14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella took the stage during an event in San Francisco yesterday to talk about the company’s latest improvements in the cloud industry, while also revealing Office for iPad, a new version of the productivity suite that can be used on Apple tablets.
Although the unveiling of Office for iPad was pretty much the most important moment of the whole event, Satya Nadella also talked a little bit about the future of Windows, explaining that more exciting news are projected to be unveiled next week at the BUILD 2014 developer conference in San Francisco.
“Next week I'll be back here at Build, and many other leaders from our company will be here talking about the innovations in Windows, because one of the questions right up front I wanted to address is what about Windows, where does Windows fit in with all of this?” Satya Nadella said.
“Windows is a massive agenda for us. We will innovate and you will see us talk next week about the great innovations in the operating system and great innovations in devices.”
Of course, Nadella was talking about Windows 8.1 Update, the next major improvement for Windows 8.1 that’s expected to be unveiled during the developer conference next week.
Microsoft hasn’t talked too much about Windows 8.1 Update, but it did say that an important pack of improvements is scheduled to go live this spring. However, we know pretty much everything about Windows 8.1 Update thanks to several leaks that reached the web lately courtesy of both leakers and Microsoft itself.
Windows 8.1 Update will try to make the Metro UI a bit more appropriate for the traditional PC by adding some new features to the Start screen, including a search box and new power options. Context menu-like settings will also be available across the Metro UI, while Modern apps will now come with a title bar and close and minimize buttons allowing users to control them with a mouse.
Windows 8.1 Update is projected to be unveiled to MSDN subscribers on April 1 or 2, just in time for the BUILD 2014 developer conference. Everybody else is projected to receive it on April 8 via Windows Update, the same day when the company is set to unveil next month’s Patch Tuesday fixes. Windows 8.1 Update will be delivered to users via Windows Update and will come in the form of a freeware update for all Windows 8.1 users.