| Microsoft Updates Office Web Apps Posted: 22 Jul 2012 04:54 PM PDT  For years Google ran away with the show when it came to productivity tools in your web browser, but when Office web apps hit the scene, they changed everything. Sure they've had a tough time with marketing and rallying up mind share, however you'd be hard pressed to find a single thing Google apps can do that Office web apps can't do better at this point. Microsoft as usual has been a bit slow to innovate next to its much more nimble competition, but a recent update has added a ton of new features to help level the playing field.
Here is a great list of what's new courtesy of ZDnet's Mary Jo Foley: Word Web App: Better layout tools, allowing users to change the page size, orientation, margins, paragraph spacing, indentation, etc. Also more granular control over pictures and shapes. Word count calculation added PowerPoint Web App: Ability to author animations and transitions inside the app. More responsive drawing tool support and more granular control over pictures and shapes. Ability to display videos in PowerPoint Web App. Slideshows also now will show movies Excel Web App: Support for PivotTable editing, Query Tables and richer charts, among other data-analysis enhancements OneNote Web App: New "find" textbox added to navigation pane Across the suite of Web Apps: Improvement in speed in typing, selecting, formatting in larger documents. Right click/context-sensitive menus now supported in more places. Better copy/paste, improved undo, and the ability to print in Excel. It's not the most exciting update in the world, but at least it's something. Anyone out there using the online version of Office? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. |
| Microsoft Shares Details On The Windows 8 App Store: Min Price $1.49, Max Price $999 Posted: 22 Jul 2012 01:47 PM PDT  The Windows 8 app store in the consumer preview has been somewhat lackluster in terms of quality, but this can be easily explained. The beta version of Windows 8 still doesn't allow developers to charge for metro applications, which means the most polished offerings likely won't surface until release on October 26th (pun somewhat intended). We have to admit we've been a bit curious as to how Microsoft will handle transactions in the Windows 8 store, and in a recent blog post, the Redmond based software giant finally released a detailed breakdown of what to expect.
App makers will have the flexibility to charge between $1.49 at the low end, and $999.99 on the high end, with no exceptions allowed. Few will argue that $999.99 is too low, however leaving out the $0.99 cent price point is an interesting decision, and one that will likely be scrutinized in the days to come. iOS and Android have proven that consumers are far more willing to take the plunge on a $0.99 purchase, and $1.49 could potentially cut into their volume of sales compared to other platforms. To help make up for this however, Microsoft has offered to only take the industry standard 30% commission rate on sales up to $25,000. Anything sold after this amount will drop to 20% going forward. To a company like Rovio who makes a killing selling Angry Birds, this can mean a potentially much larger paycheck from Microsoft over competing platforms. The Windows 8 app store will also offer an Android style "try before you buy system", along with in app purchases that will allow you to upgrade to the full version, or unlock additional features. Perhaps the most interesting new development here is how they will handle billing. Microsoft will optionally allow developers to use their own billing system, which would allow the Kindle app for example to sell book's without leaving the metro app, and also potentially without offering up 30% Apple insists on in iOS. I suppose we will get more details in the days to come, however, so far this looks just as competitive as the other guys, with a few interesting perks for the larger developers. |
| Intel Claims Over 20 Atom Based Tablets & 140 Ultrabooks Are Being Designed By OEM’s Right Now Posted: 22 Jul 2012 11:09 AM PDT  Here at Maximum PC we love to refresh our hardware with a new OS. Windows 8 is controversial, but given time who knows, we might actually warm up to it. Most consumers on the other hand don't typically upgrade just software, they will pick up Windows 8 on a new PC. Hardware makers usually count on a new version of the OS to spur a new round of consumer spending, and according to Intel, OEM's have over 20 Atom-based Windows 8 tablets coming down the pipe, along with 140 new Ultrabooks.
The admission came during their quarterly investor call, where Intel CEO Paul Otellini had to explain why they only made $2.8 billion in profits on sales off $13.5 billion in revenue. On a side note, Paul Otellini has the easiest job in the world (yes I'm exaggerating). The 140 ultrabook designs in the queue include 40 "touch-enabled" models, and a dozen convertible machines that promise the blur the distinction between laptop and tablet. The 140 ultrabook design number is also up sharply over this time last year, when only 110 competing designs were being brought forward. Otellini also addressed the price issue with regards to Ultrabooks, and claimed the industry appears on track to sell $699 versions by the fall. Of course we are summarizing a bit, so here is the full quote should you wish to dissect it line by line yourselves. "Ultrabooks continue to build momentum, and achieved our volume goals in the first half. We are very pleased with the level of innovation and invention being brought into this category, and are now tracking over 140 Ivy Bridge-based designs in the pipeline. Of those, more than 40 will be touch-enabled, and a dozen will be convertibles. With visibility into this many designs, we are confident that we'll see $699 systems at retail this fall. We are also tracking more than 20 Windows 8 tablet designs based on our low-power and low-cost Clover Trail Atom SOC, in addition to a number of Core-based tablets." |
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