Microsoft News & Articles

 Trouble with Outlook.com is now in its second day as Microsoft struggles to resume service to many users, spread around the world. 

  Carry on collaborating on the move with the new video, chat and contact app from Microsoft to stay in touch wherever you are on your Windows Phone 8 or iPhone device.

"Imitation as Innovation: Lessons from the Shanzhai" was the most intellectually challenging topic from my first day at SXSW. This talk from Lyn Jeffery, Research Director at Institute for the Future and Kris Gale, VP of Engineering at Yammer had so many paradoxes fly about the room, it took a good minute after the presentation was completed before the audience could absorb the messages deeply enough to ask any questions.

I was very nervous when I made my plans for attending the south-by-south-west conference. I was scared that the conference was getting too big. Would the conference be dominated by the poseurs and wannabes? Would the startup crowd with dreams of grandeur make every presentation a feebly costumed marketing pitch? This fear was dispelled in my first session. 

The interaction between Microsoft’s browser and its operating system has been a subject of interest by monopoly watchers almost since the Web began. Now, that interest has resulted in a whopping US$ 731 million (€561 million) fine by the European Commission (EC), a decision which the technology giant has said it is “highly unlikely” to appeal. 

You can say what you want about Microsoft, but one thing you can’t accuse it of is not listening. You may recall the storm of protest across the Web a couple of weeks ago when it became clear that the licensing agreement on the new Office 2013 release limited each license to a single machine. Well, according to a blog post from Microsoft, it has caved in to consumer pressure.

Amazon, Google and Microsoft were going strong in their ongoing spat over cloud pricing early last December, but then things got quiet. Now Microsoft has announced the acquisition of MetricsHub which should add a little bit more edge to its Azure offering by providing software to monitor and automate resource allocation for Azure.

Office 365 and the release of three new business SKUs dominated this week in document management news, with the ripples of the release being felt with complementary solutions launched by MetaVis and KnowledgeLake. In other news, Metalogix announced some new developments around StoragePoint, Office 2013 got a new touchscreen guide and Version One rebranded.

Samsung is the new Apple. At least until the hype machine builds up for the next iPhone. For now, Samsung is ramping up for its March 14 debut of the next must have superphone, the Galaxy S4.

Facebook has announced it has purchased the Atlas Advertiser Suite, a marketing and advertising campaign management and measurement platform from Microsoft. Facebook says this acquisition will benefit both marketers and users, since marketers will be able to launch better advertising campaigns.

In the second announcement in recent weeks by Microsoft in relation to localization and its major product lines, Microsoft has announced new translation capabilities for Yammer messages, enabling users to translate messages into their native languages.

Microsoft started the roll-out of the updated version of Office 365 for business users earlier this week. The upgrades are present in all elements of the suite and reflect a changing work environment that is now more mobile, social and collaborative than it was when the suite was originally launched 18 months ago.

It's inevitable when you get a big release like Microsoft’s upgrade of Office 365 yesterday that a bunch of vendors will following up with tools to complement the release. Some of the services are more significant and useful than others, as is the case with MetaVis, which has just announced that its migration and administration tools will work with the new upgrade.

 Commercials are funny things, never more so than when one brand compares itself against another. So, here we see Microsoft trying to raise the profile of Windows Phones, and the Nokia Lumia 920, by challenging users of Samsung's current hero. 

That Microsoft released the consumer-focused version of Office 2013, Office 365 Home Premium, before releasing the business version is a bit of mystery given that Office 365 is clearly geared for businesses. However, today it has finally released the updated business versions that focus on social and mobile enterprises, as well as upgrades to its standard applications.