Recent News

One in five Windows-powered devices, steered to a host of U.S. government websites, ran Windows 10 in March. For the first time, Windows 10 accounted for more than one-fifth of the visits to sites tracked by the Digital Analytics Program (DAP). DAP mines traffic to more than 4,000 websites on over 400 different domains maintained by U.S. government agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the National Weather Service. Windows 10 reportedly recorded 20.2% of visits in March by Windows PCs, smartphones and tablets, a one-percentage point increase from February and more than two percentage points above January’s.

Tablets may never again be the consumer sensation they once were, but they are finding new life among professionals. Apple announced a second iPad Pro model this week while Samsung started selling the Windows-based Galaxy TabPro S last week. Microsoft doubled down on its Surface tablet business last fall with Surface Book and Google has its own Pixel C.

Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Build 2016, might focus a lot on Universal Windows Apps and HoloLens developer edition hardware. However, Windows 10 is set to see a fresh set of change in terms of UI. Microsoft’s Windows 10 has undoubtedly the best user interface among all software platforms. Its live tiles are a huge departure from standard icons and now the Redmond-based software giant is working to make it even more effective. Microsoft is planning to turn its Live Tiles even more interactive, and one such session at Build could throw more light on that effort.

Microsoft plans to buy energy credits from Dominion to offset the company’s energy use elsewhere, without reselling them. The state of Virginia has agreed to buy all the energy produced for $51.50 per megawatt hour for 25 years. Utility and state officials say the commonwealth will save up to $1 million over the life of the contract, versus the cost of other energy. Once built, the plant could produce almost 40,000 megawatt hours a year. The overall deal was cheered last week by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Dominion and Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect, a popular sensor-based gaming console, can evaluate the respiratory function of patients and spot conditions such as cystic fibrosis. The team from the University of Warwick and the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham and Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (HEFT) have developed a method to use the gaming device for medical purposes. The system consists of four Kinect sensors which are capable of quickly creating a 3D image of a patient’s torso. In tests, it has proven to be as accurate as a patient breathing into a spirometer.

Microsoft is paving the way for productivity in the Middle East with the launch of the new Microsoft Dynamics AX and CRM Online 2016. Karim Talhouk, Director, Microsoft Business Solutions for the Gulf region, said, “It will enable people and empower individuals inside any organization to redefine their business processes faster, and make smarter decisions based on insight and intelligence. The result of this would be delivering an amazing customer experience in order to retain and win new customers.” Christian Pedersen, General Manager, Microsoft Enterprise ERP for the United States, added, “There are two core products on our customer engagement platform which is very much centered around what we do on Dynamics CRM, and then there are the operational capabilities, that is where we have Dynamics AX targeting the upper mid-market enterprise level organizations. We have SMEs that are more targeted with Dynamics NAV and Dynamics GP. But we look at upper mid-market enterprise level customers and that is what we are targeting with our Dynamics AX.”

Microsoft has made a version of Windows 10 for the Chinese government, called Windows 10 Zhuangongban, or “Windows 10 Specially-provided Edition”. Ralph Haupter, Microsoft China’s CEO, told that through a joint venture with China’s CETC, Microsoft has already completed the first version of the specialized Windows version. So what’s different about this version of Windows? It features fewer of Microsoft’s consumer-targeted apps and services, while including more management and security controls, in accordance with the needs of China’s government.

Veeam Software has announced Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure, available for preview as a free, pre-configured Azure appliance in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. This new solution enables users to take on-premises workloads and restore or migrate them to the cloud using an automated physical-to-virtual or virtual-to-virtual conversion process. The ability to restore backups directly means users can utilize Azure as an on-demand cloud data center for disaster recovery (DR) and benefit from its flexible and scalable cloud resources.