Author: Microsoft Stories

Bio-tech procurement company Amici Procurement has chosen Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider iomart to help it move to Office 365. Caroline Briggs, Owner of Amici Procurement, says, “Office 365 is a natural progression for us. We already hosted our IT platform with iomart and we knew they had the expertise as a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider to take us to Office 365.”

Microsoft has announced availability of the technical previews that form a part of Skype for Business. The users can now register for access to Skype Meeting Broadcast, which is a largely device-agnostic video conferencing tool for meetings with up to 10,000 participants.The preview features include the ability to take feedback from attendees via Yammer integration and Bing Pulse sentiment tracking.

A new R Consortium of major vendors launched aimed at strengthening both the technical and user communities. Founding members include Microsoft, Google, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle, along with well-known R players such as RStudio, Tibco Software and Mango Solutions (Revolution Analytics is a member under the Microsoft umbrella). Alteryx and Ketchum Trading are also founding members.

Skype will roll out new products that will let companies replace their phone networks and broadcast meetings to thousands of people at once. The new features are part of Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud products and will be available later this year, said Zig Serafin, Vice President of Skype for Business.

Microsoft has released a latest preview of Windows 10 along with other new features including Microsoft Edge and Wi-Fi that will come with the platform. The users will have to download Windows 10’s latest preview build for PCs, to use the new feature available. In addition, Windows Photos app now also supports GIFs and has an ‘Open with…’ option.

In an interview Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik said, “From an Indian perspective, we are No 1 in personal computers, and we are 50% on the Xbox but low market share in tablets and phones, and we’re just getting started with the Internet of Things. We believe that in India, a lot of the applications and services will be ‘mobile only.’ That’s the opportunity.”

Supporting the Digital India initiative, world’s largest software maker Microsoft Corp today said it will help the government in efforts to “transform” the country through technological innovations. In a video message on the occasion of launch of Digital India week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said technology can support the government’s initiatives in key areas of the programme including rural internet connectivity, digital cloud services for all and communications and productivity.

Microsoft’s Major Nelson has announced that new Xbox features will be made available to Windows 10 and Xbox One users in their respective Preview programs. Major Nelson confirmed the full list of features that Xbox One and Windows 10 owners can expect when the update goes live.

Microsoft has announced that it will launch Visual Studio 2015, the latest version of its integrated development environment, on July 20. Visual Studio 2015 will come in two subscriptions, which are Enterprise and Pro. Microsoft will also offer a non-subscription version of Visual Studio Professional for USD 499.

Microsoft has added a new Surface Pro 3 to its retail lineup that’s tailor made for people who want a little extra power at a middle-of-the-road price point. The new Surface Pro 3 has a 1.7GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and costs US$1,299.