Central to the pitch will be a keynote to be delivered Tuesday by Windows Phone program director Joe Belfiore. Belfiore will no doubt discuss the status of recent updates for Windows Phone 7, including the NoDo patch, which mainly adds a copy & paste function. The NoDo rollout is now in progress but was delayed due to a glitch in an earlier patch that, ironically, was designed to ensure that future updates go smoothly.
Microsoft recently said it now has more than 11,000 apps for Windows Phone 7. While that sounds like a healthy number at first blush, it pales in comparison to the 350,000 iPhone apps currently available and the more than 100,000 apps now claimed by Google for Android. Windows Phone 7 also conspicuously lacks officially sanctioned apps from a number of major content providers, including The Wall Street Journal and Fox News.
Microsoft will try to change that at MIX 11 with a series of keynotes and sessions that aim to convince attendees that Windows Phone 7 will gain the critical mass that developers--particularly those from big publishing houses and studios who are faced with a mushrooming field of devices they need to support--require before committing to a platform.
Belfiore is also expected to provide news on Mango, an update that should be available later this year that adds Internet Explorer 9 and support for HTML 5 hardware acceleration to Windows Phone 7.
But developers' main focus will likely be on what Belfiore says, or doesn't say, about the status of Microsoft's recently announced partnership with Nokia. Nokia, which still ships more handsets than any other phone manufacturer, agreed to use Windows Phone 7 as the default OS for its smartphone lineup.
Neither Nokia nor Microsoft has provided a solid timetable on when Windows-based Nokia phones will show up in the market, and have yet to hammer out all the details of their alliance. Still, market watcher Gartner predicts the deal will eventually make Microsoft the number two player in the smartphone wars, ahead of Apple's iOS and trailing only Google Android by 2015, "solely by virtue of Microsoft's alliance with Nokia," according to a research note issued last week by the firm.
Belfiore's keynote session is slated for 9:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday.
source : http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229401357
Adobe Systems announced an update to its Adobe Creative Suite 5 software, which for the first time will be available by way of monthly subscriptions.
Creative Suite 5.5, as the new refresh is called, features new tools that will enable users to more easily create content for smartphones and tablets and do more using HTML5.
The rollout of Creative Suite 5.5, which will take place in about a month, will be Adobe's first shot at a new software release schedule, with more incremental updates between fully new versions of its main product package.
"This launch marks a major change to Adobe's product release strategy for Creative Suite," the San Jose company said in a statement. "Adobe now plans to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and -- starting with Creative Suite 5.5 -- significant mid-cycle releases designed to keep the worldwide creative community ahead of the latest advances in content authoring."
The Creative Suite subscription editions are new for Adobe too and will let customers try Adobe products by subscribing online without having to commit to spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy the software suites.
One of Adobe's most popular products, Photoshop, sits on the low end of the subscription model at a monthly price of $49, or $35 with a one-year subscription.
Adobe's Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium package -- which includes InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional and Adobe FlashCatalyst, Acrobat X Pro, Illustrator CS5, Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended and Adobe Fireworks CS5 -- goes for $95 a month as part of a one-year plan or $139 month-to-month.
Adobe's top-of-the-line Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection can be subscribed to for $129 a month for a year or $195 month-to-month.
Creative Suite 5.5 is just a bit more expensive.
A traditional, non-subscription copy of Adobe's Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection software will sell for $2,599, about $1,000 more than a one-year subscription to the software. The Design Premium package will sell for $1,899, or $759 more than a one-year subscription.