Microsoft to cut Mac Office price by 33% for 5-day sale

Microsoft will slash the price of its Office for Mac 2011 suite by as much as 33% next week during a five-day sale.
Office for Mac 2011, which launched late last month, will be discounted at several online and brick-and-mortar retailers starting on Nov. 25, Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. The deal will run through Monday, Nov. 29.
Amazon.com will cut the price of Home & Student by $40, to $79 for the one-license version and $109 for the three-license package. Home & Student lists for $119.99 and $149.99 for the one- and three-license editions, respectively, putting Amazon's discounts at 33% and 27%.
Other retailers, including Apple's own stores, Best Buy, MacMall and Microsoft's e-store, will chop off $20 from the list price of Home & Student.

Microsoft has discounted the Mac application suite before. In 2008, for instance, the company cut prices by as much as 70% for the then-current Office for Mac 2008 Special Media Edition, a $499.95 bundle that Microsoft did not revive for the newest edition.
As of mid-day Thursday, Office for Mac 2011 Home & Student held the No. 5 spot in Amazon's software bestseller list, while the pricier Home & Business had the No. 7 spot. The latter includes the same Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications as Home & Student, but adds the Outlook e-mail client to the mix.
Microsoft's Windows-based Office 2010 Home & Student was the No. 1 package on the same list.

Microsoft Messenger Edition 251 phone with Windows Live

Microsoft has partnered with SFR (France’s second largest mobile carrier) to introduce the Messenger Edition 251, a new QWERTY (well, AZERTY actually) messaging phone that comes pre-installed with Windows Live Messenger.

Targeted at young users, the Messenger Edition 251 looks a bit like a BlackBerry and it’s most probably manufactured by ZTE, since it almost perfectly resembles the ZTE X990.
The new phone’s features include a QVGA landscape touchscreen display, web browser, Bluetooth, music player, FM radio, 2MP camera and MicroSD card support. The handset runs a proprietary OS that might have something to do with Microsoft’s Project Pink – the Pink phones will also be targeted at young users who need messaging devices, and will be available via Vodafone (which owns 44% of SFR).Microsoft News

Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two

Microsoft has announced its two Pink Project phones, initially known as Turtle and Pure. The official and final names of the handsets are Kin One and Kin Two.
Both phones are manufactured by Sharp and are targeted at social networking users. They come with a new homescreen called Kin Loop. Kin Loop is “always up to date and always on”, displaying feeds from various sources (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc) in one place.
Kin Studio is also a common feature of the new Microsoft devices. It “automatically backs up texts, call history, photos, videos and contacts” and lets you access them via any Web browser.

The Microsoft Kin One has a QVGA landscape touchscreen display, compact QWERTY keyboard, 3G, Wi-Fi, Media player powered by Zune, 5MP camera, and 4GB of onboard memory.

The Microsoft Kin Two has a HVGA touchscreen display and a bigger QWERTY keyboard. Moreover, the Kin Two features Wi-Fi, 3G, Media player powered by Zune, 8MP camera with HD video recording, and 8GB of internal memory.

Both devices are marketed as Windows Phones, but they don’t seem to run Windows Phone 7. Their cameras feature image stabilization and a bright LumiLED flash, which is reportedly 10x brighter than a normal LED flash.
Microsoft Kin One and Microsoft Kin Two will be available in the US via Verizon, starting May. Vodafone will bring the two phones in Europe in autumn (in Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK).Mobile News