Nicholas Kolakowski

Microsoft has entered into a patent agreement with Velocity Micro, a maker of Android-based tablets. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed by either company. Velocity Micro’s Cruz tablets target the “value” audience, with price-points below most other Android devices on the market. The 7-inch Cruz T301 e-reader retails for $199.99 and runs Android 2.2, […]

NEW YORK-Microsoft launched Office 365, its cloud-based productivity software, in the same event space it used for Windows 7’s debut in October 2009. As with Windows 7, a lot is riding on Office 365’s ability to appeal to both consumers and businesses. Microsoft is very publicly “all in” with the cloud, a strategy that a […]

Microsoft’s Office 365 release intensifies its competition with Google. The question now is whether the Office 365 platform, as the cloud-based extension of Microsoft’s long-running Office franchise, actively threatens Google’s work in the cloud-productivity arena. Microsoft would certainly like that to be the case. During its June 28 launch event in New York City, CEO […]

The browser evolutions continue. Days after Mozilla issued its newest version of Firefox, Opera has launched a browser version with all-new features designed to make it stand out in an increasingly crowded field. Those new features include the ability to synchronize your Website passwords across Opera browsers, a streamlined design, speed-boosting tweaks to the core […]

Ballmer Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hosted the launch of Office 365 in New York City. Collaboration “We believe effective collaboration is a lot more than good group dynamics,” Ballmer told the audience. “Its instant access to relevant information … and the right people taking the right action at the right time.” SMBs Microsofts presentation made […]

Apple will start manufacturing the iPhone 5 in August, in preparation for a third-quarter launch. That’s the latest rumor stems from Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, who stated flatly in a note to investors that the next iPhone “will begin production in mid to late August and ramp aggressively.” Her information apparently came from talks […]

Microsoft is readying the launch of Office 365, an online productivity platform that serves as the company’s next big bet on the cloud. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is expected to headline the June 28 event at New York City’s Skylight Soho, the same venue that hosted the Windows 7 launch in October 2009. Office 365 […]

Kindle and Nook fans, take heart: According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, the percentage of U.S. adults with an e-reader grew from 6 percent to 12 percent between November 2010 and May. At the same time, the survey (of 2,277 adults aged 18 and over) suggested […]

Microsoft has reached an agreement with General Dynamics Itronix for royalty payments on the latter’s Android-based products. Microsoft claims that the Android platform infringes on a number of Microsoft-held patents. For several quarters, the company has pursued a stark strategy with regard to manufacturers of Android devices such as smartphones and tablets: enter into a […]

Microsoft’s week started off and ended with a promise of big future things to come. The U.S. Department of Justice approved Microsoft’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype. That means Redmond now faces the singular challenge of digesting Skype’s assets into its various products, including the Lync unified communications platform and Outlook, while preserving Skype’s enormous […]

Should Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) find itself in the Federal Trade Commission’s anti-competitive sights, there could be one very big beneficiary: Microsoft’s Bing. According to The Wall Street Journal, the FTC will soon subpoena Google for information, which in turn could lead into an antitrust inquiry into the search engine giant’s search advertising practices. The FTC will […]

With Firefox 5, Mozilla ratchets up the cadence of its browser releases-this latest edition arrives a mere three months after Firefox 4 first entered the marketplace. For consumers, upgrading probably won’t represent that much of a hassle: You click “download,” and a few minutes later (depending on your connection speed) you’re tooling around with a […]