What’s the future for Windows Phone?

Despite rumors of its potential demise, Microsoft likely to hold on to the mobile business to keep its hand in the market

Despite rumors that Microsoft is about to kill Windows Phone, some industry observers say that's unlikely for several reasons, especially the expected gains from the rollout of Windows 10, which will run on smartphones and other devices.

The rumors of Windows Phone's imminent death seem to have started with Microsoft's announcement on Monday that it sold its Bing Maps mapping technology to Uber and transferred about 100 workers in data analysis and image collection to the ride-sharing company. That announcement came the same day that Microsoft said it will exit most of its online advertising business in a deal with AOL.

MEAN vs. LAMP for the future of programming

LAMP diehards take note: The flexible simplicity of MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, and Node.js is no joke

The transition from cutting-edge curiosity to practical workhorse is not one that many technologies make. Yesterday’s precocious upstarts often fail to live up to their Version 0.1 promise -- not so for the technologies that make up the fiercely acronymized MEAN stack.

It was only a few years ago that MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, and Node.js were raising eyebrows on their own. Now they’ve grown up and ganged up, and together they’re doing serious work, poaching no small number of developers from the vast LAMP camp. But how exactly does this newfangled MEAN thing stack up against LAMP? When is it better to choose the well-tested, mature LAMP over this upstart collection of JavaScript-centric technologies?