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Microsoft Names Cloud Head, Details Windows Updates

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Microsoft has a busy week as CEO Satya Nadella promotes Cloud and Enterprise acting leader Scott Guthrie to group executive VP before detailing the Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 updates at BUILD 2014.

Windows 8.1Guthrie joined Microsoft in 1997 and is credited with "critical contributions" to .NET, Azure  and other part sof the Microsoft ecosystem. His promotion is part of yet another Microsoft exec reshuffle, one seeing ex-Nokia CEO Stephen Elop named Devices Group executive VP and the formation of a new Xbox division led by Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer.

Later the company details the post-Steve Sinofsky future of Windows at BUILD 2014. The upcoming Windows 8.1 Update sees the touch-friendly OS return to a more keyboard- and mouse-friendly UI, since the Start button makes a much demanded comeback.

Further UI refinements include a booth straight to desktop feature and a redesigned Windows Store pre-pinned to the taskbar.

Meanwhile operating Systems group exec VP Terry Myerson confirms the Start menu will make a showing in a future Windows version. A next version of the OS will allow Universal Windows Apps to run in window mode (as opposed to full-screen), but Myerson fails to specify whether it will be Windows 8.1 Update 2, or Windows 9 Threshold.

Windows phoneDevelopers will also be able to use "90%" of the same code in the creation of Universal Windows Apps running on Windows Phone, RT, desktop Windows and even Xbox One, Microsoft claims.

Even Windows Phone gets some love-- so much so the 8.1 version of the mobile OS is now available royalty-free for use in devices smaller than 9-inches.

Other Windows Phone 8.1 features include more a more customisable interface, a "glance and go" Action Centre (similar to the Android notification bar, this), the Swype-style Word Flow Keyboard and "Cortana", the Microsoft take on the voice-operated "personal digital assistant."

If the Cortana moniker is familiar, yes, the Bing-powered assistant is indeed named after the holographic female companion to Master Chief from the Halo games...

According to Myerson the keynote only provides "glimpses" of the Windows roadmap, and as such "some parts of the plan may change." But as time goes on the company, and its new CEO, need to show more of their strategic hand.

Go Satya Nadella on Tuning Our Organisation

Go Thoughts on Day 1 of BUILD 2014 (Blogging Windows)

Go Windows 8.1 Update

Go Windows Phone 8.1 Update