Microsoft News & Articles

Earlier in the week, in new research published by AIIM, we saw that while there has been widespread deployment of SharePoint, enterprises are far from completely happy with it. In this final look at the research we will see what the main issues are and how enterprises intend to deal with them going forward.

Windows Phone developers now have a new online home, courtesy of Microsoft. The technology giant has unveiled the Windows Phone Dev Center, which it calls an evolution of the retired App Hub Developer Portal.

While recent research by AIIM indicates that at least 70% of organizations have deployed SharePoint in some shape or form over the past year, the way it is being used and the reasons it is being deployed in the first instance, are as many as there are enterprises using it.

Another small announcement from Google that will make Google Drive yet a little bit easier to use and more attractive to users. This time the upgrade is to spreadsheets, enabling groups or teams working on the same spreadsheet to secure the information contained in each cell.

Remember Metro, the tile-based interface in Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8? Well, that name may already be extinct.

It’s the middle of the holiday period, so it’s a little bit surprising to see Gartner release another one of its Magic Quadrants. This time it’s the Sales Force Automation quadrant that features quite a number of the vendors we've seen in the customer experience management space, except this one has a slightly different focus.

 After the recent excitement over the completion of the Windows 8 operating system, Microsoft should have the smartphone version done in the next few weeks, with Nokia expected to announce new devices for a coordinated launch later in the year. 

A few weeks after Microsoft announced that it was buying Yammer, the business-oriented social network is testing out a new feature -- private chat.

Windows 8 has been declared RTM, or released to manufacturing, by Microsoft, sending it to the hundreds of hardware partners for installation and testing on their PCs, notebooks and tablets. But what does the road to launch look like for businesses and developers? 

Microsoft officially unveiled Office 2013 earlier this month. Office 2013 isn’t just a good tool for spinning up spreadsheets and slide decks; it’s also a great platform for Microsoft to promote its cloud storage service SkyDrive.

If the new subsidiary dedicated to openness or addition of support for several open source technologies (including Linux) to Azure didn’t quite convince you that Microsoft has changed its stripes about open source, perhaps its latest move will push you over the edge. The company has open sourced its popular .Net entity framework.

 Microsoft has claimed over a million sign-ups on the first day of its new Outlook.com email service, with the promise of a far great experience through improved interaction with attachments and wider links to social media. With plans to migrate the millions of Microsoft Hotmail users, will it attract users from Yahoo, Gmail and other services?

Microsoft is continuing to invest heavily in Bing. Today the company announced it has significantly updated the 18-month-old Spatial Data Services (SDS) in Bing Maps. The changes eliminate legacy tools, improve performance and maybe most importantly, improve the service for its enterprise customers.

 With a likely September launch for the next iPhone and perhaps a mini iPad, Windows 8 launching with an armada of hardware in October, and Amazon to unveil a Kindle Fire 2 for the holidays, get ready for the most intense consumer battle in recent years. Which, if any, will you buy?

Kodak may have seen its glory days flutter by, but the company is now the subject of what may be a multi-billion dollar bidding war for intellectual property pertaining to mobile imaging. And considering how popular and essential imaging on mobile devices has become today, Kodak's patents may just help give tech and mobile companies much-needed leverage in today's battle for mobile supremacy.