On Friday 3rd/May/2013, Microsoft's Hotmail the free webmail service used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, was phased out as the US ICT giant completed a rebranding to Outlook.com.

According to Microsoft's Dick Craddock, the transition began in February, when Microsoft began a test of moving users to the new Outlook.com services. And over 300 million active accounts were successfully transferred to outlook.com.

He said "This made the magnitude of the process incredible, maybe even unprecedented. This meant communicating with hundreds of millions of people, upgrading all their mailboxes - equaling more than 150 million gigabytes of data - and making sure that every person's mail, calendar, contacts, folders and personal preferences were preserved in the upgrade."

Read more: Microsoft phases out HOTMAIL in fovour of OUTLOOK.COM

Apple Inc has released its new operating system for Mac computers today (25th/July/2012), with features borrowed from mobile devices and a tighter integration with online file storage. The new OS is called Mountain Lion.
The new software narrows the gap between the PC and phone software packages, making Mac personal computers work more like iPhones and iPads. Users of the iPad and iPhone will recognize in Mountain Lion such iOS fixtures as Notification Center, Notes, Reminders, Game Center, Messages, Dictation and AirPlay Mirroring.

Among the updated features, I'm keen on Twitter and especially Facebook integration, plus improvements in the Safari Web browser. Throughout the operating system, Apple has placed a handy "share" button within apps, making it simple to share photos, videos, Web links and documents, with different options depending on the app.

The Mountain Lion gives business society the following features to work smarter, more efficiently, and more effectively:- 

Read more: Mac computer's new OS Mountain Lion is on market with great features for business users.

Dell sealed off a deal that has been in pipeline for some good month of acquiring Quest Software, a  25yr award winning IT management software provider offering a broad selection of solutions that solve the most common and most challenging IT problems.

Dell recently announced the formation of its Software Group to build upon its existing software expertise. The Dell Software Group will add to Dell’s enterprise solutions capability, accelerate strategic growth and further differentiate the company from competitors by increasing its solutions portfolio with Dell-owned intellectual property.

According to DELL, Quest’s family of software solutions and key technologies are strongly aligned with Dell’s software strategy. The acquisition provides critical components to expand Dell’s software capabilities in systems management, security, data protection and workspace management. In addition, Quest’s software portfolio is highly complementary to Dell’s scalable design approach to develop solutions that scale with customer needs. 

Read more: Dell acquires Quest Software at $2.4 billion to build on it's software empire.

Mozilla world's known  web browser has extended it's innovation by launching its own marketplace were users will be in position to download and install games, softwares and many more onto their PCs

The Mozilla Marketplace - which happens to look a lot like the Google Play Store on Google TV - gives users a one-stop shop for all sorts of Web-based apps, games, and everything you could want to do in the comfort of your Firefox browser. It just launched, so it remains a work in progress.

Even though it is just an early version, it is already fully compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it's designed to give users the same point-and-click ease of use as the App Store or Google Play, or to be even more relevant, Google's Chrome Web Store.

So far there are fewer than 200 apps, but obviously Mozilla expects that number to grow rapidly as consumer and developer interest increases.

The Mozilla Marketplace actually treats its apps as desktop applications.Each app is given the same treatment as a regular computer program, which means it can be launched from the Windows Start Menu or given its own desktop icon. It's more of an extension of your operating system than your browser.

The Ubuntu operating system for smartphones is getting closer to release, with Canonical officials hinting the release will possibly come as early as later this year or sometime next year.

Canonical will make announcements on the Ubuntu OS for smartphones later this year, said John Barnard, global marketing manager at Canonical, at the Computex trade show in Taipei. He said development was continuing on the smartphone OS, and couldn't say if the announcements were tied to the release of the smartphone OS.

But when asked whether the release would be later this year or next year, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said "possibly," though he could not provide a specific date. Barnard echoed Shuttleworth's comments, saying the OS was possible for next year, though a specific date couldn't be nailed down.

Barnard said any smartphone OS would not be directly released for download, but be available for device makers to load on smartphones. He did not provide further insight into the OS, saying people would have to wait until later this year when the announcements are made.

After years of teasers, Canonical finally announced the intent to develop the Ubuntu operating system for mobile phones and tablets last year. An earlier version of Ubuntu was available for smartphones, but the version was scuttled in favor of the desktop and server OS versions.

But at the Computex trade show, Canonical hinted at the readiness of Ubuntu for smartphones by merging a version of the OS with Android. The company demonstrated a smartphone that doubled up as a PC running Android and Ubuntu side by side. The smartphone booted with Android, but could load Ubuntu when the smartphone was placed on a dock that was connected to a monitor.

The version of Ubuntu is using the same kernel to run Android, Barnard said. When connected to a dock, the version of Ubuntu that fires up from the smartphone provides a full experience also found on the desktop version of the OS, which also includes access to Ubuntu Software Center to download applications. The Ubuntu OS loaded from the smartphone also has the Unity user interface, which is found in desktop versions of the OS.

There is commonality between the Android and Ubuntu versions as users can access contacts and can continue to receive SMSes and notifications when the smartphone is in Ubuntu mode.

The dual-OS will take advantage of multicore ARM CPUs and graphics processors that are being included in smartphones today, Canonical officials said. Barnard hopes the Ubuntu-Android OS combination will be found on smartphones later this year. There is a lot of interest from device makers to load the dual-OS on smartphones, Barnard said.

From: PC World