In the News

Broadview Networks, a leading provider of cloud-based business communications and information technology services, announced today that its 100 percent cloud-based unified communications solution, OfficeSuite™ Phone, now integrates with Microsoft™ Skype™ for Business, an industry-leading collaboration platform.

Members of the Windows Insider Program got their first new beta build of Microsoft’s operating system for 2016. The new build features improvements to OneCore, the underlying shared core of Windows that’s on all the devices running Windows 10 including Xbox One, smartphones and even Microsoft’s HoloLens. According to Microsoft Vice President Gabe Aul, the structural changes to OneCore are almost at the point where Microsoft is comfortable letting teams check in new features for Windows 10, which is good news for those of us looking for a taste of new functionality Microsoft has in store.

Online marketplace Flipkart has launched services for its consumers on Microsoft’s new Windows 10 platform. Building on Flipkart and Microsoft’s constant efforts to make technology adapt to consumers and deliver an enhanced end-user experience, Flipkart’s new universal Windows app will offer consumers a seamless app experience across all form factors, the company said. The new universal app will offer a more personalised app interface with features such as customised shopping recommendations, merchandising and notifications, and interactive guided search.

Microsoft has purchased technology assets from Event Zero, which provides management software for Skype for Business Online. The deal is intended to enhance the management tools built into Microsoft’s business communications software. Specifically, Microsoft has bought technologies underlying Event Zero’s UC Commander product suite.

Microsoft has released a small but powerful shortcut in the latest update to its Outlook iOS app, it’s now more deeply integrated with Skype so you can turn events scheduled in your calendar into live, virtual meetings. The app now has a ‘Skype Meeting’ switch you can turn on when creating or editing an event so that when the meeting is about to start, you can just tap to join the relevant call via Skype.

Microsoft quietly announced today that it’s making it easier for small businesses to upgrade to Windows 10, by making the ‘Get Windows 10’ app that prompts users to upgrade more widely available.Starting later this month Microsoft says businesses running Windows 7 Pro or 8.1 Pro will start seeing the upgrade app appear in their task bar, asking them to take advantage of the free upgrade.

At the recent CDM Summit in Silicon Valley, channel performance experts from Microsoft, HP Inc., Accenture, and IDC described the transformative power that CDM injects into the manufacturing sector. Microsoft has introduced Zyme CDM to some of its 3,000 managed partners, and tens of thousands of others to potentially be added to the CDM platform in the future. The company’s initial use of the Zyme platform has begun to deliver key business intelligence. “Data matters, and it matters at the most senior levels,” explained Frank Martin, senior program manager at Microsoft.

Caringo announced the immediate availability of its Swarm object storage software on Microsoft Azure, enabling rapid deployment of highly reliable, scalable and compliant storage to developers and enterprises in any of the worldwide network of managed data centers that Azure offers. Now, applications using Amazon S3 can seamlessly move to Azure using Caringo Swarm.

The Microsoft Office productivity suite for Android has received an update that brings interesting new features to the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint productivity apps. Among other additions, the company is now allowing users to sign up for a free Microsoft account from within the app. PowerPoint for Android is getting some new features too. Users will now be able to play the embedded media files in their presentation.

Microsoft will soon add group video calling feature to its Skype mobile app for Android, iOS and Windows 10. The feature is said to be released in the coming weeks. Users who wish to try out the feature before its official roll out can pre-register on Microsoft’s site. In addition, the company is also celebrating Skype’s 10th anniversary and shares details on how the product has evolved through the years.