Thurrott Daily: July 20

Tech tidbits from around the web.

7/20/2016 6:04:03 PM

I’m in Paris for the next two weeks

My wife, daughter and I flew to Paris overnight Monday/Tuesday—my son opted out so he could spend his last summer with his friends before going to college—and I’ll be working from here for the next two weeks. (We are swapping homes with a couple from Paris, and they’ll be staying in our house.) As you might expect, my schedule will be a bit off given the time change, so I may not be online at the usual times. I’m also going to take these weeks off from the podcasts. Anyway, it will mostly be business as usual. And I should have some travel tech-related posts in the days ahead as well. –Paul

Microsoft is changing how it reports Windows 10 users

Business Insider’s Watt Weinberger notes one of the more interesting tidbits from Microsoft’s post-earnings conference call this week. (I wrote about my own observations here.) And that is, Microsoft has changed how it thinks about Windows 10, and it will report Windows active users more regularly now, essentially treating it—and comparing it to—and online service.

Now, instead of the irregular updates on Windows 10 growth we’ve been gotten for the last year, mainly at Microsoft conferences and events, Nadella says Microsoft will share monthly active users on the operating system “regularly.”

Notably, instead of installations, Microsoft is now tracking monthly active users of Windows 10 — the same kind of metric used to track services like Google’s Gmail, which has a billion monthly active users.

Furthermore, Nadella says that Microsoft is measuring the success of Windows 10 on some key benchmarks, which will also be reported on that same “regularly” scale: Deliver more value and innovation, more services, and new device categories.

Richard Irving leaves Xbox for Hulu

Variety reports that Richard Irving has left Microsoft to work for Hulu. How exciting for him.

Hulu has recruited Richard Irving, an 18-year Microsoft veteran who most recently oversaw the Xbox One user experience, to head up long-term product strategy ahead of the streaming service’s planned “skinny bundle” pay-TV launch in 2017.

Irving, named Hulu’s VP of product management, reports to senior VP and head of experience Ben Smith — another former Xbox product manager, who joined Hulu last fall.

Microsoft Press, RIP

I wrote about this on Twitter before I flew to France, but Microsoft has imploded Microsoft Press, thanks to the fact that it’s 2016 and no one reads paper books about fast-moving technology products any more. Mary Jo offers a few more details.

Though Microsoft officials aren’t providing many specifics, they are confirming there were cuts via this rather vague statement from a spokesperson:

“The job reductions impacted a variety of roles and reflect adaptations to business needs. We go through this process in the most thoughtful manner possible, with the deepest respect for affected individuals.”

I’ve heard from a couple of my contacts that the “entire Microsoft Press team” (minus one remaining person charged with working with outside suppliers) totaled six people.

New Gears of War 4 trailer serves up more of the single player experience

Microsoft has released a 7 minute long trailer showing off a nice chunk of the single player campaign. A must-see for fans of the game series.

Frankly, it looks like more of the same to me. But that may be exactly what you’re looking for.

Salesforce isn’t putting up with Android fragmentation anymore

Salesforce will no longer support the wide range of Android devices out in the world with its Salesforce1 app and will instead focus only on Nexus and Samsung handsets. The reason? Well, it’s not really saying. But Recode explains.

The company declined to go into detail on its reasoning, but confirmed in a support document that it is looking to maximize its development resources.

“Due to the wide array of available Android devices, we are targeting our support to a select number of Android devices to continue improving our overall Salesforce1 for Android user experience,” the company said in the support document.

If Salesforce’s approach takes hold, it could offer a further boost for Samsung, which already is the market leader in Android devices, especially among business users

Um, yeah it could be a boost for Nexus devices too, right?

Facebook Messenger joins the 1 billion club

Faceboook announced this week that its Messenger service now has over one billion active users.

People use Messenger to connect with the people and businesses they care most about. They make plans, share dreams, send payments, tell jokes, play games, let their loved ones know they’re thinking of them and much, much more. Today we are announcing that more than 1 billion people now use Facebook Messenger every month, making Messenger one of only a handful of apps worldwide that touch so many lives.