In an email to all employees, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announce that the company's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, will be stepping down. Ozzie is the individual that replaced Bill Gates, when he left Microsoft full time in 2008. Going forward, the role of chief software architect is being eliminated. Ray Ozzie is known for creating Lotus Notes email.
The New York Times reports Microsoft and Adobe executives recently met and discussed how to address Apple's dominance in the mobile phone market. Among the discussions, were Apple's refusal to use Flash on their iOS devices. One other possibility supposedly suggested was a merger between the 2 companies.
neowin.net reports Microsoft celebrated the RTM version of Windows Phone 7 by holding a funeral parade for the iPhone and Blackberry. The funeral took place on Microsoft's Redmond campus with the Windows Phone 7 team claiming the new operating system will bury the competition.
Interestingly, there was no mention of Google Android at this event. Does Microsoft see Android as insignificate and not a credible competitor? The real answer is Microsoft is probably afraid to poke the soon to be top dog of smart phones. Since their OS has not shipped yet, why not make fun of the future 2nd and 3rd place phones first!
Converting an external hard drive to NTFS in Windows 7 is easy. Key in the below command in the command prompt:
convert e: /fs: ntfs
Replace e with the drive letter you want to convert.
The external hard drive will need to have enough free space to convert the drive. There is a risk of file corruption with any command that modifies the file system, so make sure to back up your data before proceeding.
The Microsoft Hardware Team @msfthardware teased a new product on Twitter. Yesterday, they tweeted "Don’t be so touchy…flat is where it’s at.” and today posted the above image on twitpic. Is this product Microsoft's answer to Apple's Magic TrackPad? Is it the back of a Windows Phone 7 smartphone or even a new Zune? I'm sure we'll find out soon.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke about tablets at a company financial conference. CNET reports that Ballmer recognized the success of the iPad and said Microsoft based tablets will be shipping when they are ready. Ballmer did provide some details into the company's tablet plan. The tablets will not run the Windows Phone OS, but Windows 7. These computers will also be Intel based opposed to using ARM processors. Ballmer also stated that Microsoft will not allow hardware to be a limiting factor in its plans and will design hardware where it needs to. Lightly joking, Ballmer said that the tablets will be able to print because "some people actually like to print every now and then."
I'm not sure if Microsoft understands what consumers want in this category. They basically invented the form factor but have been trying to jam a desktop operating system into it for over a decade.
