Windows Weekly 356 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte: It's time for Windows Weekly, the beer edition. (Laughs) Oh, baby! When you get Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley in studio — you add Daniel Rubino from WP Central — to talk about this year's Build, you know you've got a great show. It is also a long show, one of the best shows we've ever done. Windows Weekly is next; you stay tuned.

Netcasts you love ... from people you trust. This is TWIT!

Leo: Bandwidth for Windows Weekly is provided by Cachefly at cachefly.com.

This is Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary Joe Foley, episode 356, recorded Friday, April 4, 2014

Build 2014

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It's time for Windows Weekly, the show where we talk about Windows and Microsoft and all. And boy, what is — what a great week this is. I'm drunk before the first line, and I'm  ... (mumbles) What a great week this is to talk about Windows and Microsoft because the Build conference is in San Francisco; and that brought a flurry of Windows geeks, including Mary Jo Foley from allaboutmicrosoft.com. So nice to see you. (Laughs)

Mary Jo Foley: Thanks, Leo.

Leo: It's great to have you here. And Paul Thurrott, you did this last.

Paul Thurrott: Mm-hmm.

Mary Jo: Mm-hmm.

Leo: And I wasn't here.

Paul: Right.

Leo: I'm so glad I could be here for this.

Paul: Thanks for making it this time, Leo. (Laughs)

Leo: I showed up. Paul Thurrott from the SuperSite for Windows, winsupersite.com; and along with those two, Daniel Rubino from Windows Phone Central. Great to have you, Dan.

Daniel Rubino: Morning, everybody. Or is it afternoon?

Leo: Morning? Morning!

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Daniel: (Laughs) It's a long night.

Leo: And thanks to Liz Romero in our beer department, we've got a very nice selection of beers here today. Are you going to — or what are we going to do? Are you just — are you going to do some tasting notes, or are we just going to — (Laughs)

Paul: Right, right.

Mary Jo: Sure. (Laughs) Let's try them all!

Leo: What are you drinking right now, Mary Jo?

Mary Jo: I am drinking a double IPA ... pocalypse.

Leo: Oh, you've mentioned Hopocalypse before.

Mary Jo: Hopocalypse, right.

Mary Jo: And it's really hoppy. Yay! (Laughs)

Paul: Yeah, it sounds terrible.

Leo: Later, we'll make Paul —

Daniel: Yeah. (Laughs) I'm not that into hops.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: Paul and I are doing La Chouffe.

Paul: Yes.

Leo: Belgian's best beer.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: Which makes it the best beer in the world.

Paul: Yeah, I was going to say, which makes it the world's greatest beer.

Leo: The world's greatest beer.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: And for some reason —

Daniel: I have cider.

Leo: (Laughs) Daniel's drinking cider.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Daniel: It's like apple juice with alcohol. It's a kids' drink.

Paul: I don't know if you even mind me mentioning this, but I ran into Brad today so I know that you were out —

Leo: Carousing?

Daniel: A little late last night, yeah.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Paul: So I'm impressed that you're drinking at all.

Daniel: Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's, you know —

Mary Jo: I know.

Leo: Pear of the orchard.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: Well, anyway, we're glad to have you all. We do not — normally on Windows Weekly, I have a fairly nice, rigid script of things that I can and cannot say.

Paul: Yep.

Leo: Today, we are —

Paul: It's wide open.

Mary Jo: Winging it.

Leo: We are working without a net. Wide open. I did tune in for the lovely and talented Joe Belfiore's demonstration —

Paul: Right.

Leo: — of Cortana, Windows Phone 8.1.

Paul: Should we all kiss the picture?

Mary Jo and Daniel: (Laugh)

Leo: One thing I noted — and I felt bad because I was a little snarky. We had just completed our coverage of the Amazon event, and we switched right over to Joe. And he's looking even more emo with that haircut than ever before. And I'm afraid I mocked him slightly.

Paul: I am almost positive Joe has not aged.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: I agree. I agree.

Paul: I've known Joe since 1995 or '6, and I am reasonably sure he still can't grow facial hair.

Leo and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Leo: But he's got lovely — a lovely mop. So we're going to keep him here because he's here in spirit.

Mary Jo: Yes.

Leo: He did a great job.

Paul: Yeah, he was great.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: And as you pointed out a couple weeks ago, he's one of the most beloved demo guys at Microsoft.

Paul: Oh, yeah.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: Yeah, he's fantastic.

Leo: So was that the kickoff keynote? What was —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: How did it begin?

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: So — yeah.

Paul: That is literally how it began.

Mary Jo: That was it.

Paul: With Windows phone.

Mary Jo: I know. That was — it was kind of surprising.

Paul: As all keynotes must.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: It was like, "Windows Phone, up first."

Leo: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: Why do you think — I — I saw an article on Business Insider today —

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: — that said Satya Nadella, in six days, has completely changed the face of Microsoft.

Paul: That's a little unfair, but —

Mary Jo: Yeah. (Laughs)

Paul: That —

Leo: It feels that way.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: That's how it looks from the outside, but —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: There was definitely a change, I think, in the attitude of people.

Mary Jo: Yeah, there is.

Daniel: It's a lot — everybody's a lot more happy —

Paul: He's not God; he didn't create Microsoft in six days.

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Leo: Well, obviously, some of this had to be in progress before, right?

Mary Jo: It was.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, I think it's [unintelligible], yeah.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: Nevertheless, he's going to get some of the credit —

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: — because it all seems to be under his tenure.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Starting last week, where he said, "Give me my iPad" —

Paul: (Laughs)

Leo: — something you would have never heard Steve Ballmer —

Mary Jo: That's true.

Leo: — who stomped on an iPhone —

Daniel: Sure.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: And then, they brought out an iPhone on the keynote —

Leo: Yeah, so that's a —

Mary Jo: That's different, yep.

Leo: — different Microsoft.

Paul: Yep.

Leo: And I was very impressed with Windows Phone 8.1.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: What did — tell us a little bit about that.

Mary Jo: Well, we should have Daniel tell us. (Laughs)

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: (Laughs.

Leo: WP Central.

Paul: My understanding is Daniel knows a little bit about Windows Phone.

Daniel: Yeah, just slightly.

Mary Jo: One or two things.

Daniel: No, it's almost like — it's very overwhelming because there's so much in there —

Paul: Right.

Daniel: — that you almost don't know where to start. But I guess the two big features everybody's going to talk about is Cortana and the notification center, which we've sort of known about for a while that they're working on. But Cortana's a big deal in a lot of ways. The thing is, it's a good marketing thing. Compared to Siri — and you have Google Now — it's going to be a really powerful system. I think the big surprise was that they actually called it "Cortana."

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Right.

Daniel: We were all hoping that they were going to do that, and they almost — they mocked themselves a little bit.

Paul: Well, they made a joke about it, yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, the — what they were going to call it.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: But yeah. That, the notification center, and there's a lot — a lot — of subtle changes in the OS. It's actually going to probably take weeks to document all the little changes, and it's —

Paul: Yep.

Daniel: I was actually just surprised that, one, they opened with Windows Phone —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: I know.

Daniel: — and then they actually stuck with it. I mean, that was actually a long presentation.

Paul: Yeah, they really did.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah. It wasn't like, "Let's get this out of the way."

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Right, right.

Paul: Cortana was easily 30 minutes of that presentation.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Leo: But I think that's one thing that's — again, the change under Nadella is —

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: It isn't Windows, Windows, Windows anymore.

Paul: Although, you know, obviously, Cortana and Windows Phone 8.1 have been in development for some — many months.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: You know, 18 months or whatever. But it did give them that thing that they wanted, which is, you wake up the next morning and look at the news; and it says, "Microsoft releases Cortana to compete with Siri," which is exactly what they wanted, to be —

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah, sure.

Paul: — seen on the same page as Siri.

Leo: Right.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: Well, no, I think they are. Or, Google Now. I mean —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: — it really is a three-horse race.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Sure.

Paul: Well, in the sense that Siri is kind of publicly — you know, people — more people have hen —

Daniel: Yeah, that's the name that — yeah.

Leo: And in fact, where they have an advantage over Apple is Apple, of course, chose to be — protect people's privacy, not to aggregate data. They don't have a search engine; they don't have a way of getting that — those signals. Google does.

Paul: Sounds really limited.

Daniel: Yeah. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: But Microsoft's got Bing. It's got — I mean, it really —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Well, and it has the stuff that Bing connects to, and it has the third-party app integration, which is the cool bit.

Daniel: Sure.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: So they did Facebook and Twitter and —

Daniel: And they also siloed the information, which is — so I mean —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: They're literally, as always, in between Google and Apple inn this.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: They're collecting information, they're using stuff, they're reading your emails; but it stays on the device. It doesn't go to the service. And so —

Paul: Right.

Daniel: And you can go into what's called the "notebook" and change that and tell it what you want to save and what you don't want to save. So they've got the best of both worlds, and I think that's the argument that they want people to hear.

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: They've done a little bit of both. So —

Leo: Windows —

Mary Jo: And VPN. Let's not forget VPN.

Daniel: Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: He knew VPN.

Paul: Actually, they forgot VPN.

Mary Jo: I know. (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: (Laughs)

Paul: They never mentioned it, but —

Mary Jo: VPN is back. Yay!

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: So it's built into the phone —

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: — so if you have a VPN server at work or you use a —

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: — commercially-hosted VPN —

Paul: There's a bunch of stuff.

Daniel: A lot of —

Leo: — you could connect with it and be secure as you surf.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah. A lot of stuff that you would associate with sort of mainstream Windows —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: — is appearing in this release. For example, the desktop and the command line — no, wait, I'm sorry. (Laughs)

Mary Jo and Leo: (Laugh)

Paul: No. But, you know, it's —

Leo: PowerShell! It's back, baby! Yeah.

Paul: Yeah. There is a lot of — there is a lot of Windows —

Leo: Do I have autoexec.bat? Because I would like that.

Paul and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Mary Jo: Maybe.

Paul: ADF. [unintelligible]. Or AFD. [unintelligible], I guess.

Leo: So your impression of — let's stick with Cortana for a little bit.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Your impression of Cortana compared to Siri or compared to what Google is doing.

Paul: Well —

Leo: One of the things I was impressed — his sister called —

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Leo: — in the demo.

Mary Jo: "My sister."

Leo: Oh, sis, don't call me now!"

Paul: Better than his kids.

Leo: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Yeah, true.

Leo: But because he had texted her earlier about — asking about the puppy —

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: — it said, "Don't forget to ask her about the puppy." That — I — now —

Paul: Yeah, that's cute.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: It's creepy.

Leo: Well, that's the question: cute or creepy?

Mary Jo: Creepy. (Laughs)

Daniel: (Laughs)

Paul: Well — okay. No, no, no. It's —

Daniel: It's a little bit on the —

Mary Jo: I'm like, (Skeptical noise)

Paul: It's only creepy when Google does it, Leo. And — (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Right. (Laughs)

Leo: (Laughs) AT least you're honest. Well, that's the question, and I think — but the siloing is a response to that a little bit, right?

Daniel: Sure.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah. No, I mean, this idea — and Mary Jo and I were talking about that yesterday — about who's going to be using this — I think it's really good as a public tool for Microsoft to have, and it's going to be very powerful with Windows and Xbox eventually. But whether people actually use it or not will be a total personal decision. I'm not necessarily comfortable talking to my phone.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: I know.

Paul: I'm more uncomfortable when other people talk to their phones. (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. So I think, when I'm home alone, I might —

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah. But it's good — no, it's good publicity for them —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: — and that's really what matters.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: What I find, as a Siri user and mostly now Google, is I use it for dictation a lot.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Sure.

Leo: Cortana does dictation well?

Daniel: We don't know.

Paul: It's going to be great in a car. A car is a great place to talk to a phone, right?

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah, we don't —

Paul: And not look at it.

Leo: You don't want to type, yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: And command-wise, it does "everything you'd want. It launches apps, which is something that —

Paul: Well, not just launches apps, but integrates with the apps.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Yeah, I liked how that —

Paul: "Put something on Facebook" or "Post something to Twitter." That kind of thing.

Leo: Right, right.

Mary Jo: Or Skype, right?

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: They showed the Skype integration. That was pretty cool.

Daniel: Yeah. There's also FourSquare. You can tell it to check in or look for specials.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: So with Skype, you could not only say "Launch Skype," but you could say, "Call Joe on Skype" —

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: — and it would launch Skype; it would look up Joe in the contacts; and then call him.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: Right.

Leo: That is great. Now, is that only because Skype's a Microsoft product, or will it —

Paul: No. It's open to third parties.

Leo: It's an API.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Or a hook. I guess it's not exactly an API; it's something that the app would provide the operating system with the hook to.

Daniel: Well, not, I don't know. It'll be detailed in the SDK, but yeah, it's —

Paul: Yeah, it's definitely API —

Daniel: Yeah, I thought so, too.

Paul: Yep.

Leo: Any other features you think are important to Cortana?

Paul: She has a sense of humor.

Mary Jo: Right, right.

Leo: She's funny.

Paul: You know, you can say, "Who's your daddy?" and she'll say, "Bill Gates."

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah. (Laughs)

Leo: She also has the best of the voices, if you ask me.

Mary Jo: Yeah, she does.

Leo: She sounds very human.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: Well, that was a little bit of subterfuge, as it turns out.

Leo: So that was really a human.

Paul: Yeah. So there's two aspects to Siri.

Daniel: Sure.

Paul: There's the synthesized bit, which is what you get with Siri —

Daniel: It's called Cortana.

Paul: What'd I say, Siri? I'm sorry. Of Cortana. They're not the same thing.

Mary Jo and Daniel: (Laugh)

Paul: I don't care what I just said.

Daniel: It was the beer.

Paul and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Paul: And that's that kind of robotized kind of computerized voice that you get with a lot of speech synthesis. Then there are the bits that were pre-recorded, which are just her voice.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: And they sound very clean.

Leo: Right.

Paul: And —

Daniel: It is a little jarring right now.

Leo: So those — oh, I get it.

Paul: Yeah, it's going to improve over time. It will — but —

Leo: So there are some pre-recorded phrases —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: Yes.

Leo: Like, "My daddy is Bill Gates."

Daniel: This [unintelligible] stuff.

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: That stuff will sound very clean.

Leo: That's going to sound excellent.

Paul: Now, over time, that's going to improve.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: And that's one of those things — it's just going to take some time. It's a beta.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: You get the impression that some of this was last-minute decision making and approval to do things.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: So the whole Jen Taylor —

Paul: Well, it came in at six days.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. (Laughs) Right, right.

Mary Jo: Yeah. (Laughs)

Daniel: The whole Jen Taylor thing —

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel: — doing the voice was not —

Paul: Right.

Daniel: — something —

Paul: Jen Taylor being —

Daniel: Yeah, for the voice of Cortana, for Halo —

Paul: Halo being —

Daniel: (Laughs) I know, right?

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: Is it the same — is it Jen Taylor —

Daniel: A video game that —

Leo: Is it the same woman doing it?

Paul: Video game being — (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Oh, that's interesting.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. She's actually signed on, and —

Paul: Yep.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: — they will be recording, so — but that, as far as I know —

Paul: It's not like the voice of Siri, who was —

Leo: That's a job for life.

Paul: — surprised to discover she was the voice of Siri.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: That's like — that's like —

Daniel: Right. Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: That's winning a — winning the magic prize. I want to — let me see if I can pull up the video of some of this demo, and you can talk a little bit about it.

Daniel: It really is — I mean, Cortana really is sort of like this combo of Google Now and Siri.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: For instance, when you launch it, it'll give you a summary of your day — your news, your weather, traffic — and you can tell it the things you're actually interested in, and it will configure that. And you don't even have to have that do that. It's also neat — you can just type in the window, and she won't talk back to you —

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: — because it's presumed that you want it to be quiet.

Leo: Ahhhhh.

Daniel: Which I think is actually a —

Paul: Jenny is beautiful.

Leo: That's smart.

Mary Jo: That's a great idea. And then, if you shut it off totally, you just get Bing again, right?

Daniel: Oh, is that true? Yeah.

Mary Jo: I think so.

Daniel: It would make sense, yeah.

Mary Jo: I asked that, of course, because I'm a little worried about it.

Paul: And that's the question were asking. "Well, what about the countries that don't have Cortana?"

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: "How does that work?"

Mary Jo: You get Bing.

Paul: Because it takes over the search button —

Daniel: Sure.

 

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: So now, instead of handing your phone to someone and they see the Bing screen, they'll see Cortana by mistake —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: — because that's the button everyone hits by mistake.

Mary Jo: Yeah. (Laughs)

Paul: (Laughs) You know, with Windows Phone.

Daniel: Yeah, and it's completely woven throughout the OS. In Internet Explorer, if you do a search, it actually hops back to Cortana because Cortana is ultimately powered by Bing, so —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Right. They should have called it something Bing. That would have been great.

Daniel: Oh, geez, no.

Leo: I had —

Daniel: "Bing Voice."

Paul: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Uh, no.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: It's pretty impressive. I think what's going to happen is, there'll be a back and forth —

(Video begins)

Leo: There we go, here we go, here's some of the demo stuff.

Joe Belfiore (on video): Here's an example.

Leo: What phone is he using?

Joe (on video): Show me all the Japanese restaurants in Seattle.

Daniel: That's a —

Leo: So that's the new Windows 8.1 phone from Nokia that won't be available until the end of April.

Cortana (on video): Here are ten Japanese restaurants in Seattle.

Paul: So that's actually an interesting point, too, about Cortana, in that it will work on every Windows phone that runs Windows Phone 8.

Mary Jo: Right.

Joe (on video): How long will it take to get to the first one?

Paul: It's not a high-end phone —

Cortana (on video): It'll take 38 minutes to drive to Kisaku Sushi Restaurant.

Paul: That's how we got here.

Joe (on video): I could have said this multiple ways, but Cortana understands what I mean.

Leo: This is interesting because this video —

Joe (on video): Sometimes, however, voice —

Leo: — it's like his rehearsal for the actual live performance.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: (Laughs) It's very — it's kind of disorienting.

Paul: Do you think he sleeps in a hypobaric chamber?

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Paul: Just curious.

Leo: They've added the slide keyboard —

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Key part of Windows 8.1.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Shape keyboard, I think is what they call it. And shape writing. It's actually really, really impressive.

Paul: Yeah, it's — I'm not used to it, but —

Daniel: Yeah, I still haven't switched over to it completely, but —

Paul: It's a funny thing to —

Daniel: It's great for one-handed use.

Leo: I really prefer it on Android. It's what I use all the time.

Paul: A lot of Android people say that, yeah.

Daniel: What's nice about it, it's completely optional.

Paul: Right.

Daniel: There's nothing to enable.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: You just choose it or don't use it.

Paul: Right. It's not — right. It's not a special mode or whatever.

Daniel: Right, right.

Joe (on video): ... so she doesn't speak up in her response to me.

Leo: Availability — we're going to — keep Joe running.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: And when he's — this is something we just talked about.

Paul: This is a fairly short video, but — yeah, so we should talk about how this is going to get out into the world, I guess. So obviously, we've got the new phone coming, and —

Leo,: Watch this here.

Joe (on video): Next time I speak with my sister, remind me to ask her about her new dog.

Leo: I see. So he actually — he wasn't texting his sister.

Mary Jo: No.

Leo: He actually gave her a reminder.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah, he created a reminder.

Leo: So that's not so creepy. That's not creepy.

Mary Jo: Except that when you call her, it comes up.

Leo: Oh, yeah. It would be creepy if it deduced that from email or other conversations.

Mary Jo: Yes, that would.

Paul: The reminder is a new feature in Windows Phone 8.1, right? Doing reminders?

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah. Because you had to come off OneNote and stuff like that, but it wasn't the same — or an alarm. But yeah, this is, like, an advanced feature.

Paul: Yeah, just a separate feature. So —

Leo: Who is he looking at right now?

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: Is he looking at you, Paul?

Paul: He's looking at his sister's dog.

Leo: Oh.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Paul: So — all right. So schedule-wise, what was — do you remember, off the top of your head, the phones, how they're getting out into the world —

Leo: I do remember them saying that —

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: — on new phones, end of April, early May, we'll start to see new Windows phones —

Daniel: Yeah. Right.

Leo: — like the 635 —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Well, there — I mean, we only know about — we know about three of them.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Right.

Leo: What are the three? there's the 635, which is not — which, as you said, is not high-end; it's a mid-range phone.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Right. 630 and 635. They're actually pretty barren. I mean, I don't even think that has an ambient light sensor, and they got rid of, like, a lot of the — it has no physical front keys, and they got rid of the camera key. So —

Paul: Oh, they don't have a camera? I didn't even notice that. Okay.

Leo: Will they not offer a high-end?

Daniel: No, no.

Mary Jo: Oh, wow.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Will there not be a high-end? a 1021, or —

Paul: No, there will.

Mary Jo: There might.

Daniel: Yes, a 930.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: So the 930 is kind of their — I would say, high-end but for the masses.

Paul: Right.

Daniel: It's not, like, a niche device like the 1520. So that's going to be sort of — but that's rest of the world. It's basically the same device as the Lumia Icon on Verizon. Which — that's a whole weird thing.

Leo: Yeah, I feel — I'm kind of glad I didn't, as Mary Jo did, buy the icon.

Mary Jo: Yeah. I'm happy I bought it. (Laughs)

Daniel: Why? It's —

Paul: She's a warning for all of us, Leo.

Leo: She will get it —

Mary Jo: Wait! (Laughs)

Leo: Now, that's — the second question is, for those people —

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: — who have late model Windows phones —

Daniel: Oh, yeah.

Leo: — when do they get it?

Daniel: Well, so Microsoft was really smart with this. When they announced Windows Phone 8, they announced that they were going to do an enthusiast program to allow people to update their phones before carriers.

Leo: That's really smart.

Daniel: But that took a long time. Like, we almost thought that they abandoned that idea.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: And it was only —

Paul: I think we reminded them. I think we —

Daniel: Yeah, right. Yeah, I remember.

Paul: I think they had forgotten.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: And then — it was, like, late last year — they finally put it out there. And so what that is — it's a — it's meant for developer —

Leo: 50 bucks, right?

Daniel: No, it's free.

Paul: No, it's free. They do it free.

Leo: It's free.

Daniel: Yeah. It's meant for developers, but it's really kind of a wink and nod, because you go to the — what is it? — App hub and app studio, and you just log in; and then you download an app to the phone, and you just log in with your Microsoft account.

Paul: I see — yeah. Right.

Leo: Do you have to register as a developer prior to doing that?

Paul: Yeah. It's free.

Leo: Right, but it's free.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: All you do is log into the site.

Leo: Okay.

Daniel: Yeah, that's it.

Leo: That's it. Now I'm a developer —

Paul: I mean, you've signed away things to Microsoft. The point is, you get the key that you need. (Laughs)

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: No, this is nothing — this is nothing weird.

Leo: So those bits will be available when? End of April?

Daniel: Soon.

Leo: Soon. Sooner than that.

Paul: In April.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: In April. Okay. We're in April now, I believe.

Paul: Yep.

Daniel: Yep.

Leo: All right.

Mary Jo  and Daniel: (Laugh)

Paul: Let me rephrase that: Sometime in April.

Leo: This month.

Mary Jo: Yes.

Paul: Sometime that is not today.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Anyone with a Windows Phone 8 device — and even someone, like, with a Lumia  810, which is on T-Mobile and it's not expected to actually get this update officially — they will be able to install this app from Microsoft —

Paul: Yep.

Daniel: — they launch it and they enroll in it, and then they can — they would get the update.

Leo: Wow.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: And they can keep it for as long as they want.

Leo: So you get the Cortana; you get the swiping keyboard.

Daniel: Yep.

Leo: What else? Reminders?

Paul: Yeah. Improved apps. You know, calendar's been improved, Skype's been improved —

Daniel: Yeah, the calendar's been revamped.

Paul: Well, Skype's been added, I should say, and then improved.

Daniel: Yeah. You've got the action in notification center.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: So that's probably — that's one of those features where I think people are going to use it like a dozen times a day, easily.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: I mean, they're going to just use it all the time. And it's sort of easy to overlook how important it is.

Paul: Well, unless — so anyone who's used an Android phone —

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: — or an iPhone knows how awesome having that notification center is.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Yes.

Paul: And how crucial it is.

Leo: Yes.

Paul: And the version in Windows Phone is particularly good. It does kind of a nice integration with the apps, so if you —

Daniel: Right.

Paul: — push off the reminder of new unread emails in the Outlook app and you go back to the start screen, the tile no longer has those numbers.

Daniel: Yeah. Right.

Paul: It's a nice —

Daniel: Yeah, it's impressive. Because, like, iOS doesn't do that, apparently.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: You can dismiss the notifications in iOS, but then — like, say you had a Whatsapp message. You go back to the home screen, and your Whatsapp icon will still have the little number badge. Which means you have to open that up just to clear it, even though you might already know.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: So that goes to show sort of the deeper hooks that they're —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: — doing with it. And it's fully configurable, as far as the quick action buttons —

Paul: Yep.

Daniel: — which I think a lot of people wanted. They still don't get everything right. I think one of those quick action buttons a lot of people want in emerging markets was the data toggle switch. It's something that seemed like it was simple that they overlooked, so ...

Paul: Yeah. And it would sure —

Mary Jo: Enterprise, enterprise, enterprise.

Paul: Oh, geez.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah.

Paul: Anyway, Daniel. So —

Mary Jo and Daniel: (Laugh)

Paul: So let's talk more Xbox Video.

Mary Jo: VPN — you get VPN. You get mail encryption, right?

Paul: Yep.

Daniel: Now, tell us all those acronyms.

Mary Jo: S/MIME.

Paul: S/MIME.

Daniel: Yeah, S/MIME.

Leo: S/MIME's great.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Certificate management; you get mobile device management capabilities —

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Wow.

Mary Jo: Woo!

Daniel: This was something —

Leo and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Daniel: Now, this was something that was - Windows Mobile years ago.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Right. I know.

Daniel: They lost it.

Mary Jo: Everything that you lost —

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: — is coming back.

Daniel: Right, right.

Mary Jo: Right. And so this is really great because so — I've talked to so many business users who say, "I'd like to get Windows Phone, but it's missing everything I need," basically.

Leo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: And so now, this is also going to be part of 8.1.

Daniel: Right. Yeah.

Leo: It strikes me that new start screen is kind of busy.

Paul: Well, it can be. It doesn't have to be.

Daniel: It can — right.

Leo: If you use small icons.

Paul: Well, and you can put a background image on the start screen, but it works the opposite of the way it does in Windows.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: It doesn't — it's not on the outside bits of the tiles; it comes through the tiles.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, there, it makes the tiles transparent, yeah.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: Yeah. So I think kids will love that, and I think adults will not love that.

Leo: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: I liked it.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: I thought it was cool.

Leo: It's a lot of —

Daniel: It's really dependent on what image you choose.

Mary Jo: Yeah. Right.

Daniel: If you choose, like, a photo that has [unintelligible] and it's blurred out and it's not high contrast, it actually works very well.

Paul: Well, and it also depends on which tiles you have and where.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Because some tiles are still opaque —

Daniel: Right, right.

Paul: — and they will block the image.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: But it has that neat parallax view, where, like —

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: So if you made it big tiles, you could look like the old Windows Phone. You don't have to have that — seems like there's a lot of stuff going on.

Paul: Oh, of course. You don't — yep.

Mary Jo: Yeah, you don't have to.

Paul: And actually, that's another neat thing —

Leo: Here's the action center.

Paul: It — yeah. So when —

Leo: Swipe down from the top there.

Paul: — in that screen, that's probably a 1520, but — which has a 1080P screen so you get that kind of density of tiles. But they're bringing that to all of the phones, so even if you have an 800 by40 screen —

Leo: Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of tiles. (Whistles)

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: Well, but you at least get the option.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: So on a 1020, for example —

Leo: Yeah, you want the option.

Paul: — I would want that kind of display. And you can't get it —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Right.

Leo: Is there anything different in these notifications? They look very much like Android or iOS.

Daniel: Oh, yeah. No. So with the notifications, developers get a lot more options, including — so, like, right now with the live tile — first of all, you have to have the app pinned to your start screen to get the tile to give you a notification. This is one of the reasons why we wanted a notification center because you don't necessarily have apps pinned to your screen.

Paul: Right.

Daniel: But sometimes, you don't want, like, an alert to wake the phone.

Leo: Yes.

Daniel: So if someone liked your image on Facebook — I mean, it's nice, but —

Leo: I don't need that to —

Daniel: You don't need to wake that up.

Paul: Oh, I always — I need that kind of feedback.

Mary Jo and Leo: (Laugh)

Daniel: (Laughs) So you can actually go into the notification setup and choose — go by app. So you can go to Facebook, turn off banner notifications, don't vibrate the phone. And you can even have it not show up in — just show up in the notification center. So they're kind of like these ghost notifications, where you can go to the action/notification center and see it, but your phone won't alert you to it.

Leo: Right.

Daniel: And that gives developers a lot more flexibility. Developers can actually update those notifications through the app themselves.

Paul: I just hope the configuration of this works because I notice on the Android and iOS both, you can configure notifications on kind of an app-by-app basis —

Daniel: Sure.

Paul: — and then your phone buzzes and you look at it and it's the app that you just told you not to give you notifications.

Daniel: Ah. Sure.

Mary Jo: Oh.

Paul: And it takes a while to kind of hunt these things down because they all work —

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: — a little differently, and it's — you know, the sheer number of apps that can give you notifications —

Leo: Welcome to the world of Android and iOS.

Mary Jo: Yeah. (Laughs)

Daniel: (Laughs)

Leo: Problem we've had for years.

Paul and Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: I — you know, this is a big jump for Windows Phone.

Paul: Yeah, it is.

Mary Jo: It's really big.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: More than just an update.

Mary Jo: It is.

Leo: This is a really big new version.

Paul: Which is why they call it 8.1.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: I know. (Laughs)

Daniel: Right, yeah.

Leo: There's the background example, by the way.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: I was going to show the video.

Paul: Yeah, that kind of parallax effect.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: That's a little bizarre, but —

Paul: But again, teenager —

Leo: Teenagers are going to love it.

Paul: — Mary Jo —

Daniel: (Laughs) Mary Jo.

Mary Jo: Me and the teenagers, we're going to have that. (Laughs)

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: (Laughs)

Daniel: But I think it was a really surprising decision because when it was first coming out that that's sort of what they were doing, a lot of people — I mean, everybody thought it was going to be in the background, and they did —

Paul: It looks —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Like, this — this is fake. There's no way they're doing this.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. And it was actually really — I mean, they could have — they once again did it differently. They did it their own way.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: And I thought it was actually a smart decision. And if people don't like it, they don't need to use it. So —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: If they don't like it, they can use iPhone. (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah. Right.

Leo: Well, I think it's interesting that they're kind of threading the needle between Apple's privacy policy —

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Right, right.

Leo: — and Google's privacy policy. They —

Paul: I think that's the sweet spot for Microsoft.

Leo: There's probably a place there for — yeah. Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: The same thing with even the devices, right? So they actually have a range of devices, but it's all the same user experience.

Paul: Same thing.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: And — more than Apple, less than Android. (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah, yeah.

Paul: It's interesting how they're almost always right there in the middle.

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah. You also have — Internet Explorer 11 is new in there.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Yep.

Daniel: The email client's been updated with a lot of new features. Yeah.

Paul: The Xbox app's been split out.

Daniel: Sure.

Paul: So there's an Xbox Music, video, there's a podcast app, and there's a separate FM radio app as well.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: You mentioned Xbox. Cortana on Windows Phone is not the same as the voice on Xbox 1 now.

Mary Jo: No.

Daniel: Right.

Leo: But —

Paul: You have to think that's changing. In fact —

Leo: — but that will probably change.

Paul: — I can't believe they didn't spend more time on that. Cortana would make plenty of sense on Windows tablets, on —

Leo: Yeah.

Paul: — Xbox —

Mary Jo: Yeah. But it's future. It's a future, right?

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: And Windows, too.

Daniel: They've got to get it —

Leo: Your desktop, absolutely.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: So they didn't talk about it at all, but we've heard from people we've talk to it's coming.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: So —

Daniel: But yeah, they've got to get out of the U.S. first.

Mary Jo: They do.

Daniel: Because Cortana will only launch in the U.S. —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: — first, and then go out to other countries.

Leo: yeah, let's talk about that. That — that's what happens —

Paul: You know, that always makes people happy.

Mary Jo: I know.

Leo: But it happens because you've got to have —

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Localization.

Leo: — recognize different —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: — languages.

Paul: It's going to take them months and months just to get the U.S. English version right.

Mary Jo: It is.

Leo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: And —

Mary Jo: And then, you have guys like Dr. Pizza and Tom Warren. It's like —

Leo: We talked about that.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: You could never expect —

Paul: Tom Warren's review is going to tell you that Cortana sucks because Tom Warren doesn't speak English. Because he —

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Paul: You know, like — I mean, you can't understand a word that he says. Like, you have — you have to take, like, a second to listen and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay." So that's going to be interesting. I'm actually curious to see how that goes.

Mary Jo: It's going to be interesting, yeah.

Leo: That's a — it's a common problem on these —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Sure, of course.

Mary Jo: But isn't part of the reason, too, that it's launching only in the U.S. because of Bing?

Daniel: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: So Bing is — yeah, heavily U.S.-focused —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: — much to the chagrin of a lot of people. I mean, because Windows Phone does better outside the U.S.

Mary Jo: I know.

Daniel: And so it's always a weird thing. But I think Microsoft is a U.S.-based company, and it's easier for them to test in their own backyard.

Leo: What do you mean, Bing doesn't work internationally?

Daniel: Well, it does; it just has more features in the U.S.

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: A lot more features. (Laughs)

Daniel: Bing Rewards. Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: That's — you guys probably, too — I get this feedback all the time.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: I'll describe some awesome Microsoft initiative — it doesn't matter what it is — and they'll say, "Oh, Thurrott, it's" —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: "You live in the United States. You have no idea what it's like in Australia, or" —

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Right.

Paul: — "Canada" or whatever third-world country you're talking about.

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Paul: "And we don't have these things."

Leo: Third-world?

All: (Laugh)

Paul: I can't —

Leo: Gentlemen, you have my permission.

Paul: Whatever the hell [unintelligible] is —

Leo: (Laughs) He's joking.

Paul: War zone, whatever.

Mary Jo: Yes, maybe.

Leo: All right. We're going to take a break. We've got a great panel. Of course, Paul and Mary Jo are here in studio, along with — they brought sixty of their closest friends.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: Nice to have you all from all over the world. Also here, from Windows Phone Central — wpcentral.com — Daniel Rubino, and — is that right? Rubino? Did I say that right?

Daniel: Yes, that's right.

Leo: Not "Rub-ino."

Daniel: No, no. (Laughs)

Leo: Okay. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Paul: He's not from Australia, Leo.

Leo: But Build wasn't just Windows Phone. I'm sure there's a lot more to talk about, and we'll do that in just a second.

Our show today brought to you by our friends at ITProTV. We know a lot of you are IT professionals or interested in getting the certs that can help you get a better job as an IT professional. There's lots of ways to learn that information. Certainly, many of you have tried schools and classes. Others have gone to the bookstore and picked up books and so forth. But if you're watching this show, you might be interested in ITProTV. Very influenced by the screensavers and what we did with the TWIT network. In fact, the folks at ITPro freely admit they stole everything from us. (Laughs) Same microphone, same switcher — in fact, if you look at the set, it's even very similar to our set. They've redesigned. I want you to visit itpro.tv/ ... is it /windows? /ww. And visit, and you'll see some very new stuff. Thirty hours now are added each week. The episode library covers courses on CompTIA, Microsoft Cisco, including A+, CCNA, Net+ Security, MCSA. They have new, higher-end security courses from ISC Squared, including SSCP and CISP, featuring Adam Gordon. Some really hard-core stuff. That's really — whoops. — really wonderful stuff. You can try it for free if you visit. They just — this is a new website, newly redesigned. And they have now a very basic, free plan, lets you watch live via Roku and the web with selected courses. That's a great way to start up, but I think you're going to want to try this subscription because you get a learning management system that helps you track your progress; a virtual machine sandbox lab environment, so you can try it in the sandbox, which is great. Measure-up practice exams are included with your subscription, that alone worth 79 bucks. Annual subscribers can also now download episodes in audio-only MP3S so you can listen in the car as you're driving. It is, in fact — I think, one of their most requested features. They listen, folks, and they give you what you want. Corporate accounts also available for departments and companies. You'll find more if you inquire on the support page for that. So check it out. Itpro.tv/ww. Upgrade your brain with the most popular certifications recognized by employers. There's also a free preview on the site, if you want to check out some of their videos. Or visit the live video stream. Let's go there right now, see what they're — what they're doing on ITProTV.

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Leo: Subscription's normally 57 — by the way, see, they have a chatroom just like us. You can ask questions as they're teaching. And I did mention that you can get this on the Roku as well, which is awesome. I have no idea what they're talking about here. Piggy-backing, fencing, lighting, cameras? I have no idea what this is. But I'm sure it's useful. (Laughs) This is the beauty of it; you can get those courses. If there's nothing on live that you want, they've got everything on — available for download. Now, the subscription's normally $57 a month or $570 for the entire year. Much less than you'd pay for a school, or even those teaching materials. But we've got a special offer because they are fans of TWIT, and we're fans of them. So if you sign up now and use our offer code "WW30" — "WW30" — 30 percent off your subscription for the lifetime of your account. That's — oops, did I pause him? I did. (Laughs) That's less than $40 a month, $399 for the entire year. This looks like they're talking about how they produce the show. I'm not sure what this is. I'll tell you, I love it. Itpro.tv/ww; use the offer code "WW30" to get 30 percent off. We thank them so much for their support of Windows Weekly.

Did Microsoft talk about Windows at all?

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yes.

Leo: Oh, okay.

Paul: This is weird, Leo. I usually play Call of Duty when you're doing the ad.

Leo and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Leo: Do you?

Paul: And I — yeah. (Laughs)

Leo: I knew it!

Mary Jo: (Laughs) I write some stories while you're doing the ad.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Leo: Instead, everybody got up to have a wing.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: And more beer, I think.

Paul: Everyone just got food except for us.

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel: And I got a glass now. Really nice glass; look at me.

Leo: Oh! Living it up!

Mary Jo: Fancy! (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah, it's like —

Paul: So before we go to Windows, though, we talked a little bit about how people can get 8.1 early if they want it. And of course, they'll —

Leo: You've got an article on your site, by the way, for that.

Paul: Do I?

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo and Daniel: (Laugh)

Paul: And —

Leo: Yes.

Paul: (Laughs) — there's new phones coming. But as far as the normal —

Daniel: Right. The official update — yeah. So that's going to have to go, of course, through carriers. You know, because that's a dual — it's not just the OS; there's going to be corresponding firmware, Nokia's new firmware coming out called Scion — Lumia Scion. And so that's still being worked on, actually, by Nokia. So —

Paul: And is there any details about that? I saw that in print, but I hadn't —

Daniel: Yeah, it was — it was a [unintelligible] core, I think, some camera-to-live imaging for the, like, live pictures. What do they call them? The living pictures.

Paul: Yep, yep.

Daniel: So there'll be a couple new features. Yeah, they didn't detail, I don't think, everything. There'll be also Dolby recording for the Lumia 930; so it will be one of the first phones to record in Dolby digital. So that'll be impressive. But all that will take a few months, so we're probably looking at June, July, August, where that will start to happen. It'll be dependent upon carriers. So people will be able to get 8.1 early, really, to unlock all the features —

Paul: But not the —

Daniel: — it'll be a few more months before it happens.

Paul: Yeah. So it's, like, carrier features and handset maker features.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Is there any reason not to get the developer bits, or are you going to —

Daniel: No.

Leo: No.

Daniel: Because that — it's one of those —

Paul: It's been so clean, yeah.

Daniel: It really has. No complaints, no breaking of phones, no — no issues.

Paul: You know, yet. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: But so far, so good.

Leo: And you could do that today?

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: No, sometime in April.

Leo: Okay.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: That's right, you mentioned that.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: All right. Good. So Windows is free; that's a big story.

Paul: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: I like —

Paul: So that was the most confusing part of the keynote —

Mary Jo: It was, actually.

Paul: — and I went back and watched the video later to make sure that I got this correct.

Leo: (Laughs)

Paul: And I actually had the chance to — I said this to Terry Myerson. I said, "You know, you said exactly two sentences about a free version of Windows, and then you handed the mic to Stephen Elop."

Leo: "Didn't you think anybody'd want elaboration?"

Paul: Now, actually, that is the biggest Windows story of the year by far, and you spent 17 seconds on it. (Laughs)

Leo: What'd he say?

Paul: He said, "Yep."

All: (Laugh)

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: He said, "We figured you'd carry the water for us, Thurrott."

Paul: And I said, "So do you care to elaborate on that at all?" And he's like, "Nope."

Leo and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Leo: So is anything — any screen less than 9 inches.

Mary Jo: 9 inches or less.

Paul: 9 inches, yeah.

Mary Jo: And all Windows phones.

Leo: So what it isn't is for your Dell desktop PC.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Right.

Leo: But it could be for your Dell 8-inch tablet.

Paul: Yeah, it literally —

Mary Jo: It will be.

Paul: Yeah, it is.

Daniel: Venue Pro, yeah.

Paul: Now, the question here — there are a lot of questions here, actually. One is, I don't believe they mention the phrase "Windows RT," for example, in the keynote.

Daniel: No.

Mary Jo: Nope.

Paul: Now, that doesn't mean Windows RT is going away.

Leo: They didn't say it at all?

Paul: I don't think so.

Leo: Wow.

Paul: That may or may not be important. It's Windows, whatever.

Mary Jo: Yeah. Right.

Paul: But, Windows being all Windows on that screen size or smaller, free. Which I think dramatically changes things, but I also — I sort of wonder what this might mean.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: You know, does Windows Phone scale up to almost 9 inches now?

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Is — does Windows RT go away?

Mary Jo: Right. We don't know.

Paul: I don't know. They don't — they're not talking.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: They won't say.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: But I felt like it was kind of a precursor to the thing that we know was happening, which is Windows Phone and small tablet OSs are converging with Windows 9, right?

Paul: Right.

Daniel: Sure.

Mary Jo: So they're just kind of setting that up.

Paul: But I wonder — you know, they talked about universal apps, for example, apps that you can create that — versions for both phone and —

Leo: They didn't really talk about that underlying —

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: — common runtime —

Daniel: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: I mean, that's clearly a big —

Leo: Moving in that direction.

Daniel: That was — yeah, that was actually a really, really big thing that — like, during the developer sessions, they went into a lot more detail, like, specifically to store —

Paul: I — yeah. I feel like people don't understand how big this is, right?

Daniel: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Because Windows Runtime — WinRT — is now going to work on 8.1 devices — meaning Windows 8.1 — and also Windows Phone 8.1 devices. This is, in fact, a new version of the API.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: It's not the old WinRT.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: It's not the WinPRT that Windows Phone 8 came with.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: It's not — certainly not Silverlight that Windows Phone 7, whatever, came with.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: So this is the third API change for Windows Phone —

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: — which is crazy.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: And the second API change for Windows 8, which is also kind of crazy.

Leo: I guess they figure if you don't have any developers, you can't really piss them off.

Paul: (Laughs)

Daniel: Ooooh. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Oooooh. (Laughs)

Paul: Well, I mean —

Leo: Oooooooh, sorry about that.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Paul: Could you turn off his mic, please?

Leo: I just said that in a room for the developers.

Mary Jo: Yeah, you're — you're done. (Laughs)

Paul: Have you ever been — have you ever seen a bag full of soap, Leo?

Leo and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Daniel: But, like, it's going to be really cool what developers can do with this stuff now.

Mary Jo: It will.

Daniel: So basically, a developer can write, a lot easier, an app for Windows 8 and then port it to Windows Phone, keep most of the code. But more importantly, in the store, it's actually — like, developers now can write an app for both, but charge once.

Paul: Right, right.

Daniel: And that's something we really heard about because people were really upset if you bought an app on Windows Phone —

Paul: Well, Halo — the Halo game — being a key example there, yeah.

Daniel: Right. Yeah. And then you would go to Windows 8, and you're like, "Oh, but I paid for it, so I've got to pay for it twice."

Mary Jo: Yep.

Daniel: Now they can do it just once. You can do in-app purchases that cross over.

Leo: How easy is it to do that? Is it just a question of screen size differences, or —

Daniel: It's gotten easier, I would say, with this new release.

Paul: Yeah. Windows Phone first, then Windows —

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: — you know, the Metro stuff in Windows — has always done a very good job of scaling to the screen size, the resolution, the pixel density.

Leo: So you don't even have to worry about that too much.

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: I think that stuff is —

Leo: And the fact that it's Arm versus Intel, it — that's handled by the compiler, you don't —

Paul: It's all there.

Leo: — have to worry about that.

Paul: Yeah, it's all there. Well, we already have Arm. You know —

Leo: So a universal — making a universal version of the product is not so hard?

Paul: Well, you know, it's —

Leo: Or do you make —

Daniel: They're closer to it.

Paul: Some of it —

Leo: You're making two different copies; you're just charging once.

Paul: Yes. Some of it's semantics —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah.

Paul: — because it's — it's a solution in Visual Studio where you have multiple outputs. And that's true in Windows today.

Leo: But you do output several —

Paul: I mean, even Windows today, if you target just Windows —

Leo: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: — you create three separate executables — one for X86, one for X64, one for Arm. And now you could add one for Phone.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: But — I don't know; they seem to — well, I guess it is really two separate apps.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: I think it really is. I think.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Daniel: No, I — yeah, I think they are two separate — it's getting closer. And then, also you get the Xbox 1 stuff.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Right.

Daniel: Which is coming. Which —

Mary Jo: Which they hinted, right?

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. So that was, like, really interesting that —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: — all that sort of opening up, hopefully.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Daniel: I want a weather app on my Xbox.

Mary Jo: Yeah?

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Well, that's CRM. No?

Paul: Just like a weather — little [unintelligible] thing in the corner.

Daniel: Huh?

Mary Jo: CRM? No?

Daniel: Oh, no. I don't know.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Daniel: CRM? No. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Sorry.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Paul: I had written — you know, I had gotten a leaked version of the SDK a few months back, and I had written an article where I basically said, "Universal apps are a lie."

Mary Jo: Mm-hmm.

Paul: In the sense that you're really not creating an app that runs on every platform; you're creating separate apps that — and there's some crossover code and all that kind of stuff, and I think that's still kind of technically true; but I think the thing that has changed since then is, you look at what they're doing — there's way more universalness to it than I had thought originally.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: That — I guess that — you know, you can create solutions that have, like, a common code base in the middle there, like a project of common code. But the amount of stuff that you can have in common now because they're all on the same API is more. It's a lot more.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: And they — they refocused a lot of things. The store is now, on Windows Phone, similar to the Windows 8 store with the different categories and, basically, discoverability of popular titles that people would be interested in.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: And on things that you previously downloaded. It gives you recommendations. They're giving developers a lot more tools. They can actually respond now to people who have left reviews. Developers can respond back to those and create a dialogue with the customer. So they're —

Paul: Right.

Daniel: They're doing a lot — a lot of changes. A lot of them are subtle that won't get the headlines, but I think, long-term, it's good for the platform.

Leo: Now, this and the free version of Windows — this — the — Obviously, common runtime, that's got to have been in progress for years.

Daniel: Oh, yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: In fact, this has been on the roadmap for years.

Mary Jo: Right. It has, right?

Leo: We've been talking about this for years.

Mary Jo: I know. Every time we heard the three screens and the cloud —

Daniel: Screens and the cloud, yeah.

Mary Jo: That was this —

Leo: Right.

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: — but it just never was possible until now.

Daniel: Sure.

Leo: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: But the — but making Windows free on sub- 9-inch screens, that could be done in the flip of a switch. That's a —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: That's a Satya Nadella move.

Paul: I think that's fair.

Leo: That's the crown jewels. He's giving away the crown jewels.

Paul: I think that's fair because — yeah. And I think — I don't remember who told me this, but somebody said — and maybe this was in front of a bunch of people. But somebody said that Satya Nadella, unlike Steve Ballmer, is focused on the user —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: — whereas, what he was focused on was the spreadsheet.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: And if they came in every month with great revenues and great profits, that's what he cares about —

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: — and that's how we get there. And there's obviously room for that when you're leading the company.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Where he is more — Satya Nadella is more focused on, "Let's just make sure we're pleasing everybody."

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: That's a much more modern way of approaching the market, frankly.

Mary Jo: It is.

Paul: Well, we'll see how — what their financials look like in 12 months, but —

Mary Jo: I know.

Daniel: Right, right. (Laughs)

Leo: You know what? Initially, it might not do as well —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: — but in the long run, I think — well, what do they gain by giving away Windows on sub- 9-inch screens?

Daniel: Right.

Leo: Make it parity with Android? Is that the idea.

Paul: Yes.

Mary Jo: Yeah, that's the idea.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: So it's free to install Android on your phone —

Paul: Well, you see what happens. They — and this is not the only reason — but in the past two months now, we've had 10 new companies sign up to — or maybe 12.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: — to sell Windows Phone devices.

Daniel: Yeah, two new ones, were announced.

Paul: We had basically the same couple companies, and then a few Chinese companies came on board over the years. But in the span of two months, more companies — twice as many companies — have signed up to sell Windows Phone devices than had ever done it over the period of three years.

Leo: And that kept the margin of what — 5, 10, 30 dollars more per phone?

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: How much are they paying for Windows?

Mary Jo: We don't really know.

Daniel: We don't really know, yeah.

Paul: 15, 20, somewhere in there, yeah.

Leo: It's — it's not insignificant.

Mary Jo: No.

Daniel: No, it's not.

Paul: But it's — yeah. But that kind of low — high-volume, low-margin business —

Leo: That's a big deal.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: — that's the difference between them making money on this thing or —

Leo: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: — losing a little bit —

Daniel: They're doing a lot to basically break down barriers for OEMs to make any kind of Windows device, whether it's phones or tablets. They just — that's one of the reasons why they got — on Windows Phone, they got rid of the button requirements.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: Right.

Daniel: Basically, so they could recycle their Android —

Leo: Cheaper.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel: — hardware, and just put Windows Phone on it, so they made that. So they're doing a lot to really get their stuff out there —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: — without any complaints.

Mary Jo: So what they're counting on, too, though, is making it up in services, right?

Leo: Yeah. Right.

Mary Jo: So they're giving away Windows on — at the low end —

Leo: This is the Google strategy.

Mary Jo: Right. And so then they're going to sell you more Office 365 —

Leo: Right.

Mary Jo: — and more — more OneDrive storage and all that.

Leo: Right. That makes perfect sense.

Mary Jo: It does, yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: I warned them, though — I —

Leo: Especially if you are a laggard in those categories —

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: — the only way to even chance to get up is to be competitive.

Mary Jo: Yep. Right.

Paul: I —

Leo: How about om the tablets? That's an interesting one. Because I can see phones.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: But, given —

Paul: Well, but it's the same thing, right? because Android is —

Leo: You're giving up a lot, though. I mean, that's got to be a significant source of —

Paul: What they're competing against is Android.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: And — you know, the reason we see a 99-dollar Android tablet in CVS as you're checking out is because —

Daniel: Right.

Leo: It's free.

Paul: — Android costs nothing.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Essentially.

Leo: So —

Mary Jo: Except [unintelligible]. (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: What do you think Dell was paying — what do you think Dell was paying for the 8-inch tablet?

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: We don't really know.

Paul: I bet it wasn't a 30-dollar raise.

Mary Jo: Do you really? I thought maybe a little less.

Paul: I think 45 or so for full Windows, and 30 for —

Mary Jo: Really? Wow.

Paul: Yeah. Because they're — you know, Office is in there, too.

Mary Jo: Oh yeah, you could buy full Windows. Right, yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: It does — do you think this has been telegraphed, and that's why the company — so many companies are doing 8-inch tablets?

Paul: Well, do you wonder — do you think there are people at Nokia doing the math now, saying, "So hold on a second."

Leo: (Laughs) "How much do we" —

Paul: "So if we hadn't been paying for Windows for the past three years, would we still be in business?"

Leo: Right.

Paul: You know — you know — I mean, this —

Leo: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: I'm not saying that that would have made a difference, exactly, but —

Leo: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: — there's got to be some consternation there.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: We didn't mention that right before Build, there was some executive shakeups — Nothing unusual.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: We knew that Elop would get moved to Devices, right?

Mary Jo: Right, right.

Leo: What else happened?

Mary Jo: Scott Guthrie — Mr. Red Shirt —

Paul and Daniel: (Laugh)

Mary Jo: — is now the head of Enterprise and Cloud.

Leo: You called it, though.

Mary Jo: I called it.

Leo: You said that was going to happen.

Mary Jo: I called it. (Laughs)

Leo: Yep. And then, what else?

Mary Jo: And — yeah.

Leo: More Chouffe. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Paul: Keep talking, Leo.

Daniel: Yeah. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Phil Spenser takes over Marc Whitten's job, right?

Leo: Is that a surprise?

Mary Jo: Not really, no.

Paul: No, not really.

Leo: No. But this is —

Mary Jo: And Terry Myerson gets a little more of the Xbox, right, also?

Paul: A little more? He got the rest of it —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: — except for the hardware.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: He basically —

Leo: So he was just Xbox —

Paul: But, I mean, that — no, he was just Windows, the core OS. The OS.

Leo: Just Windows. Oh, he was core OS.

Mary Jo: But he was also Xbox OS.

Paul: Yeah, the core —

Mary Jo: And Xbox Lite, right?

Paul: But only the core OS.

Mary Jo: Okay.

Paul: Right. So he got all — all of the Xbox software.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Ah.

Paul: So it's very interesting to me — well, it's not interesting. We know now because of what just happened.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: You move Xbox software into the Windows group, and then they announce, "Hey, we're doing universal apps and Xbox is going to be part of it." Of course.

Leo: Well, so now —

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: One guy — one man to rule them all.

Mary Jo: Exactly.

Paul: Yeah. And this time it's a good guy.

Leo and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Leo: So okay, good.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: This is — but again, this is Nadella putting his stamp on the company.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: Not unexpectedly.

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: Right, right. And it's funny how this cascades down because you see the right people in charge of the right parts of Microsoft.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: And I don't mean to say "for a change."

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: I mean, in some cases, obviously, some of the people they had — many of the people they had in positions of power were fantastic.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: But we had a couple problems over the past couple years, and it seems like those have been nicely eradicated. And in a — what do you call it? A pogrom? A —

Leo: Pogrom, yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: Wow. (Laughs)

Leo: They'll all be getting chicken farms in Petaluma now.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: But you know what else was cool — and you really felt this at Build — was —

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Engineers are back running the company again.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Yep.

Mary Jo: And it was not Scott Gu, but Nadella, too. He's an engineer. And it just — Terry Myerson, engineer, right?

Daniel: Joe Belfiore.

Mary Jo: Joe Belfiore. So it felt, to developers, I think, like, "Wow. They're — we're one of them; they're one of us"; instead of, "It's the suits and us." Right?

Daniel: Right.

Paul: Right.

Leo: And a customer focus that's new.

Mary Jo: Yep. That's good.

Paul: Which is so stupid. I mean, it's like —

Mary Jo: I mean, they've been —

Daniel: They haven't quite figured it out.

Paul: "We have a company, and our new thing is we're going to listen to customers."

Mary Jo: No, I think they've been focused on customers —

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: — but not — but the bottom line was, "Is this making us money or not?" And it doesn't matter, really, other than that.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Right.

Daniel: Well, everything is a — it's always Apple's fault. And I mean this in a good way. I mean, Apple —

Leo: This one is Apple's fault.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Daniel: Well, they've been very successful at their model.

Paul: That's what I said. Windows 8 is Apple's fault.

Daniel: Everybody sees that and wants them to emulate that.

Mary Jo: They want to be that.

Paul: Right.

Daniel: And so does —

Leo: Not just Apple. Amazon. Look at Amazon.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: I think it is modern.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: It's the new way of companies who say —

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: "We're not going to sacrifice customer experience for bottom line."

Daniel: Right.

Paul: And to give Microsoft —

Leo: "Bottom line will get there if we focus on customer experience."

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Give them a little credit. You know, this is the company that could have been very successful for a very long time doing the kind of Ballmer spreadsheet thing.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: And they would have become the next IBM —

Daniel: IBM, right, yeah.

Paul: — very easily. And they would have been very successful, and we wouldn't be sitting here talking about it because that is terribly boring.

Daniel: Well, it's like — I mean —

Mary Jo: I would have been. I would have been here talking about it. (Laughs)

Daniel and Paul: (Laugh)

Daniel: The enterprise.

Paul: I'd be playing Xbox.

Daniel: Well — (Laughs)

Leo: (Laughs)

Daniel: But should Microsoft sell off the Xbox thing?

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Because a lot of people — you're —

Paul: I am — yeah. I am —

Mary Jo: You're in favor?

Leo: Xbox selloff?

Paul: I don't think it's core to what they're doing.

Leo: Yeah, maybe not.

Daniel: Really? But it's, like, so key to their consumer stuff.

Paul: I — so —

Mary Jo: Really?

Paul: Really? (Laughs)

Daniel: Well, they're in 80 million living rooms.

Paul: I mean, it's —

Daniel: 80 million living rooms.

Paul: Yeah. I hear you.

Daniel: It's the only successful —

Paul: The problem is, they're in the living room with a $500 box that competes with $99 boxes. You know?

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: They need a $99 box. And the Xbox UI on a $99 box would be hands-down —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Is it doable?

Paul: I guess we're going to find out. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: Did you hear everybody got an Xbox?

Leo: EVERYBODY got an — did you all get an Xbox? Son of a gun!

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: A 360 or a —

Paul: (Laughs) Yeah.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Paul: It was the old white one.

Daniel: The white one, yeah.

Leo: (Laughs)

Paul: It says, like, "Refurbished."

All: (Laugh)

Paul: It will — this will be fine for 17 or 18 days.

Leo: That's actually a great — that's a great gift.

Mary Jo: That was a great giveaway.

Leo: That's a good giveaway, yeah.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Daniel: Although we have to —

Paul: Just what I needed was a third Xbox 1.

Daniel: Yeah. Right?

Mary Jo: Yeah, they actually gave them to press who could take them, too.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Well —

Mary Jo: So everybody said, "Mary Jo, do you have an Xbox now?" No, I couldn't take it. (Laughs)

Paul: I gave mine to a homeless guy on the corner of Mission and 4th. (Laughs)

Mary Jo: I saw you do that. (Laughs)

Daniel: I was walking around the streets last night about two A.M. with one.

Mary Jo: You were?

Daniel: A little tipsy, yeah. I was surprised I still have it.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: The homeless guy said —

Paul: He slept under it.

Leo: — "I hear it's always on. The camera's watching me. I think I can keep it."

Daniel: Well, now I wonder, did they — did they plan to really give out the Xbox 1, or was that a last-minute thing?

Leo: Did they plan on doing it?

Paul: No, the giveaways were going to be very different, and they were —

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: What?

Mary Jo: They were?

Paul: Actually, we can talk about that now. Yeah, because —

Mary Jo: What were they going to be?

Paul: Well —

Daniel: The Lumia 630?

Mary Jo: Oh.

Paul: Yeah, the — right. And — right.

Daniel: And the 930, too, I heard.

Paul: Yeah, that's right.

Mary Jo: Oh, really?

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: But they weren't ready.

Daniel: Yeah, they weren't ready. Yeah.

Paul: So — I'm not sure — you know, I think the way to say it is, they wanted to wait for the release of the final version of that software —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Before people wrote reviews and things.

Daniel: Right.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: That's fair.

Paul: And what they didn't want was a bunch of knee-jerk —

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: That's fair.

Paul: — day one, you know, tweets and —

Leo: So you'll get it in the mail later.

Paul: What?

Leo: And they'll want the Xbox back.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Daniel: Well, what — they did that give that $500 gift certificate —

Mary Jo: Yeah. $500 gift card.

Leo: Oh, wow.

Mary Jo: In addition to the Xbox.

Leo: So you can buy it.

Paul: And I think that was the payoff. It was like —

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: "Look, keep your phones; we'll" —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Although it felt kind of funny. It felt like at Christmastime when you forgot to get someone that gift, and you're like, "Oh, gift card! Here you go."

Leo: Yeah. "Here's some socks with a gift card in it!"

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Paul: I've never seen a $500 gift card to the Microsoft store. Why —

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Paul: It's usually 15 or 25.

Leo: I — I want to explore this 'sell Xbox.' It's kind of an interesting idea.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Well, check Ebay because there's going to be a bunch of them on there today.

Leo and Daniel: (Laugh)

Leo: It isn't — it isn't core to their business.

Paul: Oh, that's — I'm sorry; you meant —

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Leo: Not — it's — not an individual Xbox, the entire division.

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: They're not going to — it's like a 'buy it now' price for the Xbox division —

Leo: Yeah, buy it now. (Laughs)

Paul: — $4.9 billion.

Leo: Yeah, it's yours. Take it home today.

Paul: I misunderstood.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah. But when you say you think they're going to sell it, you mean spin it off into a separate company.

Paul: Yes, of which —

Mary Jo: You don't mean sell it to Sony.

Paul: Oh, no, no, no.

Mary Jo: No. (Laughs)

Paul: — of which they would still own, you know, 51 percent or something.

Mary Jo: Right, right.

Paul: Of course, yeah.

Leo: Ah, interesting.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: But yeah, I guess it's weird, though, because isn't, like, so much of the Xbox 1's core OS tied to Microsoft?

Paul: Isn't most of the core OS that goes into the Nokia Lumia — oh, wait, they do own Nokia.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Paul: (Laughs) Yeah.

Leo: Yeah, but that's — you know, they could — they could become an OEM for Microsoft operating systems.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: I — Dell sells PCs. I mean, they don't — you know —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: I mean, there's a model there.

Mary Jo: I haven't heard anybody like Nadella telegraphing they're going to sell Xbox.

Paul: No, no.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Only Elop did that.

Daniel: Right.

Mary Jo: Only Elop did that.

Daniel: Right, but —

Mary Jo: And he's not the CEO.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: And of course, a big story — Microsoft buys Xamarin. No.

Mary Jo: No.

Daniel: That didn't happen.

Mary Jo: Didn't happen.

Leo: Didn't happen.

Paul: Yeah, we've heard mixed things on that.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: They were holding hands backstage. I saw it.

Mary Jo: They were.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Leo: We had some Xamarin developers here the other day, and they said —

Mary Jo: Were they here?

Leo: Oh, yeah.

Mary Jo: Yay?

Leo: — and they said, "Well, we're not sure we like that idea so much."

Paul: Right. Sure.

Leo: Like to keep an independent Xamarin.

Mary Jo: We had Miguel at the Blogger Bash last night.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Leo: What did he say?

Paul: He was very coy.

Mary Jo: We tried to — we tried to get him to say something. Paul held him down, I poured beer into his mouth — (Laughs)

Leo: If he's not saying anything, it means it's still in play, right?

Paul: Well, okay, but that's also what happened last year.

Leo: Oh.

Paul: And I -

Mary Jo: No luck.

Paul: Yeah, he wouldn't say anything.

Mary Jo: No, he would not say. But I said to him, "Would you want to work for a big company like Microsoft?" And he said, "I used to work for Nouvelle."

Paul: Right.

Leo: Right.

Mary Jo: I'm like, "Oh, yeah."

Daniel: Oh, wow.

Paul: And he did for, like —

Leo: That was your point. Exactly.

Paul: — seven years or so.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: But I don't know; I just can't see it. I can't.

Paul: I could see it.

Mary Jo: You can?

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: (Skeptical noise) I don't know.

Paul: I mean, obviously, some people would be unhappy with that —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Sure.

Mary Jo: I mean, it would be great for Microsoft to buy them.

Paul: See, the reason they might do it is if you want to do cross-platform dev through Visual Studio — which is not how Xamarin works today; am I right? Is that right? You can do it; you don't have to.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Okay. So — I mean, that's what you would want. So we're talking about universal apps. I mean, you want to have solutions where you can target iOS or Android —

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: — and share code, obviously.

Mary Jo: Yeah. But they did make a very, very interesting announcement with Xamarin. Did you hear about the .net Foundation, Leo?

Leo: No. What's that?

Paul: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: So Microsoft and Xamarin are creating this foundation where a lot of pieces of .net are being open-sourced.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Not kidding.

Leo: Wow.

Mary Jo: .net is being open-sourced.

Paul: Well, so — the weird — it was weird how they announced this because the first announcement was about Roslyn —

Mary Jo: It was.

Paul: — which is a .net compiler.

Mary Jo: Compiler, a service, yeah.

Paul: Right, a cloud-based compiler.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: So they open-sourced that.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: And I thought, Well, you know, this is a cloud project; that makes some sense.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: And this is kind of a limited type of deal.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Who would want to use this?

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: And then, they said, "Well, and actually, now we're going to open-source the rest of .net. I was like —

Mary Jo: Not all of .net.

Paul: Not all of it, but a lot of it.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: I mean, big chunks of it, yep.

Mary Jo: Right. So that was pretty interesting. And I talked to Miguel a little bit about that, and I said, "Wow, you must be excited about that." And he's like, "We can't believe they did it."

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: And he's like, "We've been wanting this for so long."

Paul: Right, right.

Leo: Well, and hasn't Xamarin been putting stuff in the open — in open-source as well? Some .net code of its own?

Mary Jo: Yeah. They're stuff's all —

Paul: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Leo: So it's coming from both sides now.

Mary Jo: Right, right. And they also said —

Leo: Is there overlap?

Mary Jo: No, because Xamarin's putting its own stuff in, and Microsoft put in things like — well, they've already put in things like asp.net.

Paul: Now, right. This is the idea. It's not —

Leo: More proprietary stuff.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Some more proprietary stuff and also documentation is going in there, too. So Xamarin really wanted some of the documentation around base-class libraries to be given them, and Microsoft actually — yesterday at four o'clock '- said, "Here you go."

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: So that's a really big deal.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: And it's another one of these things, just like give away the hardware for free. Okay, now they're  open-sourcing .net, the crown jewels, right?

Paul: Imagine how different .net as a platform might have gone a decade ago.

Mary Jo: I know. If it was open-source.

Paul: If they had open-sourced.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Although, you know what? When they announced it yesterday, I was waiting to see if the audience was going to be happy or not.

Paul: Or groan, right.

Mary Jo: Right. Because in the past, it felt like —

Paul: You know what?

Mary Jo: — anything Microsoft open-sourced was like, "Oh, we don't really care about this that much." (Laughs)

Paul: This audience wants their stuff as broadly out there as possible.

Mary Jo: Now it's different. It feels really different.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: And it's not like when they kind of turned IronPython over to the community. It doesn't feel like that.

Paul: No. It's only a matter of time before Microsoft's CEO gets up onstage and says, "You know, we don't — for us to win, Apple doesn't have to lose."

Leo: Wow.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: You know, I mean, it is kind of that —

Leo: Wow.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: It's almost that point.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: They did kind of — the other shoe dropped on touchless — touch first versions of Office, right?

Paul: Office, yeah.

Daniel: Sure.

Mary Jo: Sort of.

Leo: Talked a little bit about the Windows side.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: They even demoed a little bit of it.

Mary Jo: Yeah, PowerPoint.

Paul: Yep.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: In the keynote.

Mary Jo: Yep. Gemini — the things we've been calling Gemini — they showed the PowerPoint app again, which is the touch first, totally redone version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, that they're going to be coming out with. But still no date.

Daniel: No.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Still no beta.

Paul: No beta.

Daniel: And they didn't show Word. I wanted to see what Word was going to be.

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: Well, I guess — was it you who said they always leave a PowerPoint?

Mary Jo: Yeah. They always show PowerPoint.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: Why?

Paul: Because it's so colorful and —

Mary Jo: It is.

Leo: Oh, it's pretty.

Mary Jo: Like, are you going to show Excel?

Daniel: The animations were pretty awesome.

Mary Jo: I mean —

Paul: Like, here's a bunch of text. Look, it scrolls.

Daniel: Yeah. (Laughs)

Leo: Yeah, it's hard.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: It's hard to get excited about that. You're right.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah. But I thought they might at least say, "And you're going to get a beta here."

Paul: Yep.

Mary Jo: Or in a month or whenever.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: But no. No.

Paul: It's clearly further along.

Mary Jo: It is. It's further along.

Paul: And —

Mary Jo: And they said they're going to build this for Android also.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Oh, yeah.

Mary Jo: There's going to be a touch first version of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Android.

Paul: Yeah. And there's — it's a universal app, so this will run on a phone.

Leo: Well, there is — something did come out for Android.

Daniel: Oh, yeah.

Leo: It was a single app.

Mary Jo: The phones. The phones.

Paul: No, no, just for the phones.

Leo: Just for the — oh, not for tablets.

Mary Jo: Yeah. Right.

Paul: So in other words, the Office you see for iPad will probably be the Android version. Probably be the same thing.

Mary Jo: Right. Very similar, yeah.

Daniel: Which is actually really nice.

Mary Jo: It looked nice.

Paul: It's beautiful.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah. It —

Paul: But if you do a side-by-side comparison of what they showed here with the iPad version, what you see is that the Windows version has more ribbons; it has more —

Leo: It's more Windows-y.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: There's more there. It's more — yeah.

Mary Jo: Right. More features.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: So more is always better, as you know. And so —

Leo: (Laughs)

Daniel: Clearly.

Mary Jo: But not too much. (Laughs)

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: Any — before we wrap up —

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: — the rundown, what else?

Paul: So we — you know, we didn't talk about the biggest and strangest announcement, which was Windows for the Internet of Things.

Daniel: Right, right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Which was so ill-defined.

Mary Jo: Yeah, nobody knows.

Paul: It actually goes back to my Windows RT question.

Leo: That's not the same as embedded Windows?

Paul: I —

Mary Jo: That's what we were wondering. (Laughs)

Paul: Nobody knows.

Daniel: Yeah, it's like a next generation of it.

Paul: The only thing we learned about it is that it will be free. (Laughs)

Daniel: Yep.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: Because the screens are smaller than 9 inches.

Paul: I — it will work — the picture graph they had showed a watch, a gas pump —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: You know, like a kiosk —

Mary Jo: Well, the things they use Embedded for now.

Paul: Yeah, I mean —

Leo: People made a big deal about the fact that they were showing a picture of a watch, though.

Paul: Of course. Of course.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: It's like, "Oh, they've got a watch!"

Mary Jo: Well, remember, some people thought, at the Nokia event there, they were going to announce a watch.

Daniel: Right, yeah. Watch.

Mary Jo: And they didn't.

Paul: Right, right.

Daniel: That was going to happen. Yeah.

Leo: But wearables —

Paul: No, the only thing new that they're going to sell is themselves. (Laughs)

Leo: (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: I think they're — yeah.

Daniel: Wearables are coming, right?

Mary Jo: They are.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: This fall, I think, is when —

Leo: Microsoft's got to be careful because they were in this market a lot.

Mary Jo: Before.

Daniel: Right, the SPOT watch, yeah.

Leo: And it was a bomb.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: And —

Paul: Sure. I wonder if there's anyone left that worked on that stuff.

Leo: (Laughs)

Daniel: Oh, right.

Mary Jo: Well, the .net micro-framework guys, right?

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Who — and that was another piece they open-sourced this week, so —

Paul: Well, I mean — you know, those kind of guys that they carted out to talk about the watch, those kind of trendy guys, you know, that —

Mary Jo: Oh, yeah.

Paul: — would deal with, like, "Swatch" and —

Mary Jo: Right, right.

Paul: — those big —

Leo: I think Joe could do that.

Mary Jo: Joe could do it.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Leo: He's that kind of guy.

Mary Jo: Well, the guy supposedly spearheading the wearables is Alex Kipman, who did Connect.

Daniel: Oh, okay. That could be interesting.

Paul: Okay. Interesting.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: So he's used to kind of alternative computing type things, yeah.

Mary Jo: Yes, reality.

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Daniel: Right.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: What else? I feel like we — are we missing anything?

Mary Jo: Well, we didn't talk about Windows. (Laughs)

Daniel: You didn't mention —

Paul: Right, right.

Daniel: Well, what they didn't —

Leo: It's free!

Mary Jo: We didn't talk about Windows' future.

Paul: Well —

Daniel: And they didn't mention Surface.

Paul: Oh, yes.

Leo: They talked about update 1.

Mary Jo: They didn't mention Surface.

Leo: They did show update 1.

Mary Jo: They gave us update 1.

Leo: They call it update.

Daniel: Yeah, they call it update.

Paul: We should — it's just update. I —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: I talked to them about that. I said, "I have places where you've called this 'spring update'" —

Leo: You know —

Paul: "'update 1'" —

Leo: — in 1914, they didn't call it World War I.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Paul: Right, right.

Leo: Because they didn't know there'd be another one.

Paul: But this time, they know there's going to be —

Leo: This time they know. Okay.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Paul: And there's also a precedence here because these are the — the updates used to be called "general distribution release 1, 2, 3, etc."

Mary Jo: Right. Yeah.

Paul: They decided this name was not friendly, so they call them "Update 1, update 2, update 3," like Windows Phone.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Now it's just update.

Paul: No. It literally is update 1.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Oh, it is?

Paul: It's — yes. But they don't call it that publicly because —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: — they don't — they want to set expectations in the sense that they don't want to promise — when you say 1 —

Daniel: Update 2.

Mary Jo: It means there's a 2 and a 3.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: But see, I —

Leo: And in the real world, we, as geeks, love the idea of an update.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: In the real world, an update may not be perceived as a positive.

Paul: But —

Leo: It might be an admission that something's broken.

Mary Jo: Yeah. Right.

Paul: Also, when you just say "update" — so this is it for Windows 8.1, then.

Leo: Yeah.

Paul: That's what that sounds like to me.

Mary Jo: Maybe, maybe not.

Paul: Well, that's what I'm saying.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: It's — it's vague.

Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Leo: I think they don't want to say, "Hey, there's so much wrong with Windows 8.1, we're going to be doing many updates. Here's the first."

Mary Jo: Yeah, yeah.

Paul: Yeah. Well, they should say that —

Leo: Don't you think?

Paul: — because that's actually what's happening.

Mary Jo: Kind of.

Leo: (Laughs)

Paul: But — (Laughs)

Leo: So —

Paul: But no, actually, Windows 8.1 is pretty good. I —

Mary Jo: Windows 8.1 is great. I love it.

Paul: It's in good shape, yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: I love it. It's —

Paul: And with Update, it's —

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: I even wrote an article this week saying, if this had been what Windows 8 was when it came out —

Paul: Right.

Leo: You would have liked it.

Daniel: Sure.

Mary Jo: I would have actually not been afraid to put it on my PC.

Paul: And it's — you know, Mary Jo and I only talk about Windows, as you might imagine. And on the drive up here —

Daniel: (Laughs)

Mary Jo: All we talked about was Windows. (Laughs)

Paul: (Laughs) It's sad, actually. But we —

Leo: Is it really? That's terrible.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Paul: No, no.

Mary Jo: No, we talked about sushi. (Laughs)

Paul: But —

Leo: Good.

Paul: No. But, for whatever reason, we were talking about the —

Daniel: Is that a new code name? (Laughs)

Leo: Did you like Hiros?

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Windows — yeah, Windows update Sushi.

Daniel: (Laughs)

Leo: What'd you have?

Mary Jo: We had — I had sashimi.

Leo: Yeah.

Paul: All right, you're getting off track, Leo.

Leo: They have good —

Paul, Daniel, and Mary Jo: (Laugh)

Paul: No, but we were talking about this, and this kind of notion about just how different this is now.

Mary Jo: I know. It's so different.

Paul: And how this can change, that they're trying not to set too many expectations; but the truth is, there are going to be more updates.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Of course.

Paul: And even on — you know, in another two-sentence parsing that we have to go through —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: — he said that — he being Terry Myerson — said that Microsoft would deliver the floating windows.

Daniel: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: Floating modern app windows.

Daniel: And that new start —

Paul: And also the new start menu.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: In a coming update to Windows 8.1. Which —

Daniel: Which I get the feeling they did that the night before. (Laughs) They just, like, drew it out.

Paul: Well, no, I — so I asked — I asked Joe Belfiore, I asked Terry Myerson, I asked Frank Shaw, the same question; and they all said the same thing. Which was, "That was deliberately vague, right?" And they're like, "Yup." (Laughs)

Mary Jo and Daniel: (Laugh)

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: And that was the point.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: And it was —

Leo: But it is part of update 1.

Daniel: No.

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: No.

Leo: It's not?

Mary Jo: Those things are not.

Paul: No, this is something — this is something coming later.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Right. And so — but — so what —

Leo: Ah. I thought —

Mary Jo: What's interesting — yeah?

Leo: Am I misunderstanding? I thought it was going to be part of update 1.

Mary Jo and Paul: No.

Daniel: Nope.

Paul: No, I —

Leo: It wasn't.

Paul: I'd actually written last year.

Leo: I misunderstood.

Paul: That coming — it was threshold.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Threshold being the —

Mary Jo: Threshold, we think, is Windows 9.

Leo: Aaaaaahhh.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Right. Which is —

Paul: What we think is going to be called Windows 9.

Mary Jo: — we think is spring 2015.

Paul: Right, April 2015, yep.

Leo: Oh, right.

Mary Jo: Yep. But then, the way they worded this this week, we're kind of wondering, is it maybe going to show up earlier? Like, things like the start menu shows up —

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: — in update 2, maybe.

Paul: Well, yeah. So in —

Leo: Well, didn't they say it would come to all Windows 8.1 users? Did they not say that?

Mary Jo: Yeah. Windows 8 —

Paul: That's the point. In an update to Windows 8.1.

Mary Jo: Yeah. So that could be —

Paul: So — and by the way, Windows 9 would be an update to Windows 8.1.

Mary Jo: Yeah, that would be, too.

Leo: Oh, okay. All right. I get it.

Mary Jo: Yep. So they hedged it, so we don't know.

Daniel: Maybe — I don't know if they just don't know. (Laughs) Like —

Paul: Well, no, of course —

Mary Jo: That's what somebody said to me. They don't know.

Paul: I think that's fair. They don't know.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Or they know and they don't — or they kind of know, but they don't want to commit.

Paul: Well, no. I mean —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Even the naming stuff, like GDRs, right?

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Part of Windows Phone, and then came — at some point, GDR 2 became update 2 and then update 3.

Paul: Yeah. Right.

Daniel: And so they're —

Paul: It's a semantics thing.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: But it's also a delivery time thing. One of the last — actually, the beginning of the end for Sinofsky wasn't necessarily Windows 8 and what it was; it was his declaration that three years is a good time frame for a new version  of Windows.

Daniel: Right.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: With Windows 8.1, they showed us kind of what they could deliver in one year. With update 1, they've showed us what they can deliver in four months.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: And I joked with a number of people about this. You know, so are you going to have another Build conference next week so we can do update 2?

Daniel and Mary Jo: (Laughs)

Daniel: Right.

Paul: What — is this like an exponentially faster thing every time? But you know, Terry Myerson said, "No, we like this schedule."

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: "We want to be fast."

Mary Jo: Yep.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: And I think what they might do — I think they don't know, like you said.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: But what they might want to do is deliver that stuff as quickly as they can. Not tie it to a big bang release —

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: — but maybe update it whenever they can.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: And maybe that comes in the fall. Maybe —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: And I'm just speculating. But maybe there's an update 2 that comes out that has the floating windows only.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: And an update 3 that has the start menu, or vice versa, or whatever.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: I mean, maybe — if there's a  way to shoehorn that in —

Mary Jo: Why not?

Paul: Right. Why not do it?

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: There's certainly a lot more dynamic — and especially listening to criticism — now.

Mary Jo: Right.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Like, the update 1 stuff, I think, is real interesting, the way they're blending —

Mary Jo: Yeah, me, too.

Daniel: — the more desktop controls. When I use a desktop with the mouse, I'm actually — I actually like the little minimize —

Mary Jo: I love it.

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: It's so great.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: It's like you can shut an app like you're supposed to. (Laughs)

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: (Laughs)

Daniel: It's a good break. I mean, they basically went too far with Windows 8.

Mary Jo: Yeah, they did.

Paul: And they were ahead of their time.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: And so now they're backtracking. It looks bad publicly —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: — but from a user perspective, it's — it feels more comforting.

Mary Jo: It does.

Daniel: So I think it'll be a good thing.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: There is that weirdness in update 1 where you can launch mobile apps from the taskbar on the desktop.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: They launch full-screen.

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: So they give you that title bar, like you were saying, with the controls —

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah.

Paul: — you can see the start menu —

Mary Jo: Yep.

Paul: Or — I'm sorry, the taskbar in there if you want to. But the next step is obviously, let's get it in a window.

Daniel: Right.

Paul: And I think it's — I think it was smart of them to reveal that they are doing that.

Mary Jo: Me, too.

Paul: Because this gives people hope —

Daniel: Right.

Paul: — and it prevents them from waiting.

Daniel: Yeah.

Paul: You know, "I'm not going to buy Windows or upgrade until they get it right."

Mary Jo: Exactly.

Paul: But now they know this is coming as an update.

Mary Jo: Right. And this is all for business users, right?

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Like, this is meant to make Windows usable by the enterprise. That's their bread and butter market, right?

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: And so many enterprise users looked at Windows 8 and were like, "Whoa. No." And now, they're like, "Hey, you've got all — you've got a close button now!"

Daniel: Yeah.

Mary Jo: "Hey, you've got a taskbar!" You know? It's awesome. (Laughs)

Daniel: I mean, people really do like, I think, the modern apps, but they want that for —

Mary Jo: Right.

Daniel: — different tasks. Like —

Mary Jo: Exactly.

Daniel: When I'm at work doing work stuff —

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: — I want to be in desktop.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: — but I still — I don't want to jump between the start menu things, and —

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: I know.

Daniel: So —

Paul: Running them in a window is neat. I mean —

DANIEL: Yeah.

Paul: — if you — even something as, I want some background music I'm playing in Xbox Music —

Daniel: Right.

Mary Jo: Mm-hmm.

Paul: Even in the current release, you can control the playback from that little pop-up that comes over the icon on the taskbar. It's nice.

Daniel: Right.

Mary Jo: Yeah. And the thing they showed that was the start menu, we should say, was a — it's a proof of concept.

Daniel: Sure.

Mary Jo: That doesn't mean it's — that's the way the start menu's going to look.

Leo Laporte: Yeah, I don't know what's going on with your hands there. 

Paul Thurrott: I will crush you!

Leo: Somebody watching at home did point out that your shoulders are so much broader than mine.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: And they said, maybe you should fix the cameras. But no...

Paul: I am more masculine than you are in general.

Leo: You are, in general. And something horrible has happened to Mary Jo. I think a part of you was eaten alive.

Mary Jo Foley: Chunks of me are missing.

Paul: Oh geez, look at that. She's like a floating head.

Leo: That's okay, it's one of them panorama things.

Paul: Clearly not done with a Lumia.

Leo: No, obviously.

Mary Jo: It would have been so much better.

Leo: Typical Android flaw. I will share this so you can share it and do your own photoshopping of it.

Paul: You'll have to share it on Google+ so I'll see it.

Daniel Rubino: Yeah.

Leo: Just for you, I'm going to do this.

Mary Jo: Of course you are.

Paul: You know what, screw you.

Leo: Don't tell Paul. Do you even have a Google+ account?

Paul: I do, yeah.

Mary Jo: I do not.

Daniel: I do, but I-

Mary Jo: You have to draw a line somewhere.

Daniel: I just get notifications.

Paul: Yeah, every once in a while I'll go in there by mistake and it's like, you have 1,477 notifications.

Daniel: I don't know if it's worse than Facebook but it's up there sort of.

Mary Jo: It's worse.

Daniel: I'm not into either. Twitter and Instagram, that's all I need.

Leo: I'm posting it right now. So let's take a break and when we come back, we'll talk more and I know we have some people from Lithuania that you wish to introduce.

Paul: Yes, I do.

Leo: Alright. And has Tom Warren arrived?

Mary Jo: No, he can't make it.

Paul: They're blowing us off.

Mary Jo: He cannot make it.

Paul: Let's talk about Tom, then.

Leo: Can't make it. Oh, yeah... I've heard that story.

Mary Jo: No, he just got caught up.

Paul: It's kind of a tough drive up here.

Mary Jo: It is.

Leo: Was it? Was it difficult?

Paul: Well I mean for Tom because he's British.

Mary Jo: He drives on the wrong side!

Leo: Ah, he drives on the left. That's not going to work very well as he comes up the highway 101. But good news here, Paul. It's an Audible ad.

Paul: Oh.

Leo: So audible.com/windows is the place to go if you want to get a free book from audible.com, our favorite place to go for audio books. But not just books, you can get the daily version of the New York Times or the Wallstreet Journal, you can get lectures, plays, concerts. Audible is fabulous and both Paul and I are longtime Audible listeners. I just finally started listening to the Fred Vogelstein book about Dogfight.

Paul: That's a good one.

Leo: Terrible reader though, I have to say...

Paul: Oh, okay I think I actually read that one.

Leo: Yeah, every once in a while you'll get a narrator that isn't an Audible narrator. The publisher probably did the narration.

Paul: Did you listen to that recent one about Apple?

Leo: Leander Kahney's book on Jony Ive or...

Paul: No, no... The one since the death of-

Leo: You know what, I've avoided that.

Paul: You shouldn't, it's actually a very good book.

Leo: Oh that's interesting, I saw you Tweet about that. Everybody on the MacBreak Weekly team said that is a piece of crap.

Paul: No, it's not. And I can tell you why, actually very simply. Obviously Apple people tend to sort of circle the wagons when people criticize Apple-

Leo: Yeah, I'm not one of those people and I don't think anybody on MacBreak Weekly is.

Paul: I understand. But it's not critical of Apple. I think it's just sort of an analysis of how hard it would have been, even if Steve Jobs had lived, to come up with that next "big bang" thing. I think the big complaint I've seen about it is, she says that Apple hasn't really innovated in several years and look at all of the money they've made. The money they made has nothing to do with innovation.

Leo: That is not the complaint that people like Andy Ihnatko and Jason Snell had. They felt it was a series of anecdotes stitched together, many of them incorrect or provably wrong and they thought the conclusion was a little forced. It was as if Yukariowani Ittowatany-Kane, wrote for The Journal, told her publisher I'm going to write a book about how Jobs' ghost haunts Apple. And as a result, Apple began to struggle and was then compelled to stitch together a bunch of anecdotes that really didn't fit.

Paul: See, I didn't get that.

Leo: You didn't get that. Alright, well I'm going to read it.

Paul: All I have to say is you know, the course of recommending a bunch of Audible books over the years, I always look for good industry books.

Leo: Me too. We're all looking for the soul of a new machine or showstopper.

Paul: Right. By the way, I'm not saying this is the new showstopper but this is inherently interesting. It's an interesting topic and it's the type of thing that you shouldn't just ignore because people disagree with it. I actually think this is an important book.

Leo: And I wouldn't ignore Dogfight just because Microsoft is not in it.

Paul: That's another good book. I'm sure I've recommended that before.

Leo: You did, and we also recommended Jeff Bezos book, The Everything Store. Brad Stone did a very good job with that I thought. That's a book that the Amazon folks hated. In fact, Jeff Bezos' wife refuted on Amazon and said, this is the worst book ever.

Paul: That one's just worth skipping through for the Ebook stuff or the Kindle stuff.

Leo: I thought this was great, some of you may have read the excerpt where he talks about the first demo of the iPhone and what a nail biter it was for the engineers. They were drinking in between shots. Anyway...

Paul: Because they knew when it would crash and it was going to crash-

Leo: Yeah, the chances of him getting through that demo-

Paul: Were nil.

Leo: Were nil.

Paul: And he did it.

Leo: And he did it! It's really a dramatic book. While, I haven't gotten to the end, in his introduction Fred says, by the end of this book you'll see who I think is going to win this war. And I don't know. I really don't know.

Paul: Allow me to ruin it for you Leo.

Leo: No, stop! Dogfight, how Apple and Google went to war and started a revolution or Haunted Empires. That's the book about Apple post-Steve Jobs.

Paul: I'm not surprised at the backlash of that book. All I would say is, I feel like a lot of people that have complained about it that I've seen on Twitter haven't even read it. They just-

Leo: Well I've put it in my basket, I will read it.

Paul: I thought it was a good book.

Leo: She did 200 interviews with current and formal Apple executives.

Paul: Yeah, it's not light on research.

Leo: Point being, the conversation that we just had happens every time you run into somebody else who is an Audible subscriber. The best fun ever if you have stopped reading. Because who has time anymore? Audible will bring you back to books. You can listen in the car as your commuting, you could listen at the gym, while you're doing housework, walking the dog...

Paul: I tried to listen to one on the way up here and Mary Jo just kept talking and talking.

Leo: She's just... It's like, I'm listening here!

Paul: Windows this... Hadoop that-

Leo: I'm listening.

Paul: And the phone calls...

Leo: You know, actually as I was going to bed last night, it's like having your mommy read to you-

Daniel: That's my problem I end up falling asleep.

Leo: Well you know, with a book I really do. But when you're driving you usually don't fall asleep.

Daniel: That's true.

Leo: And that's one of the advantages of listening as you drive in the car. Audible-

Daniel: I've got to stop working from home.

Paul: It's better than reading an actual book, specifically if you're holding it like directly in front of your face while laying on your back or something and then dropping it...

Leo: For once, the fact that some of us have no commute gets sort of rubbed in our faces.

Mary Jo: I know.

Leo: And I'm sitting with 3 people who actually walk to work across the house.

Daniel: Sometimes stumble.

Leo: Mary Jo doesn't even have to go that far.

Mary Jo: I don't. I walk about 20 feet.

Leo: Audible.com/windows will get you to the gold account, that's the 1 book per month account. Subscriptions are a good way to do this, you can buy them out of the cart, but subscribe. The good thing about this offer is you're able to try it out and get that first month free, but that's not the only perk. The first book will be free and you also get the daily edition of either The Wallstreet Journal or the New York times for free. If you cancel in the first 30 days, you'll pay nothing and those books are yours to keep but if you do stick around, I think a world of wonderful literature awaits, from non-fiction to history and history to classics. 150,000 titles strong and growing all the time, audible.com/windows. We're big fans and since you're listening to a podcast I think you probably will be too. We're having strategy meetings for the new TWiT website. It's actually an interesting process to go through. Neither of you have probably had to worry about that. But I don't know maybe you have Daniel.

Paul: I have.

Leo: Really?

Daniel: We have, yeah.

Leo: Yeah. We've got a really good team, a great company, and we're doing stuff that is really a deep dive into who listens and what they're looking for when they get to the website. It's really been a lot of fun.

Daniel: It's a lot more complicated...

Leo: But at one point of it one of our staffers, who shall remain nameless said, "So why do we advertise for Audible, aren't they a competitor?"

 And I said, "Because we love them. And I feel like, what the hell, if you like Audible better than our pod casts..."

Paul: We're not doing a Swiffer ad.

Leo: No, that's for sure. Although, if Swiffer came-

Paul: Oh, totally. I'd be all over that.

Leo: Alright, do you like the wet or the dry?

Daniel: I want to see Paul do that. Little maid outfit.

Paul: It does Windows, that's all I'm saying.

Leo: It does Windows!! Oh, I like it. Windows Weekly, brought to you by Swiffer. It does Windows.

Daniel: Paul's on next week with a Swiffer logo on his shirt.

Mary Jo: Exactly.

Leo: So, anything else? I don't want to leave Build behind. Is there anything else to say about Build? How about the enterprise outlook of it?

Paul: We should just finish up Windows real quick because of the schedule for Windows update.

Mary Jo: Yeah. Right.

Leo: Oh yeah, you didn't mention that.

Paul: MSDN and TechNet subscribers can get it now. Everyone else can get it on...

Mary Jo: April 8th.

Paul: This coming Tuesday?

Mary Jo: This next Tuesday.

Paul: Yeah.

Daniel: Unless they already have it...

Paul: Right. It leaked I was told.

Leo: Did they talk about the end of life for Windows XP at all? Which is also this coming Tuesday.

Paul: No, they never mentioned it.

Mary Jo: No. Not at the show.

Leo: They didn't say a word?

Paul: It's the operating system that shall not be named.

Mary Jo: Yep.

Leo: It is, after all, a big conversation among normal people.

Paul: Well to put it another way, it's not a conversation. Which is the problem because a lot of normal people still have Windows XP.

Leo: They're still using it, yeah.

Paul: So that really didn't come up, did it?

Mary Jo: No.

Paul: It's funny they never mentioned it.

Leo: Well, it's a negative.

Paul: It's a developer conference too and obviously-

Leo: Nobody is developing for XP anymore, is that true?

Paul: I would hope so.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: You said there's like no new x86 apps that are interesting in the last ten years.

Leo: Actually, that's a very interesting point.

Paul: Most absolutely true.

Leo: It's not that they're not developing for XP, people aren't developing for desktop.

Paul: Of the top 10 desktop applications that have been installed on Windows 8, the top 2 are Chrome and iTunes, both of which, are platforms to get you to move away from Windows.

Leo: Right.

Paul: I mean, think about that. Right? And then the rest of them are start menu replacements.

Daniel: Are they ever going to do extensions for IE?

Paul: In Metro.

Daniel: Because I still use Chrome and like, I need all of those extensions for editing and stuff.

Mary Jo: I don't think so. I forgot Leo, somebody gave me these for you. They're Windows XP balloons. And they said maybe Leo could blow these up and pop them on the air.

Leo: On the radio show next Tuesday. It says Intel Inside. Where did they get these?

Daniel: Someone's attic.

Mary Jo: I don't know. Somebody gave them to me at the Build Blogger Bash and they said, Windows XP logo. Uh-oh.

Leo: My grandpa died blowing these up, oh...

Paul: The show goes on Leo, that's all I'm saying.

Leo: This is awesome. That is just awesome. I bet we could get everybody in the audience to make the Intel Inside jingle. No, we shouldn't.

Daniel: Completely off topic, but somewhat related; This beer is amazing.

Mary Jo: That's a great beer.

Leo: Which one are you drinking?

Daniel: It is Brother Thelonious.

Paul: How did he get the good beer?

Leo: Brother Thelonious.

Paul: Nice.

Leo: You've talked about that before, I think.

Mary Jo: North Coast, right?

Paul: Mary Jo, I want to do something crazy.

Mary Jo: What?

Paul: I want to try one of your hoppy beers.

Leo: Ooh, the gasps.

Paul: And then I'm going to spit it all over Leo's Mac Book Pro.

Mary Jo: Okay, let's see here.

Leo: You won't be the first my friend.

Mary Jo: Okay.

Paul: I'm just going to try a little.

Mary Jo: Hoppsicle.

Paul: Is it going to hurt my mouth?

Mary Jo: Yes it is.

Leo: It's Hoppsicle.

Mary Jo: It's good for you.

Leo: So you've given up on the cider and you moved to Brother Thelonious. And is that a Belgian style?

Mary Jo: Yep.

Daniel: Yep. Abby ale. Yeah, I like Belgian.

Leo: It's a little dark for that.

Daniel: As long as it's Stouts, Belgians, or Porters. But no Hopps.

Paul: It smells like a sewer.

Daniel: It's the hopps.

Leo: Oh, he's right.

Mary Jo: No, no. It smells like hopps, which smell amazing.

Leo: Actually I love hopps.

Mary Jo: Yeah, I home brew in my little New York apartment. And sometimes when I'm home brewing, my neighbors knock on the door because they can smell the hopps and they think I'm doing something else besides brewing beer.

Paul: I stand by my earlier assessment of hopps.

Mary Jo: Exactly.

Leo: You're not crazy about it huh?

Mary Jo: We'll win him over.

Leo: Oh you want the Wide Eye PA, here, have some Chainbreaker.

Mary Jo: How about the Chainbreaker.

Paul: I need to drink something to get this taste out of my mouth.

Mary Jo: And you have a McKeller there, don't you?

Paul: I do.

Mary Jo: So many good beers.

Leo: Thanks again, Liz for stocking us up.

Mary Jo: Thanks Liz.

Paul: Don't judge me, get out of here.

Leo: Actually, what are we serving our guests? The studio audience.

Liz: A lot of different kinds.

Leo: A lot of different kinds, so you treated them pretty well. You've got good stuff for them.

Liz: Oh yeah, they had-

Paul: Bud Premium or whatever it's called.

Leo: You should have Lagunitas, that's our local brew and actually pretty well known all around the world.

Liz: They're in every brewery in Chicago now.

Leo: Yeah, they just opened in Chicago.

Paul: This is not even closely comparable to this. This is good, and I can drink this and not want to kill myself.

Liz: Well just drink it and be happy then.

Paul: Alright. Mary Jo, you can have this back.

Mary Jo: Alright, now I have two. Yay. I won't drink them all.

Paul: This is okay.

Mary Jo: I'm afraid now, the balloons. I'm sorry I introduced them.

Leo: No, I love these Windows XP balloons. I shouldn't blow them up, I mean really they're-

Paul: Uh oh, now that balloon is going to hit the light..

Leo: No, our lights are cool. It won't get popped by them.

Paul: Alright.

Mary Jo: Yeah, was there anything else enterprise? Should we talk about enterprise?

Leo: Was there any enterprise news?

Mary Jo: Oh yes, there was a ton. Day 2 was enterprise day.

Paul: Well, I'll be right back.

Daniel: Azure came up and I opened my laptop.

Paul: Look at the time...

Leo: Oh this beer has gone right through me.

Paul: Usually I'm playing Call of Duty during this part.

Mary Jo: No, I'll tell you about one really cool thing that they talked about, which if you were there you'd know. They talked about the new Azure management portal at Build. Scott Guthrie was showing that at the conference and what's cool about that is it lets you integrate some new things that used to be separate. So billing is in there, analytic insights are in there, you can actually tune your servers. So if you're an Azure customer and say, something is looking bad. Like a server is going bad or you need to add some server capability, it's all in this one dashboard now. And that's actually a really big deal because before, things were all over the place. You had to bring in different services when you needed things, so that was a good thing. See, I did it in like 2 minutes, instead of 45 minutes.

Daniel: That's true, it was good. And I understood it.

Mary Jo: Yeah, and then the open source thing of .net, that was on the enterprise side too. That was really big.

Paul: That was interesting.

Mary Jo: Right? And I'm trying to think of anything else on day 2 that was really huge. They had the John Shewchuck and Steve Gugg's show. Guggs and Shew, and they demoed a ton of different things they were doing with developing apps. Things like working with partners, and hack-a-thon's and all kinds of stuff. So that was actually good too, because that means that they're reaching out to developers and not just the big name guys like Pinterest and Facebook, but actually going out to people who are in the real world and trying to help them.

Paul: Leo literally walked away when you started talking.

Mary Jo: Yeah, I know. I'm not taking it personally.

Paul: There's nothing there.

Daniel: Take guests from the audience...

Mary Jo: Yeah. Any Hadoop experts want to join us? Yeah, so that was cool to see too. Microsoft has gone back to saying, hey you line of business guys we need to bring you into the fold. Right? And it's not just the html and javascript guys, we want you .net developers to have tools so that you can more easily get your apps and modern and all of that was really good. I thought that was a good message.

Daniel: A roll of shows seemed like it went off without-

Mary Jo: It pretty much did.

Daniel: Yeah, everybody I talked to said-

Mary Jo: I mean, there were things that didn't work here and there.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. For the most part just the flow of it, the things they announced... Everybody I talked to at least, seemed really excited over the announcement.

Mary Jo: Yeah, and you know lots of coding. They love that. It's a developers show.

Daniel: I know. Right.

Leo: I actually love watching coding on screen.

Mary Jo: Do you?

Daniel: Do you?

Mary Jo: Nice. I love when they do jokes with like angle bracket jokes and everyone laughs but I'm just sitting there.

Paul: You can always tell you're at the wrong show when it's like a command line demo or a coding demo and people laugh.

Mary Jo: I know. Yeah.

Paul: It's like, really?

Daniel: There was this one during the developer sessions and the after making was a demographics app and they had demographics like in the code.

Leo: Ugh..

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: So from Twitter we're seeing what people are drinking, if you are here and you post what you're drinking, Sam Sabrey is having a delicious prohibition ale. Please feel free to go ahead-

Paul: Nicely framed, by the way.

Leo: Yeah, I like that. Good focus. Must be a Windows phone, huh? Yeah, that's definitely a good quality... 1020? 15. Will they do a 1520 with 8.1 soon?

Paul: Well everyone guesses 8.1.

Daniel: Yeah, AT&T is relaunching it. Kind of the green version.

Paul: Their new color, yeah.

Leo: Green?

Daniel: Yeah, lime green.

Mary Jo: I know.

Paul: Is Alex here?

Leo: No that's from previous episodes.

Paul: Screw him.

Leo: That's a scary one. This is something that the-

Paul: Oh geez! Yikes...

Leo: That's actually built into my phone.

Paul: Anime Alex.

Leo: That capability is actually built into my phone, there's actually a slider-

Paul: That is not okay.

Leo: There's a slider that makes it to where you can change the eye size.

Paul: It's like an X-Files episode.

Leo: It doesn't seem right that they should be able to do that. So I don't see any other beer Tweets. So go ahead and Tweet your beers and we'll share that.

Mary Jo: I will, I'll Tweet mine.

Leo: And Randy says, please Paul spit your beer out onto my Mac Book. It would be a tremendous improvement. Yikes.

Mary Jo: Oh my...

Paul: Yikes.

Mary Jo: Oh, a more open source Win JS.

Paul: Oh my God Mary Jo.

Mary Jo: Sorry... Come on, it was a developer show.

Leo: What is Win JS?

Mary Jo: The Java Script library for Windows. Open source. How about that?

Leo: Didn't they have another, like more than a library?

Mary Jo: Oh, Type Script.

Leo: Type Script, did they show any of that?

Mary Jo: They didn't talk a lot about Type Script but Anders was there. Anders Hejlsberg was around.

Paul: Type Script is just like the compiled version. Is that what-

Mary Jo: It's a super site of Java Script that Microsoft wrote, yeah.

Leo: So Jeff Needles shared this picture of his Knuck Box making noise. Thank you Jeff.

Paul: Okay...

Leo: He said, you've got to show this to Paul and Mary Jo.

Paul: Oh that's the Internet of Things.

Mary Jo: I've got one of those, show this to Leo. Where is this?

Leo: Yeah, I'm sure it's part of that.

Mary Jo: No, it's something else I think. It's a little ZD Net TV thing.

Leo: Oh that rubber cube.

Mary Jo: Yeah, do you remember that?

Leo: Yeah, we had a bunch of those. I don't think I have one though. No, but those are great.

Mary Jo: They're classics.

Leo: And there's quite a few of them that I have signed in the past.

Paul: So do you want to do a Q&A. We have got to talk to Allen though, so let's get Allen.

Leo: Daniel could you swap with Allen? I mean, you can come back.

Daniel: Yeah, we can do that.

Leo: Take your Thelonious with you.

Mary Jo: Applaud, I think we should applaud.

Leo: Daniel Rubino, he'll be back.. He'll be back. Introduce Allen for us. So who is Allen?

Paul: I'm not even going to try to pronounce your last name.

Leo: He's from Lithuania, we know that much.

Paul: Allen is from Ad Duplex and one of the things that they do is-

Leo: Mendelevich. Say it?

Allen: Mendelevich.

Leo: And you're from Lithuania.

Allen: Yeah.

Leo: And so what does Ad Duplex do?

Allen: We are basically like cross promotion for Windows phone and Windows Store apps. So what we do is, we help developers promote the apps for free. So if you're a developer of an app, you just place a line of code in to it start promoting other apps and they promote yours in return. This is all free, the only catch is that we take 20% of that exchange. So you show 100 ad impressions for other apps, we show 80 for you, take 20, and sell that to other places.

Leo: That's actually a clever idea.

Paul: One of the services they've been providing for me, among other people, is usage stats for Windows phone.

Leo: Because you know who's using it, yeah.

Paul: It's actually very interesting because you get to see the percentages of which phones are out in the world and so forth. And so actually, I would imagine that some of these phones that are being introduced, like the 930 the 635 and the 630, you have probably seen traces of because obviously...

Allen: Yeah, we've seen that but the sad news is there's nothing else.

Mary Jo: Oh wow, really?

Allen: Yeah.

Leo: And you typically would have by now if there was something in the next few months?

Allen: Yeah, most likely. Unless they are doing something specific.

Leo: Like blocking the ID or spoofing the ID.

Allen: Yeah but usually they don't do that and actually, they don't line in. I've asked Nokia and Microsoft-

Paul: I don't think they are, I actually think this is going to be a quiet period because obviously, they know that transaction has to occur.

Leo: Oh that's why.

Paul: Also, think about how you might launch phones, you know?

Leo: Well what an opportunity for HTC or Samsung to get the jump on Nokia and do a Windows 8.1 phone.

Allen: It's Samsung and Verizon in the US only.

Leo: Yeah, and is that going to be the high end?

Allen: Yeah.

Paul: And it's not the one that was just announce yesterday?

Allen: Which one was it?

Paul: Anyone know? Daniel? Daniel, please wake up. It was a new Verizon Samsung phone.

Daniel: Ative SE.

Paul: Ative SE, that's it.

Allen: Yes, that is it.

Leo: That's it, okay.

Paul: That's 8.0 isn't it?

Daniel: Yeah, it's 8.0. That's right.

Leo: See, 8.0... There's no point. You would be nuts to buy an 8.0 phone today, would you not?

Paul: No, no everyone gets it for free.

Leo: Oh because you're going to get it.

Paul: It's not immediately obsolete though.

Leo: Is there no reason why I'd want the hardware to match the new 8.1 operating system? There's no special stuff that I would get.

Paul: Well there's a possibility of virtual buttons right inside the hardware. So I think the 630- Danny- Either way, 630 I think has it, 930 does not.

Daniel: Yeah, right.

Leo: It'd be like going to the store saying, I want Jelly Bean.

Daniel: I don't think with SD and IMDT it's got all of the latest chips.

Paul: Yeah, it's 1080p quad core processor, you know. But it's nothing special to look at. And then you're saying there's nothing else?

Allen: No-

Paul: Alright see you later, thanks.

Allen: By the way, as for the developers and anyone else, you don't come to Build if you want to know the latest news. You stay at home and you'll know more, way more.

Leo: Did it feel like you missed stuff because you were here?

Allen: On the news side, obviously. But there was a lot of socializing.

Leo: You meet people.

Allen: Yes. You don't come for news.

Leo: Social, yeah.

Paul: That's fair.

Allen: Because when I watch Windows Weekly, most of the time I already know most of the things you are talking about but-

Paul: Alright, you need to get out of here.

Allen: But today I know nothing.

Leo: You see, isn't this a useful show?

Allen: Yeah, oh yeah.

Leo: So you should travel more.

Paul: I do have that feeling, in Build especially- I certainly don't get out of the house much, but I kind of  feel like I could have covered this show from home. Other than the fact that I got to go talk to Microsoft...

Leo: It's true about all trade shows, it's like going to a football game.

Paul: It's a weird moment, yeah. You could have a better experience like if you have a big enough TV and get all of the instant replay, you know, all that kind of stuff-

Leo: A much better experience.

Paul: Often times it should be a much better experience.

Leo: But you don't get the feeling of the crowd or the environment.

Mary Jo: And you don't get the access to the execs.

Leo: Right, and the access to the execs, for you guys, is very important.

Mary Jo: It's pretty key.

Leo: You said earlier that you talked to Frank-

Paul: Frank, Terry, Adam, and Joe.

Leo: Boom boom boom boom, right? So you could say, let me ask you Scott what do you think? And that's valuable.

Allen: Yeah, and for us you get access to developer teams.

Paul: Right, you get to talk to the engineers.

Allen: They actually provide feedback on the spot and they have to look you in the eyes and say yeah.

Leo: So that was good for you.

Allen: Yeah.

Paul: I think that's the best part about coming to a show like this for an actual developer.

Leo: I'm sure there was a time in Lithuania where you felt like you were kind of out in the sticks and that you were kind of distant from what was going on. Is that changing now because- I mean, seriously.

Allen: I can tell you that we still don't have Xbox 360 officially released in Lithuania. We have a lot of them but it's not officially released.

Leo: You're going to love Abe's Odd World, that is a great game. I'm telling you.

Allen: Yeah, from the other sides we actually have like second fastest internet in the world or whatever. On average, yeah. The time zone is a problem so I can rarely watch you live.

Paul: Right.

Mary Jo: But now you're here, so that's great.

Leo: We're working on that. We circulated a petition to end all time zones.

Mary Jo: Excellent.

Leo: I think that'll help.

Paul: Nice.

Leo: Now you just have to stop sleeping at night.

Allen: Not a problem.

Leo: You're a programmer. Leon Zandman is watching, he's drinking Palm. He's not here in the studio with us.

Paul: How dare he drink Palm. Leon's a good friend and he lives near Amsterdam.

Leo: Tobiah Marks is drinking that Angry Orchards Cider. That put Daniel on his tukkus.

Paul: Daniel is literally snoring over in the corner. He's so cute when he's asleep.

Leo: Gretchen is watching, he's not drinking. He's just watching, so thank you for the Tweets again. Especially if you're in the studio audience, we'd like to know what you're drinking today so whip out that Windows phone, take a picture, Tweet it @LeoLaporte and I will see it.

Allen: I've got one thing that you didn't mention that I think is kind of big. It's kind of small but it's kind of big. They are now placing in Windows 8, the store icon on the task bar, so from our stats, we see a lot of growth on Windows phone. So it's constantly growing, we've been doing this for 3 years and it's growing constantly. For Windows 8, it was like launch and then it's going slow. That's because people who use desktop, never see the apps and never see the store.

Paul: So it's funny because they tout that and my reaction to that is like whatever. To me that wasn't a big deal, but you're saying-

Mary Jo: Normal people may not know that.

Allen: There is hope that it will be a big deal, it will not necessarily be a big deal but.

Paul: Yeah, you're probably right actually. This is why people use the Internet Explorer, right? It's just there, so you show them this and they will click on it.

Leo: Well and as a user, I'm glad to see the little 'off' switch up there as well. I think that's a-

Mary Jo: The power button is back.

Leo: The power button is back.

Mary Jo: It's awesome.

Allen: I actually did an experiment at work with a new person. She was a new person and not a very technical person, and we watched her-

Leo: How do you turn this off? No way!

Paul: Yeah, hazing ritual.

Mary Jo: Paul and I were sitting next to each other in the key note and Paul was watching me use my laptop and he's like, what are you doing? He's like, your work flow... Wow.

Leo: Hey it works for me.

Mary Jo: That's what I said and he's like I'm going to help you later.

Paul: We're going to have a little symposium.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: I'm getting used to my new laptop.

Paul: What did you ask me to fix on your laptop?

Mary Jo: Don't say that. No.

Paul: Okay, it was funny.

Mary Jo: It was embarrassing.

Leo: So modern apps will have the title bar. That's not just merely windowing, there will be a title bar even if you're full screen?

Paul: Well there are only full screen still, but only when you have a mouse. So if you move the mouse to the top of the screen you'll get there.

Leo: Say, what they hell am I looking at?

Mary Jo: So see me here with my title bar, see how it says Tech Meme?

Leo: Yeah, that's Handy.

Mary Jo: Handy.

Paul: Now if you interact with touch you're not going to see that because that doesn't make sense for touch.

Mary Jo: Right.

Leo: Another thing we were talking about in our web design meetings is you can't assume hover works anymore.

Paul: Right, that's the biggest problem. Anyway I was talking last year about RT and the performance issues and so forth. I was looking for a car at the time and a lot of the problems on those car sites is they have a button on the menu that says 'cars' and what you're supposed to do is hover over it and then it jumps down and shows you a menu with pictures. And on touch, you know.

Leo: Well rest assured we've considered this on the new TWiT site and there will be no hovering.

Paul: Nice.

Leo: No hovering allowed. So anything else to say before we-

Paul: I just want to ask you one more question. So you obviously measure usage which shows you percentages of which devices are the most popular and so forth and that's interesting on one level, but the one question I get all the time is, but what does this mean for actual numbers? And I know you can't measure that but have you seen a material increase in the number of Windows phones that are surveyed I guess.

Allen: So basically, what the growth ratio is the number of apps we have has grown like 3 times over the year but the number of ad impressions that they show has grown 11 times. So it's obviously not hard signs but it's like 4 times growth of the ecosystem as a whole.

Paul: Wow, okay. That's great.

Leo: Let's see, somebody called the San Francisco bay. That's his Twitter name. Is drinking an IPA, which one is that? Looks good. Who is that, @sanfrancisco web. Are you actually the San Francisco bay?

Mary Jo: Nice.

Leo: Wow, nice to know.

Mary Jo: I forgot to Tweet you on mine but I took a picture.

Leo: There's an IPA, Lagunitas IPA that's being consumed currently by Mark Bair.

Paul: If anyone took a picture of me drinking an IPA I need you to destroy that photo immediately.

Mary Jo: Especially the face you were making.

Leo: Solomon Capastrana is at home and is having a New Castle Brown ale, a classic.

Mary Jo: That is.

Leo: An absolute classic. Morton is eating ice cream.

Paul: I was going to say it looks like he has a vomit bag. Jack I don't see your beer I just see us but I'm sure there's a beer in there. Here's Grant Skinner, what is he drinking? It looks like, I don't know what that is. But he's taken off his wrist watch so.

Paul: It looks like a ransom photo, like I have included a picture of the time so-

Leo: So you'll know this is today.

Paul: Right, I have your child.

Leo: Randy Weaver drinking a Stone IPA. Nice.

Mary Jo: Nice.

Paul: Who said nice?

Leo: I don't know if Magners counts as beer but he's drinking it, that's Mark Downer. Carlscrone Jeff Galley, must be in Denmark right now. That looks like a big ass can. It's like the 3 footer. Here's a guy that says, beer what beer? I'm drinking whiskey.

Paul: With an overly excited picture of Mary Jo Foley.

Leo: She's actually looking at the whiskey. That's Jack Frost that says, have some Apple Tennestate. In our studio I think, maybe not, this is Paragunar who is drinking Fuller's Past Masters Double Stout. This could be a new feature on Windows Weekly. Well we normally do it so early in the day.

Mary Jo: Oh, so what.

Leo: A little Shiner Boch fm 966, farmhouse ale I like that.

Paul: Oh boy.

Mary Jo: You'd like that.

Paul: There is way too many hoppy beers in here.

Leo: We're looking at Tony's Hop Hinge. What are you laughing at? Liz likes-

Liz: That's my favorite right now.

Mary Jo: Is it really?

Liz: Oh yeah.

Leo: Hop Hinge, really. You like the Deshoot stuff.

Liz: Deshoot is always good.

Leo: Oh that's Tony Wang. He's down the hall. There he is, he actually controls the camera. What are you drinking there? That's Anthony Neilson he's drinking the Trippel Bock. That looks good.

Mary Jo: That looks really nice.

Leo: Here's somebody who looks like they're having a Moscow Mule. Either that or he's in prison and that's his tin cup.

Paul: It's probably coffee.

Leo: She loves that, I don't know what it is but she's stroking it like a friend. Torothypargunnerson is drinking Jesus.

Paul: Body of Christ.

Leo: What is that, leosol.

Paul: The good news is all of his sins have been forgiven. Too soon?

Leo: That looks like a hard liquor there that Shabesh Mahotra is drinking. Sam Sabrey we already saw his. Okay I think we're repeating now. Becky Williams what are you having Becky? A couple of beers a Purple Haze, and a Shock Top. Lemon Shandy doesn't count, we don't allow lemon shandy's here. And here's a guy Marcus Blowrock who has his Nokia phone out and "ready for your call."

Paul: He's going to play Snake a little later.

Leo: Wow, I wonder if that's actually in service. Wow.

Mary Jo: Oh and we have another beer that's on chill-

Paul: Oh right, we have to go break that out.

Mary Jo: So we had a fan of Windows Weekly say he wanted to go to the Blogger Bash last night and he came from Denmark.

Paul: I just want to understand how this is possible. I know. Because you're not supposed to be able to fly with that much liquid.

Mary Jo: So he brought us like some rare Danish beer.

Leo: It could have been in his checked bags.

Mary Jo: And he brought it to us and hands it to me at Build yesterday and said, here.

Paul: Imagine if that exploded in his bag.

Mary Jo: I'm like okay, now what do I do with that.

Leo: Here's a South African beer, Vincent Looken.

Paul: I flew home with salsa one time from Phoenix and it exploded all over my clothes.

Mary Jo: Oh wow.

Leo: South African beer in a big bottle, looks like a fifth of beer.

Mary Jo: Oh yeah, does anybody in the audience want to help us drink this? It's from Tou his name was, in Denmark and he hands it off to me in the middle of Build. And I'm just walking around with a beer in my hand.

Paul: Mary Jo is the most famous alcoholic in tech.

Mary Jo: I am pretty much. So this one he said is really great. It's like a Christmas style beer so people who don't like hoppy might like this one.

Leo: Christian Lampson is drinking-

Paul: Would I want to start it?

Mary Jo: You might.

Paul: Let me get it started.

Mary Jo: Yeah, I think you should start with it.

Leo: It's warm.

Mary Jo: But be careful, it might be fizzy. Watch out for the cork.

Leo: Drink down that hoppy stuff.

Paul: Is there anything I could destroy if it went off.

Leo: Shoot it straight up. There have been more champagne bottles shot here. I'm going to have to say I'm going to regret- Oh and here's a guy in a true geek fashion. This is what's the big IT. He's drinking Mountain Dew Code Red. Yeah, the programmers in the audience are saying, no no that's behind glass. That's break classic case of bugs. Right there, you don't want to drink that stuff straight.

Mary Jo: Oh she's got the stuff. Delirium Tremens glasses, what?

Leo: Thank you for all the Tweets. What?

Mary Jo: You guys have your own glassware? We need to come here more often Paul.

Leo: Oh we take this stuff very serious.

Mary Jo: Oh look at this.

Leo: Sure a wine alcoholic would want a beer called Delirium Tremens, but.

Paul: Do you want some of this?

Leo: That's quite good. That's the danish beer, it is quite good.

Mary Jo: Yes.

Leo: Might have to adjust our thinking on Danish beer and Belgian beer.

Mary Jo: Did our Australian guys with the beer show up too? They had a six pack. You do, you have it? Okay bring it up. This guy brought a six pack of Australian beer for us.

Paul: Okay what I just heard was screw the Q&A.

Leo: Hello, we're just preparing.

Mary Jo: Thank you, that's so awesome. What's your name again?

Mark: Mark.

Mary Jo: Mark.

Leo: Thank you Mark.

Mary Jo: It's like the most famous one.

Paul: Thank you, and you can punch me in the stomach later.

Leo: Hoopers Brewery Original Pale Ale.

Mary Jo: I know, because we never have Australian beers as our beer pick of the week. Because we never can get them. So...

Paul: This is fantastic and you cannot have anymore of this.

Leo: I'm a bowgsies fan so I don't know if I can try this but we'll see. Look at all- I'm stunned by the number of beer pictures. Apparently this is a very popular thing to do. Here's Brooklyn Penant Ale I like that name.

Mary Jo: It's become a thing. Yeah that's a really good one.

Leo: That's from your neck of the woods there, that's Jeff Decker drinking that.

Mary Jo: Nice.

Leo:  James Clark, looks like Coke. I hate to tell you James, but I do like his setup. Is that a Windows phone and a Surface or is that an iPad? It's an iPad I think with a Windows phone below it.

Paul: I don't think so I think it's a-

Leo: He's Tweeting via his Windows phone.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: Yeah.

Mary Jo: And there was a guy also who brought Brazil...

Paul: Dunkin Donuts, perfectly acceptable.

Leo: James Clark.

Mary Jo: James Clark?

Leo: You know all these people.

Mary Jo: I know some.

Leo: Yeah that's nice. Alright, and here's a guy who is actually trying to feed you, he's trying to force you to eat 1492.

Mary Jo: That's hilarious.

Leo: Thank you Antonio F.

Paul: The expression on your face is exactly right for that.

Mary Jo: It is. Definitely. It's like nooo!

Leo: Giant!

Paul: It's like a Saw movie.

Mary Jo: It is.

Leo: Now kids, we're not encouraging heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Paul: Per se.

Leo: Per se. I certainly wouldn't say that this is a great thing to do but... I don't know, that looks like wine that comes in a box. But it does make you smile. And here's a Mongoose from Jason Stiff.

Paul: We have learned something slightly depressing about our audience today. And this is like the most interaction we've ever had.

Leo: It is. And here's some nice Belgian Jupiter from Akwasi Aguyabore. From Erik Duckman we've got the Keystone Walker 805.

Paul: There's some crazy looking beer in this thing.

Leo: There's a lot of different kinds.

Mary Jo: Yeah, I know.

Leo: Here's a Vermont beer from Megabits Cafe and it's Limbo IPA.

Mary Jo: I don't know, I think it's time for TWiB This Week in Beer.

Leo: This Week in Beer, clearly we're missing the boat.

Mary Jo: I'm just saying...

Paul: TWiB.

Mary Jo: TWiB.

Paul: This Friday night in Beer.

Leo: Alright, and Liz is volunteering for the job.

Mary Jo: Pick me!

Leo: I'll do it, I'll do it.

Paul: You should call it This Week in Growler.

Mary Jo: Oh yeah. We should tell them about you bringing me beer to New York. That was really funny. So Paul came down to New York recently on an Amtrak and he pulls out a suitcase. So I'm like what's in the suitcase and he opens it and it's beer.

Paul: It's a bunch of beer.

Mary Jo: He's like carrying it around New York, a suitcase full of beer. That was nice of you though.

Leo: Tell you what, why don't we take a break and we will do questions and answers. So we can get the microphone ready to throw out into the audience. We got a great group of people here, almost 60 strong. We're going to give you all a chance if you have questions personal or technical for Paul and Mary Jo. Our show today brought to you by our friends at Citrix. You know I am always recording and sending audio to radio stations and passing audio around. I found that there are lots of ways to do it but you've got to find a way that is easy for the end user and this is why I use ShareFile. If you are in business, you know by now that sending email attachments is the wrong thing to do. And yet, so many business emails have an attachment whether it's a contract, a spreadsheet, a presentation it's just the way we do it. But it's not safe, it's not secure, and you've got a problem with bounce backs if these files get too big and too big could be as little as 10 mb, you're going to have a bounce back. It's not going to get there, there's no guarantee it arrives. With ShareFile your attachments are not sent as attachments, it's a secure link. But it's easier than attachments because you have the ShareFile sync tool running. I have several ShareFile folders on my desktop that are automatically synchronized to the Cloud so I can use the ShareFile interface on my desktop. I can use it on my phone too, they've got apps for all of the platforms and then I could send the long files. I can control who has access, the level of permissions they have, I can confirm when files are received, I even get email alerts. It is HIPPA compliant, it is compliant with FCC regulations, in fact, the regulations in many different industries. That's why when you sign up for ShareFile, and I'm going to tell you how you can do this free for 30 days, you should tell it what industry you're in so that you get the right configuration. If you're watching the show and you want 30 days free to try ShareFile, and if you're not the decider at your business, tell your decider because I'm telling you, this is going to change everything about how you do business. Click the radio microphone where it says 'podcast listeners' at the top of the page, click that and use our offer code: WINDOWS. And then do select your industry so that they can customize it for your industry and fill you in on the regulations and so forth. Everything from accounting, advertising, engineering, event planning, financial, legal, non-profit, photography. I use it to share photos, you bet. Video and more, sharefile.com. Click the microphone at the top of the page and use the offer code: WINDOWS. 30 days free awaits. We thank Citrix and ShareFile for their support of Windows Weekly. Good Lord, there's a lot of beer on this table. If you're just tuning in-

Paul: According to Untapped, this is the first time I have drank this beer this month, and the first time ever.

Leo: He just checked in on the beer. Now that yellow scheme you're using for color, is that by your choice or is-

Paul: No that's just the app.

Leo: Oh okay it's just the app. That's a relief.

Daniel: It's a phone gap app.

Mary Jo: Yeah, it is.

Paul: That's right. It's like an Android app.

Leo: Does it work pretty well?

Paul: It works great.

Leo: Good for phone gap.

Paul: We'll take it, we're Windows phone users...

Daniel: We have no choice.

Leo: Our talented staff AKA John Selena has a microphone in his hand. Please, if you have a question for Paul, Mary Jo, or Daniel Rubino for Windows Phone Central, raise your hand and we'll send you the microphone. Say your name and who you work for or where you're from. Anything that would help us understand why you're here.

Jeffrey Harmon: I'm Jeffrey Harmon, I have my own software company doing Windows 8 and Windows phone apps, as well as some business software and during the day I also do database development and web development. So I'm wondering with the rapid release of new versions of Windows, how's that going to affect- I know small devices are now free but they're still charging for the large devices. How's that going to affect them charging for a newer version because you know, free software versions don't matter too much. But in paid software 8's you pay for, updates are free, and when 9 comes out you pay for it. If they're releasing everything in 6 month cadences, it's hard to charge for that big gap because there are no longer any big gaps.

Paul: I sort of talked with them vaguely about that kind of thing this week and they don't have a direct answer yet. I think this is still kind of up in the air, but they're obviously aware of that.

Daniel: Yeah, even with Windows phone. Right? Windows phone 9, they would have to- There's also a lot of legal complications going in there.

Paul: Right. Imagine is there going to be a point where they're going to charge for a Windows phone update? Which is kind of an interesting question. And then it's like, well does it require a dual core processor or a quad core processor? Maybe there will be some dividing line. So I can't answer that question.

Mary Jo: Yeah, I don't know... I don't think we know.

Paul: I think it's up in the air. But they're aware of it. If you asked Microsoft this question, which I actually kind of did, there's not going to be an answer like, oh yeah you know this is how we're doing it. I think they're looking at how Office 365 has been accepted by consumers. Obviously it's not a big leap to think about a subscription version of Windows where that replaces the you know, you pay for x versions or whatever.

Daniel: And Apple charges for their updates and people do it.

Leo: Yeah, that's true.

Mary Jo: They still pay. Maybe they'll go to the fake Windows 365 by the time Windows 9 even, maybe.

Paul: Right, that wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. And you know, you think about how Office 365 works. Kind of liberal licensing, which I think is really the future. The way Windows works now, you buy a copy of Windows and it's tied to that PC. That's so antiquated, you know.

Daniel: Yeah, Office 365 is really kind of awesome. I don't know, I really like the model they did for that.

Paul: Yeah, I do too. But I also run into people who say, I don't get it why would I want to pay for this thing every year?

Daniel: Because they don't have 5 devices.

Paul: Yeah and that's fair, that's absolutely fair. Leo, what are you doing?

Leo: Nothing.

Jeffrey: And one correction on Roslyn, even though its compiler as a service it's actually a local service. It's not anything cloud-based. It just means that a developer can actually call into the compiler and get information about the code. That's what they're referring to for that. Normally it's compiles a black box, you put code in, binary comes out.

Paul: Got ya'.

Mary Jo: Right, thanks.

Jeffrey: And actually the new version of C# is Roslyn there's no more-

Mary Jo: Right, the C# 6 is Roslyn.

Paul: Is Roslyn, and is open source right?

Jeffrey: Yeah, that is open source.

Paul: I'd love to see C# make the leap and become the cross platform language. It's so clean.

Leo: Pass the microphone around, yes sir?

Audience member: Just a quick comment, there actually were 2 sessions on Type Script.

Mary Jo: Oh there were?

Paul: There was?

Audience member: Anders gave an update on it and then right after that there was a session on developing a large scale application using app Type Script.

Paul: Did you go to the Anders Type Script session?

Audience member: I did not, but it's on the schedule.

Paul: I actually met Anders at the show for the first time. And Leo often references the Delphi Superbible and so I was able to tell him that I go back a long time with his stuff. You know, that I was a Turbo Pascal guy, Object Pascal, Delphi...

Leo: Was he at Borland?

Paul: Yeah he did all of this stuff. So it's kind of interesting if you follow the progression, C# is in many ways kind of the C-based successor to Object Pascal. You know, in some ways.

Audience Member: He's a very bright guy, and he is very well spoken.

Paul: Yeah, he's a genius and a really nice guy. So that was kind of neat.

Leo: Thank you sir, any other questions for Paul, Mary Jo, and Daniel? And say who you are and what brings you to Build.

Paul: And we know that Australia is the 3rd world country.

Leo: Don't be mad.

Mark: Okay, so would you believe my name is Mark as well, from Australia.

Paul: Oh you are from Australia, are you serious?

Mark: Yeah.

Daniel: Nailed it.

Mark: Mary Jo are those Cooper's beers there?

Mary Jo: Yes.

Mark: Good choice, good ones. I'm just curious with all of these changes lately at Microsoft, how much of that do you think is Satya's vision and how much is it the Board's vision is executing? And the second question is how long do you think AdLab will stick around?

Mary Jo: And the other part to your question is how much of it was Steve Ballmer? Right?

Daniel: Sure, yeah. Absolutely.

Mary Jo: I talked to Somasegar, who runs the developer division about the decision to do .NET as open source this week. And you know, I saw so many people Tweeting and saying, see that's Satya. It wasn't, it was Ballmer. And somebody told me it was Ballmer who came up with that plan and Satya was the one who pulled the trigger on it, but it was Ballmer.

Paul: You know, it's like when the new president gets elected and the economy suddenly does great and they take credit for it. But you know, the factors that contributed to that occurred previously. It's a little more nuance.

Mary Jo: Even Office on iPad, right? Like so many people said, Steve Ballmer would never have let that happen. He was the one who made it happen first before Windows.

Paul: The other thing to think of is, you asked what, the board versus Satya? Is that how you said it? The fact that Satya was essentially picked by that special part of the board team tells you that these guys are all in line. So there's almost no delineation between was it there idea, his idea that kind of thing. Because they're kind of on the same page across the board, we would have to imagine.

Mary Jo: Yeah, to some degree. I mean there's some descent in the board.

Paul: Of course, there will always be. But they're not going to pick the guy that completely disagrees with everything they want to do.

Mary Jo: Right, the guy that wants like to sell Bing, sell Xbox. Okay let's get him.

Paul: Tony Bates is gone for a reason. You know?

Leo: Thanks for the question, Mark. Moving on, anybody else have questions for Paul, Mary Jo, Daniel?

Paul: I can't believe he's from Australia that's hilarious.

Daniel: You have a gift.

George Roberts: Hi everyone, I'm George Roberts from Chicago Sir Twist on Twitter.

Leo: Hi George.

Mary Jo: Sir Twist.

Leo: Sir Twist. Are you a developer.

George: I am. Windows, Windows phone.

Paul: I'm so sorry. Go on.

George: I'm going to ask sort of an opinion question here, but Windows phone has been making a lot of gains everywhere else but the US. So what does Microsoft need to do to get Windows phone above 10% in the US?

Daniel: Well they need a hire me and then give me a lot of money. No, if I knew that answer I would- I mean I don't think anyone knows. It's the problem in the US is those 2 year contracts lock people in.

Paul: Isn't it interesting that in the United States, not necessarily uniquely in the world but one of the few countries in the world, where the iPhone has huge market share? You know, when you look at the overall worldwide picture it's 80%, 17 or 14% or whatever, and then the rest is Windows phone mostly. In the United States, iPhone is like 50%.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Audience member: The price of the iPhone in the US is the same as-

Paul: Is the same. Yeah, because-

Audience member: In Europe it costs like 2 times as much.

Paul: Right, so I think the moves in the United States to get rid of the subsidized smart phones, which is occurring right now and a lot of other things that are going on. You know T-Mobile, which is a very minority position in the United States is changing policies for international calling and international data-

Leo: And growing, as a result.

Paul: Of course, of course. And these are the types of things that trigger change, so we'll see. But the United States is hard because this market is so skewed toward Apple.

Daniel: Yep.

Paul: One of the best things about coming to San Francisco for Build is you walk around and everyone has a Windows phone.

Daniel: Yeah, and I've actually noticed over the last two years, that has dramatically change. I remember Build 2-3 years ago and Windows phones weren't seen as much. Now, I see it all over.

Leo: I've got to commend Microsoft for sticking with it because I think 8.1 is really starting to look like a very competitive platform in almost every respect. The only respect you could say it's lagging in is ecosystem. I won't even say apps, I'll say ecosystem. And of course, when you come into a market like the US where there's an entrenched ecosystem of iPhone and secondarily, Android, that is a speed bump. Maybe less of a speed bump in other countries where; a) Nokia is a better known brand and better beloved-

Daniel: That's an issue right there, too. Is Nokia doesn't really mean a whole lot in the US, which a lot of people don't understand.

Leo: Nokia was due but not anymore.

Daniel: Well even so, with Symbian. I never saw Symbian, I've never touched it. So Nokia doesn't have that reputation here, whereas like in other countries, just the name Nokia people will-

Leo: It means smartphone.

Daniel: Oh yeah. So there's that tide that they really really have to fight against.

Leo: And I would guess that you don't have people who have highly invested in Android or Apple ecosystems so there's less of a disincentive to move to a Windows phone. Maybe also, they're buying their first smartphone more than we would be, and as a result, they're less worried about whether FourSquare is on it or not.

Paul: Tell me if you remember this conversation because I don't remember what the context was but somebody said when you look at Windows phone usage in the United States, it's largely centered in the middle of the country.

Mary Jo: Oh really?

Paul: Because in those markets, are not necessarily super interested in the trendy you know, bright white iPhone thing. You can buy a $99 phone or $69 phone and get it off contract. It's kind of interesting and I sort of like that aspect to it in a way because I feel like that is a computing for the rest of us kind of thing.

Daniel: It's a hipster phone.

Mary Jo: It kind of is, which is weird, right?

Leo: I guess that peer pressure is influential in this. Or what looks cool. YamZamen in the chat room says in the Netherlands people actually buy it because it's Nokia.

Paul: Yeah.

Mary Jo: Because it's Nokia, right?

Daniel: Yeah, that's a big thing. That's why everybody was worried about the acquisition like, what's going to happen.

Paul: I was always fascinated by Nokia and when they picked up Windows phone I was really excited by that because it's got kind of an interesting quality to it because it's foreign and it's unknown. It's different, and Nokia just has not been a factor in the United States for a long time.

Leo: I think you watch. I think that there is a growing awareness, partly because of Nokia's ad campaigns, they've been very good, of Windows phone and I think Windows phone 8.1 is going to be a tipping point. That's my prediction.

Mary Jo: They've got to figure out the retail experience though, right?

Leo: It's gotten better.

Daniel: It's better but you could still talk to a Verizon employee and they'll be like, yeah but this doesn't have Instagram on it. So there's the reality and then there's the delay and they're still fighting that.

Leo: What major apps are going to be missing when 8.1 comes out? Not Instagram.

Daniel: We're still waiting on FlipBoard.

Leo: I don't think FlipBoard is that important. What about Sonos? That would be a deal breaker for me.

Paul: Throw out 3rd party apps...

Daniel: Yeah but there's a really good 3rd party app called Phonos and Sonos actually did a survey recently with their own customers asking, not only do you want this phone app, but what do you want in it?

Paul: Right. Ultimately, here's what I want in it: I want what's in the iPhone app. So stop asking and just make it.

Mary Jo: Well that's where Marc Whitten went to work is Sonos, right?

Leo: I truly think this is going to be a tipping point. I think that a year from now we're going to look back and say, boy that really was the water shed event.

Daniel: It's going to be Cortana.

Leo: And I say that as an outsider who uses Android. I was with the iPhone since 2007 and this is the first time I'm looking at it and going, you know? That's reached parody.

Paul: Did you say you were an iPhone user since 2007?

Leo: Yeah.

Paul: The year that the iPhone came out?

Daniel: With no apps...

Leo: Man I got in line to buy that iPhone, with no apps but no one else had apps either.

Paul: Honestly, if Nokia would just put Snake on Lumias I think that would be-

Daniel: Yeah, there you go.

Leo: Yeah. No, I like Android phones more now than I do iPhones in terms of pure functionality but I think the Windows phone has a real opportunity here. I was impressed. I was sitting there watching Joe's haircut and I really was impressed.

Paul: He is a pretty man. Anyway, do we have any other questions?

Leo: Over in the corner, yes sir? You, sir.

Sam Sebree: Hey there, Sam Sebree with Windows Phone Central. What do you guys want to see next from Microsoft? What's the future, like what do you want them to execute on?

Mary Jo: I want to see them do more transparency. Like, this week was a really welcome return to at least even a glimpse of transparency.

Paul: Actually I would say maybe more than a glimpse. In fact, I'm surprised we didn't bring that up as like a major theme of the show. For all of the specifics around free Windows and Windows 8 update 1, honestly that kind of stuff...

Mary Jo: I know. They actually did talk about futures again. It's been like 6 or 7 years since we've heard that.

Paul: That's something Satya Nadella could fix today with the stroke of a pen.

Mary Jo: I think that's him fixing it.

Leo: I think he may have fixed it already.

Mary Jo: Me too.

Paul: We were on the outs there for a while with the Sinofsky regime and I don't know if you've noticed, but they're all gone now. And it's almost like the people in charge now suddenly realized, we don't really have a lot of people following us anymore and a lot of people covering us.

Daniel: Nokia used to be like that too. Nokia used to be very quiet but starting a couple of years ago, their outreach to media and everything was phenomenal and I think Microsoft is either learning from that or taking the same page and doing the same techniques.

Paul: Right, smart.

Leo: Good question.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: In the back, yes sir? Did we give him a mic?

Mary Jo: This guy does.

Leo: Okay, I was talking about the guy in the red. After him, okay.

Jeremy Tilly: Jeremy Tilly, software developer and we're from Oregon. We came down to see the Build show.

Leo: Hi Jeremy. Home of the Deschutes Brewery.

Jeremy: Exactly. So, second day key note there was a lot of talk about Azure and every PM that I talked to in the conference wanted to know, are you using Azure in your development? Are you using Azure for this or that? Moving forward, how much of the business of Microsoft's do you think is going to be based on and rooted in Azure versus the past efforts they've made?

Mary Jo: A ton.

Daniel: Yeah. Azure has become key.

Mary Jo: Yeah, they've been moving more and more of their own software to Azure and their services. Like Office 365 is not hosted on Azure right now but it's going to be. They finally think Azure is ready for that kind of thing. All the new services that Microsoft bills, every single new service is on Azure. You know, Titan Fall...

Daniel: Titan Fall, yeah. That was their big like, test one.

Mary Jo: Yeah, I hesitated. I was like, what's the name of that game again?

Leo: How could you forget?

Paul: You guys getting bored? Here's Titan Fall.

Mary Jo: Right. And even parts of Halo also are on Azure now. So I think it's going to be everything from Microsoft from now on is Azure pretty much.

Leo: That makes sense.

Paul: I want to go on record saying I did write an article saying Azure was the future of Microsoft and that they should change the name. Windows didn't make sense.

Mary Jo: Now it's Microsoft Azure.

Paul: It's not just the iPad Leo, sometimes I get it right.

Mary Jo: Every once in a while.

Paul: Once every 7 years.

Audience member: So I have a question for Paul and Mary Jo. How do you guys deal with all of the new devices that are coming out and I know that Paul, we saw all of the devices you had in your house last week. Mary Jo, how do have all of those devices in your apartment in New York City and where do you store them?

Mary Jo: I do not. I'm not a reviewer per se, so I actually have a hard time getting devices. The only company right now that is consistently sending me devices is Nokia and that's pretty new. So to even get my Acer S7, I had to have Padre S J. here at the brick house do a divine intervention, so to speak-

Paul: A device intervention.

Mary Jo: And he got it for me and got Acer to send me a loaner. But I couldn't get any loaner devices, so my house is not full of boxes of devices. Just beer.

Paul: My house is literally made of boxes.

Daniel: Yeah, mine too.

Paul: It's actually one of those things-

Leo: Mine's made out of old computer parts.

Paul: Yeah. This is a first world problem however you want to say it, must be nice, kind of thing. But honestly it's kind of a terrible responsibility and sometimes it's hard to get them to take them back, you know. And I know it sounds like a weird problem, but I don't want these things around. It's kind of a problem.

Daniel: I haven't reached that point yet.

Paul: Yeah, if they want it back they can have it back. The problem on the other end is what do you do with these devices? I can't sell them, I didn't pay for them. And it gets weird sometimes. I know this is an unfamiliar thing for a lot of people but it's actually kind of awful and my wife is constantly on me because the, kind of, Stanford&Son quality of my office.

Leo: Are you going to do another Everything Must Go soon?

Paul: I can't sell a lot of this stuff.

Mary Jo: Can you give them to charity?

Paul: Yeah. I've done that in the past, in fact I've given many many of those original tablet PCs and laptops to churches and things like that.

Leo: I got a little tip. You build a giant studio, hire 25 people and then just give them your old electronics. That's really the whole point of this.

Paul: And I will hear from people who will say, Paul here's a simple solution... You can just give it to me.

Daniel: Last count, I'm up to over 50 smart phones.

Paul: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Mary Jo: What?

Paul: That drives my kids nuts because my kids want-

Daniel: I can't give them up. I bust out an old Trio or something and I'm just like, awww.

Paul: Alright, you have a serious problem.

Daniel: I know, I should be on hoarders or something.

Mary Jo: That's why you have to move, right?

Daniel: Yeah, that's right. That's how I clean house.

Paul: There is sort of a reviewer aspect to it, right. So if I just use like a mini tablet kind of thing and Dell releases a new version of a mini tablet in 2 months that is improved in some way, I can't just go off of my memory. I can't remember what I had for breakfast. So it helps to have devices around just to refer to them. Also Windows phone 8.1.

Leo: Also you feel better, it's like your friends are just-

Paul: No, I really want this stuff gone. I don't like having it around.

Leo: By the way, and thanks to the chat room for tipping me off, according to John Gruber, who is an Apple fanatic, iCloud runs an Azure.

Mary Jo: You know he was part of the key note, did you hear this?

Leo: What they mentioned John Gruber?

Mary Jo: They had a whole video of John Gruber and Vesper as an Azure customer at the key note.

Leo: Wow.

Mary Jo: I know, I was kind of shocked by that.

Paul: Just in case you thought Microsoft wasn't serious about the whole InterRob thing.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Leo: That's fantastic.

Mary Jo: It was, it was surprising.

Leo: More questions from the group here, who has the microphone? Yes sir?

Bill Bass: My name is Bill Bass and I work for Jefferson. One of the things I thought was interesting about the developer conference was Visual Studio online. Because as a developer, you're always constantly configuring your machines and such. But with Azure and that concept, now you can basically write your applications in a virtual environment on a machine with it all configured for you. What do you think about that Mary Jo and Paul?

Mary Jo: Yeah, I thought that was really interesting too. That's part of the Azure portal that they showed Visual Studio online is integrated right into that. And that's really cool and it shows you how big of a priority this is for them too, so yeah. I think that's going to be big for them. Paul?

Paul: What she said? No I do too. There was a time when I looked at Visual Studio online and I thought, this is the way they get around the whole RT thing. You know this how you get people on other platforms to develop for Microsoft some mobile devices and that's probably still sort of true. But obviously it's in a very nascent kind of state.

Audience member: ...Developers to have instant access to all their tools.

Paul: Yeah, I guess it's just another expression of something that's happening everywhere at Microsoft where it's just kind of going to the cloud. So I think every group at Microsoft was tasked with, okay you make something but how do we turn it into a service. You know? I mean, there's pseudo-services you can do. Like Windows is delivered as sort of a service but it's really just software that you install on your computer. It's so they can service it later like a service, but it' still software that sits on your computer. So obviously, at some point you want to get the stuff to be pure cloud services where it makes sense and you can do that. Office may work that way in the future. You can almost imagine a version of Office Online where it has offline support and works for a browser and that would just work. I guess it depends on the software you know? So Visual Studio is absolutely something. Rather than port Visual Studio to Mac or whatever, or port it even to Win RT, it works in the cloud.

Mary Jo: I wonder if they'll do that though. Visual Studio on Mac.

Paul: Yeah, they might.

Mary Jo: It'd be pretty crazy.

Paul: By the way, the day they do that I quit. But they might.

Leo: Here's Russell Solovi he's drinking a Stigmeier on our chat list. We're just going to go through our chat list or Twitter list.

Paul: What is that crazy keyboard he has?

Leo: I don't know, it looks like a Starship Enterprise there. It's got a clock on it and all sorts of things. "Hi Leo, I'm not an alcoholic," that's actually been Twitted to by Windows phone 8.1 so Cortana is responding to us.

Paul: That's actually really funny.

Leo: Is that an official account?

Daniel: No.

Leo: That's good. Net Tom, he says I'm having a Yellin in bell grade.

Paul: Nice.

Leo: Howard's drinking a German Vice beer, we've got some more Lagunitas Undercover. Love that.

Paul: I was going to say, that's here, right?

Leo: That's Allen. Oh, hi Allen.

Paul: The Lagunitas is local isn't it?

Leo: Yeah. From Montreal, your favorite.

Paul: Finally someone with some class.

Leo: Miss Iall Natrewshua is drinking Fan Du Mond. Art is drinking Diet Coke. Art, you don't count. Here's a Monkey McGeorge having a Pacifico. I think sock puppets should not be allowed to drink. I know it's a controversial stand. There's a picture of the picture of someone trying to make Mary Jo drink their beer. Boon Doggle, from Michael Gerrard in the UK, is a deliciously fruity draft blonde ale.

Paul: A deliciously fruity...

Leo: I don't know.

Daniel: Yeah, it's a little too fruity.

Leo: Dan Lewis is drinking Berlin Bocher in France.

Paul: Berlin Bocher?

Leo: Yeah, pretty nice.

Paul: Not 1684 or whatever it is. What's the big beer in France?

Mary Jo: I don't know.

Leo: Songark just wanted a plug for their 900,000+ Songark downloads. You got it.

Daniel: It's a good app.

Leo: Is it, I don't know it. But that's great.

Daniel: It's a game, a music game.

Leo: I don't know what this beer is. Oh Sierra Nevada pale ale from Ian. Awesome now I have no idea how to get out of that. It will never work, it will never go anywhere. Question from the audience, yes sir? State your name.

Mark: The other Australian Mark. I have a question on the fact that Windows is giving developers the ability to develop for Windows phone, Xbox, and Windows all in one area is great. But I'm wondering if you've heard of, or if maybe anyone in the audience has heard the actual modern usage in Windows 8? They have modern apps, but how many people are actually using them and what's the usage stats like because anyone who installs the start menu is pretty much trapped in Windows, in the desktop mode. And you know, most people are using the desktop. So how many people are actually using modern apps at the moment. That will tout the fact that there is a massive user base in Windows 8 but how many people are actually using these modern apps?

Paul: I think it's telling that Windows 8.1 and future updates are based around bringing back desktop features.

Mary Jo: Yeah.

Paul: But they're never going to say how many, right? They're never going to give us a hard number but I think you could just look at what they're doing and draw your own conclusions, which are that most people that run Windows do run the Windows desktop.

Mark: Apps to the desktop-

Paul: Right that's a way to get the usage up. Like Allen was saying earlier, putting the Store icon on the task bar is another to get people who use the desktop to think about that stuff. I  think letting them run in Windows is going to help a ton. Because there are people who say things like, bring back the Zune software. Why can't the Zune software be improved, you know? Allowing Xbox music to run on the desktop would help.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: We could take some questions from the chat box, bemoaning the fact that-

Paul: Listen to the chat room? I don't think so Leo.

Leo: Jeff Galley is having a Bugle Bay full flavored Bitter. I'm guessing he's either in the UK or Australia. Bugle Bay sounds like it's Australian, is that Australian?

Mary Jo: I don't know.

Leo: Here's a Water Mill. May the force beer with you, says Dave.

Paul: That's awesome.

Daniel: Nice.

Leo: Water Mill Dogth Vader. Wow.

Paul: Dogth Vader...

Leo: Dogth Vader.

Paul: Take a drink on the Dark Side.

Daniel: I'm that guy in that store and I'll see that and I instantly buy.

Leo: The label sells it right?

Paul: The cap should be like a little Vader helmet.

Mary Jo: Yeah, really.

Leo: Yeah.

Daniel: I saw one the other day it was Heart of Darkness.

Paul: Anyone who Tweets light beer is going to be blocked.

Daniel: Yeah.

Leo: Actually Ryan's watching live for the first time and he's drinking a fairly nice Erdinger Dunkel.

Paul: They settled nicely into this whole theme of things

Leo: He's figured out how life works. And Markus Horster from Braunschweig, Germany is drinking a fabulous Wolters Pilsener.

Paul: Look at that, that's awesome.

Leo: Yeah. Questions from the chat room CBG 60 wants to know 12 million downloads of Office for the iPad? Can that be true?

Mary Jo: I know. It was true.

Paul: Well of course it's true.

Mary Jo: I think it's every app, right? It wasn't the suites.

Paul: Yeah, is it 4 million in each app yeah. It's still millions, still millions.

Leo: Millions is good.

Mary Jo: It is good.

Leo: DB says, Daniel what about no WP left behind? Why does T-Mobile deny updates on older phones?

Daniel: That's a Lumia 810 I was referring to before. A device that, to be honest was, it's good hardware but it's not very  pretty and I don't think it sold very well. And so T-Mobile made the decision- I mean this is the carrier thing, right? Carriers ultimately have to, not only approve updates, but they test them and testing costs money. So then they'll make a decision on whether or not it's actually worth it, based on how many people actually bought the phone. In this case, unfortunately they made the decision that the 810 won't get future updates. Microsoft did do a solid by giving them app developer things so you can actually get 8.1 on the 810 regardless, but you won't get the firmware stuff. So that's the solution. Now I can guarantee you Nokia wants to do the 810 update, Microsoft wants the 810 update. It's the carrier and-

Paul: The 810 is just a 820 822 variant, right? It's the same platform.

Daniel: Yeah, it's a custom device that was made for T-Mobile and so yeah. It's one of the very few examples actually. I think it's really the only example you can point to devices worldwide where the carrier has basically said, we're not going to give any future support for it and unfortunately, that's the carrier's right. They bought that phone and bought the service for it. So you know, unfortunately that's the way it goes.

Leo: Mary Jo and Paul do you think Microsoft is just waiting for E3 to open up the Windows 8 app store on the Xbox One?

Mary Jo: No, that's too soon.

Paul: I actually do think that's something that is rather out.

Mary Jo: Yeah, that's like Windows 9 plus-

Leo: Really? That long?

Paul: Yeah, threshold.

Mary Jo: Yep. Threshold.

Leo: Why?

Paul: Because that's where it sits. The platform bits are part of the threshold.

Leo: Actually Eric is asking about Microsoft Security Essentials, this is kind of off topic but, as we know April 8th will be the end of the line for Windows XP and Microsoft said, we're not going to update Essentials but we'll  update the definitions. But his says his version of MS is saying no.

Paul: They said they were extending it through next year.

Mary Jo: They did, yeah.

Paul: So I would take that to be the time.

Leo: There are 3rd party antiviruses that will go on and on and on. It's an opportunity for them. Anybody in the live audience with a question? Yes sir?

Audience member: I just do not know... Michael Glutchstein Market Trace Inside live in Marine and work. Just want to acknowledge our great chat users and-

Leo: Are you in chat, sir?

Michael: I'm not currently.

Leo: You've got to visit.

Michael: I want to give a voice to the chat members. They asked the question many times today: what are the chances of Cryospec 4 for XP?

Paul: Yeah. What are the chances of an asteroid hitting the earth?

Leo: It's less than that.

Mary Jo: Way less than that.

Michael: And if not, what is the-

Paul: Wait, how about a supported OS?

Michael: Security situation with Windows operating system?

Paul: What are the chances of Windows 7 Service pack 2?

Mary Jo: Zero.

Paul: Right, so there's no way they're doing a service- I understand why you're asking that because the roll up situation is insane. There's probably 1100 updates you have to install to XP Service Pack 3 now. And I agree just rolling them up into a single install would be a huge convenience, I don't know why they don't do that. I think the problem is, it's kind of a slippery slope-

Leo: What is this she's showing?

Paul: It's like an XP ad. This is the Madonna song, that was the ad at the time. Windows 95 had start me up.

Leo: It would let you fly?

Mary Jo: Wow, nice.

Daniel: Yeah, I remember flying.

Leo: Windows XP let's you fly?

Paul: It's a Madonna song, right?

Leo: Let's hear it. There's somebody talking in the background.

Paul: That's not actually a Madonna song.

Daniel: Yeah, it was. That was when she was going through her techno dance phase. Not that I follow Madonna...

Mary Jo: Right, you're telling on yourself.

Daniel: I grew up in the '80s what do you want?

Leo: I really wonder why they're making people fly because that seems like over promising and under delivering.

Paul: Leo, this OS has been in business for 15 years almost. You kidding me?

Daniel: XP was good.

Mary Jo: Yeah, too good for its own good.

Paul: Anyway, to actually answer your question I don't think we're ever going to see that.

Mary Jo: No.

Leo: Never.

Paul: Because that indicates that they're supporting it and they want to screw you over.

Leo: Anymore questions from the live audience? Anybody else? This guy right here, really wants to ask a question and we keep ignoring him. With the red stripe. Raise your hand sir, yeah that guy next. Go ahead sir.

Ed Boyan: My name is Ed Boyan, I also spend most of my day in the Windows 8 desktop and I'm gradually moving to the modern side occasionally but one of the things that would make it more useful is if desktop apps could interact with the modern side and there was a panel session that I went to with the desktop people. One of the depressing things is they all seem to be over the age of 55 but one of the things they talked about is the possibility of having a snap-view between a modern app and a desktop app. And the other thing that was talked about is the possibility of desktop apps being able to participate in contracts with modern apps.

Paul: Absolutely, so this is something we've talked about in the pod casts a lot.

Ed: And do it without the desktop app having to write any new code.

Paul: Well, let's not get carried away.

Mary Jo: You mean that broker component thing that they talked about?

Ed: The contract where you bring in-

Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But why can't Win32 be extended with support for Metro style API's.

Ed: What they were talking about was wrappers for Win32 that would be optional. Because some of these wrappers, particularly for the Windows scaling thing which is another thing they were talking about, there's some things they could do with wrapping GDI that would make the scale better. But it would also break a lot of desktop applications so by making these wrappers that are optional- The thing that was interesting to me is that they were so responsive to this and that they were just considering these kinds of things.

Paul: So, we don't know anything about Microsoft's plans for that. We completely agree that should happen. I would just say that it's possible that 3rd party tools might-

Mary Jo: Some developers might be making something.

Daniel: I heard a developer doing this idea of snapping metro apps. It was actually coded within like an hour.

Mary Jo: It was.

Audience member: I don't think installers want to spend a lot of money on that stuff.

Paul: You know what though, they have gone back and said, we get it. People care about the desktop, there are 1.5 million people and 95% of them really care about the desktop. I have always thought, and still think that they need to address that issue and they should add support for the various contracts, support for SNAP, support for Windows desktop apps to go into a full screen mode that literally takes over the screen and gets rid of the Chrome.

Audience member: We need to scale better when you go to multiple screens.

Paul: That stuff is hard. Developers would have to explicitly support- I don't think that can be done automatically- Well it probably could, but it would create a messiness because a lot of those apps are bit maps that won't scale well.

Audience member: I talked to the program manager in charge of that and he said there is actually a scale and pipe line in the PI and it's complicated but they're looking at being able to do something about it.

Leo: I want to start to wrap this up because we have another show in about 20 minutes and we've been here for a long time. You guys have been very- I guess, give them beer and they'll stay forever.

Daniel: Powered by beer.

Paul: Leo, you are not going to be able to get rid of us.

Leo: We'll keep talking even if the cameras are off. Yes sir, sorry. You go ahead with your question.

Zalick: Yes, one question for Paul and one for Mary Jo Foley got to be fair. My name is Zalick.

Leo: And what brings you to Build?

Zalick: Actually I'm local to Coopertino. No big deal, drove 2 hours. So Office on Demand with One Drive without installing either software, it works great. I've been using it, any thoughts on Windows On Demand like that? That's the question for Paul.

Paul: I thought you were going to ask what happened to Access and the other apps because the way it works now is, if the application is available in Office online, it's available. But because they changed the whole Office online website, a lot of the other Office apps got kind of lost in the transition so I wouldn't have an answer for that. But Windows online, what would you be hitting it from? Like you have a Chromebook or something and you want to run-

Zalick: That's what application-

Paul: Screw those guys.

Leo: Isn't there something like that? Amazon offers something like that.

Paul: And Azure will soon. So it's absolutely possible.

Leo: Right now on Amazon you can have a Windows install, I think it's like $35/month. You can have Office installed on it and can run it from anything online.

Paul: But yeah, Azure hasn't announced it but-

Leo: Isn't it funny that Amazon did it first? Seems like....

Paul: Well they're kind of heterogeneous but I expect to see that on the enterprise side first. Because it's sort of a natural extension of EDI and the consumers picture is a little fuzzier. I'm not sure if there would be a lot of demand, especially for people who would want to pay for it. I guess I could see iPad users especially or any tablet users who had the occasional need to run a Windows something for work or whatever.

Leo: It's called Amazon Work Space. It lets you run Windows on a Kindle Fire.

Mary Jo: Right, so Microsoft is building desktop as a service. We know they're building it.

Paul: Well by the way, there isn't anything in Azure that hasn't happened in Amazon. As good as Azure is, let's be honest, Amazon got there first every single time.

Mary Jo: Yeah we don't know when that's coming, it's code name Maharo. Maybe this year or next year but they're in the midst of building it right now.

Zalick: Okay, just a quick question for MJF here. So Office 365 small business, all the Office functions works great but Lync to replace Gotomeeting is an absolute horrible experience for me.

Mary Jo: Is it? Just in that version?

Zalick: Yeah, Lync 2013 it works horribly. It doesn't have like dial-in functions or anything.

Leo: I got to point out, it is a Microsoft product.

Paul: I think part of that is tied to the fact that in the current version, Lync online doesn't have some of the PBX replacement type stuff that you can see in the arm version of Lync and so that's changing. Over the next year or so, you're going to see that product evolve on the cloud side and like all other Microsoft products, evolve first on the cloud side. And so I think the big missing piece with Lync has been full PBX replacement from the cloud version. Which is available on prim. So I think that's probably why.

Leo: Well I think unless someone has a burning question-

Paul: He has a burning question.

Leo: Right here.

Audience member: So going back into the pricing announcement they made for Windows, obviously the goal for dropping it down to 0 is going to increase the adoption for small form tablets and computers. What do you think the reaction is going to be knowing, from well over half of all Android manufacturers, Microsoft actually gets money on those. But Windows will actually be free without them asking for patent money.

Paul: So it's cheaper. What's cheaper than free?

Audience member: Do you think that's going to have any additional effect?

Paul: Yeah, I do. I think that the a lot of the white box companies that make small devices are like little parasites and they need to save money wherever possible. I mean, earlier we talked about the whole Windows phone thing. Drop the price of Windows phone licensing and it's like vuala. All of a sudden half the planet signs on. There's a company no one has ever even heard of in the US. They announce these companies and the show is like what is this company? That's what happens, and so we'll see how it goes but I think this gives Microsoft a leg up on Android and that's what they needed.

Mary Jo: The patent question is interesting in that though too. Right? Like how much do they still pay for patents?

Paul: I don't think they pay anything.

Mary Jo: You think?

Paul: Yes, of course. There's no separate licensing fee. You're licensing Windows.

Leo: I really want to thank all of you in the live studio audience. You guys are great, I know we gave you beer and food but you really did a great job. Nice to have you here. I also want to thank Mary Jo Foley, I'm so glad you came out for Build and come back anytime. It's really so great to do this show live with you.

Daniel: But she was one of the ones latest to leave last night.

Mary Jo: You guys were later than me.

Leo: We're all hungover.

Paul: All I'm saying is I saw Brad this morning and he did not look good.

Daniel: Yeah, that was a late night.

Leo: So the Build Blogger Bash was a success.

Mary Jo: It was a roaring success. I got hugged 6 times by Brad Sams. He kept forgetting he hugged me.

Paul: Sure he did Mary Jo.

Leo: Let's do that again. I like that. You're going to do that again- The Build Blogger Bash.

Mary Jo: Yeah, I think it's going to be an every year thing now. Microsoft even sponsored too.

Leo: That's great. And Build will be in San Francisco next year so we will be here next year. We'll do this exact same thing. Paul Thurrott it's so great to have you. My old friend, you're looking better every day.

Paul: Sadly, you Leo... It's interesting that you're still around.

Leo: And Daniel Rubino from WP Central, you were a great fill-in for Paul while he was out and I'm glad to have you back.

Daniel: It's my pleasure. It's great to be here with everybody we have some very good times.

Leo: It's a lot of fun. Normally, Windows Weekly is on Wednesdays 11am Pacific 2pm Eastern time, that 1800 UTC and we will be back on our regular schedule next week. Normally it's also not 3 hours long. But it was a lot of fun and we certainly had plenty to talk about. So thanks to all of you for being here and thanks to you at home. We'll see you next time, bye everybody.

Audience member: More beer!

Leo: More beer!