From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Monday, July 1, 2013
To: Microsoft – All Employees
Subject: Don Mattrick’s Next Chapter

Zynga announced today that Don Mattrick would be its new CEO, effective July 8. This is a great opportunity for Don, and I wish him success. Don’s directs will report to me and will continue to drive the day-to-day business as a team, particularly focused on shipping Xbox One this holiday.

Since joining IEB more than six years ago, Don and his team have accomplished much. Xbox Live members grew from 6 million to 48 million. Xbox 360 became the No. 1 selling console in North America the past two years. We introduced Kinect and have sold more than 24 million sensors. We released fantastic games, and, most importantly, we expanded Xbox to go beyond great gaming to deliver all the entertainment people want — sports, music, movies, live television and much more.

In the past month, the IEB team showed for the first time here on our Redmond campus, and again at E3, how we are going to continue to transform entertainment with Xbox One. I am incredibly proud of the work and vision culminating in Xbox One.

I’m particularly excited about how Xbox pushes forward our devices and services transformation by bringing together the best of Microsoft. The consoles are incredible all-in-one devices with built-in services that consumers love, including Bing, Xbox Live, Internet Explorer, SkyDrive and Skype. And, just as important, Xbox Games, Xbox Video, Xbox Music and SmartGlass light up Windows PCs, tablets and phones.

Thank you, Don, for setting us on a path to completely redefine the entertainment industry. The strong leadership team at IEB and their teams are well positioned to deliver the next-generation entertainment console, as well as transformative entertainment experiences, long into the future.

Steve

REDMOND, W ash. — July 1, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the initial phase of its business-channel expansion plans for the Surface family of PCs, along with AppsForSurface — a new Surface application-development program for independent software vendors (ISVs).

As part of its measured and phased approach to the growth of the Surface business, Microsoft announced the Microsoft Devices Program, which allows customers to purchase Surface and commercial services through authorized resellers. The two-tier program establishes Ingram Micro Inc., SYNNEX Corp. and Tech Data Corp. as inaugural device-authorized distributors to sell Surface to a newly designated group of device-authorized commercial resellers. Today, these resellers include CDW, CompuCom Systems Inc., En Pointe Technologies, Insight Enterprises Inc., PC Connection Inc., PCM Inc., SHI International Corp., Softchoice, Softmart and Zones Inc. In addition to offering Microsoft’s extended warranty and accidental damage, resellers bring a variety of value-added services to the Surface family such as asset tagging, custom imaging, kitting, onsite service and support, device recycling. and data protection. During the next few months, Microsoft will work to authorize commercial distributors and resellers in more countries.

AppsForSurface, a new ISV program that provides devices and funding for Surface-specific business applications, addresses the growing demand for Surface enterprise applications. Current program participants include Airstrip, Citrix, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Sage.

In June, Microsoft announced a one-time offer for Surface RT starting at $199 for qualifying educational institutes running until the end of August in 26 countries, valid for all K–12 schools and universities purchasing direct from Microsoft. In the coming days, Microsoft will expand this offer into the commercial channel starting with Authorized Surface Resellers in the United States. Microsoft has a long tradition of delivering high-quality solutions for education, and this offer is intended to get Surface in the hands of even more educators and students.

More information is available here. B-roll footage is available here.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

The information contained in this press release relates to a prerelease software product that may be substantially modified before its first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe or reflect the software product when first commercially released. The press release is provided for informational purposes only, and Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the press release or the information contained in it.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

The second beta release of PostgreSQL 9.3 is now available. This beta contains updated and debugged previews of all of the features which will be available in version 9.3, and is ready for testing by the worldwide PostgreSQL community. Please download, test, and report what you find.

Changes Since Beta 1

The following changes and bug fixes have been made since Beta 1. If you tested a feature in the previous beta, please retest it now to make sure that any issues you discovered have been fixed.

• prevent xid gaps in Hot Standby startup
• prevent insertion deadlocks with SP-GiST indexes
• add user-visible "updatable" flag for foreign tables and views
• fix two issues with JSON and Unicode
• make sure that pg_isready displays correct connection info
• fix pg_dump dependancy order for EventTriggers
• fix regression tests for postgres_fdw
• fix pg_xlogdump -r
• array_remove() no longer emits broken empty arrays
• fix formatting of automatically generated recovery.conf file
• simplify handling of crashes after fast failover
• allow CREATE FOREIGN TABLE to include SERIAL columns
• make the word "FOREIGN" optional in "ALTER TABLE"
• translation updates merged
• many documentation updates

Additionally, all bug fixes prepared for back-branches of PostgreSQL have been applied to Beta 2.

For a full listing of the features in version 9.3 Beta, please see the release notes. Additional descriptions and notes on the new features are available on the 9.3 Features Wiki Page.

Test 9.3 Beta 2 Now

We depend on our community to help test the next version in order to guarantee that it is high-performance and bug-free. Please download PostgreSQL 9.3 Beta 2 and try it with your workloads and applications as soon as you can, and give feedback to the PostgreSQL developers. Features and APIs in Beta 2 will not change substantially before final release, so it is now safe to start building applications against the new features. More information on how to test and report issues

Get the PostgreSQL 9.3 Beta 2, from our download page. Some binary installers for various platforms, including Solaris and FreeBSD, are already available; other will become available over the next week.

Full documentation of the new version is available online, and also installs with PostgreSQL.

S AN F RANCISCO — June 27, 2013 — Today thousands of developers gathered at The Moscone Center, with hundreds of thousands more participating online, for the second day of Build 2013, where Microsoft Corp. demonstrated that the developer opportunity on the Windows platform has never been greater. Keynotes delivered by Satya Nadella, president, Server and Tools Business, and Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president and chief evangelist, Developer Platform Evangelism, showcased how commonality across the Windows platform enables developers of all types to build compelling apps and experiences spanning devices and services.

Increasing importance of cloud services

Developers today are building multidevice, multiscreen, cloud-connected experiences. Windows Azure spans infrastructure and platform capabilities to provide them with a comprehensive set of services to easily and quickly build modern applications, using the tools and languages familiar to them.

“Developers are increasingly demanding a flexible, comprehensive platform that helps them build and manage apps in a cloud- and mobile-driven world,” Nadella said. “To meet these demands, Microsoft has been doubling down on Windows Azure. Nearly 1,000 new businesses are betting on Windows Azure daily, and as momentum for Azure grows, so too does the developer opportunity to build applications that power modern businesses.”

Delivering on its commitment to provide developers with the most comprehensive cloud platform, Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Azure Mobile Services. Mobile Services enables developers building Windows, Windows Phone, iOS and Android apps to store data in the cloud, authenticate users and send push notifications. TalkTalk Business, a leading business telecommunications provider in the United Kingdom, chose Windows Azure Mobile Services to create new ways to engage with its customers and serve demand for mobile access.

Microsoft also announced the general availability of Windows Azure Web Sites, which allows developers to create websites on a flexible, secure and scalable platform to reach new customers. With the investments Microsoft has made in ASP.NET and Web tools, Web developers can now create scalable experiences easier than ever. Dutch brewer Heineken is using Windows Azure to power a social pinball game for the UEFA Champions League Road to the Final campaign, with the expectations of millions of interactions scaled on Windows Azure. Heineken exceeded its usage metrics by a wide margin yet experienced no scalability issues with Windows Azure.

Guthrie also highlighted Microsoft’s continued enterprise cloud momentum by demonstrating several platform advancements, including previews of improved auto-scaling, alerting and notifications, and tooling support for Windows Azure through Visual Studio. In addition, he previewed how Windows Azure Active Directory provides organizations and ISVs, such as Box, with a single sign-on experience to access cloud-based applications.

Developers can go to the Windows Azure site today for a free trial: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/?WT.mc_id=AE37323DE.

Spanning from the c loud to d evices

Guggenheimer announced the availability of the Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Release Preview, which extends Windows 8.1 technologies and provides additional flexibility to meet the needs of industry devices. Onstage, Guggenheimer demonstrated the Avis Select and Go app running on a Windows Embedded 8 Industry tablet and a Windows Embedded 8 Handheld device to illustrate the opportunity for developers to capitalize on the shared Windows codebase and enable industry-specific branding, peripheral support (such as mag stripe readers and barcode scanners), and lockdown capabilities.

Through a series of partner demos, Guggenheimer demonstrated the common core of the Windows platform spanning PC, tablet, phone and embedded devices.

• Khan Academy has released a major update to its Windows 8 app, now live in the Windows Store. Using Khan Academy’s website code, Microsoft demonstrated how developers can easily take HTML5 and JavaScript code from the Web and easily port to a Windows 8 app.
  

• Foursquare previewed an exclusive, uniquely designed Windows 8 tablet app that goes beyond check-ins to use location data in a way that helps users find interesting places and things to do around them.
  

• Adobe Systems Inc. is bringing its Digital Publishing Suite product to Windows 8.1 devices in late 2013. Publishers and brands will be able to design and publish content to multiple devices with interactive and inspiring reading experiences.
  

• Guggenheimer announced the availability of OpenTable, Rockmelt and Rhapsody apps for Windows 8 in the Windows Store and previewed five Disney games. Details on these applications can be found on the Windows blog.
  

• Finally, Guggenheimer highlighted a few of the popular apps available in Windows Phone Store today, including ABC News, Xfinity by Comcast, TV Remote, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Walgreens, as well as the live push-to-talk and multimedia messaging app, Voxer.
  

“People want to experience and explore the world around them, and the Foursquare for Windows 8 app helps them do that. It makes it fun to search for a place for dinner or to go out, and it helps people discover new experiences. We’ve worked with Microsoft on a bunch of initiatives over the years, and this product is another example of the great things we can do together,” said Dennis Crowley, co-founder and CEO at Foursquare.

New third - party offerings

PayPal’s software development kit, now generally available, allows developers to integrate the payment experience for 128 million account holders into a Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 app. In addition, Unity Technologies, one of the industry’s most popular game development platforms with nearly 2 million community members, announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft to make it easier for developers to bring popular games, entertainment and apps to Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox 360 and Xbox One for Microsoft Studios publishing partners.

New enhancements and services

Microsoft also demonstrated the developer productivity enhancements of the .NET 4.5.1 runtime that enable developers to build the next wave of modern applications that run across devices and cloud, while also extending their existing line-of-business applications. The updates include improved coding, designing, testing and optimizing of XAML applications in Windows 8.1. Microsoft published a white paper providing guidance to .NET developers.

Finally, Microsoft showcased how Bing as a platform can extend across a broad set of devices and client app experiences using Bing Developer Services. Guggenheimer demonstrated these platform capabilities by showing Microsoft translation technology in Twitter for Windows Phone, which now provides instant, single-click translation of tweets.

“Whether developing for existing, client/server, or emerging device and cloud application patterns, developers need a platform that offers consistency and flexibility. Only the Windows platform — spanning Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Azure and more — meets this need,” Guggenheimer said.

More information can be found at the Build 2013 website, http://www.buildwindows.com.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

For more information, press only:

Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, (503) 443-7070, rrt@waggeneredstrom.com

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.