Monitoring MSFT: Custom Windows XP Support Price Cuts, Big Data Office Vision

What happened with Microsoft (MSFT) while you were away on vacation last week? While many people took the week off, this blogger spent her time getting this and other updates ready for you. We’ll talk Windows XP, Office “Mix,” and take a look at vision-type statements from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Here’s what happened with Microsoft last week.

First off, you may have thought that Windows XP support was dead and buried, but only in a Pet Semetary kind of way, apparently. Computerworld reported last week that Microsoft slashed ongoing custom support prices for Windows XP for enterprises in the days ahead of killing public patches for the operating system. The price cuts for large enterprises were as much as a 95 percent reduction, according to Computerworld.  Check out the report here for more details, including how one customer rejected Microsoft’s proposed $2 million support deal and then was offered a deal for $250,000 by Microsoft.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is reportedly getting ready to test a new Office “Mix” interactive presentation application. The company is apparently signing up beta testers for a new version of PowerPoint that includes the ability to record video, audio, handwriting, interactive quizzes and learning exercises, reports Mary Jo Foley at her All About Microsoft blog. Check out full details there.

Foley also provided perspective on Microsoft’s big vision for data analytics projects presented at the recent TechFair research fair. Foley pulls out some of the more interesting projects in this post.

Big data was certainly on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s radar last week. On Microsoft’s Official Blog, a post attributed to Nadella appeared on April 15, talking about “data culture.”

Here’s some of what he said: “We believe that with the right tools, insights can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time. When that happens, organizations develop what we describe as a ‘data culture.’

“However, a data culture isn’t just about deploying technology alone, it’s about changing culture so that every organization, every team and every individual is empowered to do great things because of the data at their fingertips. … This is especially true when every employee can harness the power of data once only reserved for data scientists and tap into the power of natural language, self-service business insights and visualization capabilities that work inside familiar apps such as Office.”

Nadella concluded with a recap of some announcements about Office products that are getting some big data muscle added to them.

And speaking of this Official Microsoft Blog, this blogger has never before noticed the Tech News Blogs blogroll here before. But today she couldn’t help but notice that MSPmentor.net was not on it. Nor were any other channel-centric publication. Hmmm. Just an observation…