Business / Technology

Microsoft really is shaking things up with Windows 8. It’s a remodel down to the foundation, a monumental effort to start a new era of personal computing. The showcase of this work is the Surface tablet, the first computer made and sold by the company. Simultaneously, Microsoft overhauled all of its major programs and services, from servers…

Facebook today announced a new video calling feature powered by Skype, extending the social networking giant’s deep ties with Microsoft. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg also unveiled a new design for messaging and a “group chat” feature for starting ad hoc conversation circles, similar to features in Google+, the new social networking platform Google unveiled…

Skype’s not acting like a company in flux. Although it’s in the midst of being acquired by Microsoft, Skype today joined Comcast in announcing a new partnership that will use Skype to provide high-definition video calling to Comcast customers. The move will extend Comcast’s telecommunication services – it already provides phone service to about 8.5 million customers…

LOS ANGELES _ Microsoft will partner with regional cable companies to bring live TV onto the Xbox, a new feature that it announced Monday at E3. That means the TV services will be provided through cable and satellite companies, and Xbox owners will need to subscribe to their services to get the live TV onto their…

Microsoft buying Skype is like Seattle buying Italian streetcars. On the surface, it seems like an outrageously expensive indulgence. But if you can ignore the insane amount of money being thrown around and focus only on how it will help a few businesses, it makes some sense. Microsoft already has powerful and widely used software for making phone…

Skype is going to go public as a standalone entity in early 2010, eBay announced this afternoon. It bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion in deal that never seemed to make sense. I wonder if this will be a milestone, marking the return of tech IPOs. Or could it be a negotiation tactic, to get…