Lenovo working with Intel on ThinkPad Windows 8 tablet

Lenovo's first Windows 8 tablet will be based on Intel chips

IDG News Service - Lenovo is working with chip maker Intel on a future ThinkPad tablet based on Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system, a Lenovo executive said.

The release of an Intel-based ThinkPad tablet depends on when Microsoft releases Windows 8, said Dilip Bhatia, vice president and general manager of the ThinkPad business unit, in an interview. He declined to provide a specific date, though Windows 8 is expected to come out later this year.

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Chips based on the x86 architecture such as processors from Intel provide many advantages to business customers, who are Lenovo's targets with ThinkPad tablets, Bhatia said.

"On the x86 architecture you get backward compatibility," Bhatia said. Windows 8 tablets with Intel chips support existing and legacy applications already running on Windows, which is the dominant OS in the PC market.

Intel later this year plans to release a tablet chip code-named Clover Trail, which will be released at the time Windows 8 becomes available. Intel's only potential competitor on Windows 8 is ARM, whose processors ship in most tablets today. The touch-based Windows OS will come in three versions -- Windows RT for ARM, and Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro for x86 chips.

Windows has grown up on x86 chips, raising questions about ARM compatibility for existing Windows applications. Intel's CEO Paul Otellini last week said legacy x86 applications would not work on Windows on ARM, and Microsoft has said legacy x86 could not be used or emulated on Windows RT.

Bhatia did not comment on whether Windows RT devices would be offered by Lenovo, but said all options are being considered when developing products. Lenovo already offers tablets based on ARM processors, including the ThinkPad Tablet, which runs Google's Android OS.

Lenovo was the world's fourth largest tablet vendor in the first quarter of this year, according to IDC, behind Apple, Samsung and Amazon. Lenovo is the world's second-largest PC vendor thanks to growing shipments in home country China and an expansion of the worldwide distribution channel.

The ThinkPad Windows 8 tablet could easily slip into the existing base of ThinkPad PCs used in businesses, said David Daoud, research director of personal computing at IDC. Lenovo maintains a 16% to 18% market share in worldwide business PC sales depending on the quarter, he said.

The ThinkPads are already popular in businesses, so users may opt for the Windows 8 tablet as a companion device in the enterprise IT environment, Daoud said. IT environments are coping with new usage models that involve app stores and input modes such as touch and voice, and a Windows 8 tablet could be successful if users feel comfortable with the OS and device.

"If consumers are likely to move to a tablet-like environment as they've done strongly on the iPad front, it's important for PC makers with corporate clients to have a suite of products that fit into the bring-your-own-device model," Daoud said.

Lenovo is also building a cloud service so the company's PCs and mobile devices can access or exchange data through private or public clouds. Much like Apple's mobile device strategy, Lenovo hopes to combine content, infrastructure, access devices and middleware as part of its cloud strategy. The cloud service will be launched later this year.

ThinkPad laptops and tablets will be part of the cloud strategy, Lenovo's Bhatia said.

"We've got a whole theme focused on the cloud," Bhatia said.

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Microsoft tunes up Windows 8 multi-screen

Better task-bar control, window mobility coming next month

When Microsoft launches Windows 8 Release Preview next month the operating system will have improved navigation features for users who like more than one monitor to display all their applications.

The upgrade - the last major tune-up expected before the final version launches sometime this fall - addresses task bars, desktop backgrounds and that no man's land, the common edge shared by adjacent screens, according to the Building Windows 8 blog.

The current problem with that common edge is that when users mouse over to them - for example to hit the minimize button - they sometimes overshoot and wind up on the next screen instead of the screen they started off on. They either have to slow down or adjust the window size so there's a buffer between the edge of the window and the edge of the screen.

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MORE WINDOWS 8: Why aren't Apple and Amazon dumping on Windows RT?

With Windows 8 Release Preview, Microsoft has created interface corners that are larger than 6 pixels tall so users can pull up a little short of the edge but still hit the active interface. The active area extends a little beyond the corner itself to present a larger target.

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These corners have new uses with Windows 8 that they didn't have with Windows 7. Corners contain access to applications, charm bars and the Start screen.

The active corners have also been revised so they only work for the monitor the cursor is active on. So when the cursor moves from one screen to another, the corners won't initially work on the second screen until the user establishes that that is the screen being worked on. So if users do overshoot the active screen, they won't accidentally click on an active corner on the other screen.

To improve the ability to organize the location of active applications, the Release Preview will add a new keyboard shortcut just for moving Metro applications from screen to screen - Windows key+page up/page down. The shortcut for moving traditional desktop apps remains Windows key+shift+arrow. All apps can be moved from screen to screen via drag and drop as well.

In the upcoming version Microsoft gives more options for the functionality of taskbars on each screen, giving users new options.

The default setting is to make the taskbar fully functional on all screens. Rather than having to manipulate the cursor back to the primary screen and perhaps turn their heads, users can access all taskbar icons from every screen.

Alternatively, they can have the taskbar show icons only for those windows that appear on each screen. The downside is that users have to remember which windows are open on which screens in order to find their icons.

Or users can set up a main monitor with a taskbar that always displays all icons, and other monitors' taskbars show only icons for the windows open on them. So when users are looking for a particular window but aren't sure on which screen it is open, they know they can find it on the master monitor.

The Start button, charms bar and calling up recently used application will be accessible from all monitors. In the Consumer Preview they were available only on one screen.

Microsoft has spent a lot of effort on desktop backgrounds in the release preview, making it possible to put a different one on each screen or to spread a single image so it is displayed just once over all the screens. When different pictures are used, they can be displayed on horizontally oriented monitors in landscape mode or rotated 90 degrees with in portrait mode.

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Microsoft issues release candidate of System Center 2012

The company says the software can help businesses more efficiently manage their use of cloud services

IDG News Service - Microsoft on Tuesday said the release candidate of System Center 2011, software that companies use to manage their cloud services, is now available.

Customers are already managing more than 100,000 virtual machines using the software as part of an early access program, Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business, said during a video conference about the news.

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Using System Center, an organization can manage its internal private cloud as well as applications and services it is running in public clouds. This hybrid approach -- where a company may run an application in a public cloud but retain the corresponding database on a private cloud, for example -- is increasingly common.

System Center 2012 combines eight former products into one and addresses one common complaint customers have, said Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Management and Security Division. "We hear a lot that licensing is complex," he said. System Center 2012 aims to simplify licensing by combining several former products into one and by offering just two different versions.

In addition, Microsoft bases its license on a slightly different model than its competitors, he said. Customers pay for System Center 2012 on a per-server basis, rather than a per-virtual machine basis. That can keep costs down for people who are running many virtual machines per server.

During the video conference about the release, Microsoft showcased a few companies that have already been using System Center. They include Luftansa, T. Rowe Price and Unilver. Those companies said that System Center 2012 has let them quickly expand their infrastructure and automate the management of their systems.

Microsoft says that using a tool like System Center can help organizations more efficiently manage their cloud environments. The company typically hears from customers who have full time IT administrators managing 30 to 40 servers. But Microsoft itself, which operates huge data centers to run services like Bing, Azure and Hotmail, finds that each of its IT workers, using System Center 2012, manages as many as 5,000 servers.

System Center 2012 has also expanded to allow IT administrators to manage non-Microsoft devices, including mobile phones. Rather than thinking of devices as being at the center of the management process, System Center 2012 puts the user in the middle, said Anderson. That means a manager can set policies for an employee that applies no matter what device the employee is using, including Android phones, iPhones or a variety of tablets.

The release candidate of System Center 2012 is available immediately. Provided users don't find any major bugs, the next step should be general availability of the software.

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