In the News

Gabe Aul, Head of the Windows Insider program took the opportunity to announce performance findings from the latest Windows 10 build. He said, “The Edge team has been continuing to optimise performance since first adding the new browser to Windows 10. In this build, Microsoft Edge is even better and is beating Chrome and Safari on their own JavaScript benchmarks – On WebKit Sunspider, Edge is 112% faster than Chrome.”

Microsoft has renovated an online store that combines its Windows Store and Windows Phone Store into one big virtual shopping mall. The newly redesigned app store is part of the company’s attempt to unify the Windows 10 experience across all devices — PCs, tablets and mobile phones. Now this one-stop shop is geared for everyone.

Terming the launch of the much-awaited Windows 10 as “seminal”, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner has said the company expects to have a billion devices based on the latest version of the Operating System by 2018. Turner, in his keynote address to over 14,000 Microsoft partners, vendors and resellers here yesterday, said Windows 10 was the greatest operating system the company had released.

Microsoft Corporation has agreed to develop ‘digital villages’ and a ‘smart MIDC’ (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation) in Maharashtra under the state’s ‘Make in Maharashtra’ initiative. The company has also said that it will set up a cyber-security centre in Maharashtra’s IT hub Pune and also agreed to adopt a tribal village in Melghat district, in order to provide ‘tertiary health services’ to the weaker sections of the society.

“Our digital literacy, skill building and entrepreneurship programs have touched 5 crore people in 20 states across India over the last decade. Continuing this commitment, we will soon commence a large scale digital literacy project under the global Microsoft YouthSpark program for marginalized communities, with a special focus on girls and young women. This program will run across 70 YouthSpark-Project Jyoti centers and is expected to train more than 35,000 young people in the next 18 months,” informed Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India.

Xbox along with the revolutionary Oculus devices is in talks to bring virtual reality right into our bedrooms. Oculus will pump in $10 Million to develop new virtual games for its device Oculus Rift interchangeable and playable using the Xbox One controller wirelessly right out of the box. The rift will work at its best on the upcoming Windows 10 platform.

Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner coached the company’s partners on the strategy they should employ to go win business in 2016 from rivals like Google, Amazon Web Services, Oracle, Apple and Salesforce. In his keynote at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Turner touted Microsoft’s new openness to integrating with products from just about all those other vendors.

Skype has released a new update for its Android app with new features, which makes it easier for the users to sign back in after they have logged out by memorizing their login details including their password. The users just have to tap on an arrow button. However, if the users wish they can switch back to the old login process by going in the Privacy section of the Settings menu.

Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, in a recent interview talked about the company’s plans for Windows Phones in depth. Nadella stressed that despite recent announcements the company is still focused on its mobile-first strategy, and said, “The free upgrade for Windows 10 is meant to improve our phone position. If somebody wants to know whether I’m committed to Windows Phone, they should think about what I just did with the free upgrade to Windows.”

At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2015, Gavriella Schuster, General Manager, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft said,”We have a great market in India and (it is) super strong. We have really tremendous partners who have been with us for a long time and are transforming very quickly in the cloud infrastructure.”