NEW YORK--Although the official U.S. launch event is still some hours away, Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system has hit the market, going on sale in a number of countries across the globe.
Executives from Microsoft have fanned out to celebrate the launch of the company's core product upon which the rest of Redmond's empire has been built. The software giant is counting on favorable reviews and new features to help Windows rebuilt its image in the face of a disappointing response to Windows Vista.
(Credit:
Microsoft)
Microsoft is touting the value of Windows in the face of a resurgent Apple. As part of the launch, Microsoft is celebrating seven days of deals in a number of key markets, including the United States. Among the specials is a $1,200 package from Hewlett-Packard and Best Buy that includes a Netbook, laptop, desktop, monitor and router as well as in-home installation.
"The Best Buy offer is a home makeover," Microsoft Vice President Tami Reller told CNET News. "For the price of a Mac you have a new notebook, a new Netbook, a new desktop, and a new router to bring it together with the help of the Geek Squad."
In addition to landing on new PCs, Microsoft will also sell stand-alone versions of Windows 7 that can be used to upgrade an existing PC. Although Microsoft still offers a half-dozen different flavors of the operating system in all, Redmond is focusing its energies around two versions--the Home Premium and Professional versions.
It will sell both a full version of the operating system that can be used on any hardware as well as an upgrade version to be used on existing PCs. Although both Windows XP and Windows Vista can be upgraded to Windows 7, only Vista can be done without backing up and reinstalling both programs and data.
A huge marketing blitz will accompany the debut of Windows 7, with Microsoft continuing its "I'm a PC" campaign, by featuring average users who point to various aspects of the new operating system as representing their idea.
Microsoft plans to formalize the launch with an event here with CEO Steve Ballmer (CNET News will cover the 11 a.m. ET event live). The software maker is also opening its first retail store, in Scottsdale, Ariz., as well as a "Windows Cafe" in Paris.
Steven Sinofsky, the divisional president who has spearheaded the development of Windows 7, is presiding over the Japanese launch of the product, while designer Julie Larson-Green is at an event in London.
Microsoft employees in Redmond's Building 37 plan to remotely ring the bell to open Nasdaq trading on Thursday, while Microsoft and its computer maker partners will ring the closing bell.
The product has already gone on sale in Australia, Japan and elsewhere.
PASADENA, Calif.--Hewlett-Packard plans in coming months to introduce an electronic collaboration tool that combines video conferencing with electronic whiteboarding, CEO Mark Hurd said Friday.
Speaking at Fortune's Brainstorm: Tech conference here, Hurd said the tool goes beyond anything Microsoft has developed.
HP CEO Mark Hurd and Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg speak at Fortune's Brainstorm: Tech conference here.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)"This is a great capability," he said. "This will not just (have the) ability for you and I to see each other. I can actually write on the screen. You will see it the way I wrote it."
He said the product would be "very, very competitively priced," but didn't give pricing or further details.
Hurd was asked about the economy, but said there wasn't much he can say given that HP's quarter is just about to end.
"Everything we see says '10, being 2010, we expect to be a better year than 2009," Hurd said. "There's no question that people have put off purchases. That ages the infrastructure, which at some point creates a replacement cycle. Sooner or later, things will rebound."
Moments after Hewlett-Packard announced plans Monday to chop more than 24,000 jobs, Chief Executive Mark Hurd defended the company's purchase of EDS, saying it will help the company in the long term.
"The enterprise is big," Hurd said at a meeting with financial analysts. "It's attractive for us and it's heading our way."
As for the integration of EDS, Hurd noted that HP has a history of being able to digest large companies. HP announced plans in May to acquire the computer services firm for $13.9 billion. The deal closed in August.
"We bought 30 companies in the past four years," he said. "We're good at it."
Although the headlines were sure to focus on the job cuts, which will take place over the next three years, Hurd said the deal's benefits were not limited to cutting jobs. "I can assure you there are other synergies we are looking for in the acquisition," Hurd said.
Following Hurd, HP executive Ann Livermore talked up how the combined companies' services and products lineup. In HP's own house, Livermore noted that the company is doing internally what it hopes to do for customers.
In fiscal year 2005, Livermore noted that it had more people working in IT than it did in its sales force as well as too many applications.
"We had a real spaghetti bowl of things," she said. By the end of fiscal year 2009, Livermore said it will have twice as many customer-related staff as it will in IT as well as getting far more computing power, despite having reduced its total number of servers.
Hurd kicked off the meeting with a reference to the bloodbath on Wall Street that took place earlier Monday after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch announced a hastily put together plan to sell to Bank of America.
"That was a tough day on Wall street," Hurd said. "I hope there's a chance I can capture your attention."
Update: CFO Cathie Lesjak told analysts that the company expects to make about half of the job cuts to be made by the end of fiscal year 2009, spread out roughly evenly over the year.
Although it plans to eliminate more than 24,000 jobs overall, Lesjak said that the company expects to reinvest some of those savings, ultimately adding back about half the number of of jobs being lost in other areas.
"We need to get the EDS cost structure more competitive," she said.
A sure way to get some search traffic is to make sure that your engine is the default option inside the browser.
For antitrust reasons, Microsoft can't just make its engine the default in Internet Explorer (except in some very limited circumstances). If it wants to get Live Search on new PCs, it has to strike a deal with computer makers, just as rivals have done.
On Monday, Microsoft announced just such an agreement, with Hewlett-Packard agreeing to make Live Search the default on its consumer PCs starting in January. The computers will also carry a toolbar that uses Microsoft's Silverlight in conjunction with Live Search.
Top executives said recently that they felt the quality of Live Search had reached a point where it made sense to start using some marketing dollars to acquire traffic, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is the first deal of many, especially since Microsoft has yet to reach a deal with Yahoo and its share of the search market has continued to decline.
Microsoft didn't say how much it is paying HP for the right to be on its PCs, but it did call the deal its most significant one to date.
"This agreement with HP is a strategic indicator of our increased focus on securing broad-scale distribution for Live Search," Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's platforms and services division, said in a statement. "This is the most significant distribution deal for Live Search that Microsoft has ever done, and we are very pleased to be partnering with HP to help bring Live Search to millions of consumers across North America."
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