It’s the end of an era. Microsoft announced last month that this year’s Consumer Electronics Show keynote will be the company’s last for the foreseeable future. The show definitely won’t be the same without Microsoft’s chief executive officer Steve Ballmer kicking things off with his unique brand of charisma, but all good things must come to an end. According to reports, Microsoft won’t have anything big to announce at this year’s keynote. Instead, Ballmer will reca...

Microsoft has moved Andy Lees, the head of its Windows Phone division, to a new position within the firm. AllThingsD broke the news but did not name Lees’s successor. Instead, several of Lees’s responsibilities, including marketing and business development, will be handled by Microsoft corporate vice president Terry Myerson. Lees will remain a president within Microsoft and will still report directly to CEO Steve Ballmer. “I have asked Andy Lees to move to a new role working for me on a time...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has never been one to mince words, and the executive shared a few choice thoughts on Google’s Android platform while speaking at the Web 2.0 conference on Tuesday. “You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone, but I think you do to use an Android phone,” Ballmer told Federated Media founder John Battelle during an interview on stage. He continued, “It is very hard to be excited, for me, about the Android phones.” Despite the...

As Microsoft works overtime this week to get developers and consumers behind its next-generation Windows operating system, focus shifted back to the company’s emerging mobile platform briefly on Wednesday, AllThingsD reports. Speaking at an analyst meeting, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addressed sales of devices bearing the Windows Phone operating system, acknowledging that the company isn’t where it hoped to be nearly one year after launching the platform. “We haven’t sold quite as many as...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer surprised developers during Micorosft’s BUILD conference in California on Wednesday when he took the stage to talk up Microsoft’s new operating system, currently named Windows 8. Ballmer noted that there have already been 500,000 downloads of the operating system since it went live last night. “We still have a long way to go with Windows 8,” Ballmer said. “We’re retooling all of what we do.” Ballmer believes that the changes will compel dev...

Microsoft is prepping to release a Windows 8 preview build during its Worldwide Partner Conference on July 11th, according WinRumors. Reportedly, the Redmond-based firm will “detail Windows 8 substantially,” during the conference, and it could present a second preview “building Windows 8″ video, which we hope will show off several of the OS’s new features. Microsoft first took the wraps off of its Windows 8 demo during the D9 conference in June, when Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky...

During a press event in Japan recently, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that Windows 8 would would launch sometime next year. His firm says otherwise. “It appears there was a misstatement,” a Microsoft spokesperson recently said in a statement. “We are eagerly awaiting the next generation of Windows 7 hardware that will be available in the coming fiscal year. To date, we have yet to formally announce any timing or naming for the next version of Windows.” Despite Microsoft’s stat...

We’re here live from Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7  event in New York City where the company is set to detail the next major OS upgrade to the Windows Phone platform. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hinted we could see over 500 new features, let’s hope we get some big enhancements in addition to the practically confirmed multitasking, Twitter integration, remote email search stuff. Live coverage is after the break! (more…)

Speaking at the Japanese Microsoft Developers Forum, Microsoft’s CEO confirmed that the next Windows Phone update, codenamed Mango, will add “over 500 new features” to the mobile operating system. The Redmond based company has an event scheduled for Tuesday, May 24th in New York City, during which it will unveil the new update (again) and discuss its features in greater detail. Earlier this month we heard rumors that the update will deliver Bing Audio, Bing Vision, turn-by-turn navigation in...

Yesterday was so jam-packed full of action, it’s hard to believe this year’s Mobile World Congress convention in Barcelona officially started today. The show runs through Thursday, in fact, and promises to bring us awesome mobile news from start to finish. While day 1 of the show winds down — it’s now 4:00PM local time — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is just getting ready to deliver his anticipated MWC keynote. Windows Phone 7 is expected to be a focus, given the venue, and we wouldn’...

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s official. In a press release today, Microsoft and Nokia announced “plans to form a broad strategic partnership that would use their complementary strengths and expertise to create a new global mobile ecosystem.” This partnership will see Nokia, the world’s largest phone manufacturer, adopt Windows Phone as its “principle smartphone strategy” and the two companies will collaborate on marketing, search, maps, and development.“Today, developers, op...

Microsoft has issued a statement describing Steve Ballmer’s plans to sell up to 75 million shares in order “to gain financial diversification and to assist in tax planning”. A sale this large is bound to ring alarm bells with shareholders, however Ballmer has cleared the air of any brewing conspiracy theories. “Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion. I am excited about our new products and the potential for our technology t...

Earlier today, while speaking to a group of students and journalists at the London School of Economics, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer revealed that there will indeed be iPad-competing slate products running Windows by Christmas. The catch? Steve didn’t clarify whether these products would be shipping, or just announced, nor who would manufacture them. With HP most likely changing course to offer a webOS-based tablet as opposed to a Windows 7 slate, we’ve got to wonder who will end up being first in ...

Here’s a crazy rumor to start off the day. According to Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is planning to make a cameo during Apple’s WWDC keynote. No, he’s not going to be there to crash the stage, but rather speak for seven minutes about Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. According to Chowdhry, Visual Studio 2010 will for the first time allow developers to author native iPhone applications from a Windows machine. If this were to actually happen, it would...