Tablet Computer, Personal Computer | featured news

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer can't afford to be wrong about Windows 8. On Thursday in New York, Microsoft unveiled a dramatic overhaul of its ubiquitous Windows operating system. It will go on sale Friday, fused into more than 1,000 PCs and other devices. If it flops, the failure will reinforce perceptions that Microsoft is falling behind competitors such as Apple, Google and Amazon as its stranglehold on personal computers becomes less relevant in an era of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) hints at Windows RT tablet prices and their release dates. Another one of Redmond's mammoth blog posts is getting the reading-between-the-lines-analysis treatment today, as the company announces more details of Windows 8-on-ARM PCs.

Microsoft has announced that it will be launching a new music service known as Xbox Music. Xbox Music will offer more than 30 million songs on Xbox 360s, Windows 8 PCs, tablets and phones.

In a dramatic reshuffling, Hewlett-Packard Co. said it will end its tablet computer and smartphone products and may sell or spin off its PC division, bowing out of the consumer businesses.

Microsoft Corp is set to report a dip in earnings on Thursday, a year after the launch of its Windows 7 operating system blew away Wall Street estimates, as sales of personal computers lag expectations and Apple Inc's iPad eats away at the fringes of its core market.

Gartner cut its global personal-computer shipments forecast for 2010 and 2011 as consumers rein in spending and interest grows in tablet devices such as Apple's iPad.