UPDATED 12:17 EDT / SEPTEMBER 09 2011

Microsoft Plans a Major Comeback with Windows 8 for Cloud, Mobile

Outage aside, Microsoft has been quite busy with their Windows 8 platform, taking care of lawsuits, strengthening their relationship with other players in the industry and rebuilding an ecosystem in the mobile sector.  Here’s a quick run down of what’s been going on in recent weeks.

Rivals

The company is all set for their Microsoft BUILD next week especially with everyone awaiting their “big reveal.”  But developers and supporters of Wintel, what Windows and Intel were called when they were still in good terms, will be divided as the Intel Developer Forum, and will be conducted at the same time as the Microsoft conference.  Their tandem was what made Windows PCs so loved by the masses, and it was severed when the mobile computing age came upon us.  Both know how big the market is for mobile computing devices and both want their share.

Microsoft also launched the Dynamics AX 2012 ERP (enterprise-resource-planning) software suite in 25 countries to compete with rival Lawson Software which was recently acquired by Infor making it the third largest ERP vendor after SAP and Oracle.

“Traditionally, deploying enterprise applications has been like pouring electronic concrete,” said Kirill Tatarinov, president of Microsoft Business Solutions, during a virtual Web event. “But now customers require applications that support “speed and constant evolution,” which AX 2012 delivers, Tatarinov said.

And when it comes to stealing from their competitors, Microsoft has no shame.  The Redmond company launched the “Cloud CRM for Less” promotion for its cloud-based Dynamics CRM Online offering.  The goal is to lure in SAP, Oracle and Salesforce customers.

Allies: forced and willing

Acer and Viewsonic entered a patent licensing deal with Microsoft to protect their devices, as they are Android-powered.  The move was done to avoid infringement lawsuits from Microsoft, and Apple as well.  Microsoft did not disclose terms of the deal, but was clearly pleased by Acer and Viewsonic’s gesture.

“We are pleased that Acer [and ViewSonic are] taking advantage of our industry-wide licensing program established to help companies address Android’s IP issues,” said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate VP and deputy general counsel of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft.

“This agreement is an example of how industry leaders can reach commercially reasonable arrangements that address intellectual property.”

On the search side, Microsoft’s Bing extended its partnership with Twitter, and they let everyone know, tweeting each other cutesy messages.  Bing-powered searches held 28.99% of all US searches for the month of August, which is an increase compared to July’s result of 28.05% and last year’s 24.15%.   And they are expecting to increase their numbers further with their extended Twitter partnership.

Microsoft also ventured into a partnership with Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology Co., Ltd. and Renren Inc., which extends their reach in China.  The partnership allows MSN and Renren to share Microsoft applications and services on their social services platforms which includes locating and communicating with friends, single sign-on account for both platforms and real time content and status synchronization, and sharing of photos.

Windows 8

As far as mobile goes, this is an important area for Microsoft to focus on, especially for its enterprise and consumer-facing products.  Microsoft is hinting that they will be launching a tablet at the Microsoft BUILD next week.  And the catch is, the tablet is made by Samsung.  It’s expected to run the Windows 8 platform, marking another supporter of Windows on the mobile sect, especially as Samsung faces pressure from every other direction.

Aside from tablet rumors, the company is boasting that the Windows 8 for PC, which would also be launched in the conference, will only take ten (10) seconds to boot.  Ten seconds from power down to the start screen.  Because everyone is always in a rush, they found a way to make things superfast.  The process works like this:

“Basically, the computer shuts down normally, but the Windows kernel session gets saved into a hibernation file and then the computer is shut down. Normally, the kernel session is shut down completely–the kernel is the OS’ core component that acts as a link between applications and data processing at the hardware level. Storing the kernel session results in a small hibernation file that can be read back into memory much faster than starting everything from a traditional cold boot, according to Microsoft.”

Microsoft is already bragging that the Windows 8 OS is the true cloud OS, with its Fast Machine Booting Through Streaming Storage, that lets users remotely boot the Windows 8 PC by using their tablet or laptop.  From its file-management to its app store, it’s clear that Microsoft’s trying to present a comprehensive ecosystem around its products and platform, competing against growing expectations from iCloud and the gaining Google Apps catalog of web-based services and integrated functions.

Lawsuits

  • Not everyone is keen on sharing their whereabouts to the whole world so it wasn’t a surprise when a Windows Phone 7 user sued Microsoft for illegally obtaining her location information though the person opted not to share it.
  • Microsoft filed patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola before the International Trade Commission (ITC).  Microsoft is seeking to ban Motorola infringing devices from being sold in the US.

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