After the last few years of watching certain parts of the company march forward, with a "we know best" attitude, the new Microsoft is bending to the will of the masses.

This new "responding to community feedback," or "principled but not stubborn" or whatever new Microsoft motto you want to insert here isnt' the same old "we listen to our customers" rhetoric. This is Microsoft reacting in record time (for the company) to negative feedback and public perception and actually taking "corrective" action.

I use quotes around "corrective," because I know a number of my readers are vehemently opposed to these recent course changes, though the majority of potential customers seemingly are not. I notice on Twitter, especially, that those who hated to see Microsoft add back a Start Button to Windows 8.1 are largely the same group who are furious that Microsoft is removing the used game and Internet connectivity requirements that it rolled out a few weeks ago as part of its Xbox One launch. (On June 19, Microsoft officials went public with plans to undo the DRM and used game policies which got a number of gamers riled.)

The thinking among some Microsoft fans seems to be this: Microsoft is innovating with things like its new Windows 8 UI and its "always on" console requirements. The company should continue to forge ahead, and not listen to critics, this group argues.

That kind of logic worked in the days when Microsoft was one of the rulers of the tech roost with its Windows monopoly fueling the growth for the rest of the company. But Microsoft in 1993 or even 2003 was a very different company from Microsoft today. Windows is now the third largest (out of five) business in the company. Microsoft has still been largely unable to grow its three percent phone marketshare and tiny tablet share against some much larger competitors. The company is dependent on the success of its newer businesses, like Xbox, to stay competitive.

At the same time, Microsoft needs to continue to curry favor with its sizeable installed base. Microsoft wants to keep Windows users in the fold. That's why there's going to be a Start Button in Windows 8.1. New users might not want or need it, but others do. Some users really cared about the new cloud-enabled gaming and game-sharing technologies promised for Xbox One. But more than a few of Microsoft's loyal Xbox users were vocal about their disdain for the "phone-home" DRM and seemingly anti-used-game policies that the new console also required. Next week at Build, Microsoft execs have said they plan to try to undo some of the perceptive damage done in recent years to relationships with Microsoft's .Net community with the company's developer platform and tools.

Call these things 180s. Call them U-turns. It doesn't really matter. The real story is Microsoft is actually listening and responding. And that's a positive for current and potential new Microsoft customers, in my book.

On June 19, the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft was in "advanced" talks to buy Nokia. But, according to The Journal, the talks have broken down and are unlikely to be resumed. The Journal's report follows by a day another report that Huawei might be considering buying Nokia.

I am not a Nokia hater. As one of the three percent who own a Windows Phone (by choice, not obligation), I am glad there's a handset maker out there championing the Windows Phone platform. I haven't loved the Nokia phones I've seen to date -- and that's why I currently sport an HTC 8X. (The weight/bulkiness of the Nokia Lumia line, coupled with Nokia's AT&T-first policies have put me off, as I am a Verizon user.)

All that said, I am not surprised Microsoft may have dropped the idea of buying Nokia. Yes, I understand Microsoft is working to transform itself into a devices and services company. And so far, it doesn't have a whole lot of devices in its portfolio beyond its Surfaces, Perceptive Pixel displays and the Xbox.

But just as in the case of Yahoo, there's a lot of parts of Nokia that Microsoft may not really have wanted or needed. In Yahoo's case, there was lots of product overlap and job function redundancy.

In Nokia's case, while I'm sure Microsoft would be happy to grab some more camera patents, the Redmondians already have in place sweeping cross-licensing agreements with Nokia. Did Microsoft really want to pick up the Asha line of phones that are designed not to run the Windows Phone OS? Did Microsoft want all the trappings -- not to mention staff -- of a phone design and manufacturing operation?

Nokia already is, for most intents and purposes, Microsoft's Windows Phone. Did Microsoft need to shell out billions to cement that relationship? Seemingly not. Does this mean Microsoft is now even more likely to market its own (possibly Surface-branded) phone? Perhaps....

Those aren't the only Windows Server apps that run on Azure's recently added persistent VMs. Here's a list from a recent Microsoft TechNet blog post (which mirrors the official Knowledge Base article) as to other specific versions of Microsoft's own server apps that are supported by Microsoft (a k a "Microsoft-validated") as Azure-hosted options:

Microsoft BizTalk Server
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2013 and later is supported. 

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager
Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 R2 SP1 and later is supported.

Microsoft Project Server
Microsoft Project Server 2013 and later is supported.

Microsoft SharePoint Server
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and later is supported on Windows Azure Virtual Machines. 

Microsoft SQL Server
64-bit versions of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and later are supported. 

Microsoft System Center
System Center 2012 SP1 and later is supported for the following applications:

• App Controller
• Operations Manager
• Orchestrator
• Server Application Virtualization
• Service Manager

Microsoft Team Foundation Server
Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2012 and later is supported.

The blog post also noted some caveats to note regarding specific versions of Windows Server roles and services which are certified by Microsoft as supported and not supported on Windows Azure. Specifically:

Windows Server Roles
Windows Server 2008 R2 and later versions are supported for the following roles. This list will be updated as new roles are confirmed:

• Active Directory Domain Services
• Active Directory Federation Services
• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
• Application Server
• DNS Server
• File Services
• Network Policy and Access Services
• Print and Document Services
• Web Server (IIS)
• Windows Server Update Services

The following roles are not supported on Windows Azure Virtual Machines:

• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Server
• Hyper-V
• Remote Access (Direct Access)
• Windows Deployment Services 

The following Windows Server features are not supported by Microsoft on Azure VMs:

• BitLocker Drive Encryption (on the OS disk – may be used on data disks)
• Internet Storage Name Server
• Multipath I/O
• Network Load Balancing
• Peer Name Resolution Protocol
• SNMP Services
• Storage Manager for SANs
• Windows Internet Name Service
• Wireless LAN Service
• Windows Server Failover Clustering, except for SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups.

It's worth noting this is a list of the Microsoft-supported Microsoft apps and services that run on a VM in Azure. Microsoft also is developing and has developed versions of some of these same apps and services that don't need to run in a VM. Examples: BizTalk Services. 

Microsoft announced in April this year that its Linux and Windows Server virtual machines (VMs) on Windows Azure were generally available and ready for deployment. These are the persistent VMs that Microsoft publicly unveiled last June, and which provide users with a way to run existing Linux and Windows Server apps in the Azure cloud without having to completely rewrite them.

Microsoft announced last year that these persistent VMs will allow users to run Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, OpenSUSE 12.1, CentOS 6.2, Ubuntu 12.04 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 and apps built on these Windows Server and Linux variants on Windows Azure.

TypeScript .9 is available for download from the TypeScript site. The latest update, which Microsoft officials described as the biggest TypeScript preview update to date, includes a bunch of new features in the language, compiler and associated tools.

The biggest new feature is the addition of generics, which allow developers to take advantage of better static error reporting and improved tooling "in many cases without any additional type annotations," officials said. The TypeScript compiler also has been re-engineered so it works better with large projects (in excess of 100,000 lines of code) in an interactive environment.

TypeScript, a Microsoft-developed superset of JavaScript, is available under an Apache 2.0 open-source license. Microsoft launched the first preview build of TypeScript in October 2012.

TypeScript was developed by a team of about 50. Among the core team members are Microsoft Technical Fellow Anders Hejlsberg, the father of C# and TurboPascal; Microsoft Technical Fellow Steve Lucco; and Program Manager Luke Hoban, who has worked, in the past, on the JavaScript language and development experience. A new Channel 9 video featuring these three execs talking about what the team has learned since fielding the first preview of TypeScript is embedded below.

I asked Microsoft when we should expect the first "non-preview"/gold version of TypeScript. No word back so far, but I'd assume it will be in the coming few months, given the preview cadence.

Update: Microsoft officials are saying TypeScript 1.0 will ship "later this year."

Microsoft's FUSE (Future Social Experiences) Labs is adding new capabilities to Socl, its experimental social-networking site, including a tool for creating animated GIFs.

Socl, which launched in 2011, gets four new "creation experiences" as of today, June 18.

One of the four involves Blink, an app that debuted for Windows Phone 8 in February of this year. Blink was an app for capturing a burst of images. The updated version of Blink will be able to transform those images into a flipbook of images.

The Blink Cliplets technology -- a mash-up of the Microsoft Research Blink and Cliplets technologies -- will allow users to create animated GIFs for sharing on Socl and other social networks. (Cliplets was/is a tool for blurring borders between video and photography.) Blink Cliplets can be created on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices, but viewed by users with any kind of computing platform/device.

The other new creation tools launching today for Socl include a meme generator called Picotale; an updated version of Socl's collage-creation tool, which allows users to blend their own content with Web content; and a curated video-party tool.

Socl combined ideas the FUSE Labs teams have pioneered in some of their other experimental projects, like Montage (a photo collage app) and Kodu (game programming). Microsoft built Socl using TypeScript, its superset of JavaScript. Socl builds on top of some of the core Bing programming interfaces to power its search and filtering capabilities. Socl is meant to be a complement to other social networks, not a replacement, Microsoft officials have said.

Here's a new YouTube video showing off the new creation tools for Socl.

After a couple of delays, Microsoft is making available two of its four ERP products available hosted on its Windows Azure public cloud.

Dynamics NAV 2013 and Dynamics GP 2013 are available hosted on Windows Azure as of June 18. Both will be sold via Microsoft certified partners, not by Microsoft itself, as the company indicated would be the case.

Both Dynamics NAV 2013 and Dynamics GP 2013 are hosted on Windows Server virtual machines on Windows Azure. End users can access the cloud-hosted versions via the Web or desktop clients, either from the office or on the go using mobile devices.

"Over the past several months we’ve been working closely with our first 'go-live' customers and partners, as well as with the Windows Azure team, to develop guidance and tooling to ensure a great experience deploying on Azure. That work is now complete," said company officials in a Microsoft Dynamics Community blog post today.

Microsoft officials said in December 2012 to expect the first of its ERP offerings to be available hosted on Windows Azure by mid-2013. Microsoft originally planned to make its ERP wares available in the cloud last year, but ended up delaying availability in order to improve its "hostability."

Microsoft plans to make its other ERP wares -- Dynamics AX and Dynamics SL -- available on Windows Azure at some point in the future, officials have said.

The "Microsoft Surface for education limited-time offer" will be available between June 17 and August 31, 2013, according to a brochure detailing the program. Under the program, Surface RTs without keyboards will go for $199 (normal estimated retail price is $499). With a touch keyboard, the discounted price is $249 (estimated retail price is $599), and with a type keyboard the discounted price is $289 (estimated retail price is $629).

The offer is available direct from Microsoft to K12 and higher education institutions. It is available to schools in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China (via Digital China), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.

There is no minimum order requirement. Microsoft is recommending that schools get their orders in early as it is a "while supplies last" kind of deal.

There's a brochure which includes an order form, which interested schools are instructed to send to  SurfaceEDU@microsoft.com. "You will get an email back confirming the order and details on fulfillment," explained Microsoft's Ryan Lowdermilk, co-host of the "Windows Developer Show," in a blog post about the new program.

I've asked Microsoft officials if the deal will be extended to cover Surface Pros, as well. No word back so far.

Microsoft has been making its Surface RT and Surface Pro devices available for substantial discounts to attendees of some of its recent conferences. Microsoft also announced a Surface RT give-away at a major educational conference for 10,000 teachers, as GeekWire reported recently.

Microsoft company officials have not said how many Surfaces they made or how many they've sold to date, but a number of company watchers believe Microsoft ordered too many Surface RTs, based on the demand level for the ARM-based versions of its devices.

Update: It looks like Microsoft has pulled the information on the Surface RT discount program. I am betting it went out just a bit early. Here's what I captured before the details were erased:

Update No. 2: It turns out the information is, indeed, valid. But the deal won't be live until June 24, a spokesperson said. (Note: update on the start date added below.)

The official statement: "Yes, it’s true. It’s important Microsoft does its part to help get devices into the hands of educators that help prepare today’s students with skills modern businesses demand. We will be discussing this more in greater detail on June 24, both from the ISTE showroom floor and on our Education Newsroom. Please join us then!"

Update No. 3 (June 18): In spite of the June 24 date in the spokesperson's statement, the deal actually did go live on June 17, the same spokesperson told me on June 18.  It's not clear why the original post and brochure for ordering by schools was removed. But one of my readers did save the order form (which he said he was sent by Microsoft recently). Here it is. 

The one ironic exception -- given that Microsoft owns Skype -- is Windows Phone, where users can receive and view Video messages but not send them.

Supported platforms for the generally-available Skype video messaging release include Windows Desktop, Windows 8, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry, officials said in a blog post today. Microsoft rolled out  test/beta builds for most of these platforms in February 2013.

When asked about the status of Skype video messaging on Windows Phone, a spokesperson said: "Windows Phone users can already receive and view Video Messages. We will inform you if we add send capability at a later date."

Microsoft officials provided no information as to what would be the determinant as to whether or not send would be added.

Video Messages, which can be used for online and offline messaging, lets Skype users send up to three minutes of video to each other. Video messages can be received and viewed on any platform or device running Skype.

With the final release, users can send and receive as many video messages as they want for free. That wasn't the case with the preview, which only provided free viewing of video messages for six months, but unlimited viewing for those who purchased Skype Premium.

A list of frequently asked questions and answers about Skype video messaging is here.

In other Windows Phone news, Microsoft officials said they have made improvements to voice recognition in its mobile phone platform, improving accuracy and speed.

Company execs have said to expect information of interest to developers across most every major product family: Windows, Windows Azure, Office 365, Windows Phone, Xbox and Visual Studio during the conference. But, with the launch of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 public previews on day one, June 26, this year's Build will focus primarily around the next version of Windows, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Windows Azure, my sources have indicated.

Microsoft officials still aren't sharing information about who will keynote Build on Days 1 and 2, what kind of content will be featured in sessions, or how many attendees are expected for the three-day confab. (This year, Build will be in San Francisco, the first time Microsoft has held a major developer conference there since 1997.)

But company officials were willing to set the stage for Build via a phone conversation late last week.

Microsoft is reaching out to two main audiences this year at Build, said Steve Guggenheimer, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's Developer and Platform Evangelism Group: The existing Win32, line-of-business/commercial developer community and the startup community. "We need a good conversation with that community," said Guggenheimer about the existing .Net developer base, many of whom have felt disenfranchised by Microsoft's recent developer push toward HTML/JavaScript.

"We haven't done a good job telling the .Net developers we haven't forgotten them," Guggenheimer acknowledged. "We need to tell them that."

Guggenheimer, unsurprisingly, wouldn't talk specifics about what new products and technologies Microsoft plans to announce at the show. When I asked whether Microsoft would be providing attendees with code or at least information about some kind of Xbox One and/or Windows Phone Blue software development kits (SDKs), Guggenheimer declined to comment. He did say Microsoft's message will be a furthering of what officials started detailing last year regarding the benefits of an increased amount of shared/common code across the guts of its key products.

"We will not be making a sharp turn. We will show how strong the bridges are" between Microsoft's various product families, Guggenheimer said. "We want to show people what's possible, going cross-platform."

Reading the Build tea leaves

That's all Microsoft officials are saying right now about Build 2013. But there are a few additional hints and tips worth passing on.

We do know that a first public preview of Visual Studio Blue, a.k.a. Visual Studio 2013, should be available in conjunction with Build. One would assume the next VS release would have more features to simplify and improve the development of Windows Store/Metro-Style apps, since that's what Microsoft wants and needs developers to build.

I'm curious whether the Bing AppEx team — the group that built some of the nicer apps for Windows 8, including Weather, Travel, Sports and new cooking/recipe and fitness apps — will field an SDK, too. According to a recent Microsoft job description, the AppEx team is building a framework for the development of Windows Phone apps.

On the Windows 8.1 front, there seems to be little left to announce about the OS update itself, given all the leaked builds over the past few months, coupled with Microsoft's own disclosures about many of the coming features. Over the weekend, the Windows team turned on the new Windows Store experience, so those with existing leaked builds can see the new look and feel of the Store plus some of the updated Microsoft apps that are part of 8.1.

The Windows Phone team, which is dependent on the Windows core, is still working on delivering smaller, incremental updates to the Windows Phone 8 operating system. A "GDR3" build is expected to arrive this fall around the time that Windows 8.1 is made available. Windows Phone Blue is expected about six months after Windows 8.1 is released to manufacturing, making disclosures (at least public ones) about the SDK for that release largely unlikely at the Build show.

Microsoft is known to be working to deliver even more common code across its phone, PC/tablet and entertainment console product lines. But that doesn't mean developers should expect a "write once, run on any version of Windows" experience to arrive in full in 2013. Unifying the app stores across these product lines also doesn't appear to be a 2013 thing, either, from what I'm hearing.

On the Xbox One front, Microsoft officials have said the company's new console operating system is actually three OSes in one. The "gaming" OS (residing in the "exclusive partition") is going to be where Microsoft-sanctioned third-party games will live. But Microsoft is expected to continue to gate which games will integrate with Xbox Live via a certification process, which means a "public" SDK for Xbox One doesn't seem like a 2013 deliverable. If Microsoft creates an app store for indepedent developers for Xbox One, that store won't be open for business in 2013, from what I've heard.

I'd think third-party SDKs, like MonoGame, Xamarin and PhoneGap, could get some play at Build, given Microsoft's planned cross-platform messaging. Windows Azure Web Sites, the hosting framework for Web applications and sites created using various languages and stacks (including a number of open-source, non-Microsoft-developed ones), may come out of preview soon as well and be a hot topic at the show.

Developers: What else are you expecting and hoping Microsoft talks up and delivers at Build next week?

Microsoft's channel-clearing on Surfaces continues: The Redmondians seem to be trying to move as many of their current-generation Surface RTs and Pros as possible. As GeekWire noted this week, Microsoft is offering to give away free Surface RTs to 10,000 teachers attending the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference later this month. Meanwhile, around the same time in Madrid at its TechEd Europe conference, Microsoft is going to offer a steep discount on the price of Surface RT and Pro, similar to the one it recently offered TechEd North America attendees. At TechEd Europe, attendees can buy one each of a Surface RT 64GB standalone (with FREE touch cover) for €79.99 for EU customers and 69.99 GBP for UK customers, and Surface Pro 128GB standalone for €349.99 for EU customers and 299.99 for UK customers. Is Microsoft emptying its Surface cupboards ahead of an introduction of new (hopefully Haswell-based) Surfii? Still no word from the company on that.

What about Microsoft Build attendees? Will they get Surface discounts, too? I've had more than a few readers ask whether Microsoft also plans to offer attendees of its Build conference in late June a similar Surface RT/Pro discount deal. The Softies aren't sharing about what kind of swag paying Build attendees will get. One of my contacts said he's heard attendees will get a free Surface Pro plus a free Acer Iconia W3 8-inch tablet. I wonder whether a Nokia Lumia of some kind might not be part of the grab bag, too — along with various software development kits and other software/service goodies.

Andy Lees goes on leave: Microsoft veteran Andy Lees, who most recently served as Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Development, is going on sabbatical and back to the U.K. Supposedly, Lees isn't permanently leaving the company and will take on a new role, which Microsoft will announce later this year. Replacing Lees on the Corporate Development front will be Marc Brown, while Charlie Songhurst will remain head of Strategy. Lees is leaving his current role as of July 1, the start of Microsoft's new fiscal year. Lees seemingly played a role in Microsoft's partnership/investment deal with Barnes & Noble after he left his position heading Windows Phone in late 2011. Is Lees' departure prelude to the rumored cross-company reorg? We might find out soon...

New Office 365 password sync tool: I mentioned this briefly on Windows Weekly this week, but if you've been having trouble syncing your Active Directory and Office 365 passwords, this tool might be for you. As of June 3, 2013, password sync is included as part of Office 365 mid-size and enterprise subscription plans. Officially known as the Office 365 Directory Synchronization tool (or "Dirsync" for short), the tool allows organizations to sync users' Active Directory passwords with their Office 365 passwords. Before this, the only option for doing this was to implement single sign-on with Active Directory Federation Services or by purchasing a third-party password sync tool, according to Microsoft execs.

The roll-out begins starting June 14 in the U.S., with additional availability in 135 additional markets and 29 languages to follow next week. The Office Mobile for iPhone suite is available in the Apple app store.

See Gallery

A hands-on look at Microsoft Office for the iPhone

• Read more

The Office Mobile for iPhone suite is very much like the Office Mobile suite that Microsoft preloads on Windows Phone, meaning it is optimized for the editing, viewing and creation of Word and Excel documents. (Microsoft has offered OneNote for the iPhone since 2011.) While the new Office Mobile for iPhone suite can be used at 2X resolution on iPads, it is not optimized for that platform, Microsoft officials said.

"This is very much optimized for small screens," said Chris Schneider, Marketing Manager with Microsoft's Office Division. He said Microsoft's guidance for users who want Microsoft Office on the iPad remains that they should use Office Web Apps — the versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that Microsoft has optimized for use in a variety of Web browsers.

Check out Ed Bott's hands-on gallery of the new Office for iPhone suite

Current and future Office 365 subscribers will be able to get Office Mobile for iPhone for use on up to five iPhones for free. These five devices won't count against the five-device usage rights that Office 365 subscribers currently have with Office 365 plans that include Office client access. In other words, if you are an Office 365 subscriber, you can use Office 2013 or Office for Mac 2011 on a combination of five PCs and Macs plus Office for iPhone on five iPhones. (Office Mobile on Windows Phone doesn't count against Office 365 subscription limits.)

There was a Microsoft roadmap floating around earlier this year that indicated Microsoft did not plan to offer Office on iOS until the second half of 2014. The roadmap didn't specify whether that meant Office on iPad or iPhone.

I am not sure if today's announcement indicates acceleration of Microsoft's plans on that front (or if the roadmap I saw was outdated). I still believe Microsoft's Office team is also going to deliver some kind of Office for iPad product that most likely will also be tied to an Office 365 subscription. But no one from Microsoft is saying publicly that this is the plan. 

Office Mobile for iPhone works on iPhone 4, 4s or 5 and iPod Touch Fifth Generation. Devices must be running iOS 6.1 or higher.

The Office 365 subscription plans which include Office Mobile support include Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 Small Business Premium, Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E4, Office 365 Education A3 and A4, Office 365 ProPlus, and Office 365 University. There are also some government plans that offer Office Mobile for iPhone, according to Microsoft. Note that the University plans are limited to two iPhones per user, not five like the others.

Office 365 trial subscriptions also will activate Office Mobile.

On July 11, the company is holding a five-hour event for press, analysts and other invited guests, according to the invitation mailed out today, June 13.

The invitation doesn't include any product details beyond a mention of "Zoom. Reinvented." Many Microsoft watchers are figuring that this event could be the launch of the Nokia Lumia EOS phone, which is expected to include a 41-megapixel PureView camera technology.

The EOS phone is expected to come preloaded with the Windows Phone 8 GDR2 operating system& with Lumia-specific updates, codenamed "Amber."

Given the July 11 event is five hours long, I wonder if Nokia also will use the day as a launch pad for the T-Mobile version of the Lumia 925 — its newer, lighter/less bulky aluminum-body phone which went on sale this week in the UK.

In other related news, Nokia may be ceasing shipments of its Symbian phones this summer, according to The Financial Times.

The store-within-a-store will be in 500 Best Buy locations across the United States and in more than 100 Best Buy and Future Shop locations in Canada. The new stores will be opening between late June through early September 2013. A couple of test stores are launching today, Microsoft officials said.

Microsoft and Best Buy are jointly investing in the new stores, though they are not disclosing the amount that each plans to spend. 

The new Windows stores will range in size from 1,500 square feet to 2,200 square feet. They will showcase Windows-based tablets and PCs, Windows Phones, Microsoft Office, Xbox, and more, according to Microsoft. They will include a standalone table featuring Microsoft Surfaces, a dedicated table for Windows notebook PCs and a center table with Best Buy staff picks of all kinds of Microsoft- and OEM tablets, PCs and all-in-ones, Microsoft execs said.

Best Buy has agreed to make its entire computing department in participating stores into Windows Stores. There still will be dedicated Apple, Samsung and Google stores in various Best Buys, but they will be located off to the side in the 600 participating stores, Microsoft officials said.

"You can fit 10 Apple stores or five Samsung concept stores in the space we're going to have for the Windows Stores," said Chris Capossela, Chief Marketing Officer of Microsoft. 

Microsoft and Best Buy also are committing to add more than 1,200 Best Buy-employed, Microsoft-trained sales associates in addition to the ones already working in Best Buy. There are currently only 100 Microsoft-trained specialists across all of Best Buy's U.S. and Canadian stores.

Capossela said Best Buy also is commiting to stock Microsoft products in other areas in its stores that make sense. For example, the Best Buy phone department will include some Windows Phones in its slots.  The home theater centers are likely to include Xboxes.

Microsoft and Best Buy plan to take "elements" of what the pair are doing to improve the Windows buying experience into the other 800 Best Buys in the U.S. and Canada which will not get dedicated stores, Capossela said. The pair also will be mirroring the Windows store experience online on the Bestbuy.com/WindowsStore site.

Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer of Windows, Tami Reller, said earlier this year that Microsoft believed it could improve the sales experience for Windows-based PCs and tablets by not only growing its own family of Microsoft Stores, but also by working with existing retailers like Best Buy.

Capossela didn't have anything to say about when or whether the company may strike similar store-within-a-store deals with other retailers. They also didn't have more information on when Microsoft may expand this program beyond the U.S. and Canada. He said the new Windows store initiative didn't mean Microsoft had any plans to curtail further rollouts of its own dedicated stores, of which there are currently 68 in the U.S. and Canada.

"Best Buy is still the No. 1 PC retailer on the planet," Capossela said. 

Update (June 14): A couple of related questions answered (at least in part).

Where are the first test stores opening this week? Rochester, Minn.; Fort Worth, Texas; and Louisville, Texas, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed.

Will Best Buy be offering more/any "Signature" PCs (those that are crapware-free)? Microsoft officials said this will be up to Best Buy.

One of my readers asked Best Buy and received this response: "We have developed deep partnerships for BBY exclusive product that strive to deliver better configured and performing products to customers that are specifically tailored from our OEMs to our customers only at BBY." I am reading that as possibly less crapware may be on the Windows PCs and tablets in the new Windows Stores, but it's doubtful we'll see crapware-free devices.

Windows Embedded Compact 2013 is the successor to Windows Embedded CE. It is targeted at small-footprint devices used by retail, manufacturing, healthcare and other vertical industries.

Late last year, Microsoft officials said to expect the final release of Windows Embedded Compact 2013 in the second quarter of 2013.

The 2013 release supports both X86 and ARM, and adds support for Visual Studio 2012. The latest Compact Embedded operating system also includes general memory management and networking improvements, file-system performance improvements, optimized startup with snapshot boot, built-in support for Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth technologies, and a "seamless connection" to Windows Azure, according to Microsoft officials.

Windows Embedded Compact 2013 is one of several different embedded operating system offerings Microsoft sells, each of which is aimed at a specific set of devices and developers.

To get the generally available release, users need to register here to obtain the toolkit and product activation key.

Called "Windows Everywhere," the spot shows off how devices and services, including Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Skype, Office 365, Surface, Bing, Internet Explorer and Xbox Music & Video "give consumers one experience across devices for everything in their lives," a spokesperson said. 

The ad is set to air tonight during Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals, the spokesperson said.

The ad is meant to reflect Microsoft's evolving devices and services corporate positioning. The ad will be "the first time people will see Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and Surface in one ad," a spokesperson said. "With this spot, the company is moving away from how it traditionally talks about individual products to showcase how its services light up across the multiple devices that people use," the spokesperson added.

The tag line for the ad is "Windows: One experience. On every device. For everything in your life."

The timing of the new ad campaign may or may not be coincidental.

According to various reports, Microsoft is rumored to be finalizing details of a company-wide reorg that would better reflect the way that products and services are being developed, tested, sold and updated.

According to a couple of my tipsters, the reorg, which could come any time now, might result in the product groups being realigned so that they reflect Microsoft's devices and services (or possibly devices, services and software) charter. The Windows and Windows Phone teams might end up as part of the new devices team, if Microsoft opts to to this route, sources have said.

I've heard that Microsoft could possibly appoint two leaders for each of its new business segments, so that "services" would have a head focused more on business needs and another focused more on consumer needs. If that happens, there'd be a new kind of "matrix" organization in place, with devices, services (and possibly software) being headed by multiple leaders.

Whether Microsoft will continue to appoint dedicated Chief Financial Officers for each of its new business divisions will be interesting. The company has put a CFO in charge of each of its current five business units -- Windows Client, Server & Tools, Business Division, Online Services and Entertainment & Devices -- since 2003.

I haven't heard word about what such a reorg might mean for how Microsoft's salesforce is organizes and operates.

Microsoft's new fiscal year begins on July 1.

I don't have any inside information as to how/why this collaboration came to pass, but it does seem Apple is intent on finding ways to reduce its dependence on Google, even if it requires teaming with another "enemy." Did comparative quality of search results have any bearing on the decision at all? Again, I have no idea, but I'm doubtful.

Just because I tend to believe politics trumps the "best" solution doesn't mean I am down on the quality of Bing's search results these days. As I've noted before on this blog, I've been using Bing with good success on my PCs, tablets and laptops in the past several months; on my phone, I haven't been as happy with the quality of my local Bing search results.

Microsoft officials are confident they can match, if not surpass, other search engines in terms of the amorphous concept of "search quality." In March 2012, Microsoft launched a "Bing Search Quality Insights" series of blog posts to explain what the company has been doing to improve overall search quality in Bing.

The latest installment in that series, today's June 12 post on experimentation and continuous improvement, focuses on techniques that the research team in Bing is using to improve the quality of search results. The post highlights a technique called "optimized interleaving," which combines result lists and tracking clicks to improve the relative quality of search results. The post highlights the findings in a research paper on measuring search results which was presented at the WSDM-2013 conference in February 2013.

Bing's research team, which includes a "few dozen" people, has been working on search for about a decade, said Bing Corporate Vice President of R&D Harry Shum. It's taken much of that time for Microsoft to improve its search quality so that it can stand against anyone else's, Shum said. 

Exactly how one measures search quality remains a thorny problem, Shum said. Just because users get a ranked list of results doesn't insure that those at the top are definitely the most relevant.

The machine-learning systems powering Bing's back end already can handle tasks ranging from correcting spelling of queries, interpreting search intent, separating out junk pages and rank indexed pages. But these kinds of systems need to be optimized for user satisfaction, Shum noted in today's blog post. But this remains problematic because there's no objective way to measure user satisfaction, which is where "surrogate measures," such as the aforementioned interleaving algorithm fits in.

"Surprisingly, once your machine learning systems are powerful enough, your choice of surrogate measure has a strong influence on the kind of results you return," Shum blogged.

Bing researchers used a variant of A/B testing -- randomized experiments with two variants, often used in the medical field -- to create a solution that allows Microsoft to move search results that users prefer higher up in rankings. (The "interleaving" comes into play by allowing users to mix A results and B results, rather than simply choosing one set over the other.)

Microsoft already uses these techniques with Bing today, meaning users regularly take part in A/B experiments when they use Microsoft's search engine, Shum noted in the blog post.

Microsoft as a whole often uses A/B tests to hone products and services, but because Bing has millions of users and billions of clicks, results from these tests are far more statistically significant than they may be in other product groups, Shum said.

More specifics about how the interleaving algorithm works and how Microsoft is using it to hone Bing's results are in today's post. 

On June 11, the company made a few new updates available to Surface users for download.

For ARM-based Surface RTs:

• Surface Home Button driver update that the company says will improve the reliability of the devices waking up immediately on the first button press.
• Recently disclosed firmware update for Surface Type Cover and Surface Touch Cover aiming to improve functionality for both accessories. Includes the ability to toggle function keys, new shortcuts, and new keyboard navigation improvements.

For Intel-based Surface Pros:

• LifeCam driver that aims to enhance clarity for low light operation and improves reliability when switching between the integrated camera and an external camera.

With Surface RTs, automatic updating is always on. With the Pros, Windows turns on automatic update during setup unless users decide to turn it off. (If you do so, you won't be notified when firmware updates are available.) Even if automatic updating is turned on, users can opt to proactively grab the firmware updates before they receive notification of their availability using Windows Update on their devices via these steps.

Microsoft officials previously told me that users of non-Surface Windows RT devices also can and should get updates (firmware and otherwise). A spokesperson told me previously: "OEMs can (and are) providing any needed firmware or driver updates using Windows Update. These updates are targeted to specific Windows RT models. Recommended OS updates are available to all Windows RT devices at the time they are published. End-user settings will determine whether they are installed automatically."

Here's the full list of updates available as part of today's June Patch Tuesday.

Last week, company officials reconfirmed plans to incorporate in-memory OLTP -- via a new engine codenamed "Hekaton" -- in the the next version of SQL Server, known officially as SQL Server 2014. But they also expanded on some of the other features that will be in the coming release.

A first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2014 is due in late June 2013. The final product is expected to ship in early 2014. (Those interested in testing CTP1 can sign up for notification now.)

The Hekaton in-memory capabilities are being design to complement the existing in-memory data-warehousing and business-intelligence (BI) capabilities already in SQL Server, officials said during TechEd last week.

Officials reiterated that even though Microsoft is changing the core engine, the Hekaton technology will continue to work with traditional SQL Server tables, so that users will see performance gains even on existing hardware.

With SQL Server 2012, Microsoft introduced new column store capabilities into its database. But that column store was an in-memory index. With SQL Server 2014, this column store becomes updatable with faster query speeds and greater data compression, yielding more real-time analytics processing capabilities.

SQL Server 2014 also will include new buffer-pool-extension support for solid-state drives, enabling faster paging. Microsoft is enhancing its "AlwaysOn" technology, also introduced with SQL Server 2012, so that it delivers "mission-critical" availability, with up to eight readable secondaries and no down time during online indexing.

SQL Server 2014 will back-up more simply and seamlessly to Windows Azure, enabling users to back up their on-premises data to the cloud at an instance-level for disaster-recovery purposes. Backups can be automatic or manual, and a backup can be restored to a Windows Azure Virtual Machine, if need be.

When used in conjunction with Windows Server Blue -- a k a Windows Server 2012 R2, due out later this calendar year -- SQL Server 2014 will deliver increased scale in terms of compute, network virtualization and storage virtualization, officials said.

SQL Server is one of Microsoft's billion-dollar businesses. According to Microsoft officials, 46 percent of the databases deployed worldwide are now SQL Server, and customers are running 300,000 SQL Azure databases in Windows Azure.

First things, first. There's a new Windows Azure General Manager (GM) at Microsoft as of a couple of weeks ago. Steven Martin is the new GM on the business, all up, Microsoft officials told me this week. (Martin previously was GM of Azure Business Operations. He is now also GM of Product Management.)

Bill Hilf, the former GM for Azure Product Management -- who also served previously as the GM of Technical Computing, Windows Server and Open Source and Platform Strategy --  left Microsoft rather abruptly to join HP's Cloud Product Management Group, I've heard from several of my sources. Microsoft isn't commenting about where Hilf went or reasons for his departure, but are confirming he left the company at the end of May 2013.

I met with Martin at TechEd this week in New Orleans about Azure's growth trajectory. He said Microsoft is adding about 1,000 new Azure customers a day.

Microsoft officials said back in April 2013 that it has 200,000 customers for Windows Azure. Company officials have declined to say how many of these customers are part of Microsoft's own various divisions and/or how many of these customers are paying customers.

Here's where things get more interesting: Martin said that before Microsoft added a infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) components to Azure, it was adding about 3,000 customers a week. But since mid-April, when it made generally available persistent virtual machines for hosting Linux and Windows Server on Azure, Microsoft is adding 7,000 per week. Since April 2013, Microsoft has added a total of 30,000 Azure IaaS users (again, with no word on how many of these are Microsoft users and how many are paying customers), officials said.

When Microsoft first rolled out Windows Azure, it was almost entirely a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) play. To better compete with Amazon, Microsoft then decided to add IaaS elements to Azure, hoping to use IaaS as an onramp to PaaS.

Martin also said Microsoft plans to add 25 new datacenters in calendar year 2013. Some of these will be additional datacenters in existing locations; others will be brand-new locations, Martin said. Microsoft recently announced expansion plans for Azure coverage in China, Japan and Australia.

Another new development on the Windows Azure front which didn't get a lot of play this week -- but which current and potential customers may find useful -- is the addition to the Azure.com Web site of real pricing and licensing information about all the different Azure services. This isn't just a pricing calculator. It's the actual prices for individual components, all in one place.

Microsoft also announced this week a preview of an Azure-hosted version of its BizTalk enterprise-integration product. BizTalk Services 

BizTalk is Microsoft's enterprise integration server. The latest version, BizTalk Server 2013, was made generally available in March 2013. BizTalk Services is its cloud counterpart. Users can use the on-premises and cloud versions of BizTalk in tandem for hybrid scenarios.

 "B2B has been moving to the cloud for a while," said Martin. "But EAI (enterprise application integration) is getting bigger as we feed apps like CRM on the front end."

 There's no word from Microsoft as to when users should expect BizTalk Services to be generally available.

(First two images courtesy of Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich from his Azure internals talk at Microsoft TechEd this week.)

Microsoft didn't take the wraps off its rumored 8-inch Surface at the show. But company did share few more tidbits about some of the changes the company is making to Windows 8 with the 8.1 "Blue" release that will potentially make these smaller devices more usable.

Among the new small-screen devices that Microsoft's partners showed this week were the 8-inch Acer Iconia W3 (with the outsized keyboard); the Lenovo MiiX 8, an 8-inch tablet with a stylus and 3G; 8-inch AMD Temash-based reference machines from Gigabyte and Quanta that companies can customize; and the 7-inch quad-core Inventec device.

One of the key changes Microsoft is touting for this coming generation of devices is improved portrait-mode support. Windows Corporate Vice President of Program Management Antoine Lebond explained what's coming on the portrait-mode front during his remarks at Computex this week:

"(W)e did some work in Windows 8.1 to have portrait-specific Start screen layouts that work much better. All of the apps that are in the box actually work just as well in portrait mode as they work in landscape.

"We did some work at the device interface level around edge detection and things like that to make it easier to have smaller bezels on these devices so that OEMs and folks who build devices like this could build exactly the kinds of devices they want, and Windows 8.1 will be great on them."

That's good news for anyone who has been frustrated when trying to use their Surface RT or Pro -- or other Windows 8 or Windows RT tablets -- in portrait mode to no avail.

Leblond also talked up some previously disclosed Windows 8.1 features, such as the Metrofied PC Settings, more versatile Snap options and touch-keyboard autosuggestion improvements as making smaller-screen Windows 8 devices workable. 

Microsoft's disclosure earlier this week that it will make Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote (Office Home & Student 2013) available on sub-10-inch Intel-based Windows 8.1 devices left some scratching their heads, as Desktop versions of these apps on Office are not touch-optimized.

I'm wondering if Microsoft might be making the Metro/Windows Store versions of these apps available in the box, instead. The Metro-Style versions of these four apps are in development as part of Microsoft's "Gemini" wave of products. Maybe there's a Metro version of the Office Home & Student 2013 SKU coming?