Day: October 12, 2012

So… here it is… what Windows 8 will cost if you want to go there.

Prices and packaging for Windows 8 go public

“Update: And now it’s official. A Microsoft blog post reveals the pricing and packaging of the Windows 8 Pro upgrade and says preorders will be available from ‘Amazon.com, Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot and the Microsoft Store and many more.’ The post also notes that OEM PCs with Windows 8 will be available for preorder: ‘Also starting today, you will be able to pre-order new Windows 8 PCs and devices from OEM partners such as Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Samsung and Sony.’

Online retailer Newegg.com today began taking preorders for Windows 8. In the process, they unveiled prices and packaging details that Microsoft has not yet publicly announced.

The Newegg page lists four separate products:

• Windows 8 Professional Upgrade – $69.99 (save $130)
• Windows 8 Pro Pack – Product Key Card (no media) – $69.99 (save $30)
• Windows 8 (Full Version) – OEM $99.99
• Windows 8 Pro (Full Version) – OEM $139.99

The two OEM products are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

In addition, Newegg is offering a $10 preorder discount on Windows 8 preorders (the offer appears in an email to customers).”

Yes, I had just posted an entry that Firefox 16 had been released, now it has been re-released due to a security hole!

Mozilla re-releases Firefox 16 after patching critical bugs

“Mozilla re-released Firefox 16 today after pulling the browser from distribution Wednesday when one of its developers found a critical bug that could be used by attackers to hijack machines.

At around 2:30 p.m. ET, Mozilla turned on its upgrade servers and started pushing Firefox 16.0.1 to users who had earlier downloaded the flawed browser, or who were still running version 15 and earlier. About 30 minutes later, the open-source developer restored the patched program to its primary and secondary download pages.

Yesterday, Mozilla yanked Firefox 16 from its download websites and stopped serving it to existing users as an upgrade. The withdrawal was prompted by the discovery of a vulnerability, which the company then said ‘could allow a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited and have access to the URL or URL parameters.’

On Wednesday, Mozilla promised to ship an emergency update — it calls them “chemspills” in a nod to security toxicity — today.

Mozilla has now provided more information about the bug, which it rated as critical.

‘Mozilla security researcher ‘moz_bug_r_a4′ reported a regression where security wrappers are unwrapped without doing a security check in defaultValue(),’ an accompanying advisory noted. ‘This can allow for improper access to the Location object. In versions 15 and earlier of affected products, there was also the potential for arbitrary code execution.’

The patch also addressed the issue reported by U.K.-based researcher Gareth Heyes early Wednesday that allowed access to user information, including Twitter usernames, through Firefox 16.

Firefox 16.0.1 fixed four flaws altogether, including two bugs that had caused a large number of crashes on users’ systems.

Although Mozilla has had to quickly re-release Firefox before — in December 2011 it pulled Firefox 9 a day after that edition’s release — this was the first time the firm pulled Firefox from distribution because of a vulnerability.

According to Web metrics company Net Applications, Firefox accounted for 20% of all browsers used worldwide last month, enough to keep Mozilla in second place — behind only Microsoft and its Internet Explorer — in the race for browser share.”

That is “Release to Manufacturing” to the layman. In other words, the code is now locked and approved and they will start producing it as a product for sale. Of course, I will be staying with LibreOffice, but still, in is news.

Office Reaches RTM!

“Moments ago, the Office engineering team signed off on the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. This milestone means the coding and testing phase of the project is complete and we are now focused on releasing the new Office via multiple distribution channels to our consumer and business customers.

This is the most ambitious release of Office we’ve ever done. It spans the full family of Office applications, servers and cloud services. The new Office has a fresh, touch friendly design that works beautifully on Windows 8 and unlocks modern scenarios in social, reading, note-taking, meetings and communications. We are proud to achieve this milestone and are eager to deliver this exciting release to our customers.

General availability is planned for the first quarter of 2013. Starting October 19, customers purchasing Office 2010 from local retailers or resellers will receive the new Office for free upon availability. Customers will also see a preview version of the new Office on Windows RT devices, beginning with the Windows 8 launch on October 26.

Additionally, we have a number of programs that provide business customers with early access so they can begin testing, piloting and adopting Office within their organizations:

We will begin rolling out new capabilities to Office 365 Enterprise customers in our next service update, starting in November through general availability.

Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the Office 2013 applications as well as other Office products including SharePoint 2013, Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 through the Volume Licensing Service Center by mid-November. These products will be available on the Volume Licensing price list on December 1.

IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November.
Please stay tuned for more specifics on general availability dates and other Office launch news. In the meantime, if you’d like to give the pre-release version a try, you can visit office.com/preview.

Thank you to the millions of people who have been testing early releases of the new Office. We are grateful for your support. Your invaluable feedback has helped us make the new Office the best Office ever.

Kirk Koenigsbauer
Corporate Vice President
Microsoft Office Division”