Microsoft Office
Today in Tech: Yahoo has a new CEO, and she's pregnant
July 17, 2012: 6:00 AM ETAlso: The fireworks fly between Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt at this year's Brainstorm Tech conference.
New Yahoo CEO Mayer is pregnant [FORTUNE]
Marissa Mayer, the Google executive who today was named Yahoo's new chief executive, is pregnant. Mayer told Fortune exclusively that her first child is due October 7. It's a boy! "He's super-active," Mayer told me in a phone call tonight, three hours after Yahoo announced her appointment. "He moves around a lot. My doctor says that he takes after his parents."
Thiel vs. Schmidt: The fireworks fly [FORTUNE]
According to Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google (GOOG), technology has had an overwhelmingly positive role, lifting some 2 billion people out of poverty and spreading access to vital information from a relative small number to virtually all the people on earth. Going forward, people in the developed world can expect to have "extraordinarily long lives that are very productive," he said. And for those in developing countries, "the world gets better too," he added. The retort from Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal (EBAY): "I think you do a fantastic job as Google's minister of propaganda." Thiel is one of the Valley's most successful investors.
Paul Maritz out as VMware CEO and mentioned as candidate for top spot at EMC or cloud foundry spin off [TECHCRUNCH]
Paul Maritz is out as the CEO of VMware and will be replaced by EMC COO Pat Gelsinger. Maritz spent four years at VMware. It's uncertain what he will do but rumors have swirled all day about about his departure.
Microsoft Office 2013 preview: details, screenshots, and impressions [ENGADGET]
The best thing about Office is not what it does better than Office 2010, but how much more nimble it is in following you from device to device, from shut-down to start-up again. Beyond that, no one single feature of Office 2013 is dazzling, per se, but it doesn't matter: everything here, from YouTube embeds to the chart generator in Excel, works as promised and is intuitive to use. At the same time, the interface doesn't mark a radical departure from previous versions, so even casual users with no use for PivotTables should be able to find their way around.
With Apple's Siri, a romance gone sour [THE NEW YORK TIMES]
Apple introduced Siri as a beta test, meaning it was still a work in progress. That was unusual for Apple, but the company was counting on it to change the way people searched for information on mobile devices. It wanted a head start. But it doesn't seem ready to change anything yet. Many people I have spoken to have switched Siri off and reverted to the iPhone's voice dictation service (the little microphone next to the keyboard), which is more reliable because it doesn't use Siri's artificial intelligence software.
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Four things Google needs to do to beat Facebook on the social web
By Ben Elowitz, contributor
Facebook is the social king today, but Google doesn't have to give up on the Internet's future.
FORTUNE -- Google is confronting a series of rugged (and, perhaps, ultimately insurmountable) challenges. And make no mistake: these challenges loom large, because Google's dominance of the Internet landscape is increasingly being threatened by Facebook's rise.
If Google (GOOG) is going to maintain its leadership, still-new CEO Larry Page needs to have MORE
Jun 24, 2011 10:56 AM ETPosted in: Ben Elowitz, Facebook, Google, Microsoft Office, Search, Social web, Vadim Lavrusik, World Wide Web -
Apple's Back to School promo: No more free iPod touch
Instead, students this year get the usual 10% discount and a $100 software gift card
We always thought of the iPod touch that Apple (AAPL) offered students as part of the company's annual "Back to School" sale as the equivalent of a narcotics dealer's free sample: a gateway drug that left users craving for an iPhone.
To the dismay of much of the class of 2011, Apple has dropped the popular loss MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 16, 2011 9:31 AM ETPosted in: Apple, Back-to-School, iPhone, iPod, iPod touch, iTunes Store, iWork, Mac, Mac App Store, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, PCs -
Microsoft's office: Why insiders think top management has lost its way
Steve Ballmer's slavish devotion to Windows and Office has made them cash cows, but some say revenues have come at the expense of innovation.
By Gary Rivlin, contributor
FORTUNE -- What's the matter with Microsoft? After spending weeks tracking down and talking with a long list of former Microsoft (MSFT) employees, many of them veterans with fifteen or more years with the company, the question is how long do you have to MORE
Mar 31, 2011 10:47 AM ET -
Today in Tech: Why I hate Verizon's iPhone, Yahoo selling Delicious
A curated selection of the day's most newsworthy tech stories from all over the Web. Sign up to get the newsletter delivered to you everyday.
Jonathan Geller of Boy Genius Report documents his tortured experience switching from AT&T's iPhone to Verizon's. Now before readers accuse Geller of being anti-Big Red, bear in mind he's been dreaming about the Verizon iPhone for the last three years. But the reality of his situation kicked MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer - Mar 18, 2011 5:00 AM ET -
Microsoft Office sales down, but don't blame Google Docs?
NPD reports today that Microsoft Office 2010 sales are much lower than its initial release of Office 2007 and only slightly improved over its Office sales earlier this year.
NPD gives a few reasons for the lackluster consumer launch, which began just two weeks ago.
Office 2007 was launched alongside Vista
Seth Weintraub - Jul 14, 2010 11:44 AM ET
The Office Suite market is saturated
Office 2010 was launched during a seasonally slow period for PC purchases [I'd add Intel just announced MORE -
A Silicon Valley Star Tries Out the Real World
Retro is a good bet in the fashion world. Witness the leathery wave of Sperry Topsiders and L.L. Bean moccasins a la the 1980s washing over hipster enclaves across the nation. But going retro in the software business? Seems like a step in the wrong direction. Still Xobni, a Silicon Valley darling of a startup that offers software that organizes and streamlines Microsoft's Outlook email program is doing just that.
Xobni MORE
Michael V. Copeland, Senior Writer - Jun 16, 2010 7:19 PM ET -
Can Microsoft beat Google at its own (free) game?
Despite impressive efforts from several rivals, Microsoft Office still rules the roost when it comes to office software. But can it hang on for much longer?
Let's set the record straight: Windows may have heft. Facebook may have buzz. But there is still no bigger name in the pantheon of global software than Microsoft Office.
On the occasion of today's consumer launch of Office 2010 (downloads starting at $119 for Home and MORE
Jon Fortt - Jun 15, 2010 11:09 AM ETPosted in: Apple, Google, Google Docs, IBM, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Office Live, Oracle, Stephen Elop, Steve Ballmer -
Steve Ballmer's latest Vegas bet
Ben Baer, Senior Producer - Jan 7, 2010 4:39 PM ETPosted in: archos, CES, Digital Home, Gaming, HP, HP Slate, iSlate, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Mobile Computing, PCs, Steve Ballmer, Tablets, Xbox 360 -
Microsoft reboots
After the Vista debacle, Microsoft changed the way it makes software. The result – Windows 7 – is winning raves. Can a new operating system (and a new attitude) help the company take on Google?
With Microsoft's founder and chairman, Bill Gates, trotting the globe in a quest to abolish diseases, his handpicked successor, CEO Steve Ballmer, has had most of a decade to move the company beyond its two MORE
Jeffrey M. O'Brien - Oct 13, 2009 6:00 AM ETPosted in: Apple, Bill Gates, Bing, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office, Mobile Computing, Search, Steve Ballmer, Vista, Windows 7, Yahoo
