Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) made deals with companies such as Porsche and Pepsi that will enable the companies to integrate their brand into the operating system. The branding may include borders and sounds.
The advertisements could also extend to the Internet Explorer 8 browser that comes with Windows 7. Internet Explorer 8 would have add-ons that link to the homepage of the brand. There is also a version of Office called Office 2010 Starter Edition which is limited and is funded by advertisements.
Interestingly Apple Inc. filed a patent recently that revolves around advertising on an operating system. The operating system would limit functions until the advertisement is done.
In this picture Linus Torvalds is giving Windows 7 a thumbs up in Japan. Torvalds is the man behind open source Linux operating system. Why is he doing this? Perhaps Torvalds wants to keep it classy unlike the Apple CEO when he flipped off the IBM building. Sometimes these pictures come back to haunt you many years later. Another theory is that Linus is pointing out that only one copy has been sold off the shelf.
This past Tuesday Michael Dell gave a talk about some of the products that Dell Inc. manufactures and his thoughts on Microsoft Vista. Mr. Dell said that many buyers are unhappy with netbooks because of slow performance and small screens.
“Take a user who’s used to a 15-inch notebook and then give him a 10-inch netbook,” stated Dell at the talk as pointed out by the Standard. “He’ll say ‘Oh, this is so cool, it’s so lightweight.’ Then 36 hours later he’ll say the screen’s not big enough, give me my 15-inch back.”
Dell Inc. sells several types of netbooks including the Dell Mini.
Michael Dell also took the time to point out Windows Vista flaws, but added the positive results of Windows 7. Mr. Dell blamed Microsoft for some of the PC manufacturing company’s problems with sales. He added that Windows Vista hurt the company’s image and caused a backlash. Dell restored XP as an option back in April and charges consumers $150 for operating system downgrades. But Windows 7 has been showing signs of promise. “If you get the latest processor technology and you get Windows 7 and Office 2010, you will love your PC again,” Dell added. “And we actually have not been able to say that for a long time.”
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been airing commercials that feature a young Asian-American girl named Kylie to promote their new operating system called Windows 7. In the commercials, Kylie points out all the “happy words” that reviewers have been giving about Windows 7.
To get a further boost in publicity, Microsoft is hiring Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein to put on a variety show. MacFarlane is the creator of the animated series Family Guy. Borstein is one of the voice actresses for Family Guy, best known for playing Lois Griffin. The variety show will be aired on November 8 without commercials.
The deal was made between Microsoft, The Family Guy cast, and ad agency Crispin, Porter & Bogusky. Media agency Universal McCann brokered the deal. Crispin and MacFarlane worked together on a deal in the past for creating Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. The series was uploaded to YouTube and was sponsored by Burger King initially. The series is now being sponsored by Priceline.com.
The variety program sponsored by Microsoft will feature Family Guy musical performances, celebrity guest appearances, and Microsoft product placements. “You’ll see us deeply integrated into the content … you’ll hear a lot about how Windows 7 can help you simplify your PC — it’s simple, fast and easy to use,” stated Microsoft general manager of consumer engagement and advertising Gayle Troberman. “Think about metaphors and examples we might use, talking about how simple things are. We’ll be evoking the cast of ‘Family Guy’ in some interesting ways that integrate the product messages.”
Update: Below is a video sneak peek from Win741 of how Windows 7 will be used by Family Guy:
The new operating system by Microsoft Corporation called Windows 7 has been receiving glowing reviews. Apple might have to try extra harder in order to convince consumers that Mac is the way to go when the Windows 7 operating system is released on October 22.
Now the first Windows 7 commercial is public and it features a little girl named Kylie that talks about all the “happy words” on her dad’s computer. These happy words include positive reviews from CNET, Gizmodo, Maximum PC, The Seattle Times, etc.
Kylie made a slideshow using those happy words with kittens and bunnies too. And then she said that “more happy is coming.” I must say that Kylie has good taste in music since she chose the The Final Countdown as the background music.
Nvidia product manager Chris Daniel said in a blog post that Windows 7 is “the first Windows operating system to treat the graphics processing unit (GPU) as a real peer to the CPU.” Windows 7 will offer improved graphics performance by efficiently delegating graphics intensive work to video cards.
One noteworthy factor behind the operating system’s speed boost is DirectX Compute. DirectX Compute is an API that allows developers to utilize the parallel computing power built into newer graphics processors.
Windows 7 has been released to manufacturers and will be available to everyone else on October 22nd.
Microsoft said today that the Windows 7 code has been finalized. Windows 7 is set to launch on October 22. Windows 7 has had largely positive feedback. Microsoft is working hard to release Windows 7 on time because Vista was never popular with manufactures and consumers. Many businesses did not feel comfortable upgrading to an unreliable operating system.
Windows 7 fixes many of the compatibility and performance issues Vista had. According to Microsoft, It is also not as resource intensive as Vista.
Microsoft will also offer a Windows 7 family pack that can be legally installed on up to three PCs. The family pack means it will be affordable for an entire family to upgrade to Windows 7 without purchasing multiple licenses. A family pack may also discourage individuals from sharing (pirating) Windows.
Microsoft Corporation’s newest operating system is selling on Amazon.com at a discounted price. Because of this discounted price, the operating system is selling like crazy. As a matter of fact, the Microsoft operating systems are the top selling items on Amazon right now.
The pre-orders of the Windows 7 Home Premium edition is selling for $49.99 and the Windows 7 Professional edition is selling for $99.99. The discounted prices are available until July 11, 2009 in U.S. and Canada. In Japan, the operating systems will be available for those prices on July 5, 2009. The Home edition was number one on electronic product sales and the Professional version was ranked number two.
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of APIs for handling multimedia and video games. The current version available is DirectX 10 and it comes bundled with Windows Vista. There isn’t a way to run DirectX 10 applications on Windows XP and the next version of DirectX will be running on Windows 7. DirectX 11 recently was demonstrated at the Computex conference in Taiwan by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Below is the full press release (via Engadget):
Microsoft Corporation has confirmed that Windows 7 will be available for purchase starting on October 22, just in time before the holidays. “The feedback from the release candidate has been good” stated Microsoft SVP Bill Veghte. The nearly final release was available for testing as early as last month.
The beta testing of the operating system will no longer be available starting July 1. The release date matches what Veghte said in the past, the operating system is “tracking well to a Windows 7 holiday.”
Hewlett Packard CTO Phil McKinney said that he is looking forward to the new operating system. “We’re locked and loaded for the launch,” stated McKinney. “The quality of code is just absolutely stellar.”
Microsoft Corporations stated that they are planning on shutting down the beta version of Windows 7 starting on July 1. There was an announcement from before that was circulating a message that the beta would not be available on June 1.
“The date for when bi-hourly shutdowns will begin for the Windows 7 Beta was incorrect,” stated Microsoft Windows blogger Brandon LeBlanc. “We apologize for the confusion and inconvenience this may have caused.”
On July 1, those who are still running Windows 7 beta will see their computers automatically shut down and reboot every couple of hours. That will serve as a reminder that the new operating system will no longer be available.
LeBlanc has even encouraged users to try out Windows 7 Release Candidate. That is a more developed version of the operating system. Windows 7 RC will even be available until June 1, 2010 and then users will be asked to buy a full and paid version.
Lenovo in-house analyst Matt Kohut has recently interviewed with TECH.BLORGE about the future of netbooks. He believes that touchscreens will help drive the popularity of Windows 7. Windows 7 and Vista have strong support for touchscreens. The more that computers become touchscreen, the less Linux will be distributed. Kohut also predicts that netbook screens will get bigger and will more 3G support.
In regards to the low cost of netbooks Kohut stated:
“What has really helped is that Intel and all the other vendors are getting better at getting the whole system integrated on the chip. With the newest generation of processors, for example, you have your chip, your processor, plus your Northbridge, your Southbridge, and memory controller which is separate, now they are integrating them into the processor.”
Microsoft is expected to release Windows 7 by the holiday season of this year according to Bill Veghte, SVP at Microsoft. “We are tracking well to a Windows 7 holiday,” stated Veghte. As of January Microsoft did not know whether they would be able to pull off getting Windows 7 to hit the shelves this year.
At the same event where they announced that Windows 7 will be available by the end of the year, they also announced a newer version of Kilimanjaro.
Veghte also said that through the development of Windows 7, Microsoft needs an added level of partner support. There are some graphics chip vendors that have the Windows 7 logo certification . In Windows Vista, there was limited grahpics support.
The aforementioned announcements were made at this year’s TechEd event.
Bobby Waltkins stated that the Z5600 all-in-one PC will be arriving October 23, 2009 with Windows 7 loaded. In the past, Microsoft was hinting that Windows 7 won’t be arriving until the end of January 2010. Acer even stepped up the offering by stating that any Vista units purchased 30 days prior to the October 23 release of the computer will be eligible for a free upgradeto Windows 7. Its your move on the release statements, Mr. Ballmer.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) hit the skids today when many people were trying to download the free test version of the Windows 7 beta operating system today. The software went live at 12PM Pacific Time. The software will be available until the last day of January. Microsoft doesn’t plan on changing or adding features, but still would like to hear feedback about the operating system.
“We got ourselves in a little trouble with Windows Vista; it became a bag of mixed things and didn’t really figure out what it was about,” stated Mike Ybarra, general manager of Windows Products. “There was a lot of feature creep. You had people saying ‘Let’s change this and that.’ Windows 7 has been very disciplined.”
Windows 7 has a heavy focus on boot-up time cutting, extended battery life, streamlined tasks, and the enhancement of smart device interaction. The fact that Microsoft couldn’t handle all that traffic indicates that people are looking forward to the new operating system. Vista already has a bad rep so it is important for Windows 7 to exceed expectations. Otherwise Apple will continue the trend of growing twice as fast as the PC market.
