Oh, dear. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on The Today Show (international viewers: The Today Show is a morning news and entertainment program that airs on NBC, a big TV network here) to unveil Windows 7. Call me crazy, but isn’t that a first-gen MacBook Pro in the background? Good job, NBC!
Click through for video.
Microsoft announced another down quarter this morning. Revenues in the September quarter were down 14 percent to $12.92 billion, and net profits declined even further to $3.57 billion, or $0.40 a share. The consensus estimate was $0.32, so Wall Street is happy and the shares are rallying (up 10 percent in early-morning trading).
Investors will forgive the poor performance coming out of the recession (are we out of that yet?), because they hope that yesterday’s launch of Windows 7 will bring back the shine to the stock. If you look at revenues for the Windows business, it certainly looks like both businesses and consumers have been delaying purchases and upgrades in anticipation of the new operating system. The Windows business saw revenues decline by 37 percent, or $1.7 billion, from last year, to $2.6 billion. The closely-related Business division, which includes Office, was down $500 million in revenues, to $4.4 billion.
Microsoft needs to revive these franchises with Windows 7 at a time when it is increasingly under attack by cloud-based productivity apps from Google and others. (Earnings slides after the jump).
Last week we reported the rumors that VC-backed Playfish, the social games startup which has had phenomenal growth, was in the process of being acquired by games giant Electronic Arts for $250 million. However, nothing was confirmed at the time, and despite several press reports to that effect none of the companies involved has made a sound. And most observers were startled as Playfish had not looked like it wanted an early exit by any stretch.
In fact, we’ve learned that Playfish is still in play, and in all likelihood EA leaked the $250 million figure as a negotiating tactic. Our sources say that Playfish is holding out for another offer, somewhere between $350m at the low end and $500m at the top end, either from EA or another suitor. Independently, Inside Social Games has uncovered similar chatter.
Here’s a quirky story: Israeli iPhone app dev house ApParty released an app back in December 2008 called iFog (iTunes link).
The premise being that the user selects a photo which then has a steam effect superimposed upon it. The steam can be wiped away by running a finger over the screen surface. Blowing on the iPhone microphone fogs the screen back up.
Cute. Simple. And lucrative—it was bought 200,000 times for $0.99 a pop.
It’s been an eventful day: among all the breaking news about Microsoft signing a search deal with Facebook and Twitter, Google doing the same with Twitter and later announcing social search, one can easily forget that today is the day that Vista gets replaced by something better: Windows 7.
As we wrote earlier, the interest for the new OS from Microsoft has been huge, making Windows 7 the biggest pre-order item in the history of Amazon UK and a perpetual trending topic on Twitter. The reactions from users and reviewers have been mostly positive, but after the lukewarm it’s-ok-but-why-should-I-switch-from-WinXP attempt that was Vista, the fact that people can’t wait to get their hands on Windows 7 is hardly a surprise.
And, for the most part, it’s true. Annoying security features such as UAC have been fixed in Windows 7 (you can now manually set its annoyance level), the system feels speedier and more responsive (although it really isn’t that much faster when you actually measure it (for example, boot time on both systems is pretty much the same on my computer), but it feels that way, and that’s all that matters, compatibility issues have been fixed. In short, it’s more of a really, really good service pack for Vista than a new OS, but it’s definitely enough to switch from the eight year old Windows XP.
If you’re interested in making the switch, the price is $319 for Windows 7 Ultimate, and $299 for the Professional version ($219 and $199 for the upgrade, respectively). Windows 7 Home Premium will set you back $199, and an upgrade from either Vista or XP will cost you $119.
Mozilla Labs announced a new project today: Raindrop is an “exploration in messaging innovation” brought to you by the same team behind the Thunderbird open source email client.
Built around the idea that “email isn’t fun anymore,” Raindrop aims to be a sort of intelligent inbox filtering system that kicks minor messages and notifications to the sidelines while foregrounding messages from Mom and other important people you actually know.
Raindrop also wants to pull in messages from Twitter, Facebook, IM, and eventually any other communication platform with an API. Direct messages and @replies would be seen as more important and therefore foregrounded over regular not specifically to you messages. The idea is to make a people-centric communication tool that brings your various services together in one interface, instead of constantly playing a game of “find that browser tab” when you want to check up on a particular conversation or thread.
While the concept is extremely exciting to those of us very weary of slogging through almost unparseable email accounts and wielding a formidable array of web-based communication tools, Raindrop is still in the very, very early stages. In fact at a lowly version 0.1 release, the platform is still only available to developers at this point.
Still, we look forward to seeing what comes out of Raindrop. Like Google Wave, it’s an attempt to re-imagine web-based communication for the modern era from the ground up. Raindrop will also borrow some elements from Wave like the ability to view images and videos inline, and it will be interesting to see what other parallels might emerge between the two.
Check out an introductory video about Raindrop below and let us know what you think. Do you have any suggestions for the team working on re-inventing online communication? Or do you even plan to get your hands dirty and get involved with the open source Raindrop project?
Reviews: Facebook, Google Wave, Twitter
Tags: communication, email, facebook, mozilla, raindrop, twitter
Maria Schneider covers writing, publishing and social media at Editor Unleashed. Follow her on Twitter.
A lively ongoing conversation is taking place on Twitter about where the publishing industry is headed. With digital media overshadowing its legacy media counterpart, publishers are struggling to figure out pricing, digital rights issues and how to market digital content. These are similar to the struggles the music industry has faced over the past few years.
Here are 15 Twitter users I turn to for news and insight about how old school publishing is meeting its digital future. By following these publishing innovators, you can follow — and even participate in — the industry’s conversations as they take place in real-time.
1. @R_Nash
Name: Richard Nash
Who: Indie publisher, formerly of Soft Skull Press who is launching an innovative new social publishing startup called Cursor.
Why: Nash consistently offers a contrarian point-of-view and doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to challenging traditional publishing.
Name: Michael Hyatt
Who: CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and a prolific blogger who covers the intersection of traditional publishing and social media.
Why: Hyatt is a unique voice as one of the few publishing CEOs who practices what he preaches by blogging prolifically and doing social media outreach via Twitter and Facebook.
3. @Weegee
Name: Kevin Smokler
Who: Founder and CEO (his partner is Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine) of BookTour.com, a directory of authors chronicling their live and virtual appearances.
Why: Smokler’s site has attracted enough interest to garner $350,000 from Amazon, making it a rare well-funded publishing-centric startup. He often carries on Twitter conversations with followers about books and the publishing industry.
Name: Nathan Bransford
Who: Literary agent with Curtis Brown, he writes a popular blog and tackles tough subjects such as: “Will writers of the future even need publishers?”
Why: Bransford may be the most popular literary agent on Twitter for his straight-up personable advice about where book publishing is headed.
5. @draccah
Name: Dominique Raccah
Who: Publisher of Sourcebooks.
Why: She closely tracks and comments on the quickly evolving digital landscape from a publisher’s perspective and consistently offers smart, relevant tweets and links.
6. @chriswebb
Name: Chris Webb
Who: Publisher, John Wiley and Sons UK.
Why: Webb covers the intersection of tech and book publishing from a publishing geek perspective. His tweets give followers an insider’s look into the evolving world of publishing.
7. @gkiely
Name: Garrett Kiely
Who: Director of the University of Chicago Press.
Why: Kiely closely follows and opines on digital books, copyright issues and the latest ebook developments. His unique perspective as the director of a university press offers an interesting take on the changing publishing landscape.
8. @timoreilly
Name: Tim O’Reilly
Who: CEO of O’Reilly Media, a pioneering force in moving publishing into the digital realm.
Why: He tweets both O’Reilly-centric and general e-publishing news. Because O’Reilly has over a million followers, you probably shouldn’t expect intimate conversation. Still, his perspective on the publishing industry as someone who is actively changing it is not to be missed.
9. @jwikert
Name: Joe Wikert
Who: Publisher at O’Reilly Media.
Why: Wikert often comments on digital advances in the publishing community and he is always on the lookout for new e-publishing business models.
10. @glecharles
Name: Guy L. Gonzalez
Who: Director of audience development for F+W Media.
Why: Gonzalez routinely finds and shares the best ebook links, and he often stirs up conversation and controversy about the future of publishing on his outspoken Loudpoet blog.
11. @debbiestier
Name: Debbie Stier
Who: Publisher of book imprint, HarperStudio, which publishes popular social media figures, such as Gary Vaynerchuk.
Why: Stier tweets about publishing news and often shares compelling links about the future of the industry as it pertains to both publishers and authors. She also contributes to the HarperStudio blog.
12. @markcoker
Name: Mark Coker
Who: Founder and CEO of the startup Smashwords.
Why: His groundbreaking e-publishing platform converts Word documents to digital formats and recently partnered with Barnes & Noble and Sony. His tweets are a great source of publishing industry news and information.
13. @doctorow
Name: Cory Doctorow
Who: Novelist and blogger for BoingBoing.
Why: Doctorow uses his Twitter account to talk about pioneering digital media strategies for writers. He also coined the much-cited digital media call to arms: “An author’s biggest threat isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity.”
14. @donlinn
Name: Don Linn
Who: A former executive with Taunton Press, Linn recently attempted to launch an ebook publishing imprint, Quartet Press.
Why: Although Quartet quickly fizzled out, Linn closely follows ebook developments and is always one of the first to tweet ebook developments and offer a business perspective.
15. @hughmcguire
Name: Hugh McGuire
Who: Founder and CEO of digital startup bookoven.com, an online space to create and publish books.
Why: McGuire is generally considered one to watch for new digital publishing developments, and he often tweets about publishing industry news.
You can follow all of the people on this list by going to our customized “15 Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing” TweepML group.
More Twitter follow lists from Mashable:
- Musicians on Twitter: 100+ Artists That Tweet
- Tasty Tweets: 55+ Foodies to Follow on Twitter
- Green Tweets: 75+ Environmentalists to Follow on Twitter
- 15 Must-Follow Comedic Film Actors on Twitter
- Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, lightkeeper
Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto
Tags: digital publishing, Lists, publishing, social media, social networking, twitter, Twitter Lists
