In a Building Windows 8 post written by two SkyDrive program managers, Microsoft detailed the SkyDrive Metro, the service’s tight integration with Windows 8, SkyDrive on the desktop, and fetching files through SkyDrive.com.

As Microsoft explains, the Metro app, which is built on WinRT and written using web technologies (Javascript, HTML, and CSS), will be available to any Metro application via the OS’s file picker. Microsoft expects the Metro and web versions to eventually converge and reach feature parity at some point in the near future.

What is Windows Live SkyDrive?

Store, organize, and download your files, photos, and favorites on Windows Live servers, and access them from any computer with an Internet connection. Share photos and files that you create with your friends, collaborate on documents, or display photos and files that you create for anyone on the Windows Live network. When you sign in to the Windows Live SkyDrive website with your Windows Live ID, you get:

1. Storage. Store thousands of photos and files. The SkyDrive storage meter shows how much storage space you’ve used.
2. Organization. Arrange your files in top-level folders and subfolders that you create.
3. Control. Choose permissions for each top-level folder that you create. Keep your photos, files, and favorites in personal folders so you can keep them private; in shared folders so you can share them with your Windows Live network, your extended network, and people on your contact list; or in public folders so that they can be viewed by anyone on the Internet.
4. Convenience. Keep track of your favorite websites even when you aren’t using your own computer.
5. Flexibility. Move, copy, delete, rename, and caption your photos and files after you upload them.
6. Display. Photos saved as the JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, and TIFF file types display with thumbnail images, and can be viewed by other users on SkyDrive or in an online slide show, if they have the right permissions to view them.
7. Sharing. Share links directly to your folders, files, and photos, or embed your photos and files in your blog or webpage. You can also let people know you’ve added their picture to SkyDrive by adding people tags.

After installing an app that is 5MB in size, you will be able to use Windows Explorer for quick drag-and-drop upload/download, easy file management, and the ability to access your data from anywhere. And the syncing through the app is seamless. As files are saved and updated to the PC, they are automatically uploaded to the cloud without any user action. Among the rumored features yesterday was an increased individual file upload size to 300MB. Interestingly enough, if you upload through the SkyDrive app on your PC, you’ll be able to upload files that are up to 2GB in size.

Windows 8, SkyDrive will be available natively as a “file picker”, so you’ll be able to open files from and save files to SkyDrive. It will also be integrated in the Charms bar as a “Share charm”. This will allow you to email files via SkyDrive, instead of uploading them as an attachment.

Microsoft is also expected to be working on launching a new Music Streaming Service which is rumored to drop sometime in the 2nd quarter.

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Rumor mill has it that Microsoft is in talks with record labels on creating a new music service that caters to Xbox and Windows Phone 7. The software giant is planning on creating a delivery service that would supply music service to Xbox as well as the upcoming Windows based phones, according to an exclusive report on CNet.

Considering that the company already possesses music licenses, there’s no mention as to how this service will differ from Microsoft’s Zune Music Pass, which is the music service currently available to Xbox subscribers. It’s still unclear whether Microsoft must acquire new licenses for its service and that will depend on how Microsoft wants to do with the new music service.

According the post, “Negotiations are still in a preliminary stage and the two sides have yet to drill down into all the specifics“. Microsoft has roughly outlined a service that could launch sometime this year and include streaming music as well as downloads.

A spokeswoman for the company said, “Microsoft does not comment on rumors and speculation.“

Google did much the same thing with Google Music and its Android operating system. In addition to Google, many of the top phone makers like HTC and Research In Motion are trying to break into the field.

As for Microsoft, we’ll keep you posted on the company’s music aspirations, stay tuned for more news and info on this topic by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

A recent report from Digitimes claims that the Android’s new OS dubbed “Jelly Bean” is scheduled to launch at some pint in the second quarter.The publication feels confident enough to quote a number of Taiwanese suppliers claiming that we will see a range of tablet devices and notebooks which are capable of running dual operating systems.

The publication also claims that vendors will be able to add Android 5.0 to a Windows 8-based tablet or notebook, allowing users to switch between the operating systems without a reboot.

Google could be looking at Android 5.0 Jelly Bean as a way to resurrect its notebook/netbook ambitions. Google already has a netbook OS, called Chrome, but it has failed to really grab any share. It is available in a handful of inexpensive netbooks from manufacturers such as Samsung.

The latest version of the Android operating system, known as Ice Cream Sandwich, was announced in May of last year before being showcased on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone later in October. Four months down the line and it seems that only approximately 1% of Android devices are running versions of Android 4.0, bring about big concerns and showing that the adoption of the latest OS has been a lot slower than expected.

With Microsoft getting set to release its brand new Windows 8 operating system in the third quarter of 2012, the speculation suggests that Google are looking for an end of quarter two release for Jelly Bean to provide competition for Windows 8.

Considering that the hardware requirements for Windows 8 would prevent users from installing a second OS on ARM-based PCs due to a locked Secure Boot system. What’s not known is if Microsoft’s manufacturing partners would have permission to ignore that when designing machines. What’s also interesting is that no mention of smartphones is made with respect to Android 5.0. Google specifically designed Android 4.0 to combine the best features of Android 3.2 with Android 2.3 and create a master platform that works equally well on smartphones and tablets. So far, only one Android 4.0 smartphone is available, though Android 4.0 tablets are expected to arrive soon. Android 4.0 has barely had a chance to get a foothold in the market.

Google also pushed its I/O developers conference back by six weeks, to the end of June rather than the middle of May. Does Google need this extra six weeks to finish work on products that will be announced at I/O?

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Microsoft officially announced the new branding of it’s upcoming Windows 8 Metro Style logo which will be used across the upcoming operating system. Microsoft also stated that the logo is a Window rather than the traditional flag found in earlier versions of Windows. “We wanted the new logo to be both modern and classic,” says Microsoft’s Sam Moreau.

Microsoft hired high-powered design consultancy Pentagram to come up with the new look. According to Moreau, the firm wanted to move away from the previous Windows logo that looked more like a flag than a window. “Windows’ really is a beautiful metaphor for computing, and with the new logo we wanted to celebrate the idea of a window, in perspective,” Moreau wrote.

Programs running in the Metro mode of Windows 8 take up the entire computer screen. There’s no chrome around the app, the frame that separates it from other apps and the desktop. Microsoft has also done away with the toolbar that runs on the bottom, or the side, of the desktop. And while users can switch to the traditional Windows desktop on Windows 8, the Metro version eliminates the interface showing multiple windows of running apps.

The logo uses flat colors and clean lines and shapes to convey the message of Metro and will change color based on the core theme color used in Windows 8. “When you change your color, the logo changes to reflect you,” explained Moreau. Microsoft will use the logo in the new charms bar for Windows 8, adopting the chosen theme accent color.

We are expecting to see the new logo in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, due on February 29th. Stay tuned for more news and info on this topic by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

A recent post from Digitimes suggests that Windows Phone 7 Tango update would go live in March or April, based on Microsoft’s roadmap for Windows Phone outlined in a rumor.

The largest update, Apollo or possibly Windows Phone 8, was slated for its expected late 2012 release. However, a “large volume” of devices based on it would ship in the initial half of 2013.

The Tango updates are believed to be adding support for true native apps, more languages, lower memory requirements, and support for lower resolutions to cater to a primarily Asian demand for cheaper models. WP8/Apollo would fundamentally change the architecture to bring in similarities to Windows 8 without sacrificing app compatibility. It would get some Skype integration and support for considerably more modern hardware, such as multi-core chips, microSD storage, and HD displays.

Early supporters of Windows Phone 8 weren’t definite and appeared to be more speculation than definite fact. Dell and HP were floated as possible candidates for a comeback with Acer making a sequel. HTC, LG, and Samsung were put in some doubt after having been burned by low sales, although it’s doubtful they will drop Windows Phone given the likely discounts on Android device royalties they get for making a token amount of Windows Phones.

Stay tuned for more information by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

Microsoft updated the Building Windows 8 blog with details on the next-gen platform’s new Storage Spaces feature. Storage Spaces based on the Drive Extender concept from Windows Home Server days, allowing the system to pool physical hard drives of various sizes and interfaces to redundantly store data for scale, resiliency, and efficiency.

The system works like a RAID setup but the physical hard drives are grouped into a larger storage pool, which is then split up into spaces. The disks in a pool can be of mismatched sizes and of different interface technologies, such as USB, SATA, and Serial Attached SCSI. New disks can be added anytime while others can be connected but kept on standby only to turn on when needed.

Storage in a pool is then distributed among one or more spaces. Each space can have its own redundancy policy, with three kinds of fault tolerance offered: 2-way mirroring, 3-way mirroring, and RAID 5-like parity. With the mirrored options, a space’s data is stored either twice or three times within a pool. With the parity option, the system will compute additional information and store this within the pool. If any disk in the pool fails, the data can be reconstructed using this additional information.

Spaces can be thin provisioned, allowing the creation of spaces that are larger than the underlying pool. This allows potentially simpler management—a large “media” space for TV shows and movies could be created with some large size, say 50 TB, with only 2 TB of physical capacity in the pool. As more shows are recorded or downloaded, and space becomes tighter, additional drives can be added to the pool; the space will then use this extra capacity with no further configuration required.

The new technology is far better integrated into the core operating system which makes it robust enough for mainstream use. The blog post implies that Storage Spaces are ready even for enterprise workloads, making mention of the ability to scale up to “very large-scale enterprise datacenter(s)”, with pools made up of “hundreds of disks”—not a promise anyone would make of the home user-oriented Drive Extender.

The company says that guidance will be offered on how to partition disks so that a partitioned boot disk can be added to a pool, but that straightforward booting unfortunately won’t be possible.

Storage Spaces will be a feature of both desktop and server editions of the operating system.

Stay tuned for more information as it surfaces by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and/or subscribing to our RSS feed.

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that the company has signed a cross-licensing agreement with Samsung. As a result of the agreement, Microsoft will be receiving royalties from Samsung for its Android-powered smartphones and tablets. Additionally, Microsoft mentioned that the two firms will continue to cooperate on the Windows Phone operating system.

“Through the cross-licensing of our respective patent portfolios, Samsung and Microsoft can continue to bring the latest innovations to the mobile industry,” executive vice president of global product strategy at Samsung’s mobile communication division Dr. Won-Pyo Hong said. “We are pleased to build upon our long history of working together to open a new chapter of collaboration beginning with our Windows Phone “Mango” launch this fall.”

Microsoft has similar agreements with HTC, Acer and ViewSonic, and it is estimated the company’s revenue from Android is three to five times greater than the revenue it receives from its own Windows Phone operating system.

Google on the other hand has issued an irate response to Microsoft’s cross-licensing agreement with Samsung. “This is the same tactic we’ve seen time and again from Microsoft,” Google said in a statement to TechCrunch. “Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others’ achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners.”

Microsoft issued a public response to Google on its blog shortly afterwards stating the following:“We recognize that some businesses and commentators – Google chief among them – have complained about the potential impact of patents on Android and software innovation,” Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez wrote in the post. “To them, we say this: look at today’s announcement. If industry leaders such as Samsung and HTC can enter into these agreements, doesn’t this provide a clear path forward?”

The Redmond-based company also explained that HTC and Samsung were responsible for more than half of all Android phones sold in 2011 in the United States. While there will be more drama, maybe this event marks “the end of the beginning” for an “industry-wide assortment” of legal issues.

You can read Microsoft’s full press release regarding their cross-licensing agreement below:

Microsoft and Samsung Broaden Smartphone Partnership

REDMOND, Wash — Sept. 28, 2011 — Microsoft announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., to cross-license the patent portfolios of both companies, providing broad coverage for each company’s products. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will receive royalties for Samsung’s mobile phones and tablets running the Android mobile platform. In addition, the companies agreed to cooperate in the development and marketing of Windows Phone.

“Microsoft and Samsung see the opportunity for dramatic growth in Windows Phone and we’re investing to make that a reality,” said Andy Lees, president, Windows Phone Division, Microsoft. “Microsoft believes in a model where all our partners can grow and profit based on our platform.”

“Through the cross-licensing of our respective patent portfolios, Samsung and Microsoft can continue to bring the latest innovations to the mobile industry,” said Dr. Won-Pyo Hong, executive vice president of global product strategy at Samsung’s mobile communication division. “We are pleased to build upon our long history of working together to open a new chapter of collaboration beginning with our Windows Phone “Mango” launch this fall.”

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

The folks over at The Register are reporting that Apple’s iCloud service is powered by Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS servers for hosting. Apple reportedly wants to focus on building the consumer side experience of iCloud instead of becoming a full-time cloud storage service provider. After the unsuccessful launch of MobileMe, Apple outsourcing it’s server-side duties o those that are more experienced and trusted in the server/cloud sphere provides a blanket of technical security as well as PR security. If someone screws up, Apple doesn’t have to take all the blame. It is a bit shocking that Apple is relying on two if its larger competitors to ensure the brand new and highly anticipated cloud-based service launches without issues.

Microsoft appears to be ignoring the irony and is excited with Apple’s use of Azure, reportedly calling the deal a “validation of Azure,” and “a great opportunity to get Azure under a very visible workload.” Whatever Amazon and Microsoft may think, securing a customer such as Apple translates to a large long-term revenue stream. As long as the service lives up to Apple’s standards of perfection that is.

Apple is currently set to debut its iCloud service this fall and will utilize three data centers initially, as well as spreading customer information across the three companies’ servers. As of right now, sources believe Apple will be running “the full Azure service – the Windows Azure computer and controller part and SQL Azure storage with hosts tables, queues and flat files.” This presents its own potential problems as Apple may have to utilize custom made software to retrieve and send files across multiple platforms. The bottom line is that Apple must avoid a MobileMe level of embarrassment at launch and by the looks of it, they have already gone to great lengths to do so by swallowing their pride.

Charlie Kindel, Microsoft’s General Manager of the Windows Phone Developer Experience announced earlier today that he is leaving Microsoft to launch a start up. Kindel didn’t share any of the details regarding his new endeavor. His public profile on LinkedIn lists him as the Founder and CTO of <redacted> at A super secret stealth startup. According to Kindel, “[The start up] has to do with sports, advertising, mobile, social-networking, and, of course, the cloud,” Kindel wrote in a post on his personal blog. The soon-to-be former executive worked at Microsoft for 21 years, joining the Redmond-based company’s developer support group in 1990. As are most people when they quit their jobs on purpose, Kindel mentioned that he is “…insanely excited to get started” at his startup. Kindel’s email to his team regarding his decision can be found below:

From: Charlie Kindel
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 9:00 AM
To: A gazillion old friends and colleagues
Subject: Goodbye Microsoft – After 21 Years It’s Time To Move On

July 2, 1990 was my first day at Microsoft and September 2, 2011 will be my last.

In the time honored tradition of “good-bye mails” this is mine.

My first Microsoft product was a Z-80 Softcard for my Apple ][+ in 1984. That amazing product enabled me to become a UCSD P-System, CP/M, and Turbo Pascal geek. I still remember opening the big clear plastic box for the first time.

In 1988 (my junior year at the University of Arizona) I decided I wanted to work for Microsoft when I discovered Windows programming (I conned my dad into buying me a copy of the Windows 2 SDK). Charles Petzold was my hero.

I got no-hired after my first interviews (a dev role in Languages; shouldn’t really surprise anyone).

I bribed my recruiter into getting me another set of interviews by sending her a Christmas card (clearly I was meant to be a PM).

The brightest memory I have of my first day at work was a Seattle Times sports page pinned to my manager’s (Ridge Ostling) cube: “Husky Women Beat Beavers”.

A few months later we threatened to quit because management kept turning the lights ON in Lincoln Plaza.

Arne Josefsberg: I feel bad about writing that tool that generated fake time tracking reports. But what did you expect? We were providing the best damn developer support possible and the number of minutes we spent doing it was totally irrelevant.

Curtis Palmer: I miss you. Our Bogus Software was the best. RIP.

Tunneling Todd Laney, one day I got so pissed that the Windows 8514a driver didn’t support “smallfonts” that I just fixed it and checked it in. I was still in PSS. My first “production code” at Microsoft and if you don’t count OLEView which was just a tool, my last.

I decided I wanted to be Chris Guzak. So I got out of PSS and into Developer Relations. I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

Vertical Developer Relations was an amazing group. Out of that group came: Jeff Teper, Satya Nadella, Joe Long, John Wilcox, Bret O’Rourke, and others.

After writing OLEView I woke up and I was no longer an evangelist but a PM on the OLE team. Initially I was given all the glamorous stuff like Mac OLE. Mario Goertzel scared the crap out of me. It was 3 months before he and the other devs would invite me to lunch.

I got to work with Bob Atkinson. He taught me the trick of taking people on walks during 1:1s. He also taught me everything I know.

We gave all PDC ’93 attendees a CD with the first DCOM bits. ole.h was missing. One (one!) customer noticed. We thought DCOM was hot-sh**. It wasn’t.

The first name for COM+ was COM3. Windows used to let you create directories named COM3. But you couldn’t delete them. The real reason I’m leaving Microsoft? COM is making a comeback.

Sweeper and December 7, 1995 were epic. How the name “ActiveX” was chosen was not. Designing the <OBJECT> tag with Tim Berners-Lee was mind blowing for me. Ben Slivka still owes my sister an airplane ticket.

Shipping IE 3.0 was my first taste of what it really meant to build a product that changed the world. I would have never joined the Windows Phone team if I had not had that prior experience of an impossible, come-from-behind, project.

Somewhere along the line I learned the word “mentor”. Bob Muglia and Chris Jones: Thank you. I learned everything I know from you.

In 1998 a bunch of us from the IIS team were in Paris for some conference. We went out to dinner and when we came out of the restaurant there was a literal riot going on around the Arc de Triomphe. France had won the world cup. We joined in. I rode around the Arc de Triomphe on the roof of a city bus chanting Viva-La-France! Microsoft enabled me to see the world and I’m grateful for that.

Someday we’re going to have a Project42 reunion party. Or not.

Tracy Sharpe once worked for me. One day his office was cleared out. I asked HR “Where’s Tracy?” “Oh, he moved to the Xbox team weeks ago.” Oh, that’s how that works.

Charlie: “Hey Chris (Jones) & David (Cole), we should build a Neptune Home Server! We’ll call it Ybox!”

Chris & David: “Charlie, shut the eff up and get back to work.”

Working on Windows Millennium is where I met Dave Alles.

The Connected Home Business Unit had this guy who drove a black Hummer. One day we put a “Yes, my penis is small” bumper sticker on it. Sorry about that Kevin Eagan.

Bedrock and the bBox demonstrated that a group could have all the technology and a great user experience and still not know how to spell “business”. BXT folks. BXT!

CHBU begat eHome. The first version of Windows Media Center was to be called “Windows Remote View”. Really.

When I think about my time as BobMu’s TA I’m reminded of the scene in Blade Runner, where Roy says “I’ve seen things you people could only imagine.” Did I mention that I learned everything I know from Bob Muglia?

You know why Quattro was named Quattro? My fourth attempt at building a home server product at Microsoft. Best. Team. Ever.

I’ve had some great managers (and some not so great ones). Chris Phillips the best manager I ever had. I learned everything I know from Chris.

To the people that helped build Windows Home Server: Chuck Norris doesn’t leave Microsoft. Microsoft leaves with Chuck.

Yamanote! Istvan, Friedbert, Bob, Drew, Tudor, Kevin, Akhil, Ron, Scott, and a slew of others: They doubted, but we fraking did it. Together. 27,000 apps and counting. Someone once gave me the advice “The first rule of dependency management is to not have any dependencies.” I call BS on this and we proved that cross-group collaboration CAN work at Microsoft.

The real reason I’m leaving Microsoft: At the last partner meeting Dave Alles didn’t ask SteveB a question.

To the Windows Phone team: I may stop using some Microsoft products now that I’m out of here. But not Windows Phone. The BEST product Microsoft has ever built. Do not let up!

To my wife: Thank you for putting up with “Microsoft Time” (“Honey, I’ll be home in an hour.” Four hours later…). I’ve learned everything I know from Julie Kindel.

To my kids: No, just because I don’t work at Microsoft anymore you many not use Google. Remember, every time you use Google, a puppy dies.

Back in 1990 I assumed I’d work here for 3 or so years. I’m an entrepreneur at heart and every few years I’d lift up my head and look around. I never had the need to look outside Microsoft because I kept finding one challenging opportunity after another.

21 years later I have finally decided I need to do something different: I’m leaving to start a new company here in the Seattle area. I’m sure you’ll hear about it.

There has been one constant in every job I’ve had at Microsoft: People way smarter than me. Microsoft has always enabled me to “play up”. It has truly been an honor working with all of you. Thank you for helping me grow as an engineer, a manager, a businessman, and as a person.

Stay in touch and keep changing the world!

-cek

charlie (at) kindel (dot) com

http://ceklog.kindel.com

@ckindel on Twitter

Jailbreaking and jailbreak apps are officially coming to Microsoft Windows Phone 7 thanks to ChevronWP7 Labs. We already know Microsoft has a different approach to dealing with jailbreakers compared to Apple and Sony, which is a pretty interesting move by the company. The company will be officially supporting homebrew apps on their WP7 devices.

For those of you who don’t already know about it, ChevronWP7 was a tool that was released to jailbreak Windows Phone 7. The team was welcomed by Microsoft so they can work together and the same team is the one working behind the ChevronWP7 Labs that will allow you to install homebrew apps. The following is what the ChevronWP7 team has posted:

As announced on the Windows Phone Dev Podcast, we will soon be launching an approved Windows Phone unlocking service as part of ChevronWP7 Labs. This will be available to developers across all skill levels and all regions.

The service will require a small fee — currently via PayPal — to offset costs but we assure you it will be more affordable than the App Hub. Those who wish to write and immediately publish apps are recommended to sign up to the App Hub instead.

It’s pretty nice to see Microsoft taking a totally different approach to jailbreaking and hacking in general. Thinking about it from a different perspective, for a company like Microsoft who is coming in late to the smartphone age of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS, taking a different approach to hacking compared to its competition can be a successful strategy. At the same time, we wonder what new heights the ChevronWp7 team will take the Windows Phone 7 platform to. They seem to be chock full of potential and with everything being supported by Microsoft, this could appeal to a whole new crowd and possibly make more users jump ship to WP7 smartphones instead. On the flipside, some people might enjoy the chase of getting for example a jailbroken iPhone or a rooted Android phone knowing that it isn’t supported by the company behind the devices / OS.

Whats your take on Microsoft’s move? Are you a WP7 user who is excited to see where ChevronWP7 will take the platform? What kind of WP7 homebrew apps would you like to see being released? Let us know in the comments below!

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