In the last day Microsoft have shelled out a reported £5B to purchase Skype from an investment company and ebay (who still owned around 35%). There has been a lot of buzz on the internet about this purchase: Why have they done it? Have they paid too much? Are they going to ruin Skype?

At the moment no one knows the answers to these questions but I personally think this is quite a good purchase, as long as they can integrate this into the rest of the product range.

So let’s look at why they’ve done it:
Now they have access to 700 million users; obtained a great technology; and are now the market leader in VoIP.

In one foul swoop they have jumped ahead of Apple and Google in consumer internet telephony and video conferencing, plus kept it out of the hands of Facebook. The interesting thing is that Skype is the only truly platform agnostic offering, in that it runs all major desktop systems as well as nearly all mobile phones, which is something Apple and Google can’t claim yet.

Have they paid too much?
It is hard to say if they have paid too much or not, my feeling is yes but if it helps them gain ground in the consumer market, which is something they are striving for (this is why Apple has done so well), then it could be money well spent. The issue Microsoft had was that they were bidding against other companies with pretty deep pockets and they probably needed/wanted Skype more than the others.

Will Microsoft ruin Skype??
I don’t think they will ruin Skype, they’ve paid too much to allow it to wither and die. I think they will wait for a while, take stock of their acquisition and look for ways to integrate it into their other products. XBOX live is ripe for integration as is the Microsoft Office platform, there is also the possibility of aligning it with - or replacing - Live Messenger. (That said I wouldn’t want to be responsible for integrating those platforms together.)

Overall I think this is a good move for Microsoft and quite a brave one, time will tell to see if it is a wise one.

We were all planning on Dell unveiling their 10-inch tablet at CES2011 but no – no they didn’t. Dell managed to hold it off until their ‘Dell means business’ event in San Francisco just the other day.

It’s pretty self explanatory what happened at the event and it is exactly what it says on the tin – Dell unveiled a hell of a lot of products…39 to be precise and every one of them to target the business market.

Dell called this launch event- “the biggest product launch in the history of the company”.

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Always been confused when transfering data from an old PC to a new one?

Want to know how “WET” can help you?

Put in very simple terms, ‘WET’ is an abreviation for ‘Windows Easy Transfer’ and this very useful application can save time for a lot of people transfering from Windows XP to Windows 7 but is often overlooked – until now.

WET comes pre-installed on most newer releases of Microsofts Operating Systems (OS) and designed specifically for helping users transfering saved information, data, images and settings stored currently running on Windows XP or a more recent PC running Windows 7.

WET will even transfer your wallpaper.

Often a lot of people use third party applications like Norton Ghost to backup a PC to another but often for applications like this, users have to pay quite a bit of money for the privilidge of this. I know myself that I have always found an alternative way around this until recently having to re-build a PC and upgrading the Operating System (OS) together.

With everything having to be organised when transfering information from one PC to another and trying not to miss the important information, Norton’s Ghost will create its own custom image probably to complicate things a little more.

The main benefit WET has over Norton Ghost and competitors is that it is FREE and it comes pre-installed with your PC. As it is currently installed in Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP, it makes it pretty easy for any user to migrate from one Operating System to another.

Here is a useful link if you want more information on getting started with Windows Easy Transfer – read more

WET is quite a flexible application as it gives users the option to transfer information either onto a hard drive, through a network or alternatively through an ‘easy transfer cable’ which is more formally known as a USB-A to USB-A cable.

Note : Not all programs and settings are going to transfer to your new OS but this definitely makes it easier to transfer compatible program settings, your files, folders and important documents.

‘Back in December there were a host of rumors leaked about the next version of the perhaps decreasingly popular, yet still massively dominant Windows OS, appropriately named successor to Windows 7, in the form of Windows 8. Well, now it seems that Microsoft Kitchen, the team who got a hold of the Windows software road map in the first place, have leaked a presentation detailing some further, possibly more concrete rumors detailing some exciting features to come in Windows 8.’

With Windows 8, who knows what Microsoft have in-store for their users – could it be the ability to store all of their documents, music and other information in the cloud nice and secure? Hosting applications such as Photoshop and providing it on subscriptions?

This wouldn’t be a first Microsoft having a cloud based system encorporated with an Operating System. We’ve seen in the ASUS netbooks an app store where users can download applications straight from the Cloud to their laptops – pretty cool huh?

At the moment, with Windows 8 not being due until 2012, it’s a little hard to try and depict what will be on the Cloud service but I would probably go with something like Games and programs like FileHippo.

-For more information go to the original article source here at Zath

Microsoft has announced the release date of their new operating system, Windows 7, as the 22nd of October 2009.

Additional information available here: BBC

We have been trialing Windows 7 Beta and more recently Windows 7 RC (Release candidate) and are happy to report we are very impressed with the updates and changes from the previous version (Vista). We are looking forward to this being the stadard on all new PC’s.

Ok so Microsoft let themselves down badly with the launch of Vista, but do you really think that they would allow such a fiasco to occur again? Paul Griffiths goes to find out…..

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