What’s ‘Appening: Five apps to add extra jolly to your holiday season

The end-of-year holiday season is a time of giving,sharing, and about celebrating with your friends and family over good food, wine and conversation. However, the hassle of planning a gathering can get to even the best of us. With these great apps on Windows and Windows Phone, you can throw those worries aside and go about planning that perfect party for family and friends.

César Cernuda: Investing in the next generation

The gaping opportunity divide in Asia means the very best performing education systems in the world are sitting next to the very worst. It seems the divide isn’t as wide as it is deep. This is reflected in the results of the most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The assessment measures the academic performance of students and compares these results by national average.

Infographic: IT Leaders in APAC drive digital transformation

Every business needs to go digital to survive, and it goes beyond digitizing processes. IT leaders are taking the lead to transform and successfully operate in a mobile-first, cloud-first world. Microsoft conducted an online survey for two weeks in October with 291 IT leaders from medium to large organisations in 10 markets in Asia Pacific to seek their views on their journey and the new future.

Microsoft survey shows 62% of IT leaders in Asia Pacific expect to increase spending on new technologies in 2015

A Microsoft Asia Pacific survey of 291 IT decision makers of medium to large enterprises across 10 markets in Asia Pacific showed that IT leaders in the region are leading the charge to harness disruptive technologies enabling their transformation to a mobile-first and cloud-first world. More than half of CIOs (53%) polled allocated 11% to 30% of their budget towards using new technologies and another 27% of respondents allocated more than 30%.