It has become a norm among leading technology companies to create lot of buzz before any event to keep media speculating what is going to be announced. To follow on the footsteps of Apple, Microsoft has invited media to an afternoon event on Monday, but it has gone one step ahead as far as organizing the event is concerned and says it won’t divulge the location until that morning. In an email, the company says, “This will be a major Microsoft announcement – you will not want to miss it.”
Microsoft is being secretive about a “major” announcement it plans to make in Los Angeles on Monday. Microsoft’s Monday event begins at 3:30 p.m. Media invitees were told that their invitations were non-transferable, “….however, if you would like to send your local colleague in your place, please submit that name and it will be reviewed.”
This media event invite has triggered lot of rumours. One rumour is that Microsoft may announce its own branded tablet on Windows 8 platform, which has been in the pipeline of Microsoft for years and this is the ideal time to bring out this device when the world-wide sales of tablets are picking-up. Probably, Microsoft is of the view – Now or Never – and they don’t want to miss the bus, which will take them to ever-increasing tablets hinterland.
Another rumor is that major announcement has something to do with entertainment industry as the venue of event is Los Angeles, which is hub of entertainment. In recent months Microsoft Corp. has made more TV programming available on its Xbox 360 video game console. Netflix Inc. is among the offerings on the Xbox, and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is on Microsoft’s board.
These are just speculations and wait for more stories till Monday afternoon when the exact major announcement will be made by technology giant of modern times.
As per agencies reports, Microsoft is on the verge of acquiring social network for businesses – Yammer- for approximately $ 1 billion. Yammer was founded by David Sacks, the former chief operating officer at PayPal, in 2008.
According to the Telegraph, the site is currently used by over 200,000 companies, including Ford and eBay. Unlike Twitter, which is used for broadcasting messages to the public, Yammer is used for private communication within companies. The social network operates as a freemium service, offering a basic free service, as well as a premium version of the service for $ 5 per user per month.
