Recent News

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The Indian Air Force today launched a sequel to its award-winning 3D mobile air combat game – “Guardians of the Skies” on the android, iOS and Windows mobile app stores hoping to attract the best talent for itself. The game has won the prestigious ‘Best Indian Game’ award from Microsoft on its windows application store, proving its popularity among gamers.

Mojang’s Minecraft Pocket Edition, the hit game which was until now only available for Android and iOS mobile devices, has finally reached Windows Phone 8.1 devices as well. The 13MB game is now available to buy from the Windows Phone Store for $6.99 (Rs. 410 in India), and is the first fruit of the Microsoft buyout of Mojang. On November 6, Microsoft closed the deal with Minecraft maker for $2.5 billion, continuing to invest in its Xbox gaming platform.

The addictive game from King, the makers of Pet Rescue Saga & Farm Heroes Saga, is now officially available on handsets with Windows 8.1 for free, which was a paid for game until now. Microsoft Lumia, on its official Facebook India page update said, “Sweet news! Candy Crush Saga – now on WP 8.1”

DPSG has launched its project “Microsoft Classroom of the Future”. The school has been selected by Microsoft as a 2014-2015 Microsoft Showcase School for its excellence in transforming its environment to deliver more personalized education to students, using mobile and cloud technology to prepare students for success in workplace. As a Showcase School, DPSG will work closely with Microsoft to lead innovation in education and communicate a vision for education enabled by technology through the hosting and mentoring of other schools in the community on transformational educational practices.

Microsoft and Dropbox forged an alliance this year with the promise of direct access between Office apps and the file sharing service to come soon and the first phase, which falls under Dropbox’s Project Harmony roadmap, is now here in a pilot phase. Members of the Dropbox for Business early access program, will get a first crack at the ability to access Dropbox directly from Office apps and edit Office files from the Dropbox app.

Microsoft India will offer a buy-back option to nudge Lumia smartphone buyers to upgrade to higher-end models at minimal incremental costs. The move is aimed at spurring Lumia smartphone sales, especially “devices in the Rs 6K-to-15K price band where we see massive growth opportunities, through a guaranteed exchange process at industry-best resale prices,” Microsoft India’s managing director (mobile devices) Ajey Mehta told ET.

Toshiba has launched a new tablet in India – the WT-8. The Windows 8.1 tablet is priced at Rs 15,490, available only on Amazon India. The WT-8 flaunts an 8-inch WXGA (1280×800 pixels) display and is powered by an Intel Atom quad-core processor paired with 1GB of RAM. Also included is 32GB internal storage expandable to 128GB. On the software front, the tablet comes preloaded with Xbox Music and Video, Skype and a one-year free subscription to Office 365.

Microsoft has partnered with edX, a non-profit online initiative, to enable course creators to integrate Office Mix into their edX courses. Created by founding partners Harvard and MIT, edX offers interactive online classes and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) from the world’s best universities, colleges and organizations to millions of students. Anoop Gupta, Microsoft Distinguished Scientist and Lead for the Office Mix, project, said “In partnering with edX, our goal is to democratize the creation of online lectures and courses.”

Softline Services, a subsidiary of Softline Group, a global Russian IT service and solution provider has announced its foray into the Indian market. With a decade of experience in cloud technologies, serving over 3000 clients globally, and as the 4th most competent partner worldwide for Microsoft, certified Softline specialists and experts will provide businesses with a full spectrum of IT services. Sudhir Nayar, Director, Partner Sales, Microsoft India, said, “Softline Services will bring on-board their proven ability to translate the benefits of cloud services to enterprises, especially SMBs, which is one of our key areas of focus.”