TORONTO (Reuters) - Microsoft will acquire Perceptive Pixel, a company that develops large touch screens and whose clients include the cable television channel CNN said Monday its chief executive, Steve Ballmer.
Microsoft also said it plans to launch the latest version of its flagship operating system Windows in October, launch Ballmer painted as the most important for the company based in Redmond (Washington) since the release of Windows 95 nearly two decades.
"This is a year epic" Ballmer said more than 16,000 business partners at a conference in Toronto. "It is a year of unprecedented opportunities," remarked the executive.
The next 12 months are critical to the software giant, which has prepared a multi-pronged attack against the dominance of Apple and Google in the crucial segment of mobile computing.
The company is making several bets important in this period: its new operating system Windows 8, aiming for launch in late October, the first tablet "Surface", a new version of Office, and a new and improved software for telephony.
"The main products not only enter into a new wave, but for years to know if Microsoft's bid for Windows 8, which links to the tablets and PCs will be a success or a failure for the company," said IDC analyst Al Hilwa.
Microsoft said that Windows 8 will send its hardware partners in the first week of August, and will be available more widely to late October.
"This will be the biggest year in the launch of products and services in the history of our company, creating huge opportunities for our partners grow their business," Ballmer said in a statement released simultaneously in annual Worldwide Partner Conference.
Microsoft, which recently agreed to buy the online social network Yammer by 1,200 million dollars in cash (about 975 million euros), did not disclose the value of what you plan to pay for the acquisition of Perceptive Pixel.
Perceptive Pixel was founded in 2006 and launched its first workstations and large wall screens in 2007, according to its website, where presumed to "transform the way CNN covered the historic U.S. presidential election of 2008 ".
