During his company’s latest quarterly earnings conference call, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke about the company’s plans for tablets in the near future, but remained very scant on the details.
The company posted its best quarter ever last week, but has been openly criticized for its lack of strategy in the tablet market, as well as in other consumer businesses.
When asked specifically about tablets, Ballmer said Windows has been available on tablets and slates for years, with constant sales. However, none of Microsoft’s devices have ever come close to the buzz created by Apple’s iPad.
“Apple has done an interesting job of putting together a product,” Ballmer said, admitting that “they’ve certainly sold more than I’d like them to sell.”
“For us, the job is to say we have a lot of [intellectual property] and software and we’ve done a lot of work on ink and touch,” he continued, via PCW. “We have got to make things happen. Just like we had to make things happen on netbooks, we have to with Windows 7 on slates. We’re in the process of doing that as we speak.”
Without giving more details, he concluded: “We’ve got to push right now with our hardware partners. People will say, ‘When?’ I’ll say, ‘As soon as they are ready, and it is job-one urgency.’ Nobody is sleeping at the switch.”
Any timetable for a new tablet release? They “will be out in not a heck of a long time.”
Result for: long time
According to new figures from Net Applications, both Firefox and Google Chrome continue to wrestle away market share from long time leader Internet Explorer, with Chrome seeing the strongest growth.
Chrome saw over 10 percent growth to reach 3.58 percent market share, while Firefox continued its ascent moving to 24.07 percent. Apple’s Safari still remains in third at 4.42 percent share, mainly due to increased Mac sales.
Net Applications says given Chrome’s growth and recent beta release of Chrome 4, the browser will likely surpass Safari, and the 5 percent mark, by February of next year.
Also interestingly was the numbers behind Internet Explorer, which although still the clear market leader at 64.64 percent, is a far cry from the 93 percent share it owned in 2003. Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft’s most recent update to the browser, had 18.1 percent share, moving it to within days of surpassing Internet Explorer 7 at 18.2. The eight-year-old and extremely inefficient Internet Explorer 6 remained the leader for the pack, at 23.2 percent.
IE6 remains the leader despite Microsoft’s plea for users to stop using the browser, if they have the choice. Many corporate users are not so lucky.
Result for: long time
Via the band’s official website, Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan has announced that the band’s upcoming album, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope will be released completely free, and feature 44 tracks.
The songs will be completely free through the band’s website and will not even require an email address to download.
Says Corgan: “Each song will be made available absolutely for free, to anyone anywhere. There will be no strings attached. Free will mean free, which means you won’t have to sign up for anything, give an email address, or jump through a hoop. You will be able to go and take the song or songs as you wish, as many times as you wish.”
In order to make money, the band will sell “highly limited edition EP’s (of 4 songs each times 11).” The EPs will come with art and will serve as “collectors items” for long time fans, adds Corgan.
The band may “also offer other variations for sale, say for example a digital single with a demo version of a song.”
Corgan oncludes: The commitment that is most important is the one I’m making to you: that the music of ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’ will be available for free to everyone. All 44 songs: free for ALL.
