While we continue to debate where we will take WindowsWave in the future, be sure to check out iFans.com in the meantime. You’ll find our complete writing staff — Stephen Hall, Thuc Nguyen and I — on that website, a leading online iPhone, iPad and iPod touch community with over 175,000 registered members.

Thanks to everyone that was part of the early audience here at WindowsWave, as we truly appreciate the readership. This isn’t the last time you’ll hear from us, so check back periodically to see what we have in store. We’ll push forward with something, but exactly what remains a mystery at this point.

The only way to get back official DVD playback support from Microsoft is to purchase the Windows Media Center Pack separately for $9.99. Maybe that’s how Microsoft is selling Windows 8 for cheap. Not everyone uses DVD anymore nor do their ultrabooks have a DVD drive.

But luckily you won’t have to pay the $9.99 until after January 31st next year if you need DVD support on your Windows machine. Microsoft has been offering the Windows Media Center Pack for free since they released Windows 8 last October. Head over to their promotion page and register with your email. It will take a couple days for Microsoft to send you a product key and instructions on how to add Windows Media Center Pack to your Windows 8 machine.

Note that this offer is only for the Windows 8 Pro edition.

Link: WMC promotion page 

Source: Windows Blog

Currently the Surface tablet is only available for purchase online and at Microsoft’s 31 store locations and 34 kiosks in the U.S. In contrast, Apple has 395 of its own stores in 14 countries and more locations through major retail stores.

There’s been hints that Microsoft could be offering their tablets through major retail stores in early 2013. On a Yahoo! Answer page dated back to October 29, that had now been deleted, someone asked “When is Best Buy going to sell Microsoft Surface?” and got an interesting answer.

By the context of that answer, it could’ve been someone at Microsoft who answered. That page had been deleted and the reply poster was de-named. Luckily, Microsoft’s own Bing cached of that page is still available.

Now, Paul Thurrott of winsupersite.com said on yesterday’s Windows Weekly podcast that according to unnamed source, the Surface tablet is indeed heading to major retailers like Staples and Best Buy before year’s end.

Whatever the case, we will find out soon enough as the year is rapidly approaching an end. If we survive the Mayan Calendar, who knows, Microsoft could surprise and announce it with the availability of the Surface Pro early. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday, Neowin received a tip that there was a Facebook icon within a Surface advertisement, but that turned out to be, according to a Facebook spokesperson, just a ”live tile bookmark to fb.com not an app.” Facebook was quick to make it clear that what was seen definitely wasn’t an app, almost making it seem like one isn’t planned.

I can understand why developers wouldn’t be rushing to put resources toward making apps for a platform that is significantly smaller than its competitors. With the Surface’s sales figures plummeting and Windows 8 being met with mediocre acceptance, it’s not looking good for the future health of the Windows Store at this point. What do you think?

Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton has now said that the Microsoft Surface will sell less than a million devices before the end of Q4 2012. This is a scary thought for Microsoft if they want to compete with the iPad — Apple sold 17 million iPads in Q3 2012 alone. Forbes revealed numbers from Detwiler Fenton predicting that the Surface might sell between just 500,000 and 600,000 Surfaces for the holiday-shopping month of December. That’s awful.

[Forbes]

Android, as an open source mobile operating system, is considered more prone to malware attacks than closed platforms such as iOS — the iPhone, in particular — or Windows Phone. Microsoft is looking to take advantage of that fact by relaunching a marketing campaign on Twitter, in which users are invited to share their worst Android malware horror stories, using the hashtag #DroidRage, for a chance to win a free Windows Phone.

Microsoft is expanding its reach this year by using its official Windows Phone account on Twitter, which has over 220,000 followers, to promote the marketing campaign. Last year, it ran the campaign using the Twitter account @BenThePCGuy, which only has around 18,000 followers at the time of writing, and generated thousands of tweets in response. This year, that number will presumably be much higher.

The social campaign will certainly involve its fair share of illegitimate entries, as people attempt to win a free Windows Phone by making up an imaginary malware nightmare. But, as The Next Web notes, Microsoft will be pleased just to get the Android malware conversation going, in an attempt to make its flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphones sound more appealing to consumers.

[The Next Web]

Nokia today unveiled its latest Windows Phone 8 smartphone, the compact Lumia 620, at the LeWeb conference today in Paris. The Lumia 620 features a 3.8-inch screen, 1 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, NFC technology and 512 MB of RAM; moreover, the handset is Nokia’s cheapest Windows Phone 8 smartphone yet at $249.

As with Nokia’s other Windows Phone 8 smartphones, the Lumia 620 is available in a wide variety of mix-and-match colors. The handset has dual-colored shells in lime green, orange, magenta, yellow, cyan, white and black, giving the device a creative edge. And unlike its Lumia 920 sibling, the smaller Lumia 620 is softer and rounder for a more playful appearance.

According to Nokia, the Lumia 620 will be shipping to the Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa in January, while launches in Canada and Europe will follow shortly thereafter. This smaller smartphone should help Nokia in its attempt to cater to the low- and mid-level range in emerging countries, where the Finnish handset maker has also been highly promoting its Windows Phone 7.5 devices.

[TechCrunch]

Microsoft has announced via their official Office News Blog that the “new” Office is now available for business customers. The new software package including Office 2013, Exchange Server 2013, Lync Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, Project 2013 and Visio 2013 is now available through Microsoft Volume Licensing, with broader availability across retail stores and online outlets planned for early next year.

Some of the biggest features of the new Office include:

• - The new Office works beautifully with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard to give you the ultimate productivity experience. It brings the familiar Office experience to a wide range of new devices and gives you the best experience on Windows.*
• - The new Office is inherently social with real-time news feeds for people, documents and discussions, high-definition video conferencing**, shared notebooks and virtual whiteboards.
• - The new Office provides security features without compromise, includes data loss prevention, compliance management, built-in malware protection, and flexible deployment options across on-premises and in the cloud.
• - The new Office is in the cloud. Coupled with new cloud services available next year, the new Office will save your documents to SkyDrive by default, and your personalized settings, templates and documents will travel with you.*

The new Office is a big part of Microsoft’s new vision. With the home version coming as what Microsoft calls “Office 365,” getting a usable word processing suite across all your home computers has never been easier. This “personalized experience” allows access to all your documents and settings across the internet and includes the full suite of Office applications.

A free trial is available on the Office website.

[Microsoft Office News Blog]

Apple will be shutting down its iTunes Connect developer portal for the holidays this year as it always has, but Microsoft has decided that some of the Windows Store app approval team will stay on hand to keep apps flowing — albeit slower.

[quote_box author="" profession=""]From December 22nd through January 1st, the Windows Store team will have fewer staff on-hand, as team members spend the holidays with their families. We’ll continue to review and certify your apps during this time—it will just take a little longer.[/quote_box]

Microsoft has urged any developers that are developing holiday-specific apps to submit them to the store as soon as possible. To help the app certification process go smoother, Microsoft has also asked those that don’t have time-crucial apps to please hold off on submitting them.

This decision from the Redmond corporation definitely shows that they are not taking their feet off the gas with their new baby platform. With the Windows Store finally showing some numbers exceeding ten-thousand, it would be foolish to completely shut down the app submission process for so long with a platform that is so fragile. Microsoft undoubtedly wants to win over developers hearts (or even just a little attention) so that the Windows Store can continue to grow, and hopefully flourish this holiday season.

[Windows Store Blog]

Apple is still dominating the tablet industry with its iPad, while the release of the iPad mini has not helped Microsoft whatsoever. Google is also becoming more competitive in the tablet market, releasing both the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 this year.

Even worse, it’s difficult to track down Windows-based tablets that are built on ARM chips or Intel processors. The scarce availability of Windows 8 tablets has all but helped the iPad maintain its position atop the industry this holiday shopping season.

Plus, there are a limited number of options to choose from: Microsoft’s Surface, Asustek’s Vivo Tab RT, Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga, Samsung’s ATIV Smart PC and Acer’s Iconia. And with little to no marketing of these tablets being done by Microsoft’s manufacturing partners, sales remain poor.

“You can hardly even find one,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst at market researcher IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts. “So even if you wanted to buy it, it would be difficult.”

While more options are coming, such as a Windows RT tablet by Dell in December, it’s evident that Microsoft still has a lot of work to do to cut the gap between the iPad and its own product offerings. But that is what happens when you enter an already saturated market three years late. For now, the iPad remains the benchmark.

[Bloomberg]