Microsoft Prime: Microsoft’s Work and Play Bundle

I was watching an interview between Mark Minasi, tech author and columnist, and Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure on cloud computing. It was an interesting conversation and I was reminded of it recently with the release a new service bundle by Microsoft. Now in the conversation, Minasi brought up an interesting point about services and the Cloud. he suggested that Amazon with its already dominant cloud service, AWS, could be enhanced by marrying it to its consumer focused service Amazon Prime. Minasi asked Russinovich if Microsoft is thinking about something along these lines. It was an interesting suggestion; marrying cloud, essentially back end, services with consumer offerings. And while Russinovich had no response then; it appear Redmond sees a benefit to such a thing.

The Work and Play Bundle combines Office365 Home, Xbox Live, Xbox Music, and Skype into one bundle for $199 and last for 12 months. Its available  only through the physical Microsoft Stores; so the bundle will be US and Canada only. Its also not as full featured as some may hope; but it is a possible start to a future where Microsoft essentially develops a Prime service. It is interesting to note while Xbox Music is on tap Xbox Video isn’t. Also I’ve heard a few people wanting to have the bundle be more of a mix and match. As of now its limited availability will make the Work and Play bundle more of an experiment than full blown service.

image: Neowin

Shorts

I feel like instead of writing some long, drawn out posts I write a post with different subjects. I blame Twitter and Tweet storms for the WHOLE thing.

 

The Microsoft Store comes to Fifth Avenue

 

So the New York Daily News is reporting that Microsoft is in negotiations to buy space on Fifth avenue. The building, located at 677 Fifth avenue, was formerly occupied  by Fendi. The image of the store I found shows a nice little store. The story along with the stories that liked to it are saying it’ll be down the street from the iconic Apple store Cube. Now I two tweeted about it being close, but apparently its not. Also for some reason the Daily News story showed a picture of Microsoft founder Bill Gates but neither a picture of a current Microsoft Store or new CEO Satya Nadella. In my mind the paper looses 10 points plus another five for not at least having a current photo of Bill G.

 

The Microsoft Surface line: A billion here, a billion there?

 

Is the Surface line’s future in jeopardy? That seems to be the potential consensus given a report by Computerworld that the line, which premiered in 2012, has been a lost leader for the Redmond giant. An interesting analysis from Tom Warren of the Verge discusses how these loses could mean the end of at least the ARM based versions of the Surface device and the potential or the lineups dissolution by Nadella. In particular it seems everyone is taking the Microsoft CEO’s decision not to bring the Surface mini to market as a sign he may have the companies first computer on the chopping block. While I no doubt that the numbers are real, I think a better indication of where Nadella views the Surface can be found in his interview with re/code:

 

Mid-Year Elections 2014 (Shelby County edition)

 

So its election time again in the Bluff City and apparently its also a major front in the war between mainline GOP leadership and the Tea Party Insurgents. With more than five pages of people and issues on the ballot, we may need a Wiki when we get to the poll. In addition to the electing a County mayor, this election is also covering a Senate race, a House seat, and the state Supreme Court. The most interesting thing in this election has been the concerted effort by the Tennessee’s Republican party to fend off the Tea Party movement. On the Senate side, its Senator Lamar Alexander versus State senator Joe Carr and local Dr. George Flynn (who’s always running for something). Also there has been the issue of retaining State Justices Connie Clark, Sharon Lee, and Gary Wade. I think this is the only time in my memory that there have been adds in which judges have been defended and not just by a PAC but by the sitting governor of Tennessee. In a state with a clear conservative majority all of this seems to be a warm up for larger battles to come.

 

And that is that come back later, I’m taking a nap.