Things may be turning around in the PC market, according to new analysis by IDC.   IDC reported this week that it expects revenue in the 2010 PC market to surpass a peak that was last set in 2008. The main growth driver will come from mainstream notebooks, IDC predicts, based on its June "Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker" report. Netbooks, which IDC calls "mininotebook PCs," will play less of a role in driving PC sales, staying at less than 12 percent of sales, the analyst firm predicts.   The

On the Windows Team Blog, Microsoft has decided to post an inside look into the new Windows Live Essentials and what users can expect. Scheduled for beta release in the coming months, the updated suite will bring a boat-load of new features. Among the touted apps is the new versions of Live Photo Gallery. According to CNet, Microsoft's very own Brian Hall went as far as saying that the new Photo Gallery is "better for photos than a Mac, hands down."     Neowin has previously posted a look i

The latest market share figures from IDC about servers show that Windows is by far the most popular server operating system in terms of unit sales, increasing its market share even further. Linux, on the other hand, saw its market share in the server market sink a little.   I don't really know what to make of these figures, but alas, let's just get them out there. In the first quarter of 2010, Windows had a 75.3% market share in terms of units sold, up from 73.9% in the fourth quarter of 2009.

t comes as no surprise that Google would want its employees to use its products, including the forthcoming Chrome OS. But months before the operating system is released publicly, the company has reportedly started pulling the plug on internal use of Windows computers. going so far as to require special permission to use Microsoft’s OS.   See also:   * No more Windows at Google: Just FUD? * Google dumps Windows for Mac OS and Linux * Google ditching Windows over security makes l

we are very excited to announce the release of Beta 1 for System Center Configuration Manager v.Next.     System Center Configuration Manager v.Next is uniquely positioned to provide for powerful and flexible user-centric client management, allowing users to be able to seamlessly access their data from virtually anywhere, across multiple device types while providing IT with unified management tools and centralized control.   This next release of Configuration Manager is focused on 3 main

The Windows Live team previewed the next version of Hotmail Monday. This release has a foundation on saving time. Attachments, for example, often take you away from your inbox, they require you to wait for a new application or new window to open, one at a time. Hotmail will allow you to see a Silverlight Gallery of attached images or even linked images from Flickr and SmugMug. They have made it possible to send up to 200 photos @ 50MB each in a single email using Windows Live SkyDrive. Hotmail w

Microsoft has revealed its new social media tool called Spindex. The idea is that the new tool will be able to take all of your social media connections and display them on one page from popular services like Twitter, Facebook, Bing, and soon to be many more services.   From Spindex’s landing page, “Spindex allows you to access and interact with your social networks, see trends from your friends, and see related info from Bing on literally everything you click on. Spindex proactively finds us

When we started planning IE9, we recognized the need for a better feedback loop with developers. The developer community was clear that they wanted pre-release builds of the browser platform in a consistent rhythm, with a good feedback mechanism.     Seven weeks ago at the MIX Conference, we released the first IE9 Platform Preview. We committed to updating the Preview approximately every eight weeks. Today, we’re releasing the second Platform Preview of Internet Explorer 9, available n