In the News

Microsoft India today said it is targeting small and medium-sized enterprises to expand the customer base of its cloud-based services in Madhya Pradesh. “Madhya Pradesh is among the 10 states having a huge number of small and medium-sized businesses. So we want to provide cloud-based services to these businesses at economical rate,” said Microsoft India Business Development Director Manohar Hotchandani.

SN International, a silver partner of Microsoft, is on track to grow its business by more than 200% over the next 12 months. This growth will be powered by adoption of Microsoft Office 365 by its customers. Office 365 offers SMBs productivity tools that help customers to increase collaboration amongst employees without the hassle of managing expensive IT infrastructure.

Microsoft Corp said it began the worldwide roll-out of Office 2016, the latest addition to its cloud-based subscription service Office 365. Office 2016 brings new versions of desktop apps for Windows including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and Access and allows people to collaborate and work together. “These latest innovations take another big step forward in transforming Office from a familiar set of individual productivity apps to a connected set of apps and services designed for modern working, collaboration and teamwork,” Chief Executive Satya Nadella said.

The common theme at Dreamforce 2015 is soul, and how a company has heart. In a chat with Wired’s Jessi Hampel, Nadella showed its soul, or heart, a term that Benioff loosely describes as a company’s vision to help shape, change and influence the world for the better, by announcing a $75 million project to bring technology to schools. The soul for Microsoft is education.”Education is what’s going to make a difference,” Nadella effused. It is education that will help make a difference in the world, and Nadella’s vision is to help children participate in “the future economy.”

Marking the launch of Forza Motorsport 6, Xbox has invited gamers from all over to try and beat the race timings set by Lotus F1 team driver Romain Grosjean and Head of Xbox Phil Spencer and earn top bragging rights in the gaming community. The #TimetoShine Challenge asks the fans to set better race times than the ones set by Grosjean (1 minute 52.703 seconds) and Spencer (2 minutes 00.343 seconds), using the 2015 Lotus E23 Hybrid car on Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps track in Belgium, recreated in-game, especially for Forza Motorsport 6

International healthcare group Columbia Asia has partnered with Microsoft to evolve a next-generation cloud ready hospital management system to meet its emerging enterprise needs. Preeti Das, Director, Microsoft Services says, “When it comes to extending the benefits of next generation technology with high-quality healthcare for the wellbeing of patients, a sound architecture and cloud will go a long way. Our association with Columbia Asia will result in building advanced healthcare solutions that are capable of further enhancing patient safety and driving overall operational efficiency.”

Microsoft is working on a Linux-based operating system. This new operating system is not going to find its way into desktops and laptops, but is instead aimed at driving the networking hardware in the enterprise space. Microsoft has built something called Azure Cloud Switch (ACS), which is based on Linux. This software is being used to connect networking hardware like switches and routers

Microsoft is bringing the power of its Cortana Analytics Suite to Salesforce.com, looking to help the CRM service’s customers gain deeper understanding and insight into their sales pipeline. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella showcased the new offering — built in conjunction with Salesforce.com and Bozeman, Montana-based Alpine Metrics — at the Dreamforce Expo in San Francisco. The solution aims to provide customers with a better way to manage sales processes by leveraging the predictive analytics and decision-automation capabilities of Cortana Analytics.

Microsoft is rolling out an update that brings the Start menu to Windows RT 8.1, the operating system that powers the first two generations of Microsoft’s non-Pro Surface tablets, as well as a smattering of other early Windows tablets. Windows RT’s new Start menu is based on a version found in early technical preview builds from Windows 10. It’s more or less a mash-up of the Windows 7 Start menu and the one in Windows 10.

Microsoft has developed a prototype of a connected car that recognizes commands from the Cortana voice assistant, an executive with the Microsoft Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group said at the company’s TechDays conference. Based on the prototype, Cortana would display itself on the windshield of the car, helping drivers see nearby locations or perform such tasks as making restaurant reservations.