Halo Wars 2 came out months ago to a decent amount of praise, becoming a well-liked entry into a cult classic series, and helping to keep Halo fans interested while we wait for the next entry in the main series. For those of you who wanted to head back into the world of Halo Wars 2, there’s a brand new expansion out that can help you satisfy that need. Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare, is now available on Xbox One and Windows 10.

Join us at 3pm PT on https://t.co/B6GuNy6y8b and https://t.co/qEDRaBYFIU as we celebrate the launch of Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare! pic.twitter.com/LwL2IQSFug

— Halo (@Halo) September 26, 2017

The new expansion will feature the introduction of The Flood back into Halo Wars, alongside of some new games modes. Beyond this, you’ll get the opportunity to get into some new campaign missions from the perspective of the Banished. If this sounds like the kind of thing you’d be interested in, you can pick it up right now for $19.99.

The first ‘business’ book I read was ‘The Road Ahead’ by Bill Gates. I was in school, and happy with fiction, encyclopedias, and an occasional biography. But Windows and Microsoft fascinated me during those days (still do!), and I picked up the book to read about Bill Gates’ vision of a personal computer on every desk and in every home.

Published in November 1995, and written in a personal tone with no technical jargon, the book talked about the personal computing revolution that was brewing at the time and envisaged an ‘information superhighway’ for the future.

While Bill’s vision for personal computing became a reality, the world of technology – both for consumers and businesses – has changed since Bill Gates moved on from Microsoft. Satya Nadella’s book, which released today, talks about Microsoft’s transformation, and how the tech industry at large is changing to disrupt the status quo.

Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone, published by HarperCollins Publishers, is about individual change, about the transformation happening inside of Microsoft, and the technology that will soon impact all of our lives.

Satya traces his journey from India to the US, tells the inside story of Microsoft’s revival, and shares his vision of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology – artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing. Satya also explores the potential impact of the technology to society and delivers a call to action for world leaders.

At the core, Hit Refresh, is about us humans and the unique quality we call empathy, which will become ever more valuable in a world where the torrent of technology will disrupt the status quo like never before.

– Satya Nadella from Hit Refresh

According to Satya, Hit Refresh isn’t a victory lap or a how-to manual, since that would be premature. It’s a set of reflections, ideas, and principles on transformation.

The book has a foreword by none other than Bill Gates himself. In his blog post about Hit Refresh, Bill notes that he has benefitted from Satya’s insights for decades, and he’s glad everyone else will now have the same opportunity to learn from him.

Here’s the complete text of the foreword by Bill Gates.

Satya has charted a course for making the most of the opportunities created by technology while also facing up to the hard questions.

– Bill Gates

It has been shared that Satya Nadella will donate all of his proceeds from Hit Refresh to Microsoft Philanthropies.

Interestingly, there’s also special Employee Edition of Hit Refresh for Microsoft employees. It comes with annotations by Satya himself.

Just got my copy of #HitRefresh. This is the employee edition with annotations from Satya. pic.twitter.com/EC952tBhLg

— Rajat Agrawal (@rajatagr) September 26, 2017

Here’s some suggested reading around Hit Refresh:

• A rare joint interview with Satya Nadella and Bill Gates on Wall Street Journal
• Bill Gates about Hit Refresh
• Satya Nadella on writing Hit Refresh
• A conversation with Satya Nadella about his new book by Tim O’Reilly
• Watch: A conversation between Walter Isaacson and Satya Nadella
• Book review by Todd Bishop, GeekWire
• Book review by long-time Microsoft watcher, Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet

Satya wants the book to inspire people to discover more empathy in their own lives. He hopes that it’ll start important conversations and spark new ideas, and that others will share their own hit refresh moments.

In a story via TechCrunch, Microsoft is adding new data types to Excel in an effort to make Excel “smarter.” Microsoft will be able to achieve making Excel smarter with help from machine learning.

Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Office general manager, and Rob Howard, marketing director of Office 365, gave TechCrunch a demonstration of this new Excel functionality at Ignite 2017. Spataro explained how the new data types would work in Excel.

“We’re pleased to introduce new data types. That doesn’t sound all that interesting and we had this interesting discussion about what we’d name these things, but at the end of the day we realized that if you’re really an Excel wonk, the thing that you’re going to get is that there’s new data types.”

Another cool aspect of the Excel data types is that you can utilize Microsoft’s Bing API in Excel to tag a list of names; in Spataro’s demonstration, he used company names. However, Excel would be able to use more than just company names, Excel could use Bing API to tag stock information from the company, what city the company’s headquarters are located, and more and populate the information in an Excel spreadsheet.

The Office 365 team is also looking to create a built-in tool for Excel that will be able to recognize the most important information from an Excel spreadsheet and visualize it using a tool comparable to Microsoft’s Power BI, which the Office 365 team is calling the “Insights.”

Spataro added that the new Excel features were created to enhance data collection and visualization:

“It is meant to take any list of data and then start to generate insights. It will look at combinations, charts, pivot tables and it will recognize those that are most interesting by looking at outliers, looking at trends in the data, looking at things that represent changes. Services breathe new life into these applications. We think these apps still have a lot of life in them for just working on your content, but we do believe that these connections just makes it magical.”

Insights will be coming first to Office Insiders in the Fast Ring in the coming months, and data types will be available early next year, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.

Earlier today, EA released a new Star Wars Battlefront 2 trailer on YouTube. In the new trailer, John Boyega, who played Finn in the Star Wars The Last Jedi film, explains the features that will be available in Star Wars Battlefront 2, coming November 17th to Windows 10 PC, Xbox One, and the PS4. Check out the trailer on YouTube below:

In addition to the features explained in the YouTube trailer, there are other bonuses available in Battlefront 2, including:

• Access to play Star Wars Battlefront II on November 14, 2017, a 3-day head start
• Upgraded versions of all 4 trooper classes (Officer, Assault, Heavy, and Specialist)
• 4 epic ability upgrades—one for each trooper class (Officer, Assault, Heavy, and Specialist)
• Instant weapon unlocks and weapon modifications for each trooper class
• Exclusive Kylo Ren and Rey in-game outfits and gear, inspired by Star Wars: The Last Jedi
• Epic ability modifiers for Kylo Ren and Rey
• Epic ability modifier for the Millennium Falcon

Those who pre-order Star Wars Battlefront 2 Deluxe Edition also get special extras, including Instant access to Yoda’s epic Lightsaber Mastery and six hero and starfighter epic Star Cards. EA Access and Origin Access members save an additional 10% off the pre-order retail price.

Pre-order Star Wars Battlefront 2 Deluxe Edition on Xbox One.
Pre-order Star Wars Battlefront 2 Standard Edition on Xbox One.
Pre-order Star Wars Battlefront 2 on Windows PCs on Origin Access.

Mozilla today released FireFox Quantum Developer Edition. The company is calling this the fastest Firefox ever and is highlighting the new features making Firefox feel like a newer, faster, and better browser.

Firefox Quantum is powered by Quantum CSS, which is a new CSS engine written in Rust and based on the Servo parallel browser engine product. As part of development, the Firefox team also fixed over 360 performance bugs and focused on improving responsiveness and user interface interactions. Of course, they also made it 64 bit and multi-process by default, helping take advantage of newer processors, and reducing RAM consumption and crashes caused by graphics drivers.

Here is a bit more on what has changed for the end user, in the words of Firefox developer Dan Callahan.

• To complement Quantum, the Photon team rebuilt Firefox’s interface to be faster and more modern. You’ll hear more about Photon in November, but highlights include redesigned menus, square tabs, and a new “Library” button that acts as a single place for your bookmarks, downloads, history, etc.
• The “Activity Stream” project redesigned the New Tab Page to feature highlights from your recent history and bookmarks, as well as recommendations from Pocket. Of course, each of these content blocks are optional, and add-ons can completely replace the new tab page.
• We also refreshed form handling in Firefox, adding a brand new autofill feature and implementing built-in widgets.
• Lastly, Firefox’s preferences were completely redesigned and are now searchable.

You can sign up to get notified when Firefox Quantum has been released to the mainstream public. Or, you can click this link here to download, and submit feedback to Mozilla.

Azure is definitely one of Microsoft’s fastest growing business these days, and it was apparently time for the company to update its visual identity with something more modern. The ongoing Ignite conference was a good opportunity for Microsoft to unveil a new logo for Azure as well as a new tagline: “Azure. Cloud for all.”

“The new Microsoft Azure logo is a bit more abstract, and it doesn’t include a cloud in it anymore,” explained Microsoft MVP Chris Pietschmann. “If you’re familiar with the Microsoft Office icons / logos, then you may recognize a similar style theme. It also forms a letter “A” that obviously represents the name ‘Azure’.”
The Redmond giant also released today a new “Azure Manifesto” video featuring CVP Julia White, EVP Scott Guthrie and more. “The Azure Manifesto is sort of a mission statement for us to follow,” shared Pietschmann. “Microsoft says that we are all “Change Agents” that need to work to unlock the cloud.”

The new Azure logo and tagline can already be seen on the official Azure website, and you can also see the updated visual identity on all the official Azure social media accounts. Do you like this new logo, or do you think the old one was better? Let us know below.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to stay on top of app updates in the Windows Store you may have noticed an error code when attempting to download new versions of stock Windows 10 apps. Well, senior program manager at Microsoft, Brandon LeBlanc, has come out to say that Microsoft is aware of this issue and is working to republish the apps soon.

We are aware. Team is working to republish the apps to fix the issue.

— Brandon LeBlanc (@brandonleblanc) September 26, 2017

Specifically, the store throws a 0x80073CF0 error code when it attempts to download updates for some stock apps like Mail and Calendar. It’s still not exactly certain what causes this issue, or when a fix will be released for this issue, but it is great to see that Microsoft is aware of the problem and is working to resolve it.

In other news, Microsoft recently rebranded the Windows Store app on Windows 10 to the Microsoft Store. For now, this change is only for those in the Release Preview Ring so it’s apparent that Microsoft may be testing name changes and gather feedback before rolling it out to a wider audience.

We will be keeping an eye on this situation and will update this post accordingly when a fix has been released. Until then let us know if you have been affected by this issue by dropping us a comment below!

Enpass is my password manager of choice, especially because of their first-rate support for Windows 10 (I use it on my Android smartphone as well). The Enpass app for Windows 10 Mobile is one of the best designed UWP apps on the Windows Store, and because of that, Enpass is quite popular amongst Windows users.

Except that the company’s browser extension for Microsoft Edge browser has been in the works since quite a while. Enpass already has browser extensions for all major browsers that users can use for quick autofilling of login details, credit card information, and more – all from within the browser.

Few months ago, the company had shared that it was working with the Edge team at Microsoft to enable that, and the Edge team confirmed the same. Due to the limitations of Edge APIs, it was difficult for the offline password manager to work with the browser. That is last what we heard from them.

However, that is changing now, and looks like the Edge extension is ready, and would be coming to the Windows Store in a couple of days. I did get a sneak peek of the same, and it works as expected.

To enable the Edge extension and to chart their new way forward, Enpass is also making a few changes to its Windows apps, and we’ve got all the inside information about it.

As of now, Enpass has two apps – a traditional Win32 desktop app as well as a UWP app available on Windows Store. While the latter, also available on Windows 10 Mobile, offers native Windows 10 experience with Cortana and Windows Hello integration, the browser extensions (and other advanced features) only work with the former because of limited capability of UWP.

Enpass is now bringing the desktop app to Windows Store via Microsoft’s Desktop Bridge technology. The Win32 app is now ported to the Windows Store, and will be available as a free download. The app will work with Windows 10 Creators Update and later versions.

While the existing UWP app on the store will stay in its current form, it is likely to be orphaned or rolled back at a later time once the desktop app upgrades to modern design and integrates signature Windows 10 experiences like Cortana or dark mode, for example. The company’s next major release will establish the new Enpass Password Manger app as the primary app. While the UWP app in its current form will go away, it will be available in its refreshed form for Windows 10 Mobile users. Pretty awesome of Enpass folks to continue support for Windows 10 Mobile!

Essentially, from now – when the new bridged app is available – to the next major release, there would a transition phase for Enpass users, but looks like it would be better for us in the long run since it would mean a unified, feature-complete free app for PCs with a handy app on the mobile.

Using the late Paul Walker’s charity organization, Reach Out Worldwide (ROWW), Vin Diesel will be giving away a custom Xbox One S (via Reddit) to help Hurricane Harvey, Maria, and Irma victims. Paul Walker died in 2013 in a car accident. The custom Xbox One S console is modeled after the 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse that Walker drove in the original The Fast and Furious movie in 2001.

Walker’s brother Cody is helping ROWW continue its charitable efforts by raising money for the victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Irma in Florida, and Maria in Puerto Rico. Cody is using his late brother’s celebrity friends, including Vin Diesel, to host a special Xbox event at the Microsoft Lounge in California. Here is a look at ROWW’s recent efforts and a look at more information on Game4Paul, a partnership with Microsoft and Xbox.

Although a lot of people would probably like to see a custom Xbox One X being given away, all proceeds raised from the event will be put towards reconstruction efforts caused by Hurricane Harvey and Irma. Here, Vin Diesel gives you a closer look at the custom Xbox One S. The custom Xbox One S will be autographed by Vin Diesel, Tyrese, and other Fast and Furious stars.

The Xbox One S charity event will start at 11 AM PST on October 1, 2017, at the Microsoft Lounge in Los Angeles, California. Help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Irma in the 3rd annual Game4Paul event, donate and watch the event live on Facebook, Twitch Xbox channel, and Mixer Xbox channel.

Windows Mixed Reality is the next big thing for Microsoft, and plenty of Microsoft partners are planning to release headsets just in time for the holiday season. Well, thanks to the latest round of leaks from Microsoft watcher WalkingCat, it turns out that Samsung also wants in on the Windows Mixed Reality game (via The Verge.)

https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/912486390834671616

Although WalkingCat provides no source for this leak, the anonymous Twitter user has had a great track record of being right in the past. The photos of the headset reveal the same standard design seen on other Windows Mixed Reality headsets, but with some curious-looking built-in headphones, similar to the ones seen on the Oculus Rift. It also looks as though Samsung could be bundling in the Windows Mixed Reality Motion controllers, or selling them as a separate addition.

Microsoft is holding a Windows Mixed Reality event on October 3rd in San Francisco, and Alex Kipman is expected to speak. We might as well learn more about the Samsung headset then, but for now, consumers interested in Windows Mixed Reality will need to check out the other options releasing later in October. As highlighted at IFA 2017, confirmed headsets range in price from $299 to $450, and include the Dell Visor, Lenovo Explorer, and headsets from both Acer, and HP.

Microsoft announced the release of Windows Server version 1709 yesterday, which is the first version of the server operating system to ship in the company’s new Semi-Annual Channel. “With releases every six months, the Semi-Annual Channel is designed to deliver continuous innovation for customers who want to take advantage of new operating system capabilities at a faster pace,” explained the company.

Following the release of Windows Server 2016 last year, this faster release cycle will allow Microsoft to bring new features to IT admins twice a year. “While our work continues to span investments across the application platform and virtualization infrastructure, for this specific release you’ll see a majority of investments accruing to applications, particularly those built on containers and microservices,” the Windows Server team noted.

Here are the main new features in the first semi-annual release of Windows Server:

• The new version ships with optimized Server Core and Nano Server container images that should bring many improvements for containers and microservices.
• The Windows Subsystem for Linux(aka Bash on Windows) is now included, as well as native support for Linux containers.
• Project Honolulu, Microsoft’s new browser-based graphical management experience for Windows Server is also available in technical preview.

Windows Server version 1709 will be available on Azure in early October. For customers with Software Assurance on their Windows Server licenses or MSDN licenses, the new server operating system will be available to download from the Volume Licensing Service Center portal in mid-October.

Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition launched today on Microsoft’s Xbox One family of consoles. This new release of Fallout 4 contains the base game and all of the add-ons that was released post-launch. Here’s the official game description and teaser:

Get the complete post-nuclear adventure from Bethesda Game Studios and winner of more than 200 ‘Best Of’ awards, including the DICE and BAFTA Game of the Year. Fallout 4 G.O.T.Y. includes the critically acclaimed core game and all six official add-ons including Automatron, Wasteland Workshop, Far Harbor, Contraptions Workshop, Vault-Tec Workshop, and Nuka-World.

As the sole survivor of Vault 111, you enter a world destroyed by nuclear war. Every second is a fight for survival, and every choice is yours. Only you can rebuild and determine the fate of the Wasteland. Welcome home.

Buy Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition on Xbox One

Are you a Fallout 4 fan? Let us know if you’d recommend it and why in the comments below.

Xbox Insiders on the Alpha ring will be happy to find out that Microsoft added yet another simple way to customize their friends list. Today, Larry Hryb (a.k.a. Major Nelson) tweeted that as of today, users will be able to sort their friends by game titles.

Starting today for Xbox Insiders: Friends grouped by game in Guide and Home. Keep the feedback coming. pic.twitter.com/pmKiHM3yXx

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) September 25, 2017

Xbox Live friends that are currently in games will be visible via the People tab under ‘Friends in games’. Selecting this will open up all of your online friends and which games they are playing.

If Hryb’s comment is any indication, then this looks to be a result of feedback from Insiders. This is just one of many features planned for the upcoming months as we make way to the big Xbox One fall update.

We just received a copy of Satya Nadella’s book “Hit Refresh,” and of course we wanted to know if Microsoft CEO addressed the elephant in the room. That is, Microsoft’s confusing mobile strategy that led to Windows Phone dropping to 1% of smartphone market share worldwide. Fortunately, Nadella doesn’t shy away from the subject in his book, and he specifically mentions the story behind Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia. The CEO details how he voted no on the deal, and that once it went through, it was happening at a time when it was too late for Microsoft to regain the ground they had already lost.

To introduce the topic (on pages 71-73 of the hard cover print version of the book,) the CEO mentions the way that Android undercut Windows. “Google, with its free Android operating system found a way to undercut Windows, something we did not react quickly enough,” writes Nadella. He later continues with the painfully hard truth. “Looking back, the Nokia deal announced in September 2013, five months before I became CEO, became another painful example of this loss.”

Interestingly, Nadella does praise the Nokia deal a small bit, writing about it helping Microsoft in achieving “double-digit market share in some European markets.” He even reasons with why Microsoft was interested in Nokia in the first place, highlighting it could have been the move that Windows needed to catch up with iOS and Android in Mobile. “The hope behind the [Nokia] acquisition was that combining the engineering and design teams at Nokia with software development at Microsoft would accelerate our growth with Windows Phone,” he explained.

Even with this small bit of praise, Nadella revealed that he voted no when Steve Ballmer asked members on his leadership team to vote thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the deal. “I voted no. While I respected Steve and understood the logic of growing our market share to build a credible third ecosystem, I did not get why the world needed the third ecosystem in phones, unless we changed the rule,” writes Nadella. “A few months after I became CEO, the Nokia deal closed, and our teams worked hard to relaunch Windows  Phone. But it was too late to regain the ground we had lost. We were chasing our competitor’s taillights,” he added.

As we all know, this saga came to an end when Microsoft wrote off its Nokia acquisition, cutting 18,000 jobs and ultimately causing the company to exit the smartphone business. This hit Nadella specifically hard. “It was heartbreaking to know that so many talented people who have so much of themselves to their would work lose their jobs,” the exec shared.

Overall, the failed Nokia acquisition helped Nadella learn some very important and painful lessons. As the CEO remarked, Windows Phone wasn’t differentiated enough from iOS and Android, even with its Live Tiles and other cool ideas. “What we needed most was a fresh and distinctive approach to mobile computing,” wrote Nadella. “Where we went wrong was failing to recognize our great strengths were already part of the soul of our company, inventing new hardware for Windows, making computing more personal, and making out cloud services work across any device and platform. We should only be in the phone business when we have something that is really differentiated,” he explained.

If one can put the puzzle pieces together, these above quotes, and the entire way Nadella tells the story of Microsoft and Nokia, there could possibly be a small hint at the long rumored “Surface Phone.” For now though, Windows Phone fans will need to keep reading between the lines and keep hopes high for Microsoft hitting refresh on its mobile division. Otherwise, Microsoft seems to be fine with selling Microsoft versions or popular Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S8. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates seems to already have moved on, and is now using an Android phone with “lots of Microsoft software.“

Earlier today, Microsoft announced at Ignite 2017 that their collaboration software Teams would soon include Skype for Business features in it. Their new Office blog shares more details about the upcoming integration, and it’s now clear that Microsoft Teams is set on the course to replace Skype for Business in due time.

Until then, the tech giant is continuing to build up its business collaboration tool with a list of upcoming communication features. Today, a public preview released Dial-In Conferencing with more to come such as PSTN calling, call hold, call transfer and voicemail. etc.

Microsoft’s vision of business meetings are aimed to be streamlined through one tool, and that looks to be Teams. As stated in the blog post:

• Before a meeting, Teams will surface relevant documents and rich information about the participants to help you prepare.
• During the meeting, the conversation can be captured, transcribed, and time-coded, with closed captioning and voice recognition for attributing remarks to specific individuals.
• After the meeting, the cloud recording and transcript can be automatically added to the relevant channel, so conversations, documents, notes, and action items can be reviewed, indexed, and searched by the entire team.

As we noted earlier today, Skype for Business isn’t on the chopping block just yet. The press release notes that it will still remain available for customers not yet ready for Microsoft Teams and that a new version is to be released in mid to late 2018.

At Ignite 2017 today, Microsoft showcased a slew of new products and technologies powered by the Microsoft Cloud. Now, Microsoft provides a new way to transfer a ridiculous amount of data (100TB) with a rugged 45-pound Data Box to Azure. In this video, Oceaneering International describes how the Azure Data Box helps their business data needs and the data needs of their clients.

While the ability to store data in the cloud with Azure continuously is Microsoft’s ultimate goal, internet connectivity is not always available, or even with a good connection, moving lots of data can be a problem. In the future, Microsoft hopes to provide the perfect Azure Cloud solution, without requiring any physical storage drives on-site.

Other features of the Data Box include the ability to plug right into the datacenter network, as well as supporting standard protocols, including SMB and CIFS. The Azure Data Box also use a 256-bit AWS encryption to secure the data. The Data Box can also be shipped anywhere, no boxing required, using its own e-paper display. Whether enterprises need to upload the data to the Azure cloud or ship the data to a customer, the Data Box provides a very helpful and mobile data storage solution.

Today at Microsoft Ignite 2017, Lenovo unveiled the ThinkSmart Hub 500. The device is Lenovo’s first Smart Office product offering, aimed at tackling conference room complexities.

Lenovo’s ThinkSmart Hub 500 is able to manage collaboration within modern meeting rooms, and has the ability to connect remote and local participants to Skype for Business meetings and shared content. This device was developed in cooperation with Microsoft, and helps eliminates the need of sharing laptop screens. It features a 360-degree rotatable 11.6 inch display, and runs on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise. Other features include Dolby Audio Premium sound experience, 360-degree array microphones and a touch display to control the meeting and large external displays.

Peter Han, Vice President, Partner Devices and Solutions, Microsoft remarked on the ThinkSmart Hub 500.

“Lenovo consistently delivers innovative devices and solutions that meet the unique needs of business customers, and the ThinkSmart Hub 500 is no exception…“This second-generation Skype Room Systems solution from Lenovo will transform meeting rooms, and enable rich collaborative Skype for Business experiences.”

Lenovo is launching pilot programs with the ThinkSmart Hub 500 later this year, and it will becoming available in the first quarter of 2018. You can visit this webpage to sign up and get updated for more information when the ThinkSmart Hub 500 ships.

Microsoft announced today at its Ignite conference that it’s integrating LInkedIn’s data into Office 365 apps and services. After connecting your LinkedIn account to your Office 365 account, you’ll be able to get personalised LinkedIn insights in Outlook and other Office 365 apps and services.

“Whether it’s a colleague, customer or partner, these details help you better understand who that person is so you can start off on the right foot and collaborate efficiently, even when outside your organization,” a LinkedIn blog post notes. “But our vision is to help you deepen existing relationships as well — surprising you with what you may not know about the people you work with every day.”

LinkedIn’s integration in the Profile Card will start rolling out next month to Office 365 first release customers, and it will be available first in the Outlook web app, SharePoint and OneDrive for Business (the integration will come in the coming months on Outlook desktop, Outlook iOS and other Office products). Last but not least, this new LinkedIn integration will be available “soon” on personal Outlook.com accounts, and it should be more advanced that the now deprecated feature that let you sync various social media accounts (including LinkedIn and Facebook) to your Microsoft account.

This morning at Microsoft Ignite 2017, Microsoft announced a series of new low cost Windows 10 S laptops from HP, Lenovo, and Fujitsu. The announcement is in conjunction with the news of Microsoft 365 expanding to Education and F1 offerings, and is also part of Microsoft’s efforts to empower Firstline workers to achieve more.

According to Microsoft, these devices are powered by Microsoft 365, and will offer up self-service deployment, and simplified management. The devices are designed for businesses and educators, and are meant to always stay up to date, helping lower management costs for owning these devices.

These devices will be available later this year, and prices will start at $275. Prices on the devices can be seen below.

• HP Stream 14 Pro: 14 inch Ultraslim: Available October 2017 for $275
• Acer Aspire 1: 14 inch Ultraslim: Available Q4 2017 for $299
• Acer Swift 1: 13 inch Ultraslim: Available Q4 2017 for $349
• Lenovo V330: 14 inch Ultraslim: Available February 2018 for $349

The devices are simple to use, and deliver a familiar Windows 10 experiences, but with the added benefits of streamlined security and ease of management. It’s really great to see Microsoft selling Windows 10 S, as this will be a great advantage for the company over the popularity of Google’s Chromebooks.

On the sidelines of Microsoft Ignite 2017 conference, Microsoft announced that HP and Lenovo will support Windows AutoPilot starting January 2018.

Announced in June this year, Windows AutoPilot is a collection of technologies used to set up and pre-configure new devices, making them business-ready. IT professionals can also use Windows AutoPilot to reset, repurpose, and recover devices.

The cloud service allows IT pros and administrators to customize the Windows 10 out of box setup experience using a cloud configuration. After the launch, the program was rolled out to OEMs, distributors, and resellers to help them link devices to an organization.

The Windows AutoPilot Deployment Program was piloted by Surface, and HP and Lenovo now will join the program by providing device IDs to companies on select orders.

Users will be able to set up a new device complete with the company configuration and apps ready to go without the need for IT to touch the device or manage updates in person.

Today at Ignite 2017, CEO Satya Nadella laid out Microsoft’s big plans for quantum computing. Here’s a short video by Microsoft to give you an introduction to the world of quantum computing, where Microsoft blends quantum physics with computer science.

In the last year, Microsoft hired two new leaders of quantum computing and created a new Microsoft AI and Research Group that reports directly to Nadella. Quantum computing hardware and software are speculated to be able to handle some of the biggest hurdles that we face today, like climate change and finding new ways of treating and curing diseases, at a much faster pace than current technology.

Today, Microsoft unveiled a new website, and a new video showing everything the company is working on and quantum computing services available for enterprise customers. Check out the new video below.

“Quantum computing takes a giant leap forward from today’s technology—one that will forever alter our economic, industrial, academic, and societal landscape. In just hours or days, a quantum computer can solve complex problems that would otherwise take billions of years for classical computing to solve. This has massive implications for research in healthcare, energy, environmental systems, smart materials, and more. The quantum economy is coming. And Microsoft envisions a future where customers use Azure for both classical and quantum computing.”

According to Microsoft, quantum computing will change the way we think about the world around us and solve some of the most complex problems that we face as a global community.

It’s shaping up to be a busy morning at Microsoft Ignite 2017 in Orlando, Florida, and the announcements just keep rolling in. On stage today, Microsoft revealed the launch of a private preview of Bing for Business, and also improved Office 365 search.

The new Office 365 search is powered by the Microsoft Graph, and will help deliver more relevant search results across Microsoft 365. Microsoft believes the new Office 365 search will help users find the right versions of a document, find presentations, learn more about topics, and help employees harness the power of an organization’s collective knowledge.

The Bing for Business private preview, meanwhile, will provide a unified view of personalized, contextual search results from both inside and outside an organization. Here is a bit more on the features of Bing for Business.

• Enterprise Bookmarks – Bookmarks provide the fastest way for you to find sites, tools, and other information within the enterprise. Bookmarks can range from timely topics with a short life span like a company event to more permanent bookmarks, such as linking to the internal time and reporting tool.
• People Search – With Bing for business, people search is a quick way to help you search and find a person and understand their role within the company, who they work for, see what they are working on, find out where they are located and get directions through integrated building and office floor maps.
• Organizational Chart – Quick access to the organizational chart to understand a person’s place within the company and further browse their peers, management, and direct reports.
• Building and Floor Plans – Buildings and floor plans help you quickly find your way or locate where a colleague is sitting or to learn your way around a new building.
• Document Search – Allows you to search and find contextual and relevant documents saved on SharePoint and other sources within the Microsoft Graph.
• Office 365 Groups – You will be able to explore the Groups a person belongs to as part of people search and browse their contents. Additionally, they will be able to search for groups by their name.
• Bing for business Industry News – Bing works with your company to understand your job and tasks. Over time, Bing learns which business news matters to you – such as news about your company, competitors, and industry.  This feature is a personalized newsfeed on Bing.com, helping you make timely, informed decisions.
• Management and Analytics – IT admins can quickly configure, create bookmarks, and define the search triggers, words or phrases. IT admins will also have a better understanding on how people within the organization are searching the web

Bing for business is available for private preview starting today and will be set to expand to Office 365 Enterprise E1, E3, E5, F1, Business Essentials, Business Premium, and Education E5 subscriptions in the future. Keep it locked into OnMSFT, as more is sure to develop as Ignite 2017 rolls on throughout this week.

At Ignite 2017, Microsoft announced the expansion of Azure Stack, Microsoft’s play to combine the cloud with on-premises computing.  In particular, Azure Stack will be the new standard for providing a consistent hybrid cloud experience for Microsoft’s enterprise customers.

Today, Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie talked a lot about how Microsoft wants to mobilize some recent Azure advancements to remove cloud barriers for enterprise customers. Guthrie pointed out four key areas that Microsoft focused on to ensure Azure’s success:

1. Enabling IT and developer productivity
2. Providing a consistent hybrid cloud
3. Unlocking AI solutions
4. Ensuring trust through security, privacy and cost controls

Guthrie points out how Azure Stack will help Microsoft provide a consistent hybrid cloud experience for enterprise customers. Azure Stack is Microsoft’s hybrid cloud platform that allows enterprise customers to use Azure cloud services from on-premises datacenters. Azure Stack is designed to help enterprise customers meet security and compliance requirements, or to access Azure resources without internet connectivity.

Microsoft will continue to use Azure Stack as a hybrid cloud platform, but now Azure Stack will be able to access more Azure resources. Guthrie notes that in order to enable consistent hybrid development across cloud and on-premises, certain things must be done.

At Ignite 2017, Microsoft revealed that Azure Stack integrated systems are available for purchase with Microsoft partners, including Dell, Lenovo, HPE, and others. Now, developers can build one application and have it run in Azure or run locally on Azure Stack, allowing the app to be used in either case, while still meeting regulatory requirements.

Guthrie also pointed out that the cost of moving enterprise operations from one cloud service can be expensive. Guthrie uses the example of a recent enterprise customer that wanted to migrate their 1000+ SQL Server applications to AWS (Amazon Web Services). The cost to the customer would be over $10 million to modify each of their SQL Server applications in order to be compatible and used within Amazon’s cloud services.

Guthrie sees that an amount like this to convert cloud applications is a bit ridiculous. Microsoft built Azure SQL Database service, which boasts 100% SQL Server compatibility, requiring no code changes (per Managed Instance). Microsoft will also be introducing a new Azure Database Migration Service that has an almost seamless downtime migration. That same customer would be able to save their $10 million cost (and downtime) to move their applications to AWS, by migrating their application data to Azure instead.

Guthrie also announced the general availability of SQL Server 2017. SQL Server 2017 is the first version of the Microsoft database solution that can run on Windows Server, Linux and Docker without any problem. So far, Guthrie states that there have been 2 million pulls of the SQL Server on Linux image on Docker Hub. SQL Server 2017 offers other great features, including in-database advanced machine Learning with support for scalable Python and R-based analytics.

The addition of machine learning to SQL Server 2017 means that developers can now create and train advanced models with data within SQL Server without the need to move any data. Microsoft has built SQL Server 2017 to be the most robust yet, with built-in security, performance, and AI on whatever platform you choose.

Microsoft wants to be the company that customers go to when they need company critical analytic applications to perform on demand. Another important announcement is that SQL Data Warehouse will be offered as a preview release of the new “optimized for compute” performance tier. According to Guthrie, this new performance tier is able to scale up to 30,000 compute Data Warehouse Units, more than ever before. Microsoft is going to sweeten the deal even further by making it cost effective for customers to run SQL Server and Windows Server on Azure.

By using Azure Hybrid Benefits, customers could see up to a 50% reduction in licensing costs. Guthrie makes it clear that Azure is the most cost-effective and best performing hybrid cloud solution to run Windows Server and SQL Server. Microsoft offers customers the most comprehensive and consistent hybrid cloud solution to handle whatever enterprise customers need and could possibly ever want.

Day one of Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference is officially underway in Orlando, and the company is kicking things off with a bang. Over 25,000 attendees were greeted with news about Windows 10 S devices, Skype, Bing for Business, Microsoft 365, and more. Here is a wide angle look at the day’s biggest stories as they unfold at today’s keynote address

Expanded Microsoft 365:

Microsoft is expanding Microsoft 365, which is a service that the company originally announced a few months ago. As part of the expansion, Microsoft announced new Microsoft 365 F1 and Microsoft 365 Education plans, with the hopes of empowering people to succeed, and foster a new culture of work and school. Microsoft 365 F1 is designed for first line workers, and brings together Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility and Security. Microsoft 365 Education, meanwhile, includes Office 365 for Education, Windows 10, Enterprise Mobility and Security, and Minecraft: Education Edition.

New Microsoft 365 Windows 10 S powered devices:

The Redmond giant unveiled new Microsoft 365 Windows 10 S powered devices from HP, Lenovo, and Fujitsu. The devices are designed for cloud based management, start in price at $275 and will offer customers simplified management, helping them stay up to date, and save money.

Microsoft goes big on Quantum Computing:

Microsoft talked a lot about Quantum Computing, and how the company is working to build the world’s first truly scalable quantum computer. Microsoft is envisioning a future where customers can use Azure for both classical and quantum computing, and solve complex problems that would otherwise take billions of years for classical computing to solve.

Skype for Business becomes a part of Microsoft Teams:

As long rumored, Skype for Business will become part of Microsoft Teams. This is part of Microsoft’s new vision for intelligent communications in Office 365, making Microsoft Teams the central hub for team communication and collaboration. Upcoming features slated for release as part of the integration into Teams include inbound and outbound calls to PSTN numbers, hold, call transfer and voicemail, audio conferencing preview, and interoperability between Team and Skype for Business. The company also reminded users that Skype for Business is not dead, announcing that Skype For Business server will be released in the second half of 2018.

Bing for Business Private Preview & Intelligent Search Experiences:

In order to help businesses deliver more relevant search results within Microsoft 365, Microsoft announced Bing for business private preview. This will provide businesses with a personalized and contextual search results from inside and outside an organization.

The Cloud and AI:

Microsoft is expanding Dynamics 365, and detailed new AI solutions which will help businesses transform critical enterprise scenarios, and apps and services that are used everyday within organizations. These solutions include an intelligent virtual agent for customer care, and an intelligent assistant for customer service staff, as well as conversation management tools. Also included are modular apps (Abstract and Onboard) for Dynamics 365, helping transform high-impact processes, and deeper integration between PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, Office 365, and Dynamics 365.

Expanded Azure Stack:

Microsoft is announcing the expansion of Azure Track, saying it will be the “new standard for providing a consistent hybrid cloud experience for Microsoft’s enterprise customers.” Also announced was Azure Tack shipping through IOEM partners, SQL Server on Linux, Windows and Docker availability with SQL server 2017 GA, Database Migration Services, Azure Cost Management services by Coludyn.

The final set of Azure related announcements include: integrated security capabilities in Azure Security Center, preview of Azure Machine Learning, Azure CosmosDB and Azure Functions integration.

Microsoft is also updating Microsoft Cognitive Services, including the availability of text analytics, and how Bing Custom Search, and Bing Search v7 will be providing more relevant results in the coming months.

It’s obviously a very busy first day of Ignite 2017, but there will be more to come in the week ahead. Keep it locked in to OnMSFT for all your Microsoft news and information! And be sure to follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook, to ensure you won’t miss a single minute of all the Microsoft news and information.

At the Microsoft Ignite 2017 conference, Microsoft announced the expansion of Microsoft 365. Announced at Microsoft Inspire few months ago, Microsoft 365 brings together Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security to provide a complete, intelligent solution for organizations.

The two new Microsoft 365 offerings are:

• Microsoft 365 Education: It includes Office 365 for Education, Windows 10, Enterprise Mobility + Security, and Minecraft: Education Edition and gives students, faculty, and staff everything they need to create and collaborate securely.
• Microsoft 365 F1: It includes Office 365 F1, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security and is designed to maximize the impact of the Firstline Worker. Firstline Workers are those employees who are first to engage customers, represent a company’s brand, and see products and services in action.

Firstline workers include sales associates, factory workers, customer service agents, medical staff, etc. and comprise of 80% of global workforce. Microsoft 365 F1 aims to provide purpose-built capabilities that help foster firstline culture and community, train and upskill employees, digitize business process, deliver real-time expertise, and minimize risk and cost.

Microsoft also announced the upcoming Microsoft 365–powered devices, including new commercial Windows 10 S devices from HP, Lenovo, Fujitsu, starting at $275 and available starting later this year. These devices will enable self-service deployment, simplified management, and a reduced total cost of ownership for businesses.

Microsoft also announced new Microsoft 365 capabilities to unlock employees’ creativity, fuel teamwork, and to provide IT a simpler way to manage users, devices, applications, and data.

Microsoft’s Ignite 2017 conference is about to get started in Orlando, and you can watch it live below when it starts at 9 AM EST. For those unfamiliar, Ignite is Microsoft’s annual event for IT leaders, and there will be more than 1,000 sessions about productivity, IT and cloud infrastructure, security and more. You can also expect Microsoft to make a lot of announcements about Office 365, synergies between Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams and much more.