In the News

Code for Honor 2014, started by MS India, is a contest for ISVs (independent software vendors) and technology startups drew to close, with Microsoft announcing six winners. The winners, who developed commercial apps and solutions focused on large enterprises, micro / small / medium enterprises, Government enablement and citizen services, took home cash prizes of Rs. 2, 00,000 each. The winners will have access to mentors from an elite panel put together by Microsoft as well as the opportunity to connect with potential investors and customers. Joseph Landes, General Manager – Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India, said, “The contest was designed as an opportunity to provide an accelerator to ISVs and tech start-ups to develop commercial apps on the Windows platform. We wanted to create the same kind of excitement around commercial apps that is usually seen around consumer apps. I see the development of commercial apps as the next big trend in the app development ecosystem in India as it is lucrative and in high demand”.

The upcoming Lumia Cyan update promises to deliver better camera experience. The technology’s front man, Juha Alakarhu and Eero Salmelin, in an open discussion with WP Central, revealed a few more details about what Lumia Cyan will bring for Nokia Windows Phone users. One of those advances would be in the better low-light performance, which is a common problem with owners of the Nokia Lumia 1520. The gigantic flagship was clearly not on par with the rest of the competition when it comes to low light performance and definitely needs a boost in this area. The Cyan update will also bring better colours and continuous autofocus for devices. Video will also be smoother and RAW images will look better as well thanks to a newer approach to utilizing the camera sensors.

ICICI Bank launched its mobile banking application IMobile’ for Windows phones. The new app is available for download on the Windows Phone Store for mobile phones. ICICI Bank, which was the first Bank in the country to launch a mobile banking application six years ago, intends to enhance customer experience through a new user interface on the Windows tile format.

Micromax has launched its first range of Windows Phone 8.1 devices in an event in New Delhi, marking the company’s foray into smartphones with Microsoft’s mobile OS. Micromax was one of the partners announced by Microsoft on stage at BUILD this year, when introducing Windows Phone 8.1. We have been awaiting the first range of handsets powered by WP8.1 since then and following’s Xolo’s first Windows device last week, Micromax has launched two new phones.

In order to promote active collaboration, Microsoft India has moved into a new office in Gurgaon. “We wanted to ensure that we work co-opt more, so we requested for all the staff to be located at one office”, says Rohit Thakur, Head, Human Resources, Microsoft India. The new workspace, built along Microsoft’s global Workplace Advantage Program guidelines, is kitted out with 60 meeting rooms of varying sizes and specifications, from telephone rooms for one-on-one conversations, focus rooms that can accommodate four-six people at a time, to meeting rooms for larger consultations.

Micromax which made its presence felt in the Indian smartphone market with devices running on Android OS is now preparing to launch at least one WP device. While the exact specifications and pricing of the two Canvas phones is not known, one of the devices will be priced around Rs 6,000-7,000 and other around Rs 10,000-11,000. The partnership with Micromax along with nine other manufacturers was announced back in April at the BUILD conference. Microsoft is also reported to have waived the license fee for Windows Phone. In a boost to take its OS to the masses and grow the ecosystem, the software major is working closely with a number of locally-strong phone makers in different countries.

After a 6-month long wait, the Xolo Win tablet has finally gone on sale in India and it’s priced at Rs 19,990. The slate is the company’s first to run on Windows and it’s also the first to go on sale in the country with an AMD processor onboard. What’s more, Flipkart is selling the slate exclusively through its online store. The device runs on Windows 8.1 out of the box and is the most affordable smartphone available in the market today. MS Office comes pre-installed as well. Intel’s Atom SOC is found on most slates in this category, but this one comes with the AMD Temash chipset.

Fortinet has announced support for secure access to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. As per the release making the announcement, customers can immediately benefit from a secure virtual private network (VPN) access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud offering while leveraging Fortinet’s broad and multi-layered security technologies across network, application and content security. Venkat Gattamneni, Senior Product Marketing Manager – Microsoft Azure, Microsoft, said, “Microsoft Azure’s cloud scalability, performance and economic benefits make it a convincing choice for customers wanting to leverage the cloud while continuing to use existing on-premises infrastructure.”

Twitter has been long eyeing Bing’s translation services for providing full-frontal language interpretation support through its services. In a step that makes this fact more evident, the micro-blogging site has infused its official iOS app with the translator tool, while also expanding its offerings in its web version. As far as mobile devices are concerned, this feature was earlier available only for Windows Phone devices. With its arrival for iPhones and iPads, the obvious questions will be regarding when it will be made available for Android devices.

Fortinet has announced support for secure access to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The support for Microsoft Azure on top of its existing support for Windows Server with Hyper-V is effective immediately. Venkat Gattamneni, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft, said, “Microsoft Azure’s cloud scalability, performance and economic benefits make it a convincing choice for customers who require secure VPN access from office and branch networks to the cloud”. Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet, said, “Microsoft Azure is clearly a compelling solution for organizations that are looking to improve and extend availability of their IT services”.