Microsoft will offer the upcoming Windows Server 2012 in four editions that it said will provide "dramatically simplified licensing."

Microsoft also disclosed that it's retiring the Small Business Server Edition, a product that had been popular among small and midsize businesses and the solution providers that sell to them.

The release candidate version of Windows Server 2012 has been available since May 31, but Microsoft has not revealed a target date for the RTM (Release To Manufacturing) version that immediately precedes general availability. Like Windows 8, the next release of the desktop and tablet operating system, Windows Server 2012 is widely expected sometime this fall.

If you're having trouble signing onto Xbox Live, you are not alone. Microsoft is aware of the issue and is "actively investigating," according to the official Xbox Support Twitter account.

The Xbox Live status page notes that users may have trouble signing into Xbox Live via Xbox.com, though we've experienced the same issue when logging in via the Xbox 360 itself.

Oh, and apparently the TMZ app isn't working either. [joystiq]

Two days ago, Microsoft revealed that it would run an upgrade promotion in most markets that would allow Windows customers to buy a downloadable upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99. Joe Wilcox asks if $40 is to much to pay for Windows 8 and current results show that customer opinion is split in half. About 43 percent of all users who participated in the poll stated that they would upgrade for the price, while roughly 42 percent stated they would not.

However, respondents are missing crucial information, because the original announcement at Blogging Windows fails to address certain upgrade-related aspects that Windows customers need to make an educated decision. One requirement will shock many Windows users.

Evangelising about the new Microsoft tablet – Surface – Gates sketched out his vision for a world where everyone is using the Surface, saying that the device which promises to combine the PC's value as a creative tool with the tablet's strengths as a consumption device, will "change the rules".

Quizzed as to whether the Surface would cannibalise the market for the PCs - he said that it was possible people would no longer even think about PCs after the Surface comes out:

Whatever you call Surface, they will want to have it. We'll call it a Windows device. When you have two device categories and merge them together, there's always the question of which name survives. Because the PC has been the super-seller ... it has a keyboard and a breadth of rich inputs.. maybe we'll call them PCs.

Or maybe we need a new term: maybe we'll just called them 'Surface-like devices'.

Gates also talked about his "lost tablet" in the interview – the touch screen device he rejected because it had no keyboard when Microsoft's engineers presented it to him in 1998 – and attributed Steve Jobs's success with the iPad to passing a certain critical mass.