Author: Microsoft Stories

GE and Microsoft are uniting their cloud computing technologies in a partnership that will bring GE’s industrial internet platform, Predix, to businesses running on Microsoft Azure. The companies say the combination of Predix with Azure will bridge GE’s digital expertise in industry and manufacturing, and Microsoft’s forte in information technology. “Working with companies like GE, we can reach a new set of customers to help them accelerate their transformation across every line of business from the factory floor to smart buildings,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a statement announcing the partnership.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 anniversary update was launched on August 2. However, only a day later, a freezing issue was discovered. Good news is, Microsoft has finally acknowledged the bug. The company is currently working on a fix. They also revealed that only a small number of computers are actually affected by this issue. “Microsoft has received a small number of reports of Windows 10 freezing after installing the Anniversary Update on systems with the operating system stored on a solid-state drive (SSD) and apps and data stored on a separate drive. This issue does not occur when starting Windows 10 in Safe Mode,” the company said.

A group of Ph.D. students from the MIT Media Lab and researchers from Microsoft Research have come up with a temporary tattoo with which users can control their smartphone. The wearable can turn into a touchpad to remotely control smartphones, or share data using NFC (Near Field Communication). The technology is called DuoSkin and according to the researchers, one can design a circuit using any graphic software, stamp out the tattoo in gold leaf (which is conductive to electricity) and then apply other commodity materials and components that would make the tattoo interactive.

In an interview, Joseph Sirosh, Global Head of Data Group, Microsoft, said, “I have managed machine learning teams here for over 10-15 years. It is an interesting, good and strong community of machine learning experts and users in India. Now, the public sector is starting to catch on, with the Andhra Pradesh government looking at analyzing and predicting school dropouts and so on. I think there is enormous potential. There are startups that are using many of the cognitive APIs to build solutions for enterprises.”

Indians have played a key role in the success of technology powerhouses globally. From Google to Microsoft, Cognizant to NetApp, Indians run some of the world’s biggest and best companies. After a 22-year stint with the company, Satya Nadella was appointed as the chief executive officer of Microsoft in February 2014. The Hyderabad-born 47-year-old has a BE from Manipal Institute of Technology, MS from University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

According to a study led by Indian-origin entrepreneur, Microsoft’s employees are more innovative than Apple’s, and Facebook’s staff are less creative than most tech workers. The findings showed that Facebook lags behind the others in cultivating a culture of creativity. “The study data tell us that in terms of adventurousness, Microsoft employees tend to be neck-and-neck with Apple’s, and much more adventurous than Google, Facebook, or IBM employees,” said, Samar Birwadker, Founder and CEO, Good & CO.

Beam, an “interactive livestreaming service”, has been acquired by Microsoft. Chad Gibson, Partner Group Manager for Xbox Live, noted how this would help bridge the gap between playing games and watching them side by side. “We at Xbox are excited about this convergence between playing and watching, and want to provide gamers with the freedom and choice to have great multiplayer experiences across all of Beam’s platforms. This acquisition will help gamers enjoy the games they want, with the people they want, and on the devices they want.”

Microsoft has done an about-turn on one of their most controversial statements. Quantum Break will no longer remain a Windows 10 and Windows Store exclusive and will be coming to Steam this September. The plan in question was gunning for PC, Xbox cross-buy, shared saves, achievements, and maybe even cross-play, across platforms. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Microsoft had nothing to do with this decision because the game’s developers, Remedy Entertainment, aren’t a Microsoft company.

Microsoft completed its retreat from its controversial policy regarding support for Intel’s “Skylake” processors on its older Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 operating systems. Now Skylake PCs running those OSes will receive the standard length of support. In a controversial move, Microsoft had previously said this past January that it would only support Skylake PCs running its older operating systems for about 18 months. Now, the support lifetimes for “Broadwell” and “Skylake” PCs are the same: Windows 7 support will expire on January 14, 2020, and support for Windows 8.1 will end January 10, 2023.

Onvia, the leader in business-to-government (B2G) commerce intelligence, announced new integration capabilities with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Onvia’s single-click send-to-CRM feature gives clients who use Dynamics the ability to respond to government sales leads more quickly and efficiently. Onvia’s integration with Dynamics follows the recent announcement of integration with Salesforce CRM.