Articles about Microsoft

Companies are always forward-looking, but it's at this time of year that this is really focused on. Consumers are excited to see what products they'll be able to get their hands on in the year ahead, businesses want to know what services the coming year has to offer, and technology enthusiasts are keen to learn about what projects are in the works.

Today, Microsoft shares its view of which areas of technology are going to be of the greatest importance for businesses in 2015. Corporate Vice President, Enterprise and Partner Group, Susan Hauser believes that security will continue to be strengthened, the Internet of Things will grow, and predictive tools will be more heavily utilized.

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Do I believe in psychics? No. I do not believe that people have magical powers that can predict the future. With that said, I like watching the Long Island Medium, Theresa Caputo, on TV. If you aren't familiar, she claims to talk to the dead, and transmits messages from the deceased to their families. I watch it from an entertainment perspective only.

I prefer my predictions to come from good ol' fashioned computers. Microsoft's Bing has seen some success in its predictions, but today, it is taking it to another level. You see, the search-engine is now predicting the events of 2015! As a Jets fan, and overall hater of New England sports, I hope Bing is wrong, as it predicts Tom Brady and the Patriots to win the Super Bowl.

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Windows 10 is very much a work in progress, but one feature that’s definitely going to be around in the final release is the Start menu. Microsoft has done a clever job of blending the traditional Start menu with the divisive Start screen found in Windows 8.x. I’m a big fan of this approach, and the menu is customizable too, so if you really, really hate the tiles, you can turn them off.

However, for some people nothing less than a classic Windows 7 style Start menu is going to be acceptable. If you count yourself in that number, the good news is you can now get a traditional Start menu in Windows 10 thanks to Classic Shell.

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Not long ago I wrote asking if we still needed Windows. It's an interesting question without a real answer. On the one hand, many folks don't need it, as a Chromebook will suffice for what they do -- checking email and browsing websites. On the other hand, some people do need Windows for the apps that can't be had on Google's platform.

In other words, there is no easy answer to the question I posed. One thing became clear though. Windows won't be going anywhere soon. It may only be needed by a certain percentage of people, many of whom are in a business of some sort, either for themselves or in the enterprise community.

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Windows Phone is a great operating system. If you disagree, you are wrong. Sure, it has frustratingly low app availability, including a lack of Google apps, but the underlying OS is wonderful. Live tiles are useful, and the UI is smart and attractive. Hell, the hardware is wonderful too, and it is often sold at very affordable prices.

Today, Microsoft and Sprint are joining forces to bring the Lumia 635 to Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile USA and Sprint's own network. Believe it or not, this is the first-ever Lumia handset for Boost and Virgin USA -- two of Sprint's sub-carriers.

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Microsoft is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the US government, and the fight has led to an unlikely alliance between several rival companies. Microsoft was handed a government order requesting access to emails stored at a datacenter in Ireland. The company has been battling the order for several months, and now Apple, Amazon, Verizon, and HP are among the big names lending their support to the fight.

It's not just technology firms who are putting their names forward in support of the challenge of the search warrant. Several global media outlets, including the Guardian, the Washington Post, and CNN as well as numerous trade associations and advocacy organizations have signaled their support for Microsoft.

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Windows Phone started off as an easy to use smartphone operating system without many bells and whistles. Over the years, it has picked up more and more advanced features, reaching the point where it can now hold its own in a comparison against main rivals, Android and iOS. And Microsoft keeps adding to the list.

One area where Windows Phones have struggled -- against Android rivals -- is gesture-based features, like the ability to answer a call by holding the phone to the ear. (You can find that on some old Android devices, like Samsung Galaxy S3.) It is not a major feature by any means, but it is nice to have. Well, Microsoft is trying to catch up by introducing a new app, called Gestures, which enables (more) gesture-based features.

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It has been a few weeks since Microsoft introduced us to the latest addition to the Office family -- Sway. In fact, as Microsoft points out, the preview was unveiled 10 weeks ago. While the initial preview required anyone interested to join a waiting list, now it's possible to get in on the action straight away; and it seems there has already been great interest in the product.

Microsoft says that there have been 175,000 requests to access the Sway Preview, and the Sway.com website has received over one million visitors. Now anyone with a Microsoft account is able to try out the data collection and presentation tool and check out a batch of new features.

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Microsoft has an end-of-year present for Skype users in India. Starting now and running until the beginning of March, calls from India to the US and Canada are completely free of charge. Interestingly, this includes calls placed to mobiles as well as to landlines.

Unusually for such an offer, there's no commitment, no free trial and, seemingly, no catch -- just free calls for the next three months. The news comes just after Microsoft unveiled details of its Skype Translator preview, and is just in time for the holiday season when the number of phone calls placed tends to skyrocket.

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Microsoft has shown more interest in Skype in recent years, including making it far more web-friendly, and introducing a business-centric version in place of Lync. The latest move is designed to break down more barriers, making it easier for people in different countries to communicate with each other, regardless of the language they speak.

Skype Translator preview is the first step towards making language irrelevant. Rather than relying on interpreters, users can communicate through Skype and translations will be automatically performed. English and Spanish are supported as spoken languages, but there is support for more than 40 written languages as well.

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Microsoft plans to launch the next build of Windows 10 in January, and we’ll start to see some focus on the consumer side of things. The company is holding an event at its Redmond campus on January 21 to talk about the "next chapter" of the OS.

But while the tech giant isn’t releasing any new builds for a few weeks at least, there have been several leaks on the internet that reveal what we can expect to see when it does. Here’s what coming to a PC near you soon.

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Bing has been unceremoniously dumped by Facebook. The social network had been using the Microsoft search tool to power its Graph Search platform for some time now, but no longer. While no announcement has been made, Facebook confirmed the news to Reuters.

The lack of official announcement meant that the dropping of Bing was immediately noticed. Facebook does not have a replacement partner in mind -- there is no danger of the social network teaming up with Google -- but will go it alone instead.

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Since Microsoft and Sony’s next generation consoles launched in late 2013, PlayStation 4 has been outselling the Xbox One very, very comfortably. In fact, just a month ago I reported that the PS4 had sold double that of its rival in the first year.

However, in November Microsoft’s console finally managed to claim the top spot, helped in no small part by a price cut and some decent software launches coming into the holiday season.

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Windows 10 is very much a work in progress. While certain elements of the forthcoming OS appear close to how they will be in the finished release, much of what’s in the Technical Preview is early and very buggy. There’s been talk of the new operating system coming out in Spring 2015, but the latest rumors, based on what Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer at Redmond, told the Nikkei news service, a September release is looking a far more realistic prospect. That’s a smart move, as the last thing Microsoft should be doing is rushing out an unfinished OS -- as it did with Windows 8.

You won’t have to wait too long for your next big batch of Windows 10 goodness though, as Microsoft will be holding an event at its Redmond campus on January 21 to talk about the "next chapter" of the OS.

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As businesses move their systems to the cloud security becomes a major concern but often applications don't offer the flexibility and ease of access that administrators need.

To address this need for users of Office, cloud security automation company Palerra has announced a partnership with Microsoft to add an extra layer of security to the Office 365 suite.

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