Windows 8 Consumers Outnumber Mac Users

According to StatCounter, the Windows 8 operating system by Microsoft has now outnumbered Apple’s OS X in total market share. The numbers for September show 7.46 percent market share for Windows 8 OS, which is an increase of 0.44 percent over the old month. This was more than enough to surpass the market share of Mac, which dropped by 0.2 percent to reach 6.98 percent.

Meanwhile, the old versions of Windows are somewhat steady. Windows 7 had a 0.03 drop to reach 51.98 percent, Windows XP gained by 0.01 points to reach 20.59 percent and Vista gained 0.09 points to reach 5.3 percent market share. If this news sounds similar, it is because last month, the rival measurement firm NetMarketShare found that the Windows 8 market share had cruised past OS X in the month of August. This trend continued in the month of September, with Windows 8 rising to 8.02 percent when compared to 7.54 percent for the Mac OS X.

NetMarketShare and StatCounter use different methodologies but both of the firms get their data by measuring the traffic on sampling of large websites. Both these place the Windows 8 usage ahead of all the versions of OS X combined.

Upgrade Blues

Nearly half of the Mac users have the latest version of the Mac OS called as Mountain Lion, according to the firm NetMarketShare. This means that the strategy of Apple to charge only 20 dollars for operating system upgrade is paying off. The large majority of the PC users are still using older versions of Windows. Microsoft had originally charged 49 dollars for the Windows 8 Pro upgrades before increasing the price to $120 for Windows 8 and $200 for the Windows 8 Pro. Lower Windows 8 versions will be charged less when compared to Windows 8 Pro.

The rising share of the Windows 8 OS is encouraging for Microsoft, but the greater health of computer industry is in jeopardy. The PC sales across the world are dropping and back-to-school sales in US dropped by 2.4 percent according to The NPD Group. This is because many of the users have turned to tablets instead of the $500 basic laptop PCs. The way for the PC makers may not be in the raw market share, but it lays in the high end Windows computers that are priced over 700 dollars.

The back-to-school sales of these computers rose by 24 percent this year. If you wish to know more on the sales of different Windows 8 versions, you can visit the official Microsoft website.

Windows 8.1 Enterprise Version To Benefit Financial Firms

Of late, Microsoft has been projecting Windows 8.1, the latest version of the operating system as the most beneficial thing for the financial firms. The software firm stresses on the idea as to how the latest technology in Windows 8.1 can help the business firms to grow through mobile innovations for employees as well as the customers. According to Erwin Vesser, general manager of Windows commercial, "Discussing how our technology can help financial institutions grow their businesses through mobile innovations for employees and customers."

Windows 8.1 was developed by Microsoft to fix issues faced by customers with its predecessor i.e. Windows 8. Microsoft thus, brought back many features such as the Start button in Windows 8.1. The previous version that could be used on a variety of devices such as smart phones, tablets and desktop PCs, comprises of a tiled Metro interface, which enables users to access to touch-optimized apps. It also includes a traditional Windows desktop that allows users to tap into a vast business software library, which can be termed as an asset for the corporate IT management systems. Thus, according to sources, the way these two features have been incorporated into Windows 8.1, would definitely prove to be beneficial for the financial firms.

According to Erwin Vesser, "Working with financial institutions to help them embrace mobility to take advantage of the new business opportunities it offers is uniquely positioned to help companies utilize mobile technologies, so that they can do business in new ways, while also meeting the stringent IT standards for security, manageability and support that financial institutions require for their sensitive data." Microsoft is now planning to launch the Windows 8.1 Enterprise version in a bid to deliver the most enterprise-ready version of Windows till date after the Windows 8 debacle. Some of the advanced and novel features in this version include a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and remote workers that help in the promotion of simplified connectivity beyond the corporate firewall. The advantage is that the requirement of a virtual private network (VPN) is not necessary to provide secure access to corporate applications for services such as Direct Access. Other features include OpenMDM support, Windows Defender malware protection, and locked-down Start screen layouts, which make Windows 8.1 an essential operating system for the enterprises.

Hence, it is quite clear that with the launch of Windows 8.1 enterprise version, Microsoft is surely set to revamp the whole computing experience for the business professionals.

Configure Outlook Email Client In Windows XP Computer

Outlook is one of the trusted email programs from Microsoft, which allows users to download and view emails from the internet servers to their personal computers. Outlook comes as one of the programs in Microsoft’s Office Suite application. You may configure email programs from different service providers in the program, with different inboxes. The program works fine on all Windows operating systems like Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 etc. In this post, we will find out how to configure the Outlook setting in your Windows XP computer.

Steps Involved

• Select the Start button present in the Windows XP desktop.
• Once the Start button comes up, select the option All Programs and then go to Microsoft Office.
• From the list of Office programs, click Microsoft Outlook to launch the program.
• Once the Outlook program opens, choose Tools from the menu bar and click Email Accounts.
• Select the option Add a new email account and then choose Next.
• Before you start to configure the program, it is important to find out various settings for your email program. Most of the email services support POP3 service and a few others support IMAP. You need to find out which service is preferred by your email. For this, you may go to the official website of your email client. Keep in mind that you need to make a note of other server settings like incoming mail server, outgoing mail server etc.
• Once you choose the service, select the option Next.
• Enter various details like your name, email address, password and server details in the respective fields.
• After completing the Outlook setting in the main tab, select the option More Settings and then select Outgoing Server. Mark the option next to My Outgoing Server (SMTP) requires authentication and select the option OK.
• Click the option Test Account Settings and this will send a test mail, which you will receive in the account just configured. If there are any errors in the settings, you will receive error pop ups that state the cause for the error.
• Fix these errors in the Email Account’s properties window and choose the Test Account button.

We hope that the above mentioned steps have helped you in configuring your Outlook program in Windows XP. For additional assistance on Outlook configuration, you may contact Microsoft chat support or our technical support team.