News

• Microsoft: We can update Office-by-subscription every 90 days

  Microsoft may upgrade Office 2013 as often as four times a year, the company's top Office executive said this week, a massive change from decades of more measured development.

• Microsoft exec refuses to be drawn out on Office for iPad

  Microsoft's top Office executive, Kurt DelBene, yesterday dodged questions about plans to bring its lucrative suite to Apple's iPad.

• Hadoop startup Cloudera lands big funding for big data

  Big data is expected to be a big deal in the coming years and venture capitalists seem to agree, having pumped an additional $65 million into Cloudera, a company that promises to bring Hadoop data management tools to the enterprise.

• Kindle Fire likely to be a hit despite middling reviews, says Morgan Stanley analyst

  While Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet has received mixed reviews from the tech press, one Morgan Stanley analyst thinks it's all a big misunderstanding.

• Low-income families offered cheap broadband, PCs

  Many U.S. cable providers will offer broadband service for US$9.95 a month and an e-recycler will offer $150 PCs and laptops to low-income families in an effort to bring the benefits of broadband to more people across the country.

• iPhone 5 production starts August: analyst

  Apple's next iPhone is near according to Morgan Stanley analyst, Katy Huberty, who wrote in a note to investors: "Apple's next iPhone will begin production in mid to late August." The note was issued yesterday after meetings with Apple's supply chain companies in Taiwan. She has predicted that the next generation iPhone will be released in the third quarter of this year.

• Expect iPhone 5 AND iPhone 4S: analyst

  Rumours have been circulating about the next-generation iPhone, with many expecting an iPhone 5 and others speculating a more subtle change to the device naming it the iPhone 4S.

• Avaya sets $1 billion public offering

  Avaya is going public again, filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering worth $1 billion.

• The better software will win tablet wars, says Motorola chief

  Despite the fact that his company specializes in designing device hardware, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha thinks the tablet market's future is largely out of his hands.