In the News

Microsoft is the first hyper scale public cloud provider to offer services from local datacenters in India. With a complete portfolio of cloud services – Microsoft Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics CRM Online, Microsoft continues to lead the market by offering ‘cloud-on-your-terms’ across sectors like BFSI, healthcare, media & entertainment, telecom and government customers. Organizations across different industries are using the flexibility, security and advanced computing capabilities of Microsoft cloud to drive innovation and customer value.

Microsoft has launched an advertisement heavy media blitzkrieg about its Azure cloud offering in response to Amazon Web Services announcement that it has set up data centers in India to serve the local market. Microsoft, which has had deep relationships with Indian enterprises, is hoping that transition to cloud would happen on its platform Azure. Thus both AWS and Microsoft are keenly wooing entrepreneurs – big and small.

Microsoft announced the appointment of Crayon Software Experts India Pvt. Ltd as a distribution partner under its Cloud Solution Provider program in India. Crayon will help its Indian customers to adopt Microsoft’s Cloud based technology solutions like Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Windows Intune and Enterprise Mobility Suite subscriptions. Manohar Hotchandani, Director-Business Development, Microsoft India, said, “Accelerating cloud adoption amongst SMBs, Crayon’s capabilities will offer customers greater technical edge with enterprise-grade technology and fully managed services delivered from the Microsoft cloud.”

According to Xbox marketing executive Mike Nichols, pre-orders for the new console revision seem to be off to a pretty ‘amazing start.’ Microsoft declined to give any concrete numbers to back up their claims, though they did note that response to the new console has been uniformly enthusiastic across retailers and consumers, both.

The next Xbox One S console doesn’t even have a Kinect port, showing that even Microsoft doesn’t care about the depth sensor for gaming. However, it may yet make a comeback in VR. Microsoft researchers have made hand and finger-tracking much more accurate using the Kinect, which may eventually make it a more attractive option than a controller for VR games. Microsoft UK researcher Jamie Shotton said, “We’re getting to the point that the accuracy is such that the user can start to feel like the avatar hand is their real hand.”

DBS Bank has decided to adopt cloud-based productivity technology, Office 365, in the workplace, enabling its employees to change the way they work, as well as make a leap forward in terms of mobility, efficiency and productivity. Jessica Tan, Managing Director, Microsoft Singapore, said, “Microsoft is excited to partner DBS in its digital transformation as it leads the adoption of cloud technologies in the financial services industry here in Singapore. This leap will strengthen DBS’ mission to be Asia’s Safest and Asia’s Best as they build a more productive and collaborative workplace.”

MasterCard announced it will collaborate with Microsoft to bring simple and secure e-commerce payments to Microsoft Dynamics users. Simplify Commerce, a uniquely versatile, highly secure and incredibly simple cloud-based payments platform, helps businesses grow by maximizing online and mobile sales. Daniel Brown, Microsoft General Manager, Dynamics AX R&D, said, “Today’s retailers require modern, integrated, secure and scalable payments solutions that grow with their business. Simplify Commerce is a world-class, global offering that is highly secure and makes it easy for retailers to adopt quickly to drive seamless commerce and to develop deeper engagement with their customers.”

Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world’s #1 CRM company, announced Lightning for Outlook. Jared Spataro, General Manager, Microsoft Office, said, “As part of our ongoing strategic partnership with Salesforce, Lightning for Outlook gives users a great way to work with Salesforce right from within Outlook. The solution enhances productivity for our joint customers and helps salespeople work smarter and more efficiently.”

Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC and Jearwon Microelectronics announced a new partnership that will expand cloud-based business solutions for enterprise customers around the world. Nick Psyhogeos, President, Microsoft Technology Licensing, said, “Cloud-backed business solutions are essential for enterprise customers around the world, and this new partnership with Jearwon is about delivering better, more efficient services to empower businesses to thrive. Jearwon is a leader in the industry producing a RemoteFX ASIC acceleration system on a chip, and we are excited to collaborate with them.”

Microsoft has announced that the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the largest ever update to Windows 10 will be available to the general public on August 2. The blog post didn’t provide any new details other than the headline with the date. First announced at this year’s Build conference, the Anniversary Update includes a large suite of new tools for Windows 10 like a revamped set of stylus features with Windows Ink and the Ink Workspace, including improved Sticky Notes with Cortana support, a whiteboard or screen capture tool that users can summon from any app.