Despite the fact that Windows 8 is expected to launch in October, Microsoft still has high hopes for its Windows 7 operating system. The software giant predicts that 350 million Windows 7 devices will ship by the end of 2012, Bloomberg reported. “It makes Windows the most popular single system,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said at a forum in Seoul, South Korea, although he didn’t provide any figures for comparison. Windows 7 was released in October 2009 and within two years, the operating system surpass...

OnLive, a company known for its cloud-based gaming service, has been pushing its “Desktop App” for iPad and select Android tablets. The program uses virtualization technology to create a remotely hosted, fully functional version of Windows 7 desktop — Microsoft’s Office suite included — on a tablet, and has been met with a great deal of praise. Microsoft, however, cannot be counted among the service’s fans. In a post on the company’s blog, the software giant expressed concerns th...

Facebook’s Messenger app for Windows 7 computers leaked to the public late last year. The service was initially in a beta phase, but as of Monday it’s been officially released. Facebook previously created a Messenger app for iOS and Android smartphones, which allowed users to quickly chat with friends, share their location or photos and more. The desktop version, unfortunately, does not feature video chat and is limited to Windows 7, although Facebook is “working on making the app available ...

The OnLive Desktop App is now available for free in the Android Market. OnLive is known for its cloud-based gaming service, which delivers console-quality games that are synchronized, rendered, and stored on remote servers and then streamed over the Internet to compatible devices. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the company announced the “OnLive Desktop App” for the iPad, and now an Android version is available as well. The app uses virtualization technology to create a remotely hoste...

Microsoft previously disclosed that Windows on ARM will feature a desktop mode to ensure an identical user experience between ARM and Intel-based tablets. On Wednesday, however, the software giant revealed that Windows on ARM won’t offer certain manageability features, AllThingsD reported. “Although the ARM-based version of Windows does not include the same manageability features that are in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, businesses can use these power-saving devices in unmanaged environments,” Microso...

ViewSonic on Friday announced a slew of new smartphones and tablets set to debut at Mobile World Congress, SlashGear reports. The company’s Android-powered ViewPhone 4s looks to compete directly with Apple’s iPhone, featuring a 3.5-inch 960 x 640-pixel display with 326ppi, Ice Cream Sandwich, dual SIMs, a 5-megapixel camera and a VGA font facing secondary camera. ViewSonic’s two other smartphones, the 5-inch ViewPhone 5e and 3.5-inch ViewPhone 4e, will run Android 4.0, support dual-SIMs an...

Acer chairman JT Wang on Thursday reaffirmed the company’s dedication to the new “ultrabook” market, further distancing his company from the low-margin netbooks that have dominated its PC lineup in the past. Following the success of Acer’s first-generation ultrabook — the Aspire S3 reportedly shipped between 250,000 and 300,000 units during its first quarter of availability — Acer plans to launch new ultrabook models in both the second and third quarters this year. According to Dig...

Windows 7 has surpassed XP as the most widely used operating system in the world according to new data from StatCounter. The operating system now has a 40.21% usage share of the global desktop OS market, compared to Windows XP, which has a 38.64% market share. Windows XP is trailed by Mac OS X and Linux. Microsoft first released Windows 7 in October of 2009, and its versatility and ability to run on everything from low-powered netbooks that were typically powered by Windows XP, to high-powered desktops and bu...

Images of what might be Dell’s upcoming 10.1-inch Windows 7-powered “Peju” tablet were published by Engadget on Thursday. Allegedly, the device is packed with an HDMI port, a USB port and 2GB of RAM, although other specs are currently unknown. Rumor has it Dell would like to get the Peju on the market by the holidays in December, but it will cost you a pretty penny. Engadget‘s tipster said the tablet will be priced between $900 and $1,000, which is a far cry from the $200 Amazon Kindle...

ViewSonic on Monday unveiled the new ViewPad 10pro tablet, a dual-OS offering that packs both Windows and Android into a slim 10.1-inch slate. The ViewPad 10pro is one of the first consumer tablets powered by Intel’s 1.5GHz Atom Z670 processor, which minimizes power consumption and allows the 10pro to run for up to 8 hours on a single charge. “We listened to our customers. We made the ViewPad 10pro dual OS interface as quick and intuitive as possible, while partnering with industry CPU leader Inte...

Lenovo announced three new tablets with 10.1-inch displays on Wednesday morning, including the IdeaPad Tablet K1, the ThinkPad Tablet, and the IdeaPad Tablet P1. The Android3.1 (Honeycomb) powered IdeaPad Tablet K1 will be targeted at the everyday consumer and is equipped with a 1280 x 800 resolution screen, HDMI-out, a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s also the first Netflix certified Honeycomb tablet. The 32GB IdeaPad Tablet P1 will be available on July 20th ...

Microsoft announced on Monday that it has sold 400 million Windows 7 licenses to date, but that hasn’t stopped the tech giant’s share of the global operating system market from sliding. According to market watcher Net Applications’ data for June 2011, Microsoft’s global operating system market share slid to 88.29% as it continued on its slow but steady decline. The second most popular OS in the world was Apple’s OS X, which was up a nominal amount to 5.37% of the global OS market...

During his Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference keynote on Monday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the company has now sold 400 million Windows 7 licenses to date. Microsoft’s current operating system was first launched in October 2009, and it was welcomed with open arms as customers were eager to dump Vista following its troubled introduction. Despite an impressive 20 months for Windows 7, it is still far from being the world’s most used operating system. Windows XP’s share w...

In the world of computing, no two companies have more history than Microsoft and Apple. In fact, the companys’ history is 10,124 pixels tall. From modest beginnings to IPOs, and later to global domination, Microsoft and Apple are largely responsible for computers as we know them today. Microsoft concentrated on software early and now owns the lion’s share of the global PC market, and more recently, Apple looked to mobile computing to revitalize its business and its market cap. Of course from an i...