Recent News

Manufacturer of high-end domestic appliances Miele & Cie. KG has announced a partnership with IT giant Microsoft to leverage IoT technologies and create smarter home appliances. Microsoft Azure Internet of Things (IoT) services will help usher in the next generation of smart appliances and home cooking.

Microsoft released Skype for Business replacing its older Lync service. The new software will roll out as part of the April release of Skype for Business. “Skype for Business is based on the familiar Skype experience that more than 300 million people use every month to connect with friends and family,” Microsoft said in a statement. “It is built right into Office, so features like presence, IM, voice and video calls, and online meetings are an integrated part of the Office experience.”

After launching the Lumia 640 and Lumia 640XL, Microsoft has now released the Lumia 540, priced at $149 (approximately Rs 9,500), which will arrive in India by early May. The Lumia 540 flaunts a 5-inch HD (1280×720 pixels) IPS LCD display with pixel density of 294ppi. It is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor paired with 1GB RAM. Microsoft is also offering 15GB of free OneDrive cloud storage, and a further 15GB after activating auto-upload to OneDrive.

Fujitsu Limited and Microsoft Corp. have collaborated to bring innovative operational excellence to manufacturing with the help of Fujitsu devices powered by Windows 8.1 Pro, the Internet of Things (IoT) services of FUJITSU Cloud A5 for Microsoft Azure, and the Fujitsu IoT/M2M (machine-to-machine) platform.

Microsoft is presenting a vision of how industrial robots could work more closely with people by harnessing IoT (Internet of Things), cloud networking and 3D sensing technologies, linked through Windows platforms. In a demonstration at Hanover Messe, an industrial fair in Germany this week, Microsoft and industrial robot maker Kuka Robotics are showing an industrial robot arm that can stream movement data to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform for human staff overseeing production.

Microsoft revealed that it has completed the acquisition of Datazen Software, a company specializing in mobile-based business intelligence enterprise tools for Windows Phone, iOS and Android devices. The Redmond-based company plans to integrate Datazen’s mobile-based technology with its existing business intelligence solution, Power BI, an Office 365 cloud service tool that helps enterprise clients organize, visualize and extract value from data.

Microsoft has launched a new update of its Azure Media Services, an audio and video streaming platform. The new update is in support for live encoding, which is now available in preview. Live encoding gives Azure users the ability to build their own live workflows with live trans-coding for multiple formats, archiving, just-in-time packaging and dynamic encryption.

Kurt DelBene is returning to Microsoft as executive vice president of corporate strategy and planning. “Kurt brings extensive background in business strategy, engineering and customer solutions, as well as a proven track record of delivering strong results in complex environments,” Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft said. “His experience at Microsoft, recent work on Healthcare.gov and work with startups here in Seattle give him a unique perspective for this new role.”

The new Windows 10 build update adds support for the Project Spartan browser, and new versions of several apps: Outlook Mail, Outlook Calendar, Phone, Messaging, People, and Maps. Users can also find an improved basic Camera app, which pulls in some of the functions from the recent Lumia Camera update.