Windows 10: Here are other products from Microsoft that caught our attention through the years

[caption id=“attachment_274221” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] Microsoft HoloLens headset was the most innovative product announced during the Windows 10 event. It is a completely untethered mini-computer of a lens. It basically looks like a futuristic goggle which has a CPU and a GPU and most importantly a HPU – a Holographic Processing Unit.[/caption]   [caption id=“attachment_262074” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] Windows XP : Windows XP has been one of the world’s most beloved computer operating systems. Last year on April 8, the company ended the 13-year old journey of Windows XP to pave way for its not-so-popular Windows 8. The rolling grassy hills under a quintessentially blue sky (incidentally a photo of the Napa Valley) greeted millions around the world as they first put on a PC. So it wasn’t surprising to see several computers use it – both out of necessity and also familiarity.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_262071” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] Windows Office: This is one of the most productive and useful tool developed by Microsoft. It has evolved over the years and become one of the best productivity suite available in the market today. In fact, Microsoft launched Office for iPad last year that became a huge hit as apps for Word, Excel, Powerpoint and One Note for iPad saw over 12 million downloads collectively.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_262070” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] MS Dos: “In 1980 when Microsoft provided only the BASIC language interpreter for IBM, it was approached by the latter to work on a project codenamed ‘Chess’. However, IBM asked Microsoft to create an operating system instead. “Microsoft licensed an operating system from Seattle Computer Products which would become the foundation for PC-DOS and MS-DOS,” Microsoft’s Roy Levin had recently disclosed in a blogpost.Soon after MS DOS, Microsoft released its first DOS-based version of Microsoft Word in 1983 that was designed to be used with a mouse. But it was the 1989 release of Word for Windows that really worked, which managed to generate more than half the revenue of the worldwide word-processing market. Image: Wikipedia[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_262075” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] Xbox: Microsoft is known as a reputed software company, but with the launch of the original XBox, the company also proved it could build hardware and woo gamers. Moreover, it also introduced XBox Live, allowing gamers to compete against one another. Image: Reuters[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_262069” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] MSN messenger: MSN Messenger has been world’s favourite instant messaging client. Post the smartphone age, the Microsoft-developed messaging client was one of the best IM clients known for its reliability and ease of use. The service was rebranded to Windows Live Messenger in 2005 and has since been known by that name. Last year, Microsoft merged MSN Messenger with Skype rendering the former obsolete. Though it had already axed MSN messenger from the rest of the world, it was available in China where it was being run by local partner TOM and not Microsoft itself. However, Chinese service was also closed down on October 31, encouraging them to move to Skype with the offer of free calls.[/caption]   [caption id=“attachment_262068” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] Hotmail: In 1997, Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft at an estimated $400 million and launched as MSN Hotmail. It was later rebranded as Windows Live Hotmail. By the mid of 2011, Hotmail had about 360 million users per month and it was the same year in October 2011 that the last version of Hotmail was seen. In 2013, it was rebranded to Outlook.com.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_262072” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] Outlook: Outlook is known as personal information manager from Microsoft, and it is available as a part of the company’s Office suite. It focuses on email and includes everything from a calendar and task manager to contact manager, note taking and more. First released as part of Office 97, it has undergone several changes and comes with improved features.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_262073” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] Windows 10: After a sluggish period, we think Microsoft is all set to bounce back with Windows 10 that looks very promising. The Windows 10 not only comes with some nifty features, it is for the first time ever Microsoft will be offering free upgrade to Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 users.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_262066” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”]
Cortana: Apple has Siri, Google has Google Now and Microsoft has Cortana. Microsoft’s voice assistant was announced for mobile devices, just like other companies. But now Microsoft has decided to give it a big push in Windows 10 and bring it to desktops. Apart from its own mobile devices and desktops, there are reports about the company’s plan to introduce standalone Cortana app for Android and iOS.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_262067” align=“aligncenter” width=“1280”] DirectX: DirectX is a suite of multimedia technologies that are required by Windows games. It was basically developed for PCs running Windows 95 onwards to ensure the computer can handle games and other multimedia well as many people saw MS Dos as a better platform for developing games. Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) that handle tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, and so on. The name DirectX was later coined as a collective term for them[/caption]