Internet Explorer Platform Preview 3 is designed for developers who want to experiment with the new platform features in Internet Explorer 9 and can be installed alongside Internet Explorer 8. As a result, is not a full browser and lacks common browser features like a back button or address bar.

Extra Links :

Amazon Bookshelf Video : http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/Internet-Explorer-9-Platform-Preview-3-A-look-at-Canvas-and-Amazoncom/

IMDB Video Demo : http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/Internet-Explorer-9-Platform-Preview-3-A-look-at-HTML5-video-support/

ECMAScript 5 Game Video : http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/Internet-Explorer-9-Platform-Preview-3-A-Look-at-ECMAScript-5/

CANVAS Fish Tank Video : http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LarryLarsen/Internet-Explorer-9-Platform-Preview-3-A-look-at-Canvas/

Internet Explorer Platform Preview 2 Post : http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2010/05/05/check-out-the-internet-explorer-9-platform-preview-number-2.aspx

For many of you who have recently visited The Windows Blog this evening, you might have noticed some big changes to the site. We’ve just completed a major upgrade. Please pardon the dust as we’re still doing some last minute clean-up and tweaks to the site. Tomorrow I’ll do a much deeper post on the changes and some of the new things we’re introducing with the upgrade to The Windows Blog. Thanks!

Starting May 6th, you can order KIN online at Verizon Wireless and on May 13^th, KIN will be available in Verizon Wireless stores.

KIN ONE is available for $49.99.

KIN TWO is available for $99.99.

Prices for KIN ONE and KIN TWO are after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement with Verizon Wireless.

To truly get the most out of your KIN, you will need to be on at least a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan. Verizon’s Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 with monthly access. And their Email and Web for Smartphone plans start at $29.99 for unlimited monthly access.

For more on KIN, visit the KIN website or read this blog post from Andy Lees, Senior Vice President for our Mobile Communications Business here at Microsoft.

Any Saturday afternoon you are likely to find me at the local Best Buy or Fry’s. You see, I am a gadget nut and I love finding that next great product that helps me do something new or better. This is, of course, a good thing for the guy who heads up Ecosystem marketing for Windows. A big part of what makes Windows great is the universe of partners around it. My last few purchases (a Wacom Bamboo tablet, a Seagate FreeAgent Go 1TB portable drive, a Netgear WNDR3700 router, a Samsung netbook and a new Microsoft mouse) all have something in common – they all shine with Windows 7. This got me thinking a lot about the great support we are seeing from the ecosystem (something we have talked about before) and how these partners help enhance the Windows experience for all of our users.

When I think about the ecosystem around Windows, three things really stand out for me:

• The universe of products that support Windows 7 is immense, ranging from PCs and peripheral hardware to consumer, commercial and custom built software.
• More partners than ever before have achieved the Logo and customers are looking for the logo when they shop for the products.
• Partners are innovating on Windows 7. New generations of exciting products that leverage Windows 7 keep rolling in.

Last week, we announced sales had reached more than 100 million licenses, which means more people are choosing Windows 7. These people choose Windows in part because the apps and devices they care about simply work. I often get asked to characterize how many products work with Windows 7. The answer is simple – the number is huge. Let’s talk about the hardware first. Thanks to an analysis of a random sample of millions of PC’s that have opted in to participate in telemetry we know that over a quarter of a million devices work with Windows 7.

The universe of software is even larger – that same telemetry shows more than a million applications running on Windows 7 PCs around the world. This software comes from the largest tech industry titans serving tens of thousands of users right to the developer building customer software for their small business. The products people want are ready for Windows 7. Based on NPD and Download.com rankings, 14 of the top 15 applications are compatible with Windows 7 – products like WinZip, Turbo Tax, and Microsoft Office. Looking at other key rankings by NPD…

• 8 out of 10 of the top Accounting applications ranked by US Sales are compatible or have an upgrade to Windows 7 including QuickBooks and Peachtree Accounting
• 10 out of 10 of the top Games ranked by US Sales are compatible or have an upgrade to Windows 7 including Sims 3, World of Warcraft, and Call of Duty
• 10 out of 10 of the top Security applications ranked by US Sales are compatible or have an upgrade to Windows 7 including applications from Symantec and Kaspersky

Having millions of things work is one thing, but tens of thousands of products have gone the next step to earn the Compatible with Windows 7 logo. The logo is the sign to the customer that the vendor has tested their product to work well with Windows 7. There are now more products with the Windows 7 Logo than any past Windows logo program. There are nearly 18,000 products that have earned the logo, over 20,000 if you include PCs. That’s 5,000 applications and 13,000 devices and components. This means that all these products have passed our rigorous testing so in any category, you can find a product with the logo. It’s not the small guys either… 10 of the 15 most popular applications sold or downloaded in the US carry the logo. We’re talking all the top names: Intuit, Adobe, Symantec, Canon, Sage, McAfee, Cisco, D-Link, and HP.

With such a broad and vast ecosystem, we also continue to invest in compatibility tools and resources to help customers. We have seen over 15 million downloads of the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. That’s larger than the population of Sweden and Singapore combined. IT professionals are also taking advantage of the Windows 7 Application Compatibility list with over 83,000 downloads. We’ve also continued to expand on the Windows 7 Compatibility Center to help people easily check the compatibility of thousands of devices and software programs for 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows 7. The site also provides links to drivers and software updates to help get your PC running with Windows 7. The site represents a self-reported sample of applications and devices so it changes every day. With an ecosystem as large as the one around Windows, it is nearly impossible to report on all products, but our goal is to provide the best information on the products people care about most. Since launch, we have seen over 17 million visitors to the Windows 7 Compatibility Center representing 78 million page views.

Finally and perhaps most importantly we continue to see innovation around Windows 7 by our ecosystem partners. If you want amazing products you can find them on Windows. In hardware, Onkyo announced the first Windows 7 compatible A/V receivers and now there are great products like the WD TV Live that enable Play To in legacy devices, the new Toshiba TV (the first TV to earn the logo), and Sierra Wireless announcing Device Stage support for all their Aircard line of products. Not only do all of these products carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo, but they enhance your Windows experience in compelling ways. In software, more applications are taking advantage of unique features in Windows 7. The team at Graphic.ly is testing a next generation Windows 7 comic book reader, Seesmic created Look a twist on how people can access Twitter, Winzip 14.5 beta (update: just released today) has added the Windows Ribbon, even Google and Mozilla have added support for Jump Lists in their browsers.

Huge support, the most products with the Logo and new innovations – all reasons why I am excited about what our partners are doing. I like to call it “Ecosystem Awesomeness”.

The mobile phone market is undergoing exciting changes of epic proportions. Phones are shifting dramatically towards more empowered and more capable devices. At the same time, they need to be re-invented to meet consumers’ higher expectations of what a phone should be. Today’s phones need to cater to texters, gamers, music lovers, and socializers as much as business users. And people are no longer satisfied with just being connected. They want be in touch – in a personal and engaged way – to share their experiences, to create experiences.

Today, Microsoft, Sharp, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone unveil KIN, a new Windows Phone for people who are actively navigating their social lives. Across Microsoft, from Bing to Windows 7 to Xbox and Zune, we’ve shifted our focus to building software that is inspired by the way people live. It’s clear when you pick up a KIN that this phone is something new and different.

KIN is built for the youthful audience. We designed the total experience from the ground up. We looked at how these people want to use the phone in tandem with the PC and the web. We’ve worked closely with Sharp on the design of the phone to make sure it delivers for KIN’s socially active customer. This is the social media generation. They’re not just reading — they’re broadcasting, sharing, and getting their message out to the world.

KIN weaves social networking into the fabric of the phone – it’s not a bolt-on nor an application nor a widget. Because of this, we are able to expose key social and sharing experiences throughout the entire phone experience. For instance – right from the home screen, called the KIN Loop, you can see who and what you love coming in from various networks and directly comment or post a status. Contacts are the place to see all your friends bringing in rich information effortlessly from many different social networks, and the camera is the place to see not just your own photos, but also those from your friends.

KIN’s audience lives around music and photos. So we included the Zune experience with its ability to share music with friends. Users get the Zune Music & Media Player, and Marketplace w/Zune Pass subscription support, as well as desktop sync. KIN also takes amazing photos, even in low light. KIN’s one click upload makes it easy to share your pictures. They’re backed up automatically so you can look at them online, in full size, whenever you want. And KIN gives people tons of storage to keep photos and video – all photos and video clips are automatically stored online without taking up precious memory on your phone.

KIN’s look, feel and functionality are designed around this notion — You are your own publisher, and KIN is a magazine of your life. What you share, and with whom, are the heroes of the experience, rather than icons and menus. KIN completely changes the way people think about sharing and networking on a mobile phone.

The announcement of KIN comes right on the heels of another big move for Microsoft in mobile, the introduction of Windows Phone 7 at Mobile World Congress. Windows Phones are unique in the way they bring together the phone, services and the PC. For people, this gives meaningful experiences outside the phone and one that also extends across multiple screens. KIN and Windows Phone 7 share some of the same underlying technology but each target distinct audiences. Windows Phone 7 is about simplifying people’s lives. KIN is about amplifying people’s lives.

This post is by Andy Lees, Senior Vice President for Mobile Communications Business.

Today Microsoft is announcing the availability of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.

S. Somasegar, Senior Vice President of the Developer Division here at Microsoft, has posted about the release of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 and the 5 major launch events happening around the world.

Visual Studio 2010 provides a great deal of enhancements for developers to make it easier to develop applications including a new editor which now uses the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and multiple monitor support. Visual Studio 2010 represents a major investment by Microsoft to provide developers with the best tools for developing applications targeting the latest Microsoft releases such as Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Phone 7, and Windows Azure.

For developers who are developing applications for Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010 has built-in support for Windows 7’s multitouch features (Windows Touch) and the “Ribbon” UI. That means developers can easily build applications specifically for Windows 7 that use multitouch and use the Ribbon. Visual Studio also makes it easy for developers to take advantage of Windows 7 features such as Jump Lists and Sensor and Location in their applications by providing quick access to libraries and code samples on MSDN.

To download, purchase or get more information on Visual Studio 2010, visit the Visual Studio website.

I want to remind developers to check out Develop for Windows. Develop for Windows is a new website we launched last month designed to highlight resources for Windows developers. Developers who visit the site can get sample code and special “kits” to jump-start developing a Windows application, and of course pointers to lots and lots of Windows developer content at the Windows Developer Center on MSDN. If you go to the site today and click “Build”, there is a special section dedicated to Visual Studio 2010! Oh and of course you can browse the Windows 7 for Developers Blog for some great content and Channel 9 too!

UPDATE 4/12: Scott Hanselman posted about today’s Visual Studio 2010 launch with a ton of information with links to resources and all. Definitely worth checking out.