Recent News

The Centre for Catalyzing Change, a NGO working for women and girl empowerment, organized a national learning conference, Youth Connect-Leveraging Technology, which witnessed the launch of Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) for the Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (SABLA) services in Delhi and Jharkhand. Lori Forte Harnick, General Manager, Citizenship and Public Affairs, Microsoft, the keynote speaker on this occasion, reiterated Microsoft’s commitment to a digitally inclusive society.

One of the primary things most people use a computer for — and increasingly mobile devices as well — is productivity, like writing documents, creating presentations, plus managing email, contacts, and calendars. Microsoft Office is the de facto standard for productivity suites. However, if you want the full Microsoft Office experience, the better way to acquire the productivity suite: Office 365.

Microsoft is beginning to integrate its Bing search technology into Office, starting with Word Online, company officials announced on December 10. Microsoft is calling the new embedded search capability “Insights for Office”. Microsoft is rolling out the capability worldwide starting December 10. Ryan Gavin, Microsoft General Manager of search, cloud and content, said “Bing is evolving into an intelligent service layer or fabric that is part of other products and services – for example, Cortana, Xbox voice search and Windows 8’s smart search.”

To help organizations better organize their cloud assets, Microsoft and Accenture have released a package designed to make it easy to integrate in-house IT operations with Microsoft Azure cloud services. The package will “help enterprises to move more easily into cloud technologies”, said Paul Daugherty, Chief Technology Officer, Accenture. Susan Hauser, Corporate Vice President, Enterprise and Partner group, Microsoft, said, “What customers are asking for is the ability to move to a hybrid cloud where they don’t have to do the integration pieces.”

Businesses, especially small and medium-scale, are increasingly adopting cloud-based technologies, according to S Prashanth, Executive Director, Quadrasystems.net India Private Limited. He said the company, which is a Microsoft Gold Competency partner, saw 33 per cent growth in its cloud business because of increasing adoption by customers. Sudhir Nayar, Director, Microsoft India, said Microsoft has 10,000 partners in the country and all of them use its cloud-based products – Azure, Office 365 and CRM. He also said partners have the flexibility to customise these products.

Enhancing their product portfolio for better collaboration and productivity, Microsoft has announced the availability of advanced Dynamics CRM 2015, Dynamics CRM 2015 Online and has introduced additional features to Dynamics AX. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Online will help enhance sales, marketing, and service functionalities, revolutionizing the way sellers and marketers work together and deliver productivity improvements in natural user interface, catering to both on-premise and on-cloud customers.

The much-awaited Lumia 535 hit the stores last week. The first Microsoft-branded smartphone is a refreshing upgrade of the Lumia 530 (Dual SIM). Loaded with good specifications and a bright screen, the device draws attention at first. It would appear that Microsoft has arrived in the budget segment with a smart device, which is competitively priced at Rs 9,199 and has most of its features in the right place.

If you’ve waited to pick up critically acclaimed Xbox One exclusives such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Forza Horizon 2, you’ve been rewarded for your patience. Amazon India has discounted these two games, as well as others, such as Sunset Overdrive and Kinect Sports Rivals. These games, which originally cost Rs. 4,200 each, are now available at a 30 percent discount – Rs. 2,999 each.

Joseph Landes, General Manager (Developer and Platform Evangelism), Microsoft India, acknowledges the gaming category as a driver for any app store. He says, “We’ve got a lot of great games now, and it’s a category that Microsoft takes very seriously.” Landes believes there is still room for Indian developers to grow and improve: “The one thing I always point out, because I really want this to change, is that India is yet to come out with a world famous game.”

Certiport announced the 2015 Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) India Championship, the technology skills competition on Microsoft Office. Pankaj Rai, Director and Chief Executive Officer, CyberLearning, said, “This will mark the fifth year India has participated in the MOS World Championship, and we look forward to crowning the Country Champions who will then go on to compete on the world stage.” Bob Whelan, President and Chief Executive Officer for Pearson VUE, said, “We have enjoyed watching the growth of India’s MOS Championship in recent years. Microsoft Office Specialist certification prepares students for future success in college and careers.”