Windows Weekly 380 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte: It’s time for Windows Weekly.  Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley are here.  They’re in Vegas for a big media event.  They’re talking about Windows and they’ve got some big big news about Windows Threshold, Windows 9 the next version.  The technical preview is coming  release.  We’ll talk about it next on Windows Weekly.

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This is Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley.  Episode 380 recorded September 14th, 2014. 

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It’s time for Windows Weekly.

Paul Thurrott: From Transylvania to Scottish. 

Leo: No I am practicing my Scottish accent because succeed from the UK I want THAT to be part of the grand new Scottish empire.  Hello Paul Thurrott.

Paul: Hello Leo.

Leo: Editor in chief of the Supersite for Windows winsupersite.com.  Author of many of a book, including the Windows 8.1 Field Guide.  All at windows8.com.  Mary Jo Foley who is of course to Progisious or Profilatious blogger.  I don’t know which one is best for you.

Mary Jo Foley: Can I have both?

Paul: Prestigious. 

Leo: Prestigious, profilcate blogger, there are a lot of p’s that apply to her.  At zd net of course allaboutmicrosoft.com is her vanity URL.  Today we’re doing Windows Weekly from Vegas.  What are you guys going in Vegas? 

Mary Jo: That’s a great question.

Paul: I asked that question myself.

Leo: They are in the same room.  Somehow oddly enough identical rooms. 

Paul: Yes they are amazingly identical. 

Leo: At the Aria Motel.  But your lamp seems broader, wider.  Paul’s got a 16x9 lamp and you’ve got 14x3 lamp.  Seems unfair!

Mary Jo: I think they remembered I had a really small apartment.  They didn’t want me to feel like I was in an unfamiliar space.

Paul: Leo, you know how you go into a CVS or some discount store you can buy a 99 or 69 dollar tablet.  We have one of those on the table behind us.

Leo: Oh dear. 

Mary Jo: You can kind of see it over Mary Jo’s shoulder there.

Leo: Is it cheap Android?  What is it made out of?

Paul: It is the cheapest thing.  It’s the type of thing where you have to really smack it with your finger to get it really to do anything. 

Leo: What’s on that, that they were so anxious to put it in your room? 

Paul: This thing has more complex controls than a battle ship.  It is the craziest misuse of technology that I’ve ever seen.

Leo: Actually I remember talking to the guy who did the in room electronics for the Area where you are and the Cosmetalitan. 

Paul: Was he an insane person?

Leo: He was a geek.  But I am sure he was doing what they told him to do.  These are 2 of the newer hotels in Vegas and that’s how they are selling it.  We are very modern.  So to open the curtains you have to press a tablet button? 

Mary Jo: Yep well on your wall.

Paul: They have remote controls.  It’s nuts.  In the dark God help you if you hit the wrong button.

Mary Jo: Oh I know.

Paul: Every light in the freaking room comes on at the same time. 

Mary Jo: I did that.  My worse thing was, the toilet’s in a little stall with a door and it’s kind of hidden.

Paul: Well it’s glass so you walk right into it. 

Mary Jo: I was like there’s no toilet in here, WHAT! 

Leo: Oh you have the new toilet less rooms Mary Jo. 

Mary Jo: The tub has its own little stall too.  It’s very fancy.

Leo: Oh that’s nice, that’s so you can splash away.  This is for some event of some kind? 

Paul: Yeah it’s my companies IT Dev Convention is in Vegas this week.  Here at the Aria.

Leo: Oh yeah you mentioned that.  So are you going to go home after this event and then come back here?  What’s the plan?

Paul: Yeah that is what we are doing. 

Leo: September 30th Mary Jo nailed it.  It is in fact the day the first bits of Windows 9 will be released.  What is it the technical preview is that what they call it? 

Mary Jo: Yeah but I wouldn’t say it that way.  I would say we are going to get to see the bits.

Leo: Oh you don’t know if they are going to release them.

Mary Jo: I don’t know if we’ll get them that day.  Because I had originally heard sometime between late September early October. 

Paul:  Yeah what I was going to say is what I heard was early October.  We’ll see, Mary Jo and I and I think others that kind of discuss this notion.  Are we really going to fly out the San Francisco for a one hour meeting 2 weeks from today? 

Mary Jo: Yes we are.

Paul: Yeah we are. 

Leo: We are going to flip flop Windows Weekly with Security Now so that you can come back after that special meeting and do a special Windows Weekly that Tuesday.

Paul: That day is going to be insane.  We will arrive the day before.  But this event is 10 to 11 in the morning, Mary Jo is that right?

Mary Jo: Yes. 

Paul: Then we are going to have to hop in a car.

Leo: We will get you a car.  No we will have a driver for you so you can relax in the back. 

Paul: Can it be a Robot driver?

Leo: Yeah wouldn’t that be fun.  You’re in a Johnny cab.

Paul: Can we have a hot tub and Champaign? 

Mary Jo: Yeah that would be awesome.  Alright let’s do it. 

Leo: Can we get a stretch hummer for Ms. Foley and Mr. Thurrott. 

Paul: So when the 79 Corolla pulls up. 

Mary Jo: Can we stop, we like to have stops. 

Leo: I know the real reason Mary Jo comes up here is for the beer. 

Mary Jo: It is.

Leo: I don’t know how this happens, I have managed to not be here for almost every Windows Announcement. 
Paul: We are not taking that personally. 

Leo: It’s not planned.  I planned a trip to London a couple of months ago so I won’t be here.  I think Father Robert Ballecer will be with you.  It will be fun.  It will be a very special edition of Windows Weekly on Tuesday September 30th and Mary Jo and Paul will have just emerged from the briefing.  So this is not going to be a public briefing in that sense.  Journalists are being brought in for this. 

Paul: Yeah, they are not going to live stream it. 

Mary Jo: No live stream.  It’s very small, like just a few 10’s of people are going to be there.  It’s going to be Terry Myerson the head of operating system group and Joe B.

Leo: Joe Belfiore.  Are you excited?  You’ve got to be a little excited.

Mary Jo: Yeah it’s going to be fun. 

Paul: Oh yeah Leo I love the thought of sitting in the back of a gigantic airplane for 6.5 hours so I can go to a 1 hour meeting.  Then hop in a car and drive for another hour.  Yes I am excited.

Mary Jo: You can’t wait admit it.  Come on admit it.

Paul: No I am happy to do it.  Obviously we got the invites and I was like yep I’m going. 

Leo: Well it’s an honor too if it’s a small group to have received those invites.

Mary Jo: It is. 

Leo: That acknowledges the stature that we all know you have. 

Paul: Or it acknowledges the fact that it’s getting hard to find people to cover Windows.

Leo: NO!  Not true.

Mary Jo: I’m sure many people would have taken that invite off your hands.

Leo: I’d be there.  Look how often does a new version of Windows come out.

Paul: That’s another interesting side point, for all of the Windows is doomed kind of side talk you see out there.  Something like this happens and it’s instant excitement.  I just find that to be very interesting.  The brave new world isn’t so terrible.

Leo: I saw a video, do you think that’s credible, of the new UI, the new start menu with little tiles in it.  Yeah it’s not surprising that build well it’s probably not the actual build but something close to the build were eventually get leaked.  It matches what we know.  It matches what we saw, the very brief still shot we seen previously.  So it makes sense from that perspective.

Leo: Here’s the confidential agreement that German blog violated. 

Paul: I always find one thing a little troubling which is we’ve had the understanding for some number of months maybe even dating back to the beginning of the year.  Where little bits and pieces about Windows 9 have leaked out over time.  This build in the leak videos, screenshots and so forth basically correspond to everything that we knew was going to be in here.  Literally everything and not one thing new.  Which I find to be a little strange. 

Leo: Do you think there are some new things that we don’t know about and they’re being carefully protected? 

Paul: Well yeah.  It’s hard to know how or why that happened exactly.  But we know it was described to me as a next step or next chapter.  Build being the first, then some eventual consumer focused release in the future would probably be the 3rd step or chapter.  So what we are going to see here is primarily business focused, enterprise focused and I think that means you’re going to see a desktop.  It’s going to look a lot like Windows 7 and it’s going to be really easy for those folks to move up and I think that’s the point.

Leo: In our chat room No Market share makes an interesting comment he thinks Joe B being means we will hear more about a Windows Phone, RT merge? 

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: No

Mary Jo: Not there.  No this Enterprise Tech preview it’s all about the Enterprise.  That’s why the enterprise name is in there.  That merged version is what we are going to hear about in January or February when the next preview comes.

Paul: The other thing I just noticed is Joe B. is not just relegated just to Windows Phone or this new merger stuff.  This is just the Windows Team now.  So Terry Myerson and Joe B. are the Windows Team.  It’s not a separate thing. 

Leo: What do you think?  I guess you can’t really tell from videos and screenshots.  I have to say they are doing things like the notifications, I like seeing that. 

Paul: I am pedantic enough there are going to be things that bother me.  If the notification center uses the same icon from the action center on Windows Phone but they don’t call it action center that thing is going to bother me.  So we will see how it all kind of comes out.  This leak thing is not activated.  That’s how these things work; these guys don’t have a product key.  So we’re not seeing everything.  We are seeing a very ugly looking desktop, some of the icons have been updated some of them haven’t so you get that weird mix of old and new.  This is just a step, we’re part way there.  I think it’s going to be fine.  I think we have been setting expectations, I’ve been talking all year about how they are going to call this thing Windows 9 to differentiate it and move it past the Windows 8 stuff but really it’s Windows 8.2.  I mean this isn’t we are announcing a new architecture and a completely new code base and we’re going to have a new run time model.  This is just a further enhancement of what they had.  Which was absolutely fine, it’s actually good that Windows is at that point where they don’t have to have a major revolution like they did with Windows 8.  But I know some people are going to look at it this and say what about the metro stuff.  What about using this on a table and consumer stuff?  We’re just not there yet. 

Mary Jo: Not yet, we’re going to hear that later. 

Leo: I have to say though just looking at this it looks like kind of what you would expect an improvement.  I like the idea of both having a start menu and some tiles in there.  That doesn’t bother me, but I know it bothers some people. 
Paul: Well that’s the point you mix and match these things.  I actually think segregating the tiles from the list on the left is a little strange.  I am curious to see how that works out in real life. 

Leo: It almost feels like an ad banner, kind of.  It’s just sitting there. 

Paul: Yeah it’s so busy that you might just ignore it.  But the ability to mix and match applications and mobile apps on the desktop and floating windows side by side.  A very native experience, is really just a continuation of something they started way back in Windows 7 where that version of Internet Explorer you could pin web apps to the taskbar and use side by side with normal Windows applications, very naturally.  Adding metro apps those modern apps to that scheme, I think is really smart.

Leo: As long as I can control what’s there.  Which it looks like I can, which is nice.

Paul: Yeah and it lets people use them in ways that make sense.

Mary Jo: Plus before we heard a leak saying that the start menu would be like a replacement almost for the start screen.

Paul: Yeah and that’s not what we see here. 

Mary Jo: No, so I am wondering if we are just seeing half of the picture.

Paul: Or it may just work out that this is the easy way to do it.

Mary Jo: Yeah that may be. 

Paul: Who know maybe we will hear how that came about.  What Mary Jo is alluding to is that right now in this build you can flip a switch somewhere and go back to the old start screen if you want.  We don’t know what this looks like on a tablet.  This thing is running in a VM so what you’re seeing is a super desktop oriented experience.  We know in Windows 8.1 today that your computer will boot up to the desktop if you have a traditional type computer with a keyboard and it will boot up to the slide screen if you have a tablet.  So maybe it’s possible that type of thing will still occur in Windows 9 and you will see a more tablet type touched based UI that will have some sort of charms thing going on that you don’t see here because the charms in this build are attached to each window. 

Leo: There’s the Windows 8 UI it’s still there. 

Paul: See these guys I believe don’t ever show you, like to enable the charms? 

Leo: I don’t know.

Paul: I don’t think they do so I look at this and a bunch of questions come to my mind immediately.

Leo: Here’s a metro app shown as Windowed.

Paul: Yeah and it ran windowed even though he launched it from the start menu, start screen sorry.  So that suggests either something major has changed or it’s doing something smart and saying well you’re doing this from a desktop computer.

Leo: Right so we’ll give you a desktop.

Paul: Yeah through the desktop.  Who knows there’s probably the interfaces to control that too.  We don’t see everything.

Leo: Well so what’s the general reaction to this video, these leaks? 

Paul: Reassignment, Leo. 

Mary Jo: It depends on who you are.  If you’re a power user you are like ugh.  Like I don’t need all this stuff I already figured Windows 8 out.  That’s what a lot of them are saying.  If you are an enterprise user this is probably like, Ahh finally this looks like something I might use. 

Paul: That’s the point, right?  It’s the enterprise, Mary Jo I think was the one who came up with that some time ago that this first technical preview would be enterprise focused.  That’s very much what we see, Desktop.

Leo: It’s exciting.  I like this, this is fun.

Mary Jo: We should say somebody is noting on Twitter, we don’t know if this is going to be called Windows 9 when it comes out.  Inside Microsoft they call this Windows 9 we’ve heard.  But there’s been indications that Microsoft might be moving to rebranding all of it’s operating systems Windows.  So if it does Windows as the operating system on Phone this could be Windows also.  We don’t know yet on the branding. 

Paul: They should start using cat names. 

Mary Jo: Yeah why not.  Somebodies done that, who? 

Paul: You sure I’ve never heard of that. 

Leo: IE12 coming too, yes?

Mary Jo: Yeah so that was an interesting little tidbit there’s something in the screenshots you can see it’s a Z-spartan.  When they have one of the pull downs from the start menu and that’s what IE12 is.  We don’t ever see that in action, I don’t even know if that’s really there in the build or if it’s not activated again so we don’t know if it’s there.  Brad Sams at Neil Winn had said he heard the next version of IE was going to look more like Chrome and Firefox and Microsoft is going to change the UI quite bit and that there could also possibly be support for extensions in the next version of IE.  That’s what I am hearing too.  So that will be interesting how they do that and what kind of technology is behind that to make that work.  We don’t know any of that yet but hopefully we’re going to see some of that too. 

Paul: The Z-app stuff is a convention that dates back to Windows Phone. If you go to prototype phone or an early version of the OS sometimes you’ll see Z-apps on there.  They are obviously apps that aren’t ready for public consumption.

Leo: That’s like a standard descriptor.   

Paul: Then Spartan of course is from Halo.  That follows in the Threshold naming scheme.

Leo: Oh really.  I didn’t know that, oh yeah Spartan’s of course.  So there we’ve read the tea leaves and they’re pretty big tea leaves.

Paul: I just think, it’s a weird thing I am not sure why this is bugging me but in the past when I’ve obtained leaked builds especially when you get someone like Raphael to kind of uncover what’s going on in there, you find things that are new.  I find it fascinating that I’ve poured over these videos and screenshots and all I see is confirmation of every single thing we’ve ever heard about this build.  There is not anything new that I can think of and I am a little weirded by that.  I’m surprised there isn’t just one thing. 

Mary Jo: We’ve gotten so many leaks about what’s in Threshold from them; everybody’s kind of scouring the planet for this.  We’ve gotten a lot of stuff so that might be one reason too.  It’s not a big surprise but also there’s probably hidden stuff and maybe a lot of stuff won’t be out in this preview at all.  This is just meant again for enterprise’s to reassure them that things aren’t going to be crazy. 

Paul: So far it’s like an Apple launch, Leo, is what I am saying.  I feel like I’ve heard about everything before the actual event. 

Leo: Actually lately there haven’t been any secrets that are well kept.

Mary Jo: I know.

Leo: It’s kind of interesting.  The rumor mill is good.

Paul: It is very strange. 

Leo: Although Tim Cook did tell Charlie Rose, no there’s stuff you don’t know. 

Paul: Yeah it’s very easy to say something like that.  Then you go back to campus and you say okay guys seriously. 

Leo: We are vending the Apple tire, we’ve got it here.  He made a point he didn’t say he was releasing just that we are working on stuff you don’t know about.

Paul: Oh of course they are working on stuff. 

Leo: We’ve got these new doorknobs for the campus we are really excited about. 

Paul: I am cleaning out my cellar, Leo.  Just because I haven’t announced it to the whole world.

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Paul: No comment.

Leo: Poor Paul.  We use Squarespace for our blog and we love it.  You cannot bring it down. 

Paul: I can be happy for other people, it’s okay.  

Leo:  Yeah now SchadenFreude here.  Easy to use but if you want help though they’ve got live chat and email support, 20/47.  Not outsourced, it’s from Squarespace headquarters from New York City, from actual Squarespace engineers.  Plus there’s a completely redesigned customer help site.  So you’ve got access to self-help articles, videos workshops.  They really do it right.  All this I love it.  Starts at 8 dollars a month and not only is it 8 dollars a month but when you register for a year, you get your domain name free.  Every Squarespace template has commerce.  So even on the 8 dollar month thing you can take donations or have a cash wedding registry, school fund drive.  They’ve got apps for Iphone and Ipad, like the metric system that lets you check site stats like page views.  You can make your own logo, they’ve got great little logo design.  It just goes on and on.  It’s really a great place.  The nice thing is you can try it for free.  You don’t have to give them a credit card, you don’t even have to give them our offer code just visit squarespace.com, choose your template and start.  You don’t have to agonize, if you’re like Josh Windisch here in our office, he agonizes about every choice.  Just pick one and import your content, because you can change it with a click of a mouse you can change to a different template.  The content is all preserved, the images are all preserved, SEO’s preserved.  It’s really a nice job from the great folks at Squarespace.  I want you to visit squarespace.com.  If you do decide to buy use the offer code Windows and you’ll get 10% off your new site.  It really is fabulous, squarespace.com.  A better web awaits and it starts with your new Squarespace site.  Don’t forget the offer code Windows with your new site to save 10%.

Paul Thurrott, Mary Jo Foley, Windows Weekly is on the air.  Shall we move to the next topic, are we done talking about leaks? 

Mary Jo: Yeah, I think so.

Leo: Topic 2 changes at Microsoft.  Layoffs are emanate.  Way a minute didn’t we just do this, am I looking at the old outline.  What’s the story? 

Mary Jo: When Microsoft announced they are going to lay off 18,000 people in July they said this would happen in waves.  So the first wave was 13,000 people who got cut in July and tomorrow supposedly a next round of people is being cut across all different divisions.  We don’t know how many, I don’t think it’s going to be all 5,000 but I think it’s going to be quite a few people I think.  It’s going to be worldwide, multiple divisions, including Redmond.  We don’t know really yet which teams, specifically.  Or I should say which kind of job functions.  Tomorrow my sources are saying, is the day.  I am not gloating, not being happy about it but it’s coming.  So people probably have heard or have an inkling if they are among those. 

Paul: I was telling Mary Jo last night that I’m in this kind of awkward position where I’ve got someone from Microsoft who has confirmed this story for me.  Only one person and it occurred to me that while he probably did hear this at work, it’s probable that the originator of this story was in fact Mary Jo Foley and that’s how it got back to him.  I am not 100% sure about that.  What is this Wednesday so we will know tomorrow. 

Mary Jo: Yeah tomorrow, Thursday.  When Nadella announced in July that these cuts would be happening he said we’re going to try to make this as painless as possible even though we’re doing it in waves, and we’re going to try and have most people who are being cut notified in the first six months after this memo goes out.

Leo: It’s so hard.

Mary Jo: It is.

Leo: Because you know there is going to be people cut and it could be you and you don’t know and you’re going to have to just sit there and stew.  But I understand it’s a massive company. 

Mary Jo: Yeah they were 125,000 or so before the cuts started happening.  Definitely big. 

Leo: I have much more sympathy for this more than I used too now that I am a business owner.  When you have a business there’s a certain amount of I don’t want to say ruthlessness but you have to detach yourself.  It’s a little bit like a chess game where sometimes you have to sacrifice some pieces.  You don’t want to do it but it just happens.  It’s a bad thing and you try to make it as good as you can.  Obviously Microsoft is spending a lot of money on severance packages.  People aren’t just being left to hang in the wind.

Paul: No I think I saw the figure was 1.1 to 1.4 billion in severances and related stuff. 

Leo: That’s as good as you can do it. 

Mary Jo: Some of the people will get picked up again by other divisions too. 
Leo: Apple is hiring too.

Paul: Yeah that’s true.

Mary Jo: Those Microsoft people.

Leo: Evan Dunn is saying in our chat room, if you’re a survivor that’s hard too.  That I have experienced, I remember Tech TV had big layoffs.  I was at the airport and I kept getting calls from people saying I’ve been laid off.  You’re sitting there in your cubicle and people are trooping into the manager’s office then coming out crying.  You’re just sitting there and it’s very hard.  Yeah so our sympathies to everyone at Microsoft.  New members at the board.  The board is going to change, are they firing the board?

Paul: No it’s not Steve Jobs running the company.

Leo: Well we know Ballmer retired,  what else?

Paul: Well basically 2 people are stepping down at the end of their term which I think ends in December. 

Leo: I didn’t know they had terms, what’s a term?

Paul: Well that’s a good question I am not really sure.

Mary Jo: I think it’s at the shareholders meeting you decide whether you’re going to be up for reelection or not. 

Leo: So Dina Dublon was there for 9 years.  So that’s a long time.

Paul: Yes. 

Leo: Dave Marquart I am not sure how long.

Paul: 1981, Leo.

Mary Jo: 81!

Leo: Whoa! 

Mary Jo: I know he was one of the original board members. 

Leo: See I think being a board member is kind of a sinecure.  It can’t be very hard and it’s good money.  It’s at least 6 figures. 

Mary Jo: You would think.

Leo: You’ve got what, several meetings a year, you go and listen to Bill, listen to Steve, you listen to Satya.  You nod your head a little bit.

Paul: Yeah, you all fly in on your private jets.

Leo: You have a nice lunch. 

Paul: Eat at a swanky restaurant.

Leo: I’d take the job.  I mean its an easy job.

Paul: I would too. 

Leo: Do you think there’s pressure if you’re a member of a board?

Paul: Depends on the company and depends on who is running the company.  I’m sure when someone like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs is running company the pressure is on the board.  That you’re going to do what I have to say.  Different CEO’s have a different kind of dynamic with the board.  In some companies the board is very powerful and the CEO isn’t.  It just depends on the company.

Leo: This is interesting.  This is a fairly new board.  Most of the members had joined in the last couple of years. 

Paul: That’s the thing that I find most interesting and most telling and why maybe this is the story.  I think it was the 6 of the 10 or 11 whatever it is have come on board since 2012.  To me I would sort of position this story as this is part of this remaking or reimagining or whatever transformation at Microsoft.  Satya Nadella has this new strategy but you see it everywhere.  You see it in the products, we talk about that.  You see it in the services and you see it in the makeup of the company.  The layoffs are part of that too, really.  You’re trying to get a company that’s better adapted to the way things are today not the way they were 20 years ago. 

Leo: Microsoft is saying this new makeup is positive for Microsoft. 

Paul: What else would they say? 

Leo: Microsoft buys Minecraft.  We buried the lead.  I retweeted something I can’t remember his name, this is a test to see how old you are, fill in the blanks.  MI_-_-_-_-_ft.  I looked at it and said well it’s Microsoft what else could it be.  Then I realized it could also be Minecraft. 

Paul: That was brilliant. 

Leo: I bet you younger people look at that and say Minecraft. 

Paul: Buying your way into a cool and a certain advance is interesting.  I am no actually suggesting that this thing has the limited shelf appeal of an Angry Birds or Candy Crush.  I get that there’s a community and it’s obviously a big deal.   It’s just an interesting choice at a time when Microsoft is getting out of a content game to buy content.  Especially cross platform content.  When they bought Bunji they were bringing Halo to Xbox so that was the deal.  It was not going to be on the Mac, it was not going to be elsewhere.  Although Halo did appear in Windows and the Mac.  But the point of that was to get an exclusive franchise.  So this one, I’ve seen so many explanation of why this makes sense and I’ve never really bought into any of them.  That this has something to do with a developer strategy because you can build stuff with it.  I don’t know.  We’ll see what happens.

Mary Jo: When Nadella did his strategy memo in July I remember at the time thinking this is weird.  He said we are really going to support this stuff call digital work in life experiences.  So we think of that as software and services, right.  Some consumer, some enterprise but then he called out as a separate category games and gaming.  He said you know what we are going to keep the Xbox around but the thing we are really excited about is games and gaming.  Because games are one of the biggest applications on Mobile platforms that’s why we want to be there.  So I think this is why they are doing this.  It seems odd.

Paul: Part of an expansion to mobile games.

Mary Jo: Right.  It’s just another category in their whole digital and work life experiences.  Some of those things are work, some are play.  I remember when the memo came out I am like wow that’s weird they are calling out gaming and they are saying so we are going to do sequal server and machine learning and all this stuff.  Then gaming.
Paul: Minecraft.  Is there a Hadoop into Minecraft that I am not aware of?  Isn’t Minecraft made in Java?

Leo: It is.

Mary Jo: You know what it is. 

Leo: Which that raises an interesting question.  We will have to record a C sharp.

Paul: Microsoft and Java don’t have much of a history.  I don’t see any problems.

Leo: They can make a .net version of Minecraft.  The thing I find interesting, the guy who created Minecraft, Notch.  I love him.  He said I was just bored with the thing, I don’t want to run a big company.  I’m just a nerdy programmer.  He got fed up last year because they made some changes to the server rules and he was just savaged on Twitter.  Welcome to the club.  That’s what Twitters for isn’t it.  But he said I don’t need this, I’m selling the company.  Walks away with more than a billion dollars because he is the majority stakeholder.  And he say’s see I am happy.  I think more than half of the times these massive acquisitions nothing really comes of it from the company buying it.  They have lots of money it’s international money what the heck. 

Mary Jo: Overseas cash.

Leo: Somebody gets insanely rich and I am happy for them.  It’s like the Mark Cuban thing.  Yahoo didn’t do anything but broadcast .com but Mark Cuban came out alright.  I’ve got to think that’s the same with Whatsapp, with Twitch.  With all of these billion dollar acquisitions,  Instagram.  Somebodies walking away happy  and these big companies can afford it.  Apple could afford to spend 3 billion dollars on Beats Headphones.

Paul: Well I can understand I buy unimportant things I don’t buy too.  At some point there is a justification.  I often joke with my wife, you go to Costco and it’s like you don’t buy 6 gallons of butter just because it’s a good price.  We don’t really need that.
Leo: Paul you’re not thinking like a mogul.  That’s a good deal I am buying the butter.  

Paul: At some point somebody had to justify to somebody why this made sense.  I would love to see that explanation. 

Leo: It sounds so much like the conversations I had after Apple bought Beets.  Well we talked about this last week.  It was international money that they couldn’t repatriate without paying taxes.  So they have been buying internationally.  I was trying to figure out how much revenue Minecraft is making, it was in the 100’s of millions.  It needs to be more than that to justify 2.5 billion acquisition lost. 
Paul: Well games are very temporary too, or can be.  You have to be really careful.

Leo: Tell Zinga they bought OMGPop.

Paul: The Candy Crush guys were the biggest things in the world for 15 minutes. 

Leo: I think Minecraft is different.  I don’t think Minecraft is Angry Birds, I think it’s more like Lego, where it is a system.  It’s more like buying Halo.  Better than that even.  It’s not just a franchise it’s better than that.  It’s almost a system.  It’s like buying an operating system.  It’s a platform if done right of course Microsoft could benefit for decades.  This is not a flash in the pan.

Mary Jo: How about Minecraft as a service, guys.  Think about that.  Mass.

Leo: Well they will move it to Azure right now it’s running on AWS.

Mary Jo: Right they’ll move it to Azure.  Maybe sell things instead of add on packs, add on subscription.  Subscribe to it.

Paul: You can expect a healthy couple of rounds of this sort of crap never happened before Microsoft bought this thing when something goes down or something doesn’t work. The inevitable.

Leo: I think Minecraft players, first of all they are very young.  I disagree with the articles this is to add some hipness to Microsoft’s image. 

Mary Jo: Me too.  I don’t think that’s it. 

Leo: BS no I am sorry.  No 11 year old is going to say oh I like Microsoft. 

Paul: You want that market for people who can’t buy anything for themselves. 

Leo: Well even 10 years from now, that’s not the point.  But it’s a valuable franchise in and of itself.  It’s on Xbox.

Mary Jo: You hook kids early.

Paul: Well lots of adults play this game too.  Let’s be fair.  It’s like the Harry Potter of games. 

Mary Jo: Yeah look at Chad.
Leo: Yeah Chad’s becoming like the Minecraft guy.  I think this is actually a sensible purchase.  More sensible than Apple buying headphones.  To be honest.

Mary Jo: I do too.  I see so many people going this makes no sense.  I am going I think this actually makes more sense than Skype. 

Leo: Skype was a lot more money too.

Paul: I don’t want to spend too much time on Beats but the big thing for me about Beats is the subscription services is something Apple did not have.  Whenever and however they finally integrate that into their apps.

Leo: We’ll see when I get the Iphone on Friday if it has Beats on it.  The demo ones in Apple had Beats music on it.

Paul: By the way why not buy an Iphone at some cost and get a free year of Beats. 

Leo: I don’t know why they didn’t do that.  Because that’s one thing they need to do, they need to get people signing up for Beats.  Right now Beats is late to the market.  Everybody I know has already bought it or something else.

Paul: In reviewing that I found Beats to be excellent.

Leo: Oh it’s very good.  It’s completely competitive to the other ones but most people already have a subscription.  Of who are going to get one, maybe?

Paul: I don’t know.  Okay well maybe. 

Leo: I don’t know.  But anyway this is not the Apple show.

Paul: Well no I was just saying from a technology purchase standpoint there is an interesting comparison. 

Leo: I agree.  I think people were as befuddled by the one as the other.  I feel like Minecraft to me is not just another game.  It is a platform.  So it has more legs on it.  So there is more you can do with it.  More than a franchise than Halo even. It is platform that can go all sorts of places. 

Paul: They should make a Call of Minecraft mod where you can play call of duty but it looks like Minecraft. 

Leo: Totally I guarantee they will.  Why wouldn’t they?  I think there is so much you can do with Minecraft.  I’m really impressed with they Minecraft community.  It’s incredible.  If you could buy a group of people.  I mean that’s what you’re buying right.  You’re not buying the technology you’re buying the fans.

Mary Jo: Yeah, you hope they stick with you.  I think they will, why wouldn’t they?  They don’t care if you don’t screw it up.  Microsoft could screw it up.  If you don’t screw it up why do they care.  They don’t care who is running it.  Do we care who owns Bunji?  Not really.

Mary Jo: Well there is a contingent I saw a number of people reporting this saying people who are Minecraft fans are really upset about Microsoft buying them.

Leo: It’s 1/10th of 1%.  It’s the small small group that even knows that this happened.  You can ask Michael hey who owns Minecraft.  He’ll say Notch.  He’ll say Notch for the rest of his life.  He won’t say Marcus Pearson he doesn’t know who Marcus Pearson is.  He’ll say Notch. 

Mary Jo: My nephew who is 10, when I told him that Microsoft might Minecraft.  He was like don’t they already own Minecraft. 

Leo: See there you go.  They don’t know.  I think this would be hard to screw this up, frankly. 

Mary Jo: Don’t say that, Leo.  You’ll jinx it. 

Paul: Microsoft is capable.  Leo, don’t discount it.

Leo: Oh I know their ability is as with any big company.  Kurtis B is telling me in the chat room that the new Apple TV update came out and it includes Beats music.  So maybe you’re right.  Interesting.  That’s the thing people are maybe a little worried about, is does that mean the end of a PS4 version.

Paul: No they’ve said it does not. 

Leo: Of course not why would you do that.

Paul: By the way Microsoft is falling over itself to be cross platform.

Leo: Cross platform. 

Mary Jo: They are, these days yep.

Paul: It’s ludicrous. 

Leo: Another good reason to buy Minecraft and prove it. 

Paul: Here’s what the real complaint about Minecraft going forward.  For all of the handwaving and stuff.  This is what’s really going to happen.  Why did Microsoft improve Minecraft on whatever platform before Windows.  That’s what you’re going to hear, it’s going to be something like that.  It’s not going to be Microsoft drops support for PS4 or PS3.  It’s going to be Microsoft supports these other platforms better than their own.  That kind of thing.  So no worries Minecraft users.  Just worries for Microsoft guys that worry about those kinds of things. 

Leo: Satya Nadella may have just explained the mobile half of the mobile half cloud first.  What do you mean by that.

Paul: Yeah I never actually talked to Mary Jo about this.  I am curious what she thinks.  I know you saw the Geekwire post.  Todd Bishop was nice enough to transcribe what he said in response to a question.  So Satya Nadella was appearing at a major industry.  Let me see if I can find the name of it, it’s hilarious. 

Mary Jo: Was it the Rotary Club.  I think it was.
Leo: What he talks to the Rotary Club.  Was it the Seattle area Rotary Club? 

Paul: It was the annual meeting of the Rotary Club.

Leo: Oh the big national one.

Paul: Yeah the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.  They call it an annual event.  This is a serious event.

Leo: We do that we speak to the Chamber.  I think Satya should speak to the Seattle Chamber.

Paul: So somebody asked him what he was going to do about Windows Phone and the fact that Windows Phone doesn’t really have any reasonable marketure.  Now in the past few months you’ve heard terms like we are going to make the market for Windows Phone.  He’s talked about that kind of stuff.  He didn’t go in that direction at all actually.  He said that this is not about phones or particular phone or device.  People switch devices all the time.  That the center of this is people.  Which he has said before and that they are very grounded in this cross platform world.  You’re going to see Microsoft Icons on every phone.  Whether it’s Windows Phone or not.  That is his goal. 

Leo: This is very right on.  This is astute.

Paul: Yeah but you have to understand this freaks people out.  He very specifically said this is not about building marketers for Windows phone.  Which obviously a certain group is going to be really freaked by.  Then he’s reiterating the thing that freaks out a lot of Microsoft guys which is just this notion that I was just talking about Microsoft promoting its products and services on other platforms for Windows.  Remember the old days it was Windows Only.  Then for a while it was Windows first.  Then we’ve been kind of clinging to this notion that okay they are going to go cross platform but it will always be better on Windows.  You know the truth is you don’t really hear them talking about that very much.  What they talk about is cross platform. 

Leo: Right on.  It’s not a knock on Bill or Steve.  Maybe in that era it made sense to say Microsoft first.  But we are in a different era.  Cloud first, mobile first makes a lot of sense.  Why would Microsoft estu any portion of the market in order to promote.

Paul: It’s the way.  You look at, there are going to be 1.2 billion smartphone’s sold this year.  It’s 4 times the size of the PC market. 

Leo: This is just astute, this is just right on.  To me it means they chose the right guy to run the company.  I think.

Paul: I think so too.  But like I said for a serious percentage of the people who would read something that I would write or Mary Jo would write or listen to this podcast, this sticks them the wrong way.  This is disquieting.  This is unsettling.  So Mary Jo sorry I’ve been talking a lot.  What did you think?

Mary Jo: I agree with what you just said.  Think about it, if you’re the CEO and someone say’s what are you going to do with this phone, 2.5% market share.  It’s a piece of crap why are you investing in it, why are you continuing to pour money into it.  Your answer is, it’s part of the Mobile first thing, right.  It’s like yeah we’re there, we are everywhere.  We are going to have our own offering but our main thing is to try to have productivity software, services for everybody who’s in mobile.  Right now in the U.S. especially the leading mobile platforms are IOS and Android.  It’s him acknowledging reality.  Instead of sticking his head in the sand. 

Leo: And saying we’ve got a business here. 

Mary Jo: And we’ve got to make money.

Leo: This is the quote, and we are very grounded on this cross platform world.  One of the things you’ll find is Microsoft Icons on any phone irrespective whether it’s a Windows Phone or not.  That’s our core goal.  Things like Office and Skype are broadly available.  And Minecraft he says on every 8 year olds phone for sure.  Not just 8. 

Paul: This is something I have been writing about this year.  I have Iphones, Android phones.  You can configure these things in such a way that it’s a Microsoft phone.  It has all your Microsoft accounts.  It has all your important Microsoft applications and active services.  I’ve talked a lot this year how you can back up any phone to One Drive instead of using whatever the native thing that’s built in and how great that is.  This is a little weird but it kind of reminds me of the Bill Gates appearance at MacWorld that year when he vowed to support the Mac and Steve Jobs said we need to get over this notion that we need the Apple community.   That at the time for Apple to win Microsoft has to lose.  The shoe was on the other foot or however you say that.  We need too, we meaning the Microsoft community, community of people who back the stuff, use it and support it, need to get over this notion that for Microsoft to succeed it needs to ignore these other platforms.  Or that those other platforms have to sort of lose whatever that means.  Instead of embracing the reality of what people are using and doing. 

Leo: This is realism.

Mary Jo: Yeah there is a lot of people who say hey Google won’t support Google services on Microsoft so we should do X.  It doesn’t work that way sadly.  It’s just like yeah Microsoft’s trying to find a way to get Google services to run.

Leo: The funny thing is I think Microsoft is run by grownups, I think Google’s run by grownups.  We as the users might be childish enough to say ohhh.  But Schmidt said this, the trade press acts as if it’s war and that it’s us versus them.  We don’t think of it that way.  This is a world where we all have to work together.  We’re trying to make as much money and be as successful as we can.  So is the other guy.   I think that’s an adult way of looking at business.

Mary Jo: It is. 

Paul:  The thing that’s curious about this to me, generally is that a lot of these if it was Mac versus the PC back in the day.  IOS versus Android today whatever it is, however you want to frame these platform wars.  You get into almost sort of a religious type arguments.  Emotional arguments.  I’ve always sort of thought on the Microsoft side of the fence, the world in which I work and play, people tend to be more pragmatic and logical.  You don’t get a lot of that kind of religious stuff.  But you really see it on this topic.  You really see it.  People are really freaked by this.  It’s interesting how that comes out.  I don’t mean to say it has to be fixed but I don’t know how you fix it.

Leo: I do wish Google supported Windows phone better.  I feel it’s anti-competitive that they haven’t.  It’s the thing that keeps me from using Windows Phone.  I love it.  Its’ weird my 1520 died, I still haven’t gotten a replacement.  Although Microsoft’s press folks sent me a review unit.  I’ve got to return it, I don’t do review units. 

Paul: When they ask for it back just send back the other one. 

Leo: Oh Bingo.   But this is why I don’t do review units and why I actually spent 700 dollars on that 1520 is because I don’t want to send it back.  I want to keep it going with my data.  I want to invest in it because I don’t think you can really use a phone unless you commit to it. 

Paul: You could beat this thing to death.  Google not supporting Windows Phone with their services. 

Leo: It’s crazy.

Paul: It is fair to mention, then why on the Microsoft side does Windows Phone support Gmail, Google calendar natively.  Using those crazy Google protocols on Windows Phone but not on Windows.  Microsoft is the one not doing that, not Google.  All Microsoft has to do is write to those API’s that exist.  They are doing it on phone and they are not doing it on Windows.  I don’t understand that.

Mary Jo: Maybe that will change with Threshold since they are combining the skews? 

Paul: Yeah okay but Windows 8 came out 2 years ago.  I don’t understand, Windows 8.1 came out last year.  Why?

Mary Jo: I felt like it was a line in the sand at that point.  Now we have different managers running Windows.

Paul: I just find it bizarre that this just didn’t pop up as an update in April 2013 or April 2014. 

Mary Jo: I agree.

Paul: It makes no sense.  It’s not just Google.

Mary Jo: It’s not what about the Kindle stuff and Amazon, same thing. 

Paul: It is Microsoft.  Showing up at the door with that hat in their hand.  Here’s the apps you want, here’s One Drive, Windows. 

Mary Jo: Here’s the phone.

Paul: For the phone that potentially sold 35,000 copies.  You can get One Drive on that stupid thing but you can’t get Google anything on Windows Phone basically.  It’s crazy.  It’s too bad.  Or a decent Kindle app. 

Mary Jo: Where’s Random Watson when you need him.  Call him.

Leo: Somebody is saying Google’s not making Wayze anymore for Windows Phone. 

Paul: Making?

Leo: Wayze?  Was that ever available on Windows Phone? 

Mary Jo: Oh really.  I thought it was.

Paul: Yeah I thought it was too.

Leo: They bought Wayze remember and they’re going to stop.  See I was wrong, Google is childish.

Paul: Yeah I think they are too.

Leo: That’s kind of childish. 

Paul: Google humongous company, it’s unclear whether this comes down from the top or if this is some cross divisional thing.  Who knows, who cares I guess.  I just know from talking to people on the Microsoft side the Windows Phone guys have tried to work with Google and that never really worked out. 

Leo: Yeah we remember that Youtube fiasco. 

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Yeah absolutely insane. 

Mary Jo: I am hearing from one of my contacts, they are killing Wayze on Windows Phone.  No more updates.

Leo: Well that’s childish.  That’s not like saying well we have limited resources so we’re not going to do Google Plus for Windows Phone because it’s too small of a market.  No they already have the app.  It’s just to maintain it.  I think that’s childish, I think that’s anticompetitive.  That’s disappointing. 

Paul: It’s unfortunate yeah. 

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Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, Mary Jo Foley, Windows Weekly, we’re talking about the latest Windows Microsoft news.  They are in Vegas you might note if you’re watching video.  They’re in duplicate hotel rooms on opposite sides in the beautiful Aria hotel in Las Vegas.  Surface Pro out of stock.  I just talked to somebody, you’re going to like this.  Gosh I hope I can repeat this.  I won’t say his name, very famous person, celebrity, Oscar Winner, who is a Mac guy and an Ipad guy.  He just got a Surface Pro and loves it.

Mary Jo: Hmm interesting. 

Leo: So there’s some awareness going on about the Surface Pro.  I think he likes the tablet aspect of this.  This guy is a geek, he’s been a computer guy for years.  So it’s selling out everywhere?  That’s good news.  Does that mean they didn’t make enough or does that mean finally they’ve got it.

Paul: We don’t know.  

Mary Jo: We really don’t know.

Paul:To be fair I really do think this has been the most successful and popular Surface device.  I think they’ve hit on the right combination of features, form factor, size, etc.  I think they’ve really gotten it right this time. 

Mary Jo: So you’re talking about the Pro 3, we should be clear.  What’s sold out is the Surface Pro 3.

Leo: Right the new one.

Mary Jo: Because the other ones are selling out too.  Surface 2 is selling out in a lot of places but we’re not hearing any plans for Microsoft to restock that.  They say they are going to restock Surface Pro 3 especially in the countries outside the U.S. that just got it and it’s already sold out in a lot of those countries.  They’re going to restock that.  We don’t know about Surface Pro 2 they’re not going to restock.  Surface 2 the ARM one I don’t think they are restocking that.  So every time they come out with a new Surface they just want to sell out the inventory of the older ones and then start selling the next version.  That’s how that’s working. 

Leo: Does it mean there will be a Surface Pro 4 in a month?

Paul: No, no, no.

Leo: In fact they should wait until the next version of Windows.  In the Spring there will be a 4. 

Paul: Actually when you think about the timing of that.  July to next April, if that’s still true, roughly 9 month time frame.  That’s pretty much what the Pro life cycle has been so far.  I actually think that’s a little aggressive but we know new Chipsets from Intel are coming out and have come out and should be in this device.  Hopefully the next version they don’t need to change the form factor again.  They can just improve the innards and all that kind of stuff. 

Mary Jo: What we don’t know is are they going to do a Surface 3. 

Leo: What’s that mean, like an RT version.

Mary Jo: Yes.  Because the Surface Mini was supposed to be based on ARM and running Windows RT.  They scrapped that so the question is are they going to do another ARM based Surface tablet or not.  I’m going to be very surprised if they do one.  At least not this year I would say.  Maybe next year.  I don’t know I just feel like Microsoft’s moving more in the Intel direction now.

Leo: Windows RT seems to be fading in the rearview mirror fast.  With the low cost, the 8 inch devices running Pro, they’re 200 dollars. 

Paul: Leo, I just bought a 7 inch Windows tablet for 119 dollars. 

Leo: It seems why even make RT.  I mean really what’s the market?  You’ve got a tablet, you’ve got touch. 

Paul: I want something that does less.  Do you have one of those?  Oh does it cost more too, let me have that one. 

Leo: Yeah I don’t see any market for it.

Paul: I don’t understand it.  It makes no sense.

Leo: Is Windows on ARM dead?  Is that saying the same thing? 

Mary Jo: Windows on ARM is not dead because on Threshold they are going to have the skew that’s the combined phone and Windows RT skew for tablets.  But the question is, is anybody going to make tablets that run a tablet version of it.  Or is it going to be an Intel and phone skuw somehow.  I don’t know. 

Paul: If that thing turns out the look more like Windows Phone and less like Windows RT that could be successful.  One of the first thoughts I had about Windows phone was this would be great on a tablet.

Leo: As phones get bigger, bigger and bigger. 

Mary Jo: No

Paul: Not officially, but.

Mary Jo: Not officially.

Leo: I see no market niche for it.

Mary Jo: So remember when they announced Windows RT, there were a lot of reasons they, they touted that as being a good operating systems. One was you wouldn’t have Windows rot like you have on Intel based windows.

Paul: Yea

Mary Jo: There were all kinds of different security mechanisms in place that were on Windows RT, that weren’t in the Intel version, so some of those arguments still exist.

Paul: Oh No, absolutely they still exist, you know. If you bought a windows PC and didn’t install a single piece of desktop software or driver or utility or whatever. And just used the modern environment and went for a year or two that thing would run great, but that is not what people do they muck it up. And a lot of those problems people attribute to Windows, probably fairly really are because of these third party things they are installing, whatever they may be. And you know Windows RT offered us a respite from that kind of stuff you know, it was a real, actual mobile platform.

Leo: Although, hasn’t Intel kind of met the challenge?

Paul: No it’s not Intel. Intel has absolutely met the challenge from the power management perspective, performance, battery life, all that stuff. That’s not the point, it is still windows right? So If you are giving someone a Windows computer, like mini tablet that they can install, I Tunes on, Java, Flash and some weird driver for some old peripheral you know that stuff will still muck around with windows, it still allowed to destroy windows from the inside or whatever, you can’t do that to Windows RT, so it is more limited, but it is also better

Mary Jo: There is a place, I think, for a windows RT device running touch first office, and no other 132 apps.

Paul: Yep

Mary Jo: It is a very specialized device maybe, but there is a place for that. The question is who is going to make it Microsoft or another OEM and how are they going to position it right.

Paul: They just released it to early.

Mary Jo: Yea, and they did it in part to pressure Intel. I mean… remember?

Leo: And it worked, they got the job done. Well I wanted to be the first to say that I was wrong about the Surface Pro three.

Paul: Really, what did you say? You didn’t like it?

Leo: Um, no I wasn’t specifically about the Surface Pro 3. I felt Microsoft maybe miss guided doing the Surface. Certainly the evidence after the first two was there. I am thrilled to hear Surface 3 is doing well, because it is important to have this platform and the OEM’s are not abandoning Windows. That was the other cause for concern. It would be the worst possible scenario that Microsoft creates a hardware platform that flops and conveniences everyone else to stop making Windows machines; that would be bad. That didn’t happen, so I was wrong. 

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: That was a weird worry for a while. You know with Surface, previous Surface Pro 3 and Windows 8 as well, you know kind of co-developed those certain reality destruction fields going on there, where they would make justification for what they were doing. You would kind of look at them and say that doesn’t compute. When you look at the justification for Surface Pro 3, and you see a hint of something we are going to see in Windows finally. Which is this notion, people told us they wanted this and here it is, I like that kind of stuff and I feel like this address a more realistic market then the original surface devices did.

Leo: Well they got it right.

Paul: Yea, quickly too. For what it is worth they did kind of ramp it up.

Leo: Well that’s not much consuls for those who bought Surface 1 or 2, but going forward look, the screen is amazing, it works, it does all the things it is supposed to do. They fixed all the firmware in it to.

Paul: Well let’s not jump the gun, it has only been 6 months. You know I was sitting in a room the other day, and the speakers were across from me there was a guy with a Surface Pro 3 and a guy with a Surface Pro 2, and it is fascinating to look at the differences between the machines. The Surface Pro 2 is very small screen, very thick heavy, you know; and then the Surface Pro 3 looks like an Ultrabook.

Leo: I need to buy a Surface Pro 3. I guess I can’t though.

Mary Jo: Well they are not as sold out in the U.S. as much as they are in other countries.

Leo: They will make more right?

Paul: Oh yea they are making more, yea.

Mary Jo: Yea.

Leo: So it is not forever. They are also making new hardware accessories. It is funny because this is market Microsoft has been in from practically day one. I mean I remember the Microsoft mouse, in fact one of their first products was a hardware board for the Apple 2. People think differently about Microsoft, but they have been in the accessory business, from almost the beginning. I have always had a Microsoft mice or keyboard.

Paul: Microsoft mice have always been excellent and their keyboards have almost universally been excellent.

Leo: What am I using on my Mac here… A Microsoft mouse.

Paul: I mean I travel with my mouse.

Leo: This is good for lefties it is agnostic, it has no preference.

Paul: That’s old school Leo, does that have a PS2 port on it?

Leo: (Chuckles) No, it is a USB mouse, optical.

Paul: A little rubber ball in it?

Leo: No it is an optical, but you know what this is one of the greatest mice ever made, this thing just goes and goes and goes. I mean I use it everyday

Paul: You can use it as a garrote if you have too.

All: (Chuckles)

Leo: So a new tablet keyboard that surprise, surprise it is cross platform! Interesting!

Mary Jo: Pretty cool.

Leo: In fact, they don’t even have a Windows key on them.

Paul: Yea that must be a first for Microsoft keyboards.

Leo: You know I like Microsoft keyboards, the reason I don’t use it on my Mac because I do not want a Windows key. I have to remember Windows key, oh that’s “alt” or “command” I can’t even remember.

Paul: This key board makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. It is Bluetooth based so you don’t have to occupy a port with one of those stupid toggles. It also works with devices that do not have USB ports like IOS and Android devices. It has a slot in it so you can hook up a tablet.

Leo: That’s any tablet, right?

Paul: Yea and that’s because unless you have a Surface you don’t have a way to prop up your tablet when your typing, right? Which is for a lot of people, yet another goofy thing you have to carry around with you if you want to use it this way. I am waiting to get one of these to review, I am very curious about this keyboard, this looks really interesting.

Leo: I am not buying this mouse though.

Mary Jo: I hate that mouse.

Paul: I’m not going to like the mice.

Mary Jo: It’s sad, they look awesome, they look beautiful, and a cool idea that you can collapse them, but it is just not that comfortable to me.

Leo: For people who aren’t watching and are listening it looks like the mouse is doing the downward dog.

Mary Jo: Hey it is the arc touch mouse isn’t it.

Paul: Every time you flatten that thing out so you can travel with it, it sounds like you’re cracking the back of a lobster.

Leo: Not good.

Paul: I’m sure it is supposed to evoke some form of structure or strength, but I always feel that I crippled a small animal.

Mary Jo: (chuckles)

Leo: So this new keyboard, which looks a little bit like the Logitech keyboard but the Logitech keyboard is designed for IPad and IPad only. Basically it is set up in such a way it can hold really any tablet, that’s really neat.   

Paul: Yea, it can support any major OS.

Leo: That’s so cool. Well yea, Bluetooth is Bluetooth.

Mary Jo: The only thing it doesn’t work with is Windows phone. It does work with IPhone and Android phones. The reason is, Bluetooth HID not yet supported in Windows phone.

Paul: So they don’t support that profile, but they never had.

Leo: Human interfaced device profile, which is a based very fundamental profile and look no Window key. They got a home key which I guess is true on most tablets have a home keys and “alt/option” that’s the Apple fan key by the way and command.

Paul: Those two keys there are Mac keys.

Leo: That’s interesting.

Paul: Obviously in Windows mode the “home” key would work as the Windows key, the “option/alt” would work as alt, you know.

Leo: I think, if you wanted to take such a statement this to the rotary club and make it in hardware, this is it!

Paul: That’s exactly how I described it. This summer has been very interested because after months of frankly a lot of “blah, blah, blah” mobile first, cloud first, the future of the company it is like so when is then now? They have started releasing stuff where you say “Oh, that’s when then is now.” This is the first, I think this is the first hardware iteration of that, an actual device that gives the reality, to what before what was just kind of talk. It is a little thing right, a portable keyboard for tablets, big deal. This is a first for Microsoft, I think this is very interesting.

Leo: Yea, walking the walk. There has never been a Windows keyboard without a Windows key on it. Bill Grates is spinning in his grave. I do not know who Bill Grates is, but I am sorry he passed away.

Paul: A lot of Microsoft keyboards have those crazy Windows keys that nobody even uses like the right click key, that most people probably just hit by mistake and wonder what the heck just happened.

Leo: Print screen, what are all those weird keys.

Mary Jo: Yea, all those odd ones.

Leo: Yea, yea.

Mary Jo: Yea, this is coming out next month, October. It is not out yet. I believe at $80 bucks, is that right?

Paul: Yea, I think that’s right.

Leo: That’s a good price, that’s $20 bucks less than the Logitech. Alright we’re going to take a break, how is your timeframe guys, when do you need to get out of here?

Mary Jo: Like in about 10 minutes.

Leo: Alright, let’s wrap it up. I can do that, back of the book that’s about 10 minutes worth. We’re talking tips, tools and beer in just a moment.

Paul: As we would.

Leo: As we would, every week on Windows Weekly. What’s more important than tips, tools and beer? Our show today is brought to you by the good people at Shutterstock.com. If you have a website or if you are a blogger for instance and you are not putting images on each and every blog post you are really missing a lot of the audience. If you are making films… was it Guardian of the Galaxy’s that credited at the end for Shutterstock? That’s because Shutterstock offers soundtracks, music tracks and video that even Hollywood uses. All of these are royalty free, Shutterstock has a huge variety it is close to infinite at this point, 42,930,250 royalty free stock images. They added 342,000 last week alone. Now you might say “That’s a lot how am I going to find what I want?” They have the best search engine. Now let’s see, we will search for smart phone. It’s kind of Googley, it offers you auto complete suggestions, but let’s say you just searched for smart phones. Now we’re going to get a lot of smartphone images of course. Now let’s refine our search I can say I only want photos, or I only vectors, or I only want illustrations, you can say let’s only get horizontal orientation or vertical. You can choose a categories you could have smartphones in nature, smartphones in holiday smartphones, you could say happy smartphones, you could use emotions, you could say only images with people, only images without people, only images with men, women, or both genders, only images of certain ages, ethnicity, number of people it goes on, and on, they even have a color wheel you could say I only want purple images of smartphones because it has to match my blog. In many respects this is the best search engine outside of Google anywhere, and it is just for Shutterstock. Don’t forget when you visit Shutterstock there are tabs at the top. You start with images, but you can also select the footage tab and see some of the most beautiful stock video and music too. So there is lots of musical clips you can use. Dramatic and theatrical trailers and promos, sweet dreams presentations, calm, ethereal, bitter sweet, sophisticated, choose the sounds you need for production. Now here is the deal, please make an account. It is free to do so you do not have to give them a credit card. That will give you a couple of benefits: One you can take any of these images, vectors, photos, or videos and store them in light boxes. That helps you keep track of them, use them for inspiration, you do not have to buy them to put in a light box, you can even share them with colleges. But it also gives you access to the free images every week, free video, free image clip, so that’s kind of nice too. The photo of the week, the vector of the week. This is a good one Paul. Paul you should use these in your blog. We have a subscription, 25 images a day, which is great for a business that does a lot of blogging, that kind of thing. If you use our offer code “Windows914” you will get 20% off one of those image subscription packages. That is a very good deal. 20% off, the offer code is “Windows914”, but it is absolutely free to create a Shutterstock account so please do that, you don’t need a credit card. It is only when you buy you want to use that offer code “Windows914.” This is of course September 2014. We are fans of Shutterstock, we use them all the time and I think you will too. So get that account right now, Shutterstock.com, royalty free everything for you. Back of the book we go, and it starts with Paul Thurrott, software pick of the week.

Paul: Well our 4 star pick for the week, yea the office guys had a bunch of releases yesterday I think it was. Including the craziest one of them all, which is One Note for Android Wear. So I happen to bring my Android Wear watch with me on the trip so I got to test this out, but you can install One Note for Android Wear

Leo: Wow

Paul: Well I don’t really know how this works, but I have to assume the way Ok Google works is that as a developer you have to register for like a phrase. I think Microsoft got the phrase “Take a Note”.

Leo: Oh, that’s awesome.

Paul. The interface is minimal to the point.

Leo: Okay Google, take a note.

Paul: Well I mean it is not even clear what is happening when you look at the screen, but what you’re supposed to do at that point you are to dictate your Note.

Leo: The first time it says here is the note taking applications you have, and now One Note shows up along with keeping Evernote with you, with only two choices before.

Paul: Oh, I gotcha.

You will choose a default for future reference and then from now on when you dictate it, it goes into One Note. That’s great!

Paul: When I first heard of this I thought this has to be one of the first note taking application for Android Wear, but no I didn’t know Evernote was already in there. Anyway I actually to this moment, I should look this up. I will look this up when Mary Jo is doing her bit. I do not know where this goes I haven’t found it yet. Typically these One Note type things go to Quick Notes in your default notebook. I haven’t actually seen my notes show up, anyway you can dictate it. It is pretty good, if you have ever used voice dictation software on IOS or Android you know it is usually pretty good and it works so, (laughter) whatever. You can be Dick Tracy. They also released a new version of One Note for IOS8 which came out today. Which means you can now integrate One Note into the share functionality, which is new to IOS8. If you are following this kind of thing you know Apple is opening up IOS8 now to extensibility for the first time by third parties, so they could have keyboards and this share type thing. This is cool, so for any application that supports the share functionality you can choose One Note as a target. This allows you to share a webpage or whatever in Safari to One Note, so that’s cool. One of my favorite applications in Windows phone; this has been a pick twice, because they have updated exactly twice, is Office Lens and that was updated a third time this week. You can now create Word documents and PowerPoint presentations from your scanned images. So if you scan a document which has text in it, you know that Office Lens saves that as a graphic. Now you can use Office Lens to save it as a Word document which can be saved to One Drive and then of course you can edit it however you like and so that gives you the kind of optical character recognition thing. If you use Office Lens to save a white board, which is one of the modes, you can save that as a PowerPoint presentation, and that too will pull up the words and graphics and put them into a slide.

Mary Jo: Think of the possibilities of that with a beer menu.

All: (Laughter)

Mary Jo: I thought wow, this is going to be my new go to app.

Paul: No that’s really cool. The other thing is I don’t know if we talked about it last week, but this might have happened right after the show. Last Wednesday, Microsoft upgraded One Drive, the service to support 10 gigabyte files. A huge increase over the previous 2 gigabyte support so that works across everything and what that means if you have a PC or a Mac you can now upload gigantic video files now to One Drive, if that is what you want to back up there. Of course One Drive works everywhere so that’s kind of a cool capability. Tip of the week: a little simpler, I won’t beat this one to death here because it is a big and complex topic, but I bought a Mac Book Air recently and have been writing again about running Windows on a Mac. This is something I used to spend a lot of time on, I haven’t looked at it recently. I have been very curious to see how things have changed. What I found is that, however you choose to do it, boot camp or virtualization, tend to be the two big choices. Those things have both improved in very important ways. There is also a third way to do this, you can run something like um, but I forgot the name of it, cross… I forgot the name of it, but there is a way to run individual Window applications under a Mac or Linnux.

Leo: Coherence?

Paul: No it is Cross something. Oh boy, sorry I forgot it.

Leo: You have to install Windows on it right?

Paul: No, you don’t, that is the point. I will get to that one, I really haven’t spent much time on that one, but I will get to that.

Leo: Crossover

Paul: I have just written a few, Crossover, Crossover?

Leo: Crossover yea. Yea that is kind of like Wine.

Paul: Yea there you go that’s exactly what it is. So, I guess the quickie spoil the end of the story kind of conclusion is that, this has never been the case before at least not in the past, but virtualization is actually a much better option than boot camp as far as performance and battery life. You have to put up with some of the weirdism of running with Mac and Windows side by side and there are different ways you can do that and some crazy integration capabilities that are just really amazing. So I will be writing some a lot more about that. I have written the boot camp part of it, I haven’t published that part yet, but I have also been writing some introductory articles that are up. I should have more of that available later.

Leo: I would love to get that because I do in fact run Windows all the time on Mac. I have never used Crossover. Crossover is the commercial side of wine/ wind?.

Paul: Yea.

Leo: Yea I use VMware, but it is the same idea

Paul: Yep, and it works.

Leo: Yea it works really well.

Paul: The thing I would say to people is that if you are a Windows user and you have been attracted to this apple hardware which is understandable, I actually don’t think that is the way to go. I think you would be better off with a Windows laptop, but for the Mac user who has the need to run certain Windows application the integrated approach with the virtualization solution. Whether it is Parallels or VMware or anything else, is really interesting because the key combinations you are used to, continue to work in Windows. So if you use command C to copy and command v to paste, you can actually use those in Windows too, under that system which I think that makes a lot more sense for those people.

Leo: It does for me, yea.

Paul: Yea, like One Note is on the Mac and it is great, but Office on the Mac is terrible. If you want to run Office 2013 for Windows, you know it comes up as a window on the Mac desktop, you can integrate between the Mac apps with the Window apps, and I think it works great. I will write a lot more about it, but yea I was surprised to find out that virtualization is a much better solution then it used to be.

Leo: I do both, I will do boot camp and both VMware and Parallels will note that there is a boot camp installed and say “oh good we’ll just use that.” So you can choose to use boot camp or you want to use immolation. You know when I use boot camp, Michael when he is playing steam or PC games, games you want all of the hardware.

Paul: Yea, yea, so right now I am using Windows under boot camp. Right here, I am using a Mac.

Leo: Well, I won’t tell anybody.

Paul: It’s okay, I put a Windows sticker on it Leo, it’s good.

Mary Jo: He did, I saw it. (Laughter)

Leo: I got to do that. You know you see that in movies and on TV, when they are running Windows computers.

Paul: Yea.

Leo: And no Windows computer ever has that logo on it.

Paul: Why don’t they do that? That would be so awesome!

Leo: Here is what I think, they are just like you using a Macintosh and just put the Windows logo on.

Paul: Yea, yea that could be.

Leo: Enterprise time, Mary Jo Foley!

Mary Jo: Enterprise pick of the week is a new version of Azure Active Directory. So remember it used to be called WAAD, Windows Azure Active Directory.

Leo: We had such fun with that.

Mary Jo: We did, and now it is just AAD, no W. Azure Active Directory, so right up until this week you had a choice of a free version of Azure Active Directory or the premium version. This week they added a middle tier called basic. So Basic gives you all the same service abilities that you have with the free version, you can manage user accounts and sync with your on prime directories, get single sign on all that good stuff, but then you also get support for people who they call task workers. You know if you are at Starbucks and you’re a barista; that is a task worker. Someone who you need to provision and account for that person, but they are not somebody who is going to need access to all the apps that everybody else in the company has. So the new middle tier, called Basic is $1.00 per user per month and the premium version one is $4.00 per user, per month.

Leo: Still a deal.

Mary Jo: Yes it is a really god a deal and of course if you want the premium version you can also go for $4.00 per user per month for the enterprise mobility suite the full thing where you get Intune and you get Azure Active Directory premium and you get the rights management. That’s the real deal, you should good for the bundle if you’re going to go for the big guy. If you don’t need the big guy go for the middle tier.

Leo: Let’s get our code name of the week.

Mary Jo: Yea so the code name we have already mentioned today, but I wanted to touch on it a little more. So Spartan which we mentioned is the code name for the next version from IE, comes from Threshold, but you know it since I don’t play all these games.

Leo: It comes from Halo, like Threshold.

Mary Jo: Yes, like Threshold, or tana, Halo. I am curious that people in the chatroom or Paul or you, know what the significance might be of them calling it Spartan. Is there some hidden meaning here about this?

Paul: Well the Spartans are the hero’s in Halo.

Mary Jo: Right, so where they are talking about IE12 being the hero release maybe or they are going to concur the doubters or something, I don’t know. Maybe I am reading too much into this.

Leo: They are super soldiers’ right, the Spartans, aren’t they like heavy duty! 

Paul: Yea

Leo: So maybe it is the super soldier version of IE.

Mary Jo: IE Super Solider version.

Leo: I am explorer! (In Spartan voice)

Mary Jo: Yea, It is funny because they are taking more and more code names from that, so it is going to be interested to see what else comes next as other code names from the franchise.

Leo: I expect Minecraft code names soon.

Mary Jo: Yea, yep.

Leo: Going to have Windows 10 creeper.

Mary Jo & Paul: Yeah.

Leo: Windows phone eve.

Mary Jo: We’re defiantly going to have Chad on as a guest.

Leo: Defiantly he is going to have to de-code all this for us.

Mary Jo: Yes he is.

Paul: You know what, we really got to jet.

Leo: Okay that does it for this edition of Windows Weekly, thanks for joining us, bye, bye. See you later guys, have a great time, see you next week. A little programming note, we will be doing windows weekly Tuesday September 30^th, Paul and Mary Jo are going to that Microsoft briefing  for the brand new version of Windows, Windows Threshold, the technical preview. So they will have lots to say about the next version of Windows. That’s two weeks from now, so next Wednesday we will be here as we are most Wednesday’s 11am pacific, 2pm eastern time, 1800 UTC for windows weekly. On September 30^th a very special Windows Weekly, about 1pm pacific, they are going to flip flop with Steve Gibson, right after Mac Break Weekly. Paul and Mary Jo will drive up here after their meetings with Microsoft and they will have the latest on Microsoft new version of windows, September 30^th set your clock and set your timer. Okay Google, and make sure you are here for that, right about 1 or 130 depends on how long it takes to get up here from San Francisco, September 30^th. We thank you for joining us, I hope you can join us live we love having you here, but if you can’t on demand audio and video always available at all the places you get your podcast, I Tunes, the X-Box music store, and I should really say probably most of us nowadays on our mobile devices, whether it is Windows phone, IOS, or Android there are TWIT apps, some really nice ones on Windows phone, there are pod cast apps of course, there are lots of ways to listen, but make sure you get it each and every week, you don’t want to miss an episode. Thank you for joining us and we will see you next time on Windows Weekly!