Business

It’s Black Friday and everyone is out kick-starting their holiday shopping. I thought I would take a break from my own shopping to highlight some pretty slick Black Friday deals from Microsoft. We’ve got some pretty awesome deals going on for Windows Phones, Xboxes, Windows PCs and more – just check out this slideshow on Microsoft News Center for all the details.

A few months back I blogged about a great product in Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) called the Asset Inventory Service (AIS) and how it can help you better manage your hardware and software inventory using a cloud based service. IT Pros have been telling us that they really like AIS since it helps them get the inventory of machines that don’t always connect into the corporate network and how easy it is to maintain since there is no server infrastructure.

Today, the W3C formally created a working group to focus on consumer privacy on the Internet.

The Halo Spartan last appeared on his high school graduation stage here. We asked you on Facebook where you thought he might pop up next and the answers were wild. People guessed all manner of locations. However, few guessed that he’d turn up in the most obvious next spot—college. Check out this video to see what happens when a Spartan goes on a college welcome tour.

Ole! We’re now delivering all available Windows Phone updates—7008, 7390, and 7392—to customers with Telefonica in Spain. Update Central tells you what’s in each one and how to install them.

As I noted on Friday, we’re also now scheduling the restart of 7390 and 7392 for Omnia 7 handsets on Orange. As soon as these resume, Eric or I will let you know.

This is the next in the series of “PC Snapshots” - short 2-3 minute overview of PCs that Ryan and I think are awesome. If there’s a PC that you’d like to see us cover, hit me on Twitter, send me mail, or leave a comment. We’ll try to get to it ASAP!

At last.

I know many of you were eagerly waiting for this one: Verizon Wireless today said that the HTC Trophy, its first Windows Phone, will be available on its website starting May 26—and hit Verizon stores a week later on June 2. The phone will cost $149.99, after accounting for a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year contract.

At last.

I know many of you were eagerly waiting for this one: Verizon Wireless today said that the HTC Trophy, its first Windows Phone, will be available on its website starting May 26—and hit Verizon stores a week later on June 2. The phone will cost $149.99, after accounting for a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year contract.

As IT Pros one of the things you sometimes do is work with your purchasing or asset management group to help them figure out what software and hardware is deployed to end users and if your organization is getting the most of these assets. Some of you dislike this work since it usually means generating reports that cost you time that could be spent on working on other projects like your Windows 7 rollout. What if I told you that you might already have a tool that could help out the asset management team with their requests and they would not have to call you anymore?

Last year we announced a program to provide the PreEmptive Solutions Runtime Analytics to Windows Phone developers free of charge. When it was first announced, the duration of the program was set to expire in April of this year.