On Tuesday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings revealed in an announcement that he is leaving the Microsoft board of directors --- the departure, coming after Hastings' 5-1/2-year stint as a Microsoft board director, will take effect November 28; the day for which Microsoft's annual shareholders is scheduled.

About the reason behind his decision to quit the Microsoft board, 51-year-old Hastings - who owns approximately 226,000 shares of Microsoft stock presently valued at $6.6 million - said that the move will give him more time on the Netflix video subscription service.

In his Tuesday-published annual letter to shareholders, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer highlighted hardware and online services as the future focus areas of the software giant; thereby indication a new strategic course for the company.

Going by the comments which have been made by Ballmer in the letter, it is highly likely that Microsoft may ultimately develop its own handsets to broaden its hardware portfolio which currently comprises the market-dominating Xbox gaming console and its upcoming own-brand Surface tablet.

In an announcement made during the course of a last-week meeting, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer revealed that all of the company's 94,000 full-time employees worldwide will be getting a new smartphone, a tablet and a computer.

The unveiling of two new colorful Windows 8-based smartphones by Nokia, at a September 5 press event in New York City, not only underscored impressive handsets, but also generated instant positive buzz from the tech press as well as blogs.

Software giant, Microsoft has offered a customer preview release of its upcoming Office 2013 productivity suite.

The new will launch the concept of "Office as a service" offering integration with SkyDrive, the company's cloud storage service. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO said that the new suit will be the first set of suit designed to be Office to be a service.

According to a new report, the recently released Surface tablet computers from Microsoft could be Wi-Fi only, indicating that the users will not be able to use the increasing wide spreading fast 3G and even 4G networks across the world. It is believed that the mobile wireless capabilities will be released later by the company.

Software maker, Microsoft is planning to release a new version of the Windows Phone program in new handsets this fall.

The new releases is part of the company's plans to compete with rivals including Google and Apple. The Windows Phone 8 will be based on the same core software as the new Windows 8 operating system for personal computers and tablets. This means that the platform will work on different devices at different pricing rage.

Software giant, Microsoft has announced the launch of two different versions of its new Surface tablet computer known as the Microsoft Surface RT and the Microsoft Surface Pro.

Steve Ballmer, the chief executive officer of the company announced the new tablet at an event in Milk Studios in Los Angeles. He said that the device is part of a whole new family of device being developed by the company.

Finland-based handset maker, Nokia has released a software fix for the memory management problem in its newly launched Lumia 900 smartphones.

Nokia had admitted that there was a problem with the device a few days later after it was launched on April 8 over the Easter weekend. The software fix is now available for download from Nokia's official website. The company has said that it identified an error that lead to lost data connectivity sometimes.

Handset maker, Nokia has found a memory management problem in its newly launched Lumia 900 smartphones and the company is offering exchanges and free credit to control the damage.

Nokia said that it identified the issue and it has already developed the solution to fix it for the users. The problem was reported after a number of users complained about the issue after purchasing the phone following its launch this Easter Sunday.

Handset maker, Nokia and software major, Microsoft might be planning to release the new Lumia 800 smartphone through Microsoft's chain of retail stores on Valentines Day next week.

According to a report by The Verge, Nokia's new smartphone will initially be available only as a bundle and will be available fro sale on 14 February. The bundle might include Nokia Play 360 wireless speaker, a Purity HD Stereo Headset and an in-ear Bluetooth unit besides the unlocked version of the handset.

Software giant, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer Steve Ballmer has released its new ‘picture unlock’ facility at the ongoing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The picture unlock’ facility will allow users to touch the right parts of a picture in order to unlock their smartphone and tablet devices without the use of traditional passwords. A user will be able to choose a photo and perform certain gestures in the right order of taps, lines, and circles in order to log in.

Software giant, Microsoft is position its new cloud-based office productivity suite, the Office 365 for small and medium-sized businesses.

Office 365 brings together its Office, collaboration and communications software. It offers productivity and collaboration tools as well as others needed by small and medium-sized businesses to compete with larger organizations, according to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the Office 365 cloud service will be launched on June 28 in an event in New York.

While speaking to an industry group in Delhi, India, he said that, "We're pushing hard in the productivity space. We'll launch our Office 365 cloud service, which gives you Lync and Exchange and SharePoint and Office and more as a subscribable service that comes from the cloud. That launches in the month of June."

This weekend is the Windows Phone 7 week. Microsoft is declaring information of the initiating operators and devices, and all shall be witnessing and recording with attention on the combined press forum with AT&T's Ralph de la Vega and CEO Steve Ballmer.

However the question is that how noteworthy is this launch? As per the thoughts gathered from the reviews it is of substantial implication.

CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer has been asked to give an opening key note address at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 as stated by the Consumer Electronics Association.

The CES 2011 to be held in January next year might open with the key not of CEO as it happened this year.

Ballmer spoke about various Windows 7-based tablet devices but none of them seemed to touch base till date.  

At the recently held D8 conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has sighted that his company will revolutionize the world by giving a different meaning altogether to the tablet PC market.

Ballmer further acknowledged that Microsoft's Mobile market although was not that hit but it won't be the same in case of tablet PC market.

Microsoft CEO has pronounced its shortcoming in attending Apple's World Wide Developer Conference via tweet, from company’s official Twitter account.

It supposedly dates back to the news that saw Apple surpassed Microsoft to become the world's leading tech company.

In lieu of the recent happenings an analyst at Global Equities Research, Trip Chowdrey, stated that Microsoft's delegate in the WWDC event was supposed to be either the company's CEO Steve Ballmer, or the head of its server and tools division, Bob Muglia.

Microsoft Corporation sees India as the global hub for cloud computing. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has informed that India can lead the way of cloud computing in coming years. He has said that the country is having huge potential in IT and ITES services.

Cloud computing is a concept of renting computing power. It has become the latest sensation in the technology world.

San Francisco  - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday that he still wanted to form an alliance with Yahoo to combat the dominance of Google in search advertising.

But in his annual forecast to financial analysts of Microsoft's plans for the year, he ruled out any revival of last year's aborted deal to purchase Yahoo.

Ballmer also predicted that Microsoft would face more competition from Google and Apple in the market for computer software. He said that Google's Android operating systems for mobile phones would be converted for use in laptops.