Recent News

Microsoft Corp is readying to deploy its new operating system (OS), Windows 10, on the cloud. Labelled “Windows as a service”, the company will provide free upgrades to users of Windows 7 and 8.1. Microsoft has also assured users that it will keep the new OS updated for the supported lifetime of a device for free. Windows 10 debuts on 29 July.

Intel Security has launched its new Microsoft Office 365 Channel Kit, which is designed to be a “grab and go kit” for the channel. Intel Security A/NZ channel sales director, Luke Power, told that the kit includes information for the channel on how to get started with Microsoft Office 365, in addition to a conversation guide, sales essentials presentation for partners, a co-branded email template, a phishing quiz how to guide, a phishing tool, battlecard, and additional materials such as solution briefs and whitepapers.

At the end of 2014, Microsoft bought Acompli, creators of a popular email app that it quickly rebranded as Outlook. The familiar name drew in more users and also gave IT teams a set of expectations about the security and management options a product called Outlook would have. The Outlook app demonstrated that Microsoft was prepared to prioritize the user experience.

Microsoft has announced that it has completely redesigned Bing Maps. Microsoft said “it listened to users across the globe and what they love, and what they struggle with when using map services.The new Bing Maps is designed so you can search, view and share multiple places at one time, see trusted reviews and photos from partners such as Yelp, get access to a rich set of visuals and information on the places you plan to visit, make it easy to plan your travel times and more.”

Tossup, a new Microsoft app for Android and iOS, aims to make it easier for users to poll their friends and get together.Tossup lets people create quick polls and share them with their friends. The polls can be simple, consisting of a single yes or no question, or they can be more detailed. The new app is a product of the Microsoft Garage, a program at Microsoft that lets employees pursue new ideas.

Microsoft has announced about how it will be rolling out Windows 10 to customers. Microsoft said in a blog post that there are five million Windows Insiders, up from 3.7 million in May. Microsoft will give Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows 8 and 8.1 users for a year. If the user is a current Windows 10 tester, he or she will get the build first among the public.

Microsoft’s voice-based virtual assistant, Cortana, has received an update in India that has broadened the categories of interests in the app.The virtual assistant now includes new categories of interests such as daily routine, music, food, fitness, and finance among others. Until now, Cortana just included two categories for news and weather. As of now, it is not clear whether the new category was rolled out via an update or has been added by the company directly.

Microsoft is going all out to ensure that a billion device run Windows 10. With a little over three weeks to go before Microsoft Windows 10 is available to consumers, Microsoft Executive Vice President of Operating Systems, Terry Myerson, said, “We’ve been really pleased with the strong response to Windows 10 since we kicked off reservations in early June, with millions of reservations. We want to make sure all of you have a great upgrade experience, so we’ll roll-out Windows 10 in phases to help manage the demand.”

Twitch revealed that the most popular press conferences being streamed from its site – the biggest host for streaming anything gaming related – was Microsoft’s E3 press conference, where viewership peaked at 840,000 viewers. Neither Sony nor Nintendo managed this kind of a showing, though, bafflingly enough, EA managed to post similar numbers too. Guess the allure of Mass Effect must have been high for most people.

Microsoft has published an exhaustive printable guide that aims to help users find the Windows 10 edition that’s right for them. The document, which is available as a table, lists salient features from all four consumer and business Windows 10 editions but excludes Windows 10 Mobile (consumer and enterprise) as well as Windows 10 IoT.