Tamie Reller, Windows CFO (pictured below), said today that Windows Blue will indeed officially be Windows 8.1 and that it will be free to existing users of Windows 8 & Windows RT.

The rumours that it would be a chargeable add-on were growing in strength in some corners of the internet; it’s good to see Microsoft moving to correct the chatter and let everyone know how the land lies.

Earlier this month, Reller also revealed that Blue would be available by “holiday 2013”. Also, Julie Larsson-Green (pictured below), Head of Windows Engineering, confirmed that a public preview of Windows Blue will be available by the end of June 2013 – making it’s appearance at the BUILD conference on 26th June.

See more about the announcements here.

See more about Windows Blue and its features here.

Well, this week saw an early build of Windows Blue leak online and – thanks to early early adopters – we’ve got a great look at what it has to offer.

What new things are on offer?

Side by Side Snap

Windows 8 currently offers a snap view where one app takes up 2/3 of the screen and another makes up the other 1/3. I find it very useful and use it regularly but not everyone seems to agree on it’s usefulness. HP, for example, claim it is a “consumer feature” and purposefully built their business focused Windows 8 tablet, the ElitePad 900, with a screen resolution incapable of snapping; as they don’t feel that business users need it.

Windows 8 Blue brings new snap capabilities, giving 50/50 snapping (as per desktop mode & Windows 7) but also allowing 3 and 4 apps to be snapped simultaneously.

Current Snap:

New Snap:

These improvements also extend to multi-monitor support, allowing you to run individual Windows 8 apps across multiple monitors.

As the current Windows 8 snap features requires a minimum resolution of 1368×768, will the additional 3 & 4 app snap capability require an even higher resolution?

Internet Explorer 11

The latest revision of Internet Explorer will be available as part of the Blue update:

The word on the street/online is that tab synchronization will be introduced in IE11 and Windows Blue, allowing users to continue internet browsing across devices. You’re looking at a page on your desktop pc and need to leave the office, you can pull out your tablet on the train and pick up where you left off…it should also be possible to continue the browsing on a Windows Phone 8 device.

Oddly enough I was talking to someone who’s quite the Apple fan the other day (hi Mat!) and they mentioned this as something they really like about the iOS universe. I wasn’t aware that it was a thing and had never really thought about it so it wasn’t something that I missed…that said, since our conversation and now it’s rumoured inclusion in Windows Blue, I can see myself using it a lot between laptop/desktop and tablet. Something I wonder is this – will it be possible to do it across devices that don’t share MS accounts? For example, people won’t have their Hotmail account linked to their work machine but they may wish to continue their browsing on a personal device, which will have the MS account rather than corporate details – will this be possible?

New Live Tile sizes

In a move that brings it in line with Windows Phone 8, Windows 8 Blue will support smaller live tiles. This please me and I’m sure many others, as it enables one to have many more things easily accessible without creating a huge start screen to scroll through. That change between WP7 & 8 was one of the biggest and most beneficial for me.

The Desktop tile is the only one to have a special “extra large” offering too:

(courtesy of The Verge)

New options in Settings

Microsoft have made many of the Control Panel features now available in the Windows 8 mode, rather than forcing the user into the desktop. This is a brilliant move, the switching between modes is one of the biggest complaints I hear and I find it very jarring myself, so steps to reduce it’s frequency can only be a good thing. I’d be happy to spend all my time in the Windows 8 interface if I could do everything I needed to (and I’m sure many others would) so this is definitely a step in the right direction.

You can see here the ability to backup a device to SkyDrive. I imagine this will be pretty useful although quite a slow process!

Charm Updates

The Devices Charm features a new “play to” option.

The Share Charm lets you quickly take a screenshot:

Other new features

The Verge tells us that “On the Start Screen you can swipe up from the bottom to bring up a list of all apps, and in the desktop mode you can swipe up or down to reveal a desktop app bar that provides access to snap, projector settings, and more” which sounds like a great addition.

The new Apps section in settings lets you see how much storage each app is using.

There is a new, quick way to add VPN settings.

A “Quiet Mode” has been introduced, allowing you to set periods when notifications are subdued.

New built in apps include:

• Alarm
• Sound Recorder
• Windows 8 style calculator
• Movie Moments – a Movie Maker replacement.

When will we get it?

Microsoft today announced their BUILD conference, the Windows Developer event, will be held in San Francisco on June 26-28 2013. It seems likely that we will see the first public preview of Windows Blue around this time – so not that long to wait really, yay!

Registration for BUILD begins 09:00am PST April 2nd here – www.buildwindows.com.

Thanks to Winforum.eu for the screenshots and The Verge for some of the extra info.

https://microsoftedweblive.com/sites/BHO/default.aspx

Text from the site:

Welcome to the Surface commercial customer ordering site. Using the link for your country below, you can order Surface devices, accessories, and after-market service plans (availability varies by market).

Some important notes:

• A valid Purchase Order (PO) is required for each order form submission
• Lead times for delivery and order requirements may vary depending on inventory.
• If you do not currently have a volume licensing agreement with Microsoft, there may be additional processing time to setup account and credit terms

Protect your Investment

While Surface devices come with a standard one-year limited warranty, you may want to consider purchasing a Surface Extended Hardware Service Plan. This plan is available for both Surface Pro and Surface RT devices and includes an extension of the hardware warranty up to 3-years.
The plan includes shipping a replacement unit out prior to your product return to minimize downtime. The Extended Hardware Service Plan can be purchased up to 45 days after device purchase. For details on what is and is not covered in the Extended Hardware Service Plan for Surface devices, please see the Terms and Conditions.
The Extended Hardware Service Plan is priced at $200 per device for Surface Pro and $150 per device for Surface RT. At this time, the Extended Hardware Service plans are available only in the US and Canada and via direct purchase from Microsoft.

You need to log into the website to see the above screens and move through to the pricing & ordering sections. I’d expect that any login that can access the VLSC (Volume License Service Center) will be able to sign into this site.

This is an interesting move from Microsoft – still not involving their channel partners but at least making it easier for corporations to purchase these devices! It’s interesting to note that they’re not offering a discount via this new site – the prices are the same as those on the public website.

Also, the Surface Pro isn’t listed on the UK page but it is on the US page, so it conforms to the current availability schedule. No early Pro goodness, even for volume licensing customers

Biztalk 2013 will be on the pricelists from April and is moving to a per-core licensing model. As with SQL 2012, 1 license will cover 2 cores.

With the recent update to Office 365, Microsoft have relaxed the licensing rules to allow RDS use of Office 365 licenses. Under “Installation & Use Rights” on page 82 of the January PUR:

Each user may also use one of the five activations on a network server with the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) role enabled

and from the March Product List:

Media Eligibility with Remote Desktop Services (RDS)

If the user to whom you have assigned an Office 365 ProPlus license uses the software on a network server with RDS role enabled, in lieu of installing a copy of the software provided with Office 365 ProPlus on one of the five permitted devices pursuant to the Product Use Rights for Office 365 ProPlus, that user may 1) install one copy of the Office Professional Plus 2013 software on a network server and 2) access the Office Professional Plus 2013 software from any device.  Upon termination of your Office 365 ProPlus subscription you must uninstall Office Professional Plus 2013 software from the network server.

I’m glad they’ve done this as it makes the messaging of “same product, different delivery method” a much truer statement and reduces any possible confusion for customers.

This was not received well by most people and there have been a lot of blog posts, tweets, conversations about this; almost all of them negative about MS making things “more expensive”, “pushing users to the cloud” etc.

In an interesting development, Microsoft have now reversed that decision:

As a result of customer feedback to Office 2013 retail license transferability terms, we are changing the Office 2013 retail license agreement to allow customers to transfer the software from one computer to another.

The End User License Agreement text accompanying Office 2013 software will be updated in a future release, however this change is effective on March 6, 2013 at 6am PT. This amendment applies to Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013, Office Professional 2013, as well as Office 2013 standalone applications. These transferability options are equivalent to those found in the Office 2010 retail license terms.

This is a great example of Microsoft listening to feedback from end users and moving, really quite quickly, to rectify the issue at hand. I think this is a positive step from Microsoft and shows that customer feedback, particularly via social media, really does work!

To see the official Microsoft post, head over to:

http://blogs.office.com/b/office-news/archive/2013/03/06/office-2013-retail-license-agreement-now-transferable.aspx

It looks good. It feels good. It’s sleek. It’s light.

You’ll notice as you admire those images that it’s sleek edges are uninterrupted by ports, of any kind – this is certainly odd. The HP ElitePad 900 has available for it a range of “expansion jackets” – the one I had today was the “Expansion Jacket”:

The above jacket comes in 2 parts & clips around the device to offer a good range of ports:

• 2 x USB 2.0
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x HCSM/MMC card slot
• 1 x Combo stereo/headphone port

It seems you can use the jacket as a form of easel for the tablet but that wasn’t apparent to me whilst handling it today.

That rectangle you see in the centre of the jacket (in the first picture) is an additional battery which adds around 80% to the battery life of the device – handy for long days away from chargers! It appears that the battery is not part of the jacket but rather an additional option (see this HP page here & the spec page here).

Even jacketed, the ElitePad 900 still looks quite stylish and is still easy to handle and hold. As this jacket contained the additional battery it did add a noticeable amount of extra weight, making the device too heavy to hold for any real length of time. The jacket on its own is 260g while the battery is another 190g, so a total of 450g added to a tablet that weights 680g (1.5lbs) – making a total of 1130g (2.49lbs).

Another accessory available for this tablet is a comprehensive (and very well made/heavy at 1.48 lb) docking station, giving you those required ports when at desk.

You get:

• 3 x USB 2.0
• 1 x powered USB 2.0
• 1 x Combo stereo/headphone jack
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x VGA
• 1 x RJ45
• 1 x Smart AC Adapter

making it a very well connected device. You can dock it with or without the expansion jacket :

but it seems i forgot to take pictures of it jacketed in the dock! You’ll notice the stylus pen in a couple of those pictures – this is also an additional option for the ElitePad, although sadly it wasn’t working on the unit I trialled. I find pen input on the Samsung 700t to be excellent and very useful so it’s good to see this as an option for business users.

I used the VGA port to connect the device to my monitor and use it as a second screen, which worked very well. Also, the snap feature is then available.

ElitePad 900 Specs

The spec of the device are reasonable:

• Intel Atom Z2760 (1.5GHZ, “upto 1.8GHZ using Intel Burst & Hyper Threading)
• 2GB RAM
• 32GB or 64GB Flash storage
• 10.1” 16:10* 1280 x 800 Gorilla Glass 2 screen
• 2 x cameras (1080p front, 8MP w/LED rear)
• 9.2mm thickness
• Wireless 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth
• HP hs2350 HSPA+ Mobile Broadband module w/GPS Support**
• HP hs3120 HSPA+ Mobile Broadband*

*This gives users an extra 5% usable space over a 16:9 screen (according to HP)

**Not all models will have 3g capabilities.

Accessories and costs

The docking station is $149 (HP Site)

The expansion jacket is $99 (HP Site)

The expansion battery is $149 or $99, depending which page you look at (HP Site or HP Site)

The ElitePad case is $39 (HP Site)

There will also be a “Productivity Jacket” which gives:

• integrated keyboard
• “”several additional ports”
• SD Card reader

and allows you to use the ElitePad like a clamshell notebook. I can’t find final specs or a price for this as yet. HP say it will be available “Spring 2013”, here’s a picture until then:

The pen is an additional item but I can’t see a price for that either.

The full range of accessories is:

• • HP ElitePad Productivity Jacket
• •HP ElitePad Expansion Jacket
• • HP ElitePad Rugged Case
• • HP ElitePad Case
• • HP ElitePad Jacket Battery
• • HP ElitePad Jacket and Battery
• • HP ElitePad Docking Station
• • HP Tablet Stand
• • HP Executive Tablet Pen
• • HP ElitePad USB Adapter
• • HP ElitePad SD Card Reader
• • HP ElitePad Serial Adapter
• • HP ElitePad 10W A/C Adapter
• • HP ElitePad HDMI & VGA Adapter
• • HP ElitePad Ethernet Adapter
• • HP ElitePad Smart A/C Cable
• • HP Multi-Tablet Charging Module

The multi-tablet Charging Module will be very useful for companies looking to have a number of tablets as pool/loan devices. This will give an easy, tidy way of keeping them safe and charged.

Conclusion

My biggest issue is the  lack of connectivity ports without the jacket; I find it far from inconceivable that people will leave the jacket at home when they set off in the morning, in the hotel room when they checkout, on the adjacent seat on the train etc. etc. and then you’re stuck. Yes, you can have additional jackets dotted around but that is an extra cost and certainly not ideal. That said, it’s been pointed out to me (by the HP Category Manager) that it does ship with a USB adapter. This means even without the jacket/s users will still have a USB port through which to connect peripherals.

Not having the snap feature is mildly annoying but I feel one would quickly get used to not having that at your fingertips, so no biggie there. Interestingly, HP’s line on leaving out snap is this:

Snap doesn’t currently work with Outlook – or some other business applications – which are pretty vital for day-today
commercial use. Here’s the thing: The ElitePad supports the Windows 8 Snap feature when docked and
connected to an external monitor. So, it’s a consumer-centric function that isn’t yet optimized for a business tablet.

I do think the Atom processor and 2GB RAM could give some organization cause for concern as to whether this will be powerful enough as a laptop replacement. Having plentiful and quick access to trial units will be the best/only way to get past this in many instances – letting customers trial the device in real world settings and see how it fares.

All in all I’m very impressed with HP’s ElitePad 900. It’s clearly aimed at businesses and they’ve done a good job of providing everything they will need, making this a real contender for large scale enterprise rollouts and laptop replacement efforts. I’m very excited to talk to customers about this device and get their feedback – that’s always the key part!

What’s it all about?

Unlimited Skips – The limited ability to skip songs is one of my main issues with the free app, but Music+ changes that – allowing you to skip as many songs as needed. Although the song selections are usually great, it’s good to have full control.

Unlimited Downloads – The free app lets you download 4 “mixes” to listen to offline, Music+ takes away that limitation.

Higher Quality – The paid for Nokia Music+ app gives you 8 x the quality when downloading tracks.

Lyric Streaming – Helps you make sure you’ve got that catchy hook right before you break it out in the canteen at work.

On the Desktop – This could be the biggest attraction, and also the part that most competes with Microsoft’s Xbox Music – “A web-app gives you the ability to play Mixes on your computer, smart TV or other connected screens.”

These are all excellent additions to what is already a great offering so the big question is:

How Much?

$3.99/€399 so I assume £3.99 too.

This makes it half the price of the Xbox Music Pass…and I can’t see a reason one would go with Xbox over Music+ once this rolls out over the next few weeks?

See more on this here:

http://conversations.nokia.com/2013/01/27/more-from-your-music/

Nokia Music gives you access to 100’s of hours of music, for free, across a wide range of genres. When you enter the app, you see a “most recent” screen next to a screen listing the available sections:

Scroll across and you come to “Mix Radio:

where you can choose from pre-made song mixes based on a variety of genres. Quite the collection as you can see:

You can easily create your own mixes. It asks you to input 3 artists and then builds a selection around those:

These can then be downloaded (up to a maximum of 4) so you can listen to them offline. This is a great and very handy feature, especially if your local music collection is limited and/or played out!

Another neat feature is the ability to scan the music collection on you PC and build a music profile from that:

Finally, the Nokia Music store allows you to purchase songs and albums to download and keep:

I’ve been using it more and more over the last few weeks and I find it to be great. It’s brilliant for both discovering new songs and hearing those old songs you may have forgotten about. If you’re looking at Windows Phone but can’t decide which one, hopefully this helps gives you an idea of what’s available with Nokia Lumia devices.

I say sort of because that is the day MS stores (physical & virtual) will start to sell it, along with Best Buy & Staples in the US.

No word of other retailers in the UK and more importantly, no word on when/if it will be made available to the “Channel” – the network of distributors and resellers that makes up the vast majority of Microsoft’s partner ecosystem.

This to be is of utmost importance – we (my company and the channel in general) are seeing so much interest in this device that, if we are left unable to fulfil this for our customers, it will be perhaps the biggest run-in Microsoft has ever had with it’s partners.

We’ve had pricing for a little while now but still no answer as to channel availability…and I’ve been asking!

ZDNet’s Ed Bott has got more info on this, as well as news of new accessories here:

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-surface-with-windows-8-pro-to-go-on-sale-february-9-7000010107/