Next week in Los Angeles, Microsoft will kick off its Professional Developers Conference, a place the software giant likes to unveil all kind of news in a big launchtastic flourish.

For all the noise, it’s worth paying attention, because Monday’s outlook will be cloudy, as in cloud computing.

The day will include a speech from Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie, and others on, among other topics, its cloud infrastructure service initiatives–designed to match aggressive efforts from Amazon in the space.

But who knows what else is up Microsoft’s sleeve?

Read More »

An unusual Israeli-Palestinian joint venture start-up, which makes a cloud-based Web operating system letting users access their desktops from any computer with an Internet connection, is alleging a trademark violation by Microsoft in its new $300 million advertising campaign.

G.ho.st, which stands for “Global Hosted Operating System,” claims it has a pending trademark registration for the tagline “no walls.”

Microsoft disputes G.ho.st’s contention.

Read More »

Here are videos of three of the new “I’m a PC” ads, from Microsoft’s next phase of its Vista-doesn’t-bite advertising campaign.

You can decide if you like them or not. But BoomTown is declaring them a vast improvement on the quirky initial commercials that featured Microsoft Founder Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

The software giant seems to be returning from its short visit in hipville to a more normal marketing message, with an it’s-a-small-world-after-all panoply of people declaring that they are all PCs.

Read More »

While the very quirky ads rolled out by Microsoft to tout itself, starring Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld, got a ton of hype, it turns out there will be no more than than three already released.

It seems the churros have gone cold.

According to a Microsoft spokesman, the ads were apparently just a warmup for more to come, as early as tomorrow, and though the new ones will not use Seinfeld in any significant way, they might still feature Gates.

Read More »

First off, as Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski pointed out to me today, you have to give Yahoo props for using Gogol Bordello as the soundtrack and–more to the point–actually knowing about Gogol Bordello in the first place.

“Since when does [Yahoo CEO Jerry] Yang listen to gypsy punk?” asked Paczkowski in an email to me today.

Since Bill Gates started eating churros with Jerry Seinfeld and adjusting his skivvies hands-free, that’s when!

Oh dear, Yahoo has succumbed to the hipster, ironic thing–an unfortunate marketing virus that has hit Microsoft of late, too–in an under-the-covers “Start Wearing Purple” online marketing campaign.

Read More »

There will be a lot of different reactions to the first of Microsoft’s newest series of commercials, featuring Founder Bill Gates playing straight man to comic Jerry Seinfeld.

Set up as a discount shoe-buying skit, Seinfeld helps Gates purchase a pair called “The Conquistador,” and for some Seinfeldesque reason, it’s churros all around in this marketing effort.

What might be more effective, of course, at least in the Internet arena, is for Microsoft to get off the stick and lay out its next Web strategy clearly, especially in the wake of its failed attempt to acquire Yahoo, and name the digital chief it said it planned to.

Read More »

Finally, Google Co-Founder Larry Page takes the microphone and thanks the Chrome browser team and compliments them for their efforts.

This is, as anyone on the receiving end of Page’s sometimes pointed manner knows (and BoomTown has been), a big deal.

Page also starts to talk about how browser choice and innovation could make the planet a better place.

Of course! World peace through better browsing!

Read More »

Now, we have two guys (sorry, I will fill in their names later, but they talked fast) who are demoing Google’s new Chrome browser and its features and user interface.

“Friendly” tabs, knowing your history better graphically, auto-typing, simplicity, easier downloading with a new window that one guy is calling a real app like “Pinocchio, because I wanted to build a real boy.”

Well, Pinocchio was wood for most of that story, but I like the effort!

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 4 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with the Gates Foundation’s Melinda Gates.

In this video, Melinda Gates answers questions from the audience about the time frame for the foundation, models of philanthropy, how businesses can become more philanthropic, how to improve troubled schools by eliminating “facelessness,” entrepreneurs and how to get better teachers.

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 3 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with the Gates Foundation’s Melinda Gates.

In this video, Melinda Gates talks about the best ways to fix the broken parts of the public high school educational system in the U.S.

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 2 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with the Gates Foundation’s Melinda Gates.

In this video, Melinda Gates talks about how the massive foundation focuses its efforts, its vaccine programs, her and her husband’s increased involvement and the public broken high school educational system in the U.S.

Read More »

So, I have been standing by, trying to make sense of the debate that has swirled around Apple CEO, Co-
Founder and font-of-all Steve Jobs with regard to his health or, more specifically, the lack thereof.

And after listening to all of the debate about it–mostly indignant declarations by the media, making their case mostly by wheedling milder indignant declarations out of stock analysts and corporate tsk-tsk outfits–I have concluded that what is ailing Jobs is exactly no one’s business.

Even if his every breath is critical to the ongoing operations of Apple, the reason most use as their main argument for Jobs to tell all, it goes double.

Read More »

One thing is absolutely true: It is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and only Ballmer who knows for sure whom he is most interested in to take over the dicey job of head of the software giant’s long-suffering online services business.

But there is a movement afoot among its developers and other execs at Microsoft to push for Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who replaced Founder Bill Gates in the job just over two years ago.

Read More »

BoomTown is flatly fascinated by the rather incredible memo Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer penned to his troops yesterday, with news of the reorganization of its massive Platforms and Services Division and the departure of its president, Kevin Johnson.

In it, in a very rare public airing of its less-clean laundry, Ballmer actually named Microsoft’s two major rivals, Apple and Google, in a somewhat positive light, while still vowing to best them.

Read More »

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

Here’s Part 6 of 6 of our discussion with Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer, who were interviewed together by Walt Mossberg and me on the conference’s opening night.

In this video, Gates and Ballmer answer questions from the audience about the Yahoo deal, widgets, Facebook and healthcare.

Read More »