SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is set to make a splash this week with the eagerly awaited unveiling of its new Xbox game console, eight years after the last version, as it seeks a larger share of the $65 billion a year global computer gaming industry.

But the small device faces some big competition from the PlayStation 4 by Sony Corp and the Wii U by Nintendo Co Ltd in a shifting market.

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp has sold 100 million Windows 8 licenses in the six months since launch, roughly in line with the previous version, but wants to combat sputtering interest in its flagship software with a substantial update to make it easier to use, and compatible with smaller tablets.

Windows 8 is the first Microsoft operating system primarily designed for touch commands, but it has failed to capture consumers’ imaginations or make a dent in a tablet market dominated by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp’s phone chief hates to call the new Nokia Lumia 521 cheap, but the lower-priced smartphone launching in the United States is the company’s boldest move yet to win mass market share from leaders Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.

The world’s largest software company has so far focused on putting its Windows Phone software into expensive, high-end devices – chiefly from Nokia and HTC Corp.

SEATTLE, April 30 (Reuters) – Paul Allen, the lesser known
co-founder of Microsoft Corp, has struggled for decades
to make his mark as a business mogul beyond the software company
he started with Bill Gates.

Since he quit Microsoft in 1983, the quiet Seattle native
has lost billions of dollars on ill-conceived or mistimed
technology investments, and he has been mocked as a juvenile
playboy manqué for spending lavishly on giant yachts and
off-beat projects like a Frank Gehry-designed rock museum.

SEATTLE, April 19 (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp’s
strategy of selling more long-term software licenses to big
business customers is helping to cushion the blow from
plummeting PC demand and a faltering start for its Windows 8
system.

Personal computer sales fell 14 percent in the first three
months of the year, just as Microsoft tries to ramp up sales of
the latest iteration of Windows. But the company’s ability to
keep hold of big customers rescued its third-quarter results,
which came in better than expected on Thursday.

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said on Thursday Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein would leave at the end of June after 3-1/2 years in the post, as the world’s biggest software company struggles with sharply declining personal computer sales and a lukewarm reception for its new Windows 8 operating system.

Klein, an 11-year Microsoft veteran, is the latest in a line of top-level executives to leave the company, following Windows head Steven Sinofsky last November. Some have questioned whether Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is still the right leader for Microsoft, whose shares have remained essentially flat for the last decade.

SEATTLE, April 10 (Reuters) – Personal computer sales
plunged 14 percent in the first three months of the year, the
biggest decline in two decades of keeping records, as tablets
continue to gain in popularity and buyers appear to be avoiding
Microsoft Corp’s new Windows 8 system, according to a
leading tech tracking firm.

The huge drop over a year ago, the steepest since
International Data Corp started publishing sales numbers in
1994, mark a new milestone in the apparent decline of the age of
the PC as computing goes mobile via tablets and smartphones.

SEATTLE, April 10 (Reuters) – Personal computer sales
plunged 14 percent in the first three months of the year, the
biggest decline in two decades of keeping records, as tablets
continue to gain in popularity and buyers appear to be avoiding
Microsoft Corp’s new Windows 8 system, according to a
leading tech tracking firm.

The huge drop over a year ago, the steepest since
International Data Corp started publishing sales numbers in
1994, mark a new milestone in the apparent decline of the age of
the PC as computing goes mobile via tablets and smartphones.

SEATTLE (Reuters) – A second man who pleaded guilty to planning to attack a military recruitment facility in Seattle and murder U.S. servicemen in 2011 was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Monday.

Walli Mujahidh, 34, was one of two men who had planned to storm the Military Entrance Processing Station south of downtown Seattle with machine guns and grenades in retaliation for U.S. military actions in Afghanistan. Enlistees are screened and processed at the station.

SEATTLE, April 1 (Reuters) – Paul Allen, the billionaire
co-founder of Microsoft Corp , is opening an office in
Silicon Valley to make new investments in emerging technology
and internet companies.

The Palo Alto office, set to open in the next few weeks,
will operate under the name of Vulcan Capital, the investment
arm of Allen’s Seattle-based Vulcan Inc, which manages his
personal fortune, valued at about $15 billion.