Q. How many versions of Windows 7 are available for the Philippines?

A. There are five versions of Windows 7 available in the Philippine market — Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate.

Q. Are customers who bought computers lately able to upgrade to Windows 7 for free?

A. Microsoft now allows up to N-2 for the free upgrades if you bought your computer after the October 22 global launch of Windows 7. That means systems with Vista and XP can avail of the upgrade. There are some exceptions, of course.

Q. How about the Family Pack? Is it going to be available in the Philippines?

A. The Windows 7 Family Pack is a promo Microsoft is doing in the US. It is still in test phase and Microsoft is studying its viability in the Philippines. It is not currently available for the Philippine and there’s no exact date when it will become available. You will need at least 3 computers at home to be able to qualify for the Family Pack if ever it becomes available.

Q. How about Student or Academic pricing and discounts?

A. Microsoft has discounts for students and the academe. This will be handled by the respective schools and universities for easy verification/implementation for those who qualify.

Q. Can I upgrade my old Windows XP directly to Windows 7?

A. No, you need to do a fresh install. You can only upgrade to Windows 7 if you currently run Vista.

Q. How about those who have Windows 7 RC pre-installed? Can they upgrade to RTM directly?

A. Unfortunately there is not an easy upgrade path from RC to RTM. Microsoft recommends a clean install with Data Migration of Windows 7 RTM. Read more about the upgrade scenario at http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/.

Q. Until when can I use my Windows 7 RC?

A. The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Plan ahead for when the RC expires. You’ll get two weeks’ notice, and then beginning on March 1, 2010, your PC will start shutting down every two hours.To avoid interruption, you’ll need to rebuild your test PC to replace the OS with a valid version of Windows, and reinstall all your programs and data before the software expires.

Q. What are the minimum system requirements for Windows 7?

A. RTM Hardware requirements are as follows: 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor, 1GB of system memory, 16 GB of available disk space, support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128MB memory (in order to enable Aero theme).

Q. What’s inside the Win7 DVD installer?

A. Two DVD disks — one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit.

There are some promos and discounts as well at the Microsoft 7 event. On November 7 and 8 (that’s until today only), check out the CyberZone Activity Hall at SM North EDSA Annex for some discounted Windows 7 DVD installers.

Here are the promo prices (save between Php1,500 to Php3,000 from SRP):

Windows 7 Home Basic: Php6,500
Windows 7 Home Premium: Php7,000
Windows 7 Professional: Php14,500
Windows 7 Ultimate: Php15,500

Buyers also get a free high-end webcam with every purchase of Windows 7.

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Here are the current price list of the various versions of Windows 7 (based from a the price list of PC Gilmore on October 24):

Windows 7 Home Premium – Php6,050
Windows 7 Professional – Php8,100
Windows 7 Ultimate – Php11,500

No price for the Home Basic yet but it should be just under Php5,000.

{Thanks to reader Jan Lorenz for the tip.}

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And mind you, these are real-time search from all Twitter updates.

Microsoft came out first with the announcement and has already implemented the search via http://bing.com/twitter:

However, upon inspection, the Twitter search on Bing doesn’t seen to be working. Now, that’s an epic fail on launch date.

On the other hand, Google’s announcement of the Twitter search integration is just an announcement. No specific date when this will be implemented and how the integration will be done.

So, why would Twitter want to give the search data to Bing and Google when they can do it on their own (which they’ve been actually doing already):

• Computing Power – search requires a huge amount of computing power (just ask administrators of very large forums on how their internal search is choking the servers). Google and Microsoft already has that technology so it spares Twitter from spending more on servers.
• Search Discovery – Twitter is already mainstream but it looks like its growth has plateaued (stagnant) for the last 3 months (according to Compete). Getting more traffic from search engines could help boost its growth.
• Monetization – Twitter could be developing a much better API and selling it as a premium to 3rd parties like Google and Microsoft. The search engines, in turn, can monetize the search traffic. It’s a win-win deal.

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The weight and dimension of the Zune HD is just right. Out of the box, the Zune HD is pretty slim and light (40% lighter than the iPod Touch) with a glass front panel coupled with a single slender button at the bottom.

At the back is an aluminum plate, in brushed-metal finish, tucked with exposed screws. The construction is pretty solid and the design is more skewed to edge corners rather than curvy ones.

The navigation is really neat and fluid but needs some time to get used to. Instead of icons, the menu is composed of enlarged texts and some visualization. Playback controls appear with a single tap but you can play forward and back with a (horizontal) flick of a finger. Instead of a timeline, fast-forward control is activated with a sustained tap. Likewise, the volume can be controlled by tapping or flicking the screen up or down.

It’s got something going on with a number of pretty nice features the iPod Touch doesn’t have:

OLED Screen + HD Video-Out: Being able to output 720p resolution to your HDTV is a neat advantage. And OLEDs have better color range and viewing angle. True enough, the display doesn’t bend to a bluish haze when viewed at an angle (near the 180-degree angle).

HD Radio: Despite the very few HD radio stations here in the Philippines, the Zune’s HD Radio can pick up a wide range of FM stations at SD. Apple says they don’t want to put an FM radio tuner on the iPod Touch because they’re positioning it as a gaming device.

Wireless Sync: USB cable missing? The Zune can transfer and sync media files from your laptop or PC over WiFi. (If only it can also charge the battery wirelessly.)

Did I say the capacitive screen is multi-touch too — so the pinch, flick and other multi-gesture functions are there. Very handy when navigating the built-in web browser. The touchscreen is very responsive and snappy that it’s indistinguishable with the iPod Touch.

For those curious how the Zune HD fares against the iPod Touch in terms of specs, see comparative chart below:

As for sound quality, the Zune HD has a nice volume range while the bass is more solid and sounded fuller. The earphones that came with it is decent and though it’s not impressive, I thought it was better than iPod earphones. When used with an in-ear earphones (SoundMagic PL11), the audio quality (especially the bass) is even more prominent. What I appreciated with the basic Zune earphones is the length of the cord (about 1.5 meters).

Video playback is smooth and crisp. Jumping from video to video or forwarding clips is snappy with no noticeable lags. The display brightness needs to be put in the “high” setting in order to appreciate the video experience. I didn’t have the AV dock so I wasn’t able to test how the 720p output fares when hooked up to an HDTV.

The Zune HD is not without its shortcomings. There are a number of things I thought that needed improvements:

External Speakers: As a PMP, I thought the Zune HD needs to have some external speakers. It’s not a big deal though but I expect Microsoft to add this feature in the upcoming models.

Improved Browser Functions: While the multi-touch gesture really made the browsing experience with the Zune HD very comfortable, the lack of basic features gave the impression that the browser is crippled. No bookmark management, no tabbed browsing, not even browser options. The browser cannot even render videos from YouTube.com (no Flash plugin).

App Marketplace: There were less than 10 apps that I was able to download from the Zune Marketplace — this is the biggest disappointment so far. I was expecting a bit more — not even apps for Twitter or Facebook.

What’s most interesting with the Zune HD is that it was priced by Microsoft very competitively. At about Php10,500 (see here) for the 16GB model, it’s very near the price of a 16GB iPod Nano and cheaper than the 8GB iPod Touch. Now there’s your value for money.

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It’s been like close to a half a decade now that 64-bit editions of Windows are available and yet it hasn’t gone mainstream (the x86-64 was introduced in 2003).

Before, the main concern is that even if the OS and the hardware is capable of 64-bit, majority of the softwares are compiled into 32-bit code so you don’t really get any significant improvement. Moreover, with the 32-bit Windows OS, it can only use up to about 3GB of RAM so even if you have 2 sticks of 2GB RAM (4GB total), your system can only see 3GB and the remaining 1GB is unused.

The biggest issue that’s causing the slow adaptation is because most device drivers aren’t compatible for 64-bit. If your printer, scanner, etc were manufactured before 2007, chances are they don’t have drivers for 64-bit OS (I have 2 USB WiFi dongles from LinkSys and they don’t have drivers for 64-bit Vista).

Maybe in a couple more years, we’ll see 64-bit take on a larger user base.

For now, I’m enjoying the speed bump running Windows 7 64-bit on an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 with a full 4GB of RAM. Firing up Adobe Photoshop CS4 64-bit is a joy (launch time: 4 seconds).

Anybody out there running a 64-bit Windows OS?

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The motivation is obvious — combined search and advertising forces of both Yahoo! and Microsoft could pose a stronger competition/alternative to Google.

Based on recent comScore numbers, Google owns 65% of U.S. core search while the combined Yahoo! (19.6%) and Microsoft (8.4%) shares add up to 28%.

So, for the next 10 years, Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites.

Yahoo! is expecting to earn about $275 million annually from this exclusive deal. On the other hand, Bing will gain access to a much larger search market.

What does this mean to publishers like us? Well, expect that around 1/3 of your site’s search engine traffic will now be under the hands (read: algo) of Bing. So go check your analytics software and see if you’re getting a good chunk of Bing referrals lately. If you’re site isn’t getting any referrals, your traffic could significantly go down once Bing powers Yahoo!

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Three new products made the headlines for Microsoft this year:

Windows 7 Beta. A fresh new OS, garnering rave reviews and great first impressions. Not too shabby for a beta product and the final release is said to be on October 22 this year.

Bing is Microsoft’s decision engine, a reincarnation of Live Search. See more of their commercials here.

Project Natal for XBox 360, the latest announcement coming from E3 that wowed everyone. All that hand gestures reminded me of Minority Report.

For the longest time, there was nothing new and exciting from Microsoft. One flop after another led many to believe Microsoft is just one gargantuan dinosaur unable to deliver anything fresh and exciting.

These 3 new products showed a lot of skeptics that Microsoft still has it. And I agree.

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Project Natal for the Microsoft XBox 360 does away with the remote control and allows human players to use their body to interact with the game.

Project Milo is an interactive platform with this virtual kid called Milo that interacts with people and seamlessly merges the real and virtual world.

Really cool, huh?

When this comes out, I’m getting an XBox 360.

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Microsoft have had many attempts at making search right and while Bing is fairly new, it’s noticeably better than its previous iterations. It loads fast and results are fairly relevant (although much fewer results compared to Google and Yahoo).

They will still be hard-pressed to cut a sizable amount of user searches but at least Bing doesn’t turn off people away like the Live search used to.

Better late than never.

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The Zune HD will have:

HD Radio – the Zune will have an integrated HD Radio receiver so you can tune in to HD radio content (too bad we ain’t got one in the Philippines).

HD Video Out – it will support 720p HD movies via the AV Dock (dock sold separately).

Touchscreen – the Zune HD has multi-touch navigation, a 3.3-inch screen and 16:9 OLED display (480×272 pixel resolution) screen

Microsoft just launched the official Zune HD microsite.

Of course, the Zune HD still has WiFi connectivity but will also be able to surf the web with a built-in browser (mobile IE8 perhaps?). The earlier report that it will include an NVidia Tegra is not yet confirmed. These new media player should be out in stores by September (again, there’s a very slim chance it will be available locally except in Greenhills and Multiply stores).

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You can download the installer from the Microsoft Download Center – 32-bit (348 MB, download here), 64-bit (577 MB, download here), and IA64 (450 MB, download here) as well as an ISO image (1.38GB, download here) containing all three updates.

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I wrote something similar back in October 2008 (Is Linux Failing the Netbooks?). Some might say it’s too early to say yet all the signs are pointing to Microsoft XP taking the role of the quarterback.

• Asus was a pioneer with the netbook and they did it with a free Linux-flavored OS, Xandros. It was supposed to be the big chance for Linux to go mainstream but the idea that netbooks are underpowered and can only run light OSes like Xandros or Ubuntu did not fly. Windows XP became the #1 alternative. If my Pentium 3 450MHz with 256RAM can run XP very well, why not a Celeron 900MHz or an Atom 1.6GHz?
• Acer and Asus fought fiercely at the top of the list for market share and moved on to develop newer models. None of the newer models have the Linux option. Everything runs in Windows. Acer and Asus would not say why they scrapped Linux altogether but I think we all know why. Even the switchers from Vista didn’t really moved away and went Penguin; they just downgraded to XP.
• After sales support could have been costly. It’s cheaper to get tech support for Windows than for Linux. Besides, most sales engineers on the retailers side are just familiar with one OS, Windows. Retailers would not spend more money for a new hire just to be able to expertly support Linux.
• Windows 7 is just around the corner. Even if XP is permanently laid to rest, Windows 7 will eagerly wait to replace it (skipping the dreaded Vista altogether). The timing is just right.

Well, there could be other potential contenders like the Android OS but it’s just that — potential. In a new but growing market like netbooks, everybody wants in and competition is so fierce that one wrong move could spell your defeat or success. HP learned that the hard way with the Mini 2133.

The time to experiment on an OS+CPU netbook combo is over and I think no one else is willing to bet on alternatives.

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Like Lauren in the first Microsoft ad, the second ad features Giampaulo who was given a budget of $1,500.

It becomes pretty obvious where this series of ads is leading to. Most people, when they buy a new laptop, will have the ff. considerations in mind:

• Price. I believe 90+% of all individuals who buy a new laptop will have a set price in mind before anything else. We all have our own budget and I think only those who have tons of moolah can truly be budget-free.
• Specs. We don’t often settle with just the basic specs. As much as possible, we want to bump up the RAM, the HDD, CPU and other optional stuff we can add (like a higher-capacity battery).
• Brand. For the same specs, some brands are more expensive than others. HP and Sony laptops are typically more expensive than MSI or Lenovo (and to think the people in the two ads still ended up with HP means they can still get a better bargain with other brands).

After this second ad, I don’t think the next ones will be anymore interesting unless Microsoft veers away from the price argument.

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Obviously, the only Apple laptop that’s under $1,000 is the 13″ Macbook. Lauren, the girl on the commercial, ended up getting a 17″ HP Pavillion for $699.

The “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” ads were started by Apple, depicting PC users as boring fat, bald guys in their 40s. Those were a series of ads hitting the PC population but we haven’t heard of any uproar similar to this one.

Microsoft fought back with their own “I’m a PC” ad later on and even had that one by Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld.

What’s most surprising about this ad is that it’s true — the price range for Macs ($999 to $2,799) are just beyond the reach of a lot of people who wanted laptops for simple tasks like word processing and surfing. That’s why netbooks, mostly under $500, are very hot in the market today.

The real winner here is Intel — buy a Mac or buy a PC, they both have Intel inside.

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Called, Microsoft MyPhone, the upcoming service will allow mobile phone users to backup content and valuable information in their phone to a secured website — it will synchronize contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, photos, videos, text messages, music, and documents between your phone and your My Phone web account.

If you have Windows Live installed on your phone, it will also synchronize your Windows Live contacts. There’s a recommended settings you download for your phone on the first instance you connect to My Phone. Contacts on your SIM card and some data on your external memory card will not be synchronized (since they are removable and some people tend to swap these cards around, synchronizing them could delete data). You can a free 200MB storage limit which can automatically sync everyday between 11PM to 5AM.

{Upcoming site. Hat tip to Ryan.}

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The full ranges is as follows but Microsoft (via PressPass) will focus most of their attention tow just 2 of these:

• Windows 7 Starter Edition (for emerging market and netbook users)
• Windows 7 Home Basic (for emerging market customers only)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (the main “Media Center” equivalent)
• Windows 7 Professional (the business SKU for home users and non-enterprise licensees)
• Windows 7 Enterprise (for volume licensees)
• Windows 7 Ultimate (for consumers who want/need business features)

MS will put their marketing money on 2 versions — Windows 7 Home Premium for consumers, and Windows 7 Professional for businesses {via ZDNet}. The various SKUs (stock keeping units) represents the varied demands of Microsoft’s 1 billion plus customers worldwide — and of course, that includes the pricing. Check here if you’re interested to learn what each flavor have (or don’t have). I take particular interest with the Starter Edition and its artificial restriction of running just 3 simultaneous programs.

Microsoft has not announced the final pricing yet but I reckon they won’t be far from the XP/Vista prices.

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The reason — Microsoft says it’s partly due to netbooks.

Revenue growth was driven primarily by increased SQL Server and Windows Server revenue and increased Xbox 360 platform revenue, substantially offset by decreased revenue from Windows operating systems as a result of PC market weakness and a continued shift to lower priced netbook PCs. Revenue growth included a favorable impact from foreign currency exchange rates of $222 million or one percentage point. (source: page 25, Microsoft Quarterly Report, Form Q10)

I’m not surprised. With every press launch I attend that introduces newer netbooks, one of the very first questions I usually ask is the shelf life of Windows XP and how it could hurt Microsoft’s bottomline.

You see, Microsoft made deals with netbook manufacturers by offering heavily-discounted price for Windows XP Home. My guess is somewhere between Php1,000 to Php2,000 instead of the Php4,000 retail price.

That deal prevented Microsoft from selling Windows Vista and the premium price that goes along with it. In the end, Microsoft could have sold tens of millions of XP licenses for less than half the usual price.

I reckon this has the same effect with Intel — instead of selling high-margin Core 2 Duos, they’re pushing $30+ with the Atom CPU.

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CNN asked people who took pictures of “the moment” to send it over and be added to the 3D-view of Obama’s oath-taking.

The result — a bird’s eye-view of the entire event. Here is the CNN PhotoSynth site. Microsoft also made a separate website (Photosynth.net) with a more comprehensive collection covering the greater DC area.

Can’t say it enough — PhotoSynth rocks!

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