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Advanced Micro Devices has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co to explore options, which could include a potential sale, as the chipmaker struggles to find a role in an industry increasingly focused on mobile and away from traditional PCs, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer can't afford to be wrong about Windows 8. On Thursday in New York, Microsoft unveiled a dramatic overhaul of its ubiquitous Windows operating system. It will go on sale Friday, fused into more than 1,000 PCs and other devices. If it flops, the failure will reinforce perceptions that Microsoft is falling behind competitors such as Apple, Google and Amazon as its stranglehold on personal computers becomes less relevant in an era of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Microsoft is on the verge of releasing Windows 8, its biggest software product in years — and the company's lackluster financial results on Thursday underscored how badly the company needs it to deliver.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) hints at Windows RT tablet prices and their release dates. Another one of Redmond's mammoth blog posts is getting the reading-between-the-lines-analysis treatment today, as the company announces more details of Windows 8-on-ARM PCs.

Valve head—and one-time Microsoft employee—Gabe Newell has branded Windows 8 "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space" at videogame conference Casual Connect in Seattle. The Valve boss continued, saying that in the fallout from Windows 8, "we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people." Newell criticised Windows 8 while talking about the future of the gaming industry, and you can read everything he said at VentureBeat.

According to the Wall Street Journal, travel website Orbitz has discovered that people who use Macs are willing to spend as much as 30 percent more per night for hotel rooms compared to the more frugal Windows PC users. To take advantage of this the company has rolled out what it calls a “predictive analytics” initiative in an attempt to increase revenues.

Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest cellphone company, is dropping nearly all of its phone plans in favor of pricing schemes that encourage consumers to connect their non-phone devices, like tablets and PCs, to Verizon's network.

The world of Wintel - Microsoft, Intel and the Taiwan-based companies that build the computers their products power and run on - is taking a huge collective bet on Windows 8.

We live in a post-something era. This much, Microsoft is willing to concede; the iPad's thundering success changed the landscape. It has shown that the buyer is willing to imagine a different form factor than the PC commanding her principal information delivery platform. Apple has yet to conquer that platform, but it has fired its third round of volleys and the castle walls have been breached.

Android developers have released a version of 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich that can run on chips found in most personal computers, from netbooks and laptops to desktop towers.