Build, Windows 8, and what your IT department should do on Astini News
Hands-on with Windows 8: it's good stuff on the PC, too: Windows 8 will be an exciting and capable tablet operating system. But traditional PC users are more than a little worried about how it'll work for them. They probably shouldn't be—Windows 8 is set to be a thoroughly good PC OS, too.
Hands-on with Windows 8: A PC operating system for the tablet age: Microsoft has at last opened the floodgates and started talking about Windows 8. Will the software giant finally have an operating system to take on iOS in the tablet space?
Microsoft BUILD: what we expect to see about Windows 8 this week: Microsoft's BUILD conference, which replaces the PDC developer event, took place in Anaheim last week. Ars previewed the conference.
Office 365, Google Docs go down again, could give pause to the cloud-wary: Microsoft's Office 365 and Google Docs both went down recently. For cloud customers, outages are becoming distressingly familiar.
Steve Ballmer: We are "reimagining Microsoft": Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the overhaul of Windows is part of a larger goal to transform the whole company, making every one of its businesses optimized for new hardware form factors and cloud services.
The single best change your IT department could make—what is it?: IT departments are changing—look no further than the new corporate openness to personal cell phones—but what changes have the most impact on the workers you support? Read tales from the IT trenches inside—and share some of your own.
Metro-style Internet Explorer 10 ditches Flash, plugins: Microsoft has announced that Windows 8's Metro-style browser won't include any support for plugins, including Silverlight and Flash. Other widely used tablet operating systems have made the same decision—but it's a little surprising for a PC platform.
Windows 8 hardware: touchscreens, sensor support and robotic fingers : Microsoft showed off a broad new range of hardware today at the Windows 8 developer preview, including touchscreen tablets and monitors, which will benefit from greater support for sensors like accelerometers, gyrometers, and compasses.
Windows Server 8: built for the cloud, built for virtualization: Windows Server 8 will be a big upgrade for Windows administrators. The focus is virtualization and the creation of private clouds, with big improvements in scalability and upgradeability.
VMware ties Workstation to vSphere, optimizes Fusion for Mac OS X Lion: VMware is rolling out major upgrades to Fusion for Mac and Workstation for Windows and Linux, allowing Fusion to take advantage of Lion-specific features of Mac OS X, and boosting integration between Workstation and vSphere to make life easier for developers and IT pros.
