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Look out, Apple (AAPL)! Microsoft (MSFT) is right on your tail and gaining fast. Supercharged by its AI chops, Microsoft's market value is now $2.8 trillion — just 5.7% shy of Apple's at $2.98 trillion. That means Microsoft's share price only needs to hit 400.53 — it's already at 377.80 — to dethrone Apple as the most valuable S&P 500 company. Given Apple's reliance on now-ubiquitous smartphones, it's only a matter of time when it bows out to faster-growing Microsoft, analysts say. "As markets and investors start to wrap up the year, Microsoft seems destined to be the most valuable...

Thursday was another rough day for the semiconductor space as most of the biggest US-traded chipmakers traded in the red as the global chip shortage overshadowed what ended up being a solid earnings report from TSMC (which also affirmed plans to expand its production capacity in the US and Japan). But even bigger news concerning the troubled semis space broke Thursday evening when WSJ reported that Intel has agreed to the biggest acquisition in its half-a-century existence. According to the American business broadsheet of record, Intel has agreed to buy chip fabricator GlobalFoundaries for $30 billion. Most importantly, the deal...

After marrying his wife, Bill Gates would spend a long weekend every year at a cozy beach cottage in North Carolina — with his old girlfriend. The billionaire Microsoft founder made sure the bizarre arrangement was part of the deal when he married Melinda French in 1994, he told Time magazine in a 1997 profile. “We can play putt-putt while discussing biotechnology,” Gates said of his private getaways with fellow nerd techie and ex Ann Winblad — Winblad — who is now happily married to actor Kevin Kline’s detective brother, Alex Kline, a source told The Post on Tuesday. Gates...

Microsoft has revealed its forthcoming Azure Stack won't run on the hardware of customers' choosing, an about-face on its earlier position that the hybrid cloud product would be vendor-agnostic. The company's senior director of cloud platform marketing Mark Jewett today said Azure Stack would only be initially available with hardware from Microsoft partners Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Dell and Lenovo. Jewett said Microsoft would "prioritise" Azure Stack delivery via "turnkey integrated systems" in the initial general availability release. "We’ve been working with systems vendors on integrated systems for a while now and see this as the best approach to bring Azure innovation...

Microsoft officials said late on June 27 that the new update experience -- with clearer "upgrade now, schedule a time, or decline the free offer" -- will start rolling out this week. Microsoft will also revert to making clicking on the Red X at the corner of the Windows 10 update box dismiss the update, rather than initiate it, as it has done for the past several weeks. Microsoft officials said they are making the change "in response to customer feedback". Update: Here's the full, updated statement from Microsoft about the coming change, attributable to Executive Vice President of Windows...

Bill Gates said investment gains should be taxed at the same level as ordinary income — a bold call for one of the world's largest investors. Speaking Monday on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Gates said that he's "pleased" that there is more discussion around changing the tax code. When asked what he would alter, Gates sided with his pal Warren Buffett and said he supports raising the earned income tax credit. But Gates also said he would raise the tax rate for capital gains — the largest source of income for the richest Americans. The current top tax rate on capital...

I am NOT as tech savvy as many of you so here goes. My WIN 10 operating system has not updated in over four days. I get this when checking my system for errors: Rebuild Windows Update Database & restart update services Data Store and WU Logfiles.zip File Name: Data Store and WU Log files.zip Access to path C:\\Windows\software distribution is denied I haven't done anything recently such as download new programs, etc. Thanks for your help and it is much appreciated.

Just checked my windows update and noticed WIN 10 attempted to download and failed three times. It is not July 29th...yet. Anybody else notice this on their system? I am running WIN 8.1 and everything is compatible for the upgrade.

Well, that is part one of our Ubuntu 10.04 LTS vs. Windows 7 testing. As much as we would have liked to see Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx handily beat Windows 7, this was not the case, but to some extent the opposite. Windows 7 in some of the tests possessed definitive leads over Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with the OpenGL performance when using the proprietary ATI/AMD and NVIDIA graphics drivers, which have largely shared code-bases between Windows and Linux. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS also had its leads in some areas while in many of the tests the differences between the two operating systems...

I am curious to know if Windows 7 is going to be one of those automatic downloads that us Vista Home Premium users are going to see in the near future?

CARLSBAD, Calif. (AP) - Microsoft Corp. said its next operating system will be made for touch- screen applications, an alternative to the computer mouse, and its top executives reaffirmed interest in joining forces with Yahoo Inc. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer on Tuesday unveiled the iPhone-like touch-screen feature at The Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference, calling it "just the smallest snippet" of the Windows 7 operating system slated for release in late 2009. A Microsoft employee showed possible applications like enlarging and shrinking photos and navigating a map of San Diego by stroking the screen. Microsoft...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Did Microsoft(MSFT - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) start dating before or after it jilted Yahoo!(YHOO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) on Saturday? The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Redmond, Wash. software giant has contacted Facebook to gauge the social-networking site's willingness to be acquired. But discussions are not active, according to the report, begging the question of when the overture was made. Microsoft has already invested $240 million in the site, founded by Mark Zuckerberg, for a 1.6% stake, giving Facebook an estimated $15 billion valuation. In spite of that tie-up, the Wall Street Journal's...

Ha! No Windows 7 in 2009 Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:25AM EST Sorry folks, but the news seemed a little too good to be true and the celebrations were a bit premature: Windows 7, Microsoft's follow-up to the overwhelmingly hated Windows Vista, probably won't arrive in 2009 as was previously rumored. Says Microsoft: Windows 7 has not even begun development, and when it does, it will take three years to finish. The Inquirer is pegging a real release date at 2011... at the earliest. (Which is especially sad, since 2010 was the formerly rumored release date.) Of course, that would...

A protester calling for free computer software and open source programming crashed a speech Friday by Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates at one of China's top universities Gates, who is very popular on Chinese campuses, had just finished a speech at Beijing University and was handing out prizes to students when a man walked on stage and unveiled a banner with "free software, open source" written on it. Gates and most of the group appeared shocked at the intrusion, which ended when the man ran off the stage and was tackled by security officials. No one was hurt. Gates is...

Excerpt - NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Friday after Microsoft Corp. tempered revenue expectations for the Vista computer operating system. ~ snip ~ Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Balmer said late on Thursday analysts' revenue forecasts for Vista were "overly aggressive." Shares of Microsoft were the top-weighted decliner on the Dow, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100. "Microsoft can't catch a break. We're at 20 million shares in volume already - that's not your grandmother trading," said Cummins Catherwood, managing director at Rutherford, Brown & Catherwood in Philadelphia. "Those hedge funds can't deal with disappointment. They can't afford...

Two U.S. software firms are asking the European Commission to take action against Microsoft's new Vista operating system, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Adobe Systems has told EU regulators that Microsoft should be banned from incorporating free competing software for reading and creating electronic documents with Vista, the paper said, quoting people familiar with the situation. Antivirus software maker Symantec will send officials to Brussels, Belgium, next week to brief journalists about features of Vista that it says will undercut rival makers of computer security software, the paper said. Symantec confirmed on Thursday that two executives would travel...

I am always puzzled when I hear people say things like, "Mid-cap energy stocks look attractive," or "Investors should avoid REITs right now." Perhaps it is the case that every mid-cap energy stock is undervalued, and every REIT is overvalued, but that is an extremely unlikely scenario. Instead of making sweeping statements, I am much more interested finding undervalued stocks, regardless of whether the company is classified as health care, industrial, large cap, or small cap. However, in my search for stocks for the Morningstar GrowthInvestor newsletter, I have noticed an interesting pattern: Many high-quality technology stocks are selling at...

CNBC announcing - After July 2008, Bill Gates shall leave his daily role at Microsoft, but will remain as company chairman.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. has won backing from major cellular networks for a new generation of phones designed to transform mobile e-mail from executive accessory to standard issue for the corporate rank-and-file. The partnerships, with operators including Vodafone and Cingular, to be announced Monday at a mobile industry gathering in Spain, could spell more trouble for the embattled Blackberry and other niche e-mail technologies, analysts say. Unlike the Blackberry and its peers, phones running Microsoft's latest Windows Mobile operating system can receive e-mails "pushed" directly from servers that handle a company's messaging -- without the need for a...

Clinton in Redmond..Is Ballmer Stepping Aside There are some rumors circulating that Steve Ballmer is about to step aside at Microsoft as its day to day operations head to make room for another president. Ken and I reported on this on KenRadio's World Technology Roundup earlier today. Bill Clinton. Here's what I know. Sources near Microsoft headquarters report that over the past few months the ex cigar smoking prexy has made trips to Microsoft headquarters and has been interviewing for the top slot as the company looks at ways to transform themselves for the future. Given the global implications...