Elop as Microsoft CEO may extend Office platforms; shut down Bing, Xbox: Report

News:  Nokia's former CEO, Stephen Elop, who according to recent reports is also in the running for the CEO position at Microsoft, might bring about a major change in the Redmond giant's strategy by bringing Office to more platforms, and shutting down the Bing search engine and Xbox gaming device unit, if given a chance to head the company, according to a new report.
 
Elop would offer Microsoft's popular Office apps such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint on other smartphone and tablet platforms, including Android and iOS, according to a report by Bloomberg that cites three people with knowledge of Elop's 'thinking' as the sources of this information.
 
It's worth pointing out that Microsoft currently offers the Office apps on Android and iOS smartphones with limited functionality and only to users who subscribe to its Office 365 service. It's not available for tablets other than the ones that run Windows, as Microsoft feels that Office is a USP of Windows-powered hardware including the Surface tablets that it makes.
 
The report further mentions that Elop would be open to selling or shutting down major business segments to focus on select products that are profitable. It cites the same people to elaborate that the former Nokia CEO could think about shutting down Microsoft's Bing search engine, and even consider selling businesses such as the Xbox if Elop feels that they were not very crucial for the company.

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Xbox 360'sGames with Gold' becomes permanent, still no word on Xbox One version

Microsoft's Xbox 360 monthly free game promo, "Games with Gold," is being extended indefinitely. The program is essentially Microsoft's response on Xbox 360 to Sony's PlayStation Plus initiative on PlayStation 3 and Vita: members who pay the monthly or annual fee to the programs receive a variety of free games each month. Sony announced an extension of its program to its next game console, the PlayStation 4, back at E3 2013 -- anyone who already pays for PS Plus on PS3 or Vita is automatically a member on PS4.

Microsoft, however, won't say if "Games with Gold" will extend to its upcoming game console, the Xbox One."We're excited to announce we are extending Games with Gold for Xbox 360. We will share more details on the program soon. Stay tuned for our plans on Xbox One," a Microsoft spokesperson told Engadget. There are, of course, many other benefits to paying for an Xbox Live Gold account on the Xbox One, the least of which is the ability to play online multiplayer games.

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AMD unveils Radeon R9 and R7 series video cards, unifying graphics code for PCs and consoles

Graphics cards aren't normally our go-to choices for audio processing, but we may have to make exceptions for AMD's just-unveiled Radeon R9 and R7 lines. The R9 290X (shown above), R9 290 and R7 260X (after the break) will support TrueAudio, a new programmable pipeline that enables advanced audio effects without burdening a PC's main processor or a dedicated sound card. Not that the range will be lacking in visual prowess, of course. While the company isn't revealing full specifications, it claims that the R9 290X flagship will have five teraflops of total computing power versus the four teraflops of the previous generation. The boards will ship sometime in the "near future," with prices ranging from $89 for an entry R7 250 to $299 for the mid-tier R9 280X. AMD isn't divulging the R9 290X's price, but pre-orders for the card will start on October 3rd.

The firm has also revealed a new programming interface, Mantle, that makes the most of the Graphics Core Next architecture found in many of its recent processors and video chipsets. Developers who build the low-level code into their games should get better performance from GCN-based devices without having to re-optimize for each platform -- a title meant for Radeon-equipped PCs should still behave well on a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, for instance. Mantle will debut on Windows through a December update to Battlefield 4, and should spread to other platforms in the months ahead.

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