Author: Microsoft Stories

Microsoft has raised the roof on its OneDrive storage again. The company announced Office 365 subscribers will get unlimited storage (up from the 1 TB limit) on OneDrive. “Unlimited storage is just one small part of our broader promise to deliver a single experience across work and life that helps people store, sync, share, and collaborate on all the files that are important to them, all while meeting the security and compliance needs of even the most stringent organizations,” Microsoft said in its blog.

Microsoft is going full throttle to undertake a rebranding exercise on a country-by-country basis by dropping the Nokia name from its smartphones. “This is a very exciting time for us and for Lumia products,” said Tuula Rytila, Senior Vice-President of Marketing, Microsoft Phones. “Our global and local websites are going through a transition as we speak, and in the coming days our social channels will get a new name too—they will be called Microsoft Lumia.”

Helped by stronger sales of its phones, Surface tablets and cloud-computing products for companies, Microsoft Corp has reported higher-than-expected quarterly revenue. While sales of its Lumia smartphones hit 9.3 million in the first full quarter since the close of the Nokia deal, revenue from the Surface tablet more than doubled to $908 million from $400 million in the year-ago quarter.

It’s time for Diwali discounts and freebies at consumer electronics stores around the country. Microsoft and Amazon are offering a discount of Rs 4,000 on the Xbox One video game console with FIFA 15, the popular football game, bundled with it for free. The Xbox One is currently available on Amazon.in for Rs 35,990.

Microsoft released an upgrade for the Skype app for Windows Phone, which introduces an exclusive ‘Doodle’ feature available only for Windows device users. “Today we’re excited to release Skype 2.24 for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows Phone 8, which brings drawing to Skype for the first time! Get creative and draw on a canvas, add silly touches to a photo or draw the fastest route on a map and share it with your friends and family,” the official Skype blog said.

A brand new series on CNBC-TV18 puts the spotlight on the transformative role of technology in enabling business and accelerating growth. Through the series, CNBC will be looking at different sectors and themes where information technology is helping the growth of modern India. In the curtain raiser, Microsoft India’s Bhaskar Pramanik and Karan Bajwa highlight the role of technology in making India excel.

Microsoft has already proven its potency in the cloud era, and is one of three companies with the scale, resources, and know-how to dominate the booming $100 billion market, CEO Satya Nadella told CNBC. In his first television interview since becoming the software giant’s third CEO, Nadella focused on Microsoft’s cloud ambitions. He also talked about why he won’t spin off Microsoft’s consumer properties and how he’s changing the model of the company’s prized Windows business.

The latest version of the Truecaller app for Windows Phone 8.1-based Lumia devices will offer Live Caller ID information, Microsoft and Truecaller have announced. With this tie-up, users will now be able to see caller information during the incoming call even if it has not been stored in their Lumia device phonebook. “We are very happy to be able to support Truecaller in bringing this great functionality globally to Windows Phone for the first time,” said Navdeep Manaktala, Head, Applications & Developer Ecosystem at Microsoft Mobile Devices and Services.

Till a few years ago, complex acronyms like SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and CaaS were used to try and encapsulate the concept of virtual hosting and data sharing. It was only when software giants like Microsoft simplified cloud computing to a level where it could be easily deployed and managed that it gained credence and market acceptance. Rakesh Bhatt, Chief Operations & Technology Officer at Bajaj Finance, says, “Using Microsoft solutions, we have successfully delivered business productivity by standardizing the data warehouse, portal, messaging and unified communications architecture of our company.”