In the News

Battlefield 1 is one of the best-looking games of 2016 and perhaps this generation. DICE has literally pushed any remaining power out of the PS4 and Xbox One along with heavy improvements in lighting; physical based rendering and global illumination technology. DICE have been consistently working to optimize the Frostbite engine, improving several technicalities along the way and the result is phenomenal regardless of whatever platform users happen to play Battlefield 1 on.

Microsoft said it will be increasing pricing for its enterprise software and cloud services in the UK in the wake of the sterling’s plunge since Britons voted to leave the EU. The price increase, from January 1 2017, will be 13 per cent for its enterprise software and 22 per cent for its enterprise cloud services. Pricing changes will not apply to consumer software or consumer cloud services, the company said in a blog post.

Microsoft announced that software and technology firm SAP will make its “SuccessFactors” Cloud-based human capital management (HCM) service available on Microsoft’s Azure over the next five years. This is SAP’s first move to supplement its own infrastructure and operate SAP Cloud solutions in a third-party public cloud. “The combination of SAP’s market-leading, innovative HCM solutions with Microsoft’s intelligent Cloud will equip companies around the world to help maximize the potential and skills of their most asset, their people,” said Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Business at Microsoft.

Social media giant Facebook has rolled out a new update to its Messenger app that now lets Windows 10 users to make voice and video calls. Until now, a user had to leave Messenger for Windows 10 and go to Messenger.com or Facebook.com to make voice or video calls. The phone icon on the updated Messenger is on the top right corner of the screen in the Windows 10 app. A chat glows green when the other person is currently active.

US tech giant Microsoft has set up a cybersecurity engagement centre (CSEC) in the Delhi-NCR region to work with partners in identifying and responding to cyber threats in the country. The India centre, which is the seventh such facility for the company globally, will function as a satellite to Microsoft’s Redmond Digital Crimes Unit (DCU). “The CSEC’s mission is to help build a trusted and secure computing environment, a critical enabler for India’s digital transformation. It will work towards fostering deeper cybersecurity collaborations with public and private sector organizations for this,” said Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik.

Microsoft recently rolled out its anniversary update for Windows 10 which brought in some improvements and new features. There have been reports that claim Microsoft will be releasing two major updates in 2017 for Windows 10. The first one is codenamed Redstone 2 and should make its way in spring 2017.

Microsoft has enlisted the likes of Volvo, Lowes, Japan Airlines and ThyssenKrupp to test its HoloLens augmented reality (AR) headset. Given Microsoft’s prowess in fostering dominant platforms such as Windows and Office and its global reach you could argue that the software giant has the best shot at establishing the enterprise standard in AR.

Betaout, an e-commerce customer intelligence and marketing automation platform provider, has been selected for Microsoft’s Startup Accelerator Program. Betaout is a data analytics startup providing e-commerce companies with an all-in-one marketing software. This ranges from analyzing visitors and building user personas to personalized multi-channel engagement.

In a bid to grow the established CRM and ERP players in the industry, Microsoft recently demonstrated Dynamics 365 to its partners and customers. Microsoft Dynamics 365 unifies CRM and ERP capabilities by delivering new purpose-built applications to help manage specific business functions, including Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Operations, Marketing, Project Service Automation, and Financials.

The Xbox One Scorpio promises to be the most powerful home console ever made- though the question of just how that power will be tapped, given that Microsoft are mandating parity with the standard Xbox One, for all games, is one that remains unanswered.