Microsoft's Windows 8, with its Metro user interface, is designed to work on PCs, tablets, phones, and even game machines. Win or lose, it's the biggest rollout Microsoft has had since Windows 3.0 more than 20 years ago, and an entire industry is on the line.
Smartphone sales are expected rise 49% this year to 450 million units, according to a new survey from electronics research firm IDC.
The recent news that Nokia will now use the Windows 7 operating system in its smart phones means that Microsoft stands to gain licensing revenues for its operating system as well as increased search advertising market share. Good news for the stock?
Handsets based on Google's Android mobile operating system accounted for 32.9% of worldwide smartphone shipments in the fourth quarter, compared with Symbian's 30.6% market share, according to a new report from market researcher Canalys. Apple's iOS was a distant third, with 16%.
Deutsche Bank's insightful technology analyst Jonathan Goldberg says Android has already pulled away from the pack in China. And not just in smartphones and tablets: Android is finding its way into all sorts of platforms, from laptops to set-top boxes to ATMs.
Google's already got deals to supply its Chrome operating system for Hewlett-Packard and Acer laptops. But now rumors are circulating that the company's about to come out with its own laptop, also named Chrome and made by Inventec, later this month.
Microsoft's fiscal first-quarter earnings jumped 51% as the world's largest software maker boosted sales of its Office 2010 product and grabbed share in the videogame-console market. Microsoft shares jumped on the news.
Microsoft says its Windows 7 operating system is the fastest-growing in history after the company sells more than 240 million licenses in the past year. According to Net Applications data, 93% of new personal computers are equipped with Windows 7.
Apple Inc. will preview a new version of its Mac OS X operating system at its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., next week, Barron's reported, citing an invitation from the company.
Nokia's Symbian platform and Google's Android system will be racing at a dead heat in 2014, according to a Gartner report. The research firm forecasts that those systems will each have double the users of Apple's iOS operating system by then.
According to a recent report from Morgan Stanley, Apple is the big leader in the mobile segment: The iPhone keeps growing, and iPads are selling at an incredible pace. But Google's Android operating system is gaining ground and 160,000 smartphones using it are activated every day.
First announced a year ago, Google's new open-source operating system could enter the fray later this year. For investors, it's one more reason to be optimistic about the stock, which has languished so far in 2010.
The search giant is said to be upset about security flaws in Microsoft's operating system, claiming they led to the cyber-attack in China. But it's more likely that Google is simply preparing for the launch of Chrome, its much-ballyhooed Web-based OS.
Blaming security flaws in Windows for the cyber-attacks on its Chinese servers, Google is dropping the operating system from its internal computers.
