In the cloud first, mobile first world that Microsoft is trying to be the largest player in, security is a high priority. To bolster their security offerings, Microsoft has purchased Adallom, a company known for their cross platform security options. Adallom works with Salesforce, Box, Dropbox, ServiceNow, Ariba, and most notably due to the acquisition, Office 365.
A Microsoft Blog post announced the purchase and explains how Adallom lines up with the vision of Microsoft. It states “Adallom expands on Microsoft’s existing identity assets, and delivers a cloud access security broker, to give customers visibility and control over application access as well as their critical company data stored across cloud services.” The key words here are security and “across cloud services.” One of the main concerns of using cloud services is security so the purchase of Adallom makes sense. Adallom also has a post expressing their thanks and excitement over the news.
It was reported back in July that Adallom was purchased by Microsoft for $320 million. There was no amount reported today, though the official blog post does provide concrete evidence of the purchase. This recent acquisition is the latest in a long line of purchases made by Microsoft of relatively small tech companies.

Twitter released its redesigned Windows 10 app right after the operating system was released to the public. The app brought a number of new features as well as a much more intuitive and simple design. Some much needed features such as multiple account support, etc. were missing from the app, but it seems the company decided to get them through to their users.
Earlier today, the company pushed out an update for Twitter for Windows 10, bumping it to version 4.1. The new update brings a number of enhancements and new features to the app, with the most notable ones being the support for multiple accounts and the ability to quote tweets (via Windows Central). The new update also give users the ability to view and manage their lists from within the app, as well as view the “happening now” section that shows popular tweets and topics.
The update is available in the Windows Store, head over to the updates section and grab the app. Let us know if you can find any other changes in the app.

If you have a Windows phone, there’s a chance that you may be using the app Truecaller, which offers caller ID for folks that aren’t on your contact list. According to some tips given to the folks at WMPU, the app has been taken off of  the Windows 10 store, despite sticking around for users on Windows 8.1.
Thankfully, Truecaller isn’t going away. According to a response to a Truecaller user on the app’s Twitter page, Truecaller is soon going to be available again for Windows 10 users.

@sharathknot Don’t worry! It will be available soon for Win10!

— Truecaller help (@TruecallerHelp) September 1, 2015

Whether or not this means that Truecaller is just being put back on the Store or if it’s getting a proper Windows 10 version has yet to be seen. If a truly different Windows 10 version of the app is coming, then Truecaller users are in for a treat. A dedicated Windows 10 version of Truecaller would result in something that’s all-around more powerful and better optimized.

Welcome back to the Windows 10 weekly news recap, where we take a look at all the biggest news stores from this week regarding Windows 10. Kicking this week off, Microsoft announced that Cortana would be coming to a wide array of new countries soon, and that testing has already started with the help of Windows Insiders. Starting with build 10532 and later, Insiders can optionally access Cortana in Australia, Canada (English only), and Japan. Microsoft says they are also working to get Cortana available in India, which is supposed to be updated with an improved voice in that country later this month. In addition, Cortana should also be available in Brazil, Mexico, and Canada in French.
Up next, I exclusively wrote about Threshold 2, more specifically I wrote about it’s planned launch date, being early November instead of the original planned date of sometime in October. This is likely for the best, as it gives Microsoft a little more time to continue developing Threshold 2 and should hopefully result in a better built all round update for consumers when it is finally released. Now another interesting thing to think about is what the update could possibly be called when it does eventually launch. I also briefly mentioned that Microsoft may end up calling Threshold 2 “November Update”, but no branding decisions have been made.
It was also announced this week that there are now 7 million Windows Insiders testing the latest Windows 10 bits. That’s an impressive number, and it appears Microsoft saw growth of 1 million Insiders in less than a month, which is really impressive. There is definitely an interest evolving around trying out pre-release builds of Windows 10, which is good news for Microsoft as it means they get more feedback for their product. Everybody wins.
There was also an IFA keynote from Microsoft, which was rather lacklustre being it didn’t show off anything interesting or new. Microsoft is hoping to sell lots of Windows 10 devices in the coming months, and showcasing them at IFA definitely serves a purpose, even if us 7 million Windows Insiders were hoping for a bit of something really new, but that will apparently have to wait until the company’s near mythical hardware event, said to be coming sometime in October.
So that’s all for this week, what was your favorite story?
 

Update: We were right, it’s just a personal app called “SkypeCentral” that pulls various news feeds and information regarding Skype. See original story below.
Tony Eversole, a Microsoft employee, recently went about making a blog post on Microsoft’s TechNet website pertaining to a new app called SkypeCentral (first spotted by WinSupersite). The blog post consists only of one small paragraph, which explains the post is serving as a placeholder for the SkypeCentral app. In the blog post, Eversole states that the placeholder is “a shared blog from which PFE/DSE engineers can update the main landing page of the app to include news, troubleshooting, CU release information, or anything related to Skype for Business.”
There’s very little information to be gleaned from just that small, vague paragraph. That being said, the mention of an app called “SkypeCentral” becoming a placeholder for future Skype for Business information leads us to believe that Skype for Business may soon be re-branded as this new app.
It’s also entirely possible that, with this new focus on Skype being “Central,” Skype for Business and the consumer version of the app will stop being separate, and will instead be consolidated into this one SkypeCentral application. Having one app to work on instead of managing Skype and Skype for Business separately can only be a good thing for Skype’s brand going forward.
There is also a possibility that SkypeCentral is just a third-party (or first-party?) Universal app that showcases Skype news and release information. We’ll have more on this as it develops.

Microsoft has rolled out a new update to the OneNote app for Windows 10, available right now in the Windows Store. This update adds several new improvements to the app, including the ability to insert a photo from the camera and the ability to change ink thickness.
“OneNote is your digital notebook for capturing and organizing everything across your devices. Jot down your ideas, keep track of classroom and meeting notes, clip from the web, or make a to-do list, as well as draw and sketch your ideas,” the app description reads.
Just recently, Microsoft updated the OneNote app for Windows 10, enabling full drawing capabilities for the Surface when the device is locked. Microsoft also reduced the appearance of the keyboard when inking, as well as addressed issues some users had with opening the app.
You can snag the updated app from the download link below. If you have automatic app updates enabled, you are already have the latest OneNote app installed!

Microsoft has been headquartered in Redmond, a “bedroom community” east of Seattle, since 1986, and although there are now Microsoft offices in Seattle, in Bellevue, in Mountain View, California, and in many regional headquarters around the world, the main campus in Redmond has always had the feeling of a somewhat rural college campus.  That may be about to change, as according to a report from Bloomberg Business, the company is considering sweeping changes that would transform the headquarters to have a more “urban campus” feel, in order to attract millenial workers more used to urban environments.
While the report states that Microsoft has not made any final decisions on a revamp, it has hired an architectural firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, to work up plans for a potential overhaul. The firm has recently been updating Microsoft’s much smaller Mountain View campus, and designed the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
The plans would shift away from the private offices that were quite a selling point back in the 80s. Back then the most you could expect from most corporate jobs was a quiet cubicle, but times have changed to favor more open plan shared workspaces, some of which are in evidence already in Microsoft’s newest Redmond offices. A broader makeover could also include new construction along with remodeling existing buildings, to “add amenities such as restaurants, retail spaces and public artwork, in addition to apartments to house visiting employees and interns”.
Microsoft has also been taking steps to connect the somewhat sprawling campus, instituting a shuttle system of cars and mini-buses to get workers from one office to another, and working to build bridges across the 520 freeway, which splits the campus in two.  A new light-rail station, part of the Seattle area’s Sound Transit system, is planned for a 2023 opening, with construction to begin next year.  The “Redmond Technology Center Station” would help to connect Redmond and Microsoft to the more urban environs of downtown Seattle, where many Microsoft employees already live.
 

Microsoft’s OEM Division CVP Nick Parker just wrapped up his keynote at IFA in Berlin, and for close followers of Microsoft, there wasn’t much new to report.  Microsoft stuck to the script, bringing on their newest demo sensation Bryan Roper, who was a breath of fresh air at the WorldWide Partner Conference, but delivered much the same Windows 10 overview demo that he did at the earlier event.  Or at least he did for those in attendence: the live stream of the event only used one camera to show off the presenter, so viewers were unable to see anything of what was going on onscreen. The live stream came from IFA, not Microsoft, and up until earlier this week we weren’t sure we’d be able to watch it at all, so maybe one camera was better than none.
Luckily that didn’t matter much as Roper revealed little if anything new  Then Nick Parker came back onstage to take a quick walkthrough of a range of 3rd party Windows 10 devices from Dell, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, and others.  Parker showed off a Dell Latitude 11 for the first time onstage, and also showed off a Toshiba 2-in-1 that he called a “sneak peek”, not even revealing the name of the device.
Blogging Windows has an overview of some of the devices that Parker showed off, including the Acer Aspire One Cloudbook, the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 260, a Toshiba ED Logger IoT device, and the Acer ROG G752.
Microsoft is hoping to sell lots of Windows 10 devices in the coming months, and showcasing them at IFA definitely serves a purpose, even if us 7 million Windows Insiders were hoping for a bit of something really new, but that will apparently have to wait until the company’s near mythical hardware event, said to be coming sometime in October.
Are you ready to buy a new Windows 10 device?
 

Technology has evolved quite a lot over the years, with many new innovations that try to make life a lot easier. And Dr. Simon Kos, the health industry manager for Microsoft in Australia, already has an idea about how technology can empower a better healthcare system.
He started out by explaining on the Microsoft Health blog how various innovations to technology has changed the way we do things to me more effective and efficient,

“Uber has changed how we catch a cab, Airbnb how we organize travel, PayPal and Bitcoin how we bank. Amazon has changed how we buy books, and Netflix how we consume entertainment. What’s the common denominator among these disruptions? Technology provided an alternative that improved on the incumbent system.”

He then went on asking about what a new innovation that technology can do to improve healthcare.

“So what will be the Uber for healthcare? Because certainly the healthcare system is ripe for disruption. Health organizations and technology vendors alike are looking for new ways to achieve the triple aim of improving quality and increasing access while lowering costs. At the same time, people expect more convenience and involvement in their healthcare.”

Kos explains that in order to meet patient expectations and get the rising costs under control, “the burgeoning consumer wellness space and the traditional healthcare system need to come together. Perhaps the “Uber for health” will be something that bridges the divide between the two and helps us shift from a “sickness” system to a “health” system?”
He explains that we have technologies that can enable “disruption much faster than in the past, so a game-changer for healthcare could be just around the corner. With cloud and mobile platforms, it’s quicker, easier, and more cost-effective than ever to develop solutions that people can use anytime, anywhere. Rather than major system overhauls that take many years and billion-dollar budgets to complete, modern health IT solutions can be developed in days with minimal capital.”
Kos then goes on to provide an example of a new approach of healthcare for more efficiency called Hacking Health, which is a Canadian-based group that was backed by Microsoft for a few years. The concept behind Hacking Health was simple; clinicians worked directly with software developers to come up with solutions for their biggest healthcare challenges. Based on real-world needs of clinicians and patients, teams were able to produce health IT prototypes in just a few days.
It would be very interesting to see new innovations that would make getting health care accessible for anyone and cost effective. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

As faculty and students head back to school, Microsoft would like to gift many of them with some useful tools. Microsoft believes, “With the right technology platform in place and training, teachers around the world are finding inspiring new ways to use personalized approaches to impart 21st-century skills.”
Perhaps that is why, this year, Microsoft will be offering eight new resources for teachers and students to take advantage of during the school year.

• The first and perhaps most important offering is the move of Office 365 Education to a single, free plan for all academic institutions. In addition to making it free, Microsoft is also making sure Office 365 Education is secure and compliant with each school’s compliance requirements. Beyond the cost, Microsoft has also worked on sign up process, making it easier for teachers and students to sign up for Office tools. Soon anyone with a valid school email address will be able to sign for free Office 365 Education benefits.
• The second resource is OneNote Class Notebook and Staff Notebooks opening up to global customers using Office 365 Education.
• Third, Microsoft and Skype or working to make virtual fields trips a commonly used tool in the classroom. Interested teachers can sign up for new Skype in the classroom field trips this year.
• Coming in at number four is Microsoft’s new interactive presentation software, Sway. The digital storytelling app recently joined the Office suite and has become an effective way for teachers and students to collaborate and produce work that lives on the web. From class projects to personal portfolios, teachers can help students utilize Sway as a new and easy to use expressive platform.

• The fifth tool in Microsoft’s back to school arsenal is the recently released Snip tool. Snip is a beefed up screen capturing tool that allows users to add sketches, voice notation and share them via website embeds or emails. Snip helps teachers and students quickly communicate and share information across devices and the Internet.
• The sixth tool according to Microsoft is more of a bundle of free options rather than a single solitary tool. Microsoft is promoting its Microsoft YouthSpark Hub offers a resources and programs to learn digital skills and computer science. Microsoft is also pushing its Microsoft Imagine tools and resources that will be offered at no cost to teachers. Another no-cost offering by Microsoft is Microsoft’s Virtual Academy that offers free computer science courses for students at all levels. For future coders, Microsoft is also encouraging the use of its new computer science curriculum offered through Creative Coding Through Games and Apps.  Again, these are all free to teachers and students to take advantage of.
• We reported on tool number seven earlier this week. Microsoft has partnered with Angela Maiers and her company Choose2Matter Inc to provide teachers with a free customizable and interactive e-book through OneNote. Angela’s co-authored book Liberating Genius: The First 20 Days provides teachers a day-by-day lesson plan for the first 20 days of implementing Angela’s famous ‘Genius Hour’.
• The last tool happens to be Microsoft itself. The company will be developing more free training courses for educators that will be available online or at any local Microsoft Store.

Microsoft’s push for education is arguably becoming a focus as important as the enterprise has been for Microsoft, and that’s a good future for educators and students.

It may be surprising to some, but many people are only interested in computers as a consumption device rather than a tool; for example preferring to watch YouTube rather than write a novel in Word. However, when it comes to the coding of computers to create games and apps, there is even less interest and that’s something Microsoft aims to change with their new computer science course.
The course makes coding less intimidating by using a simple programming language to develop real games and apps giving each student a sense of a achievement at the end. The coding is done using Microsoft Touch Develop which is a simple visual way of programming with a touch interface and it works with any browser on any Operating System.

In the past, we’ve told you about how Touch Develop can be used to develop Windows Store apps so it’s more than a capable language. Once a student has mastered it, then they can go on to consider more powerful languages. Tom Ball who worked on Touch Develop is happy to see the language used in this new course saying:

It’s not so much about learning Touch Develop, Touch Develop is the vehicle to learning about computer science concepts.

Microsoft’s new course is aimed at people with little to no experience in coding (including educators) and even people who would never consider doing it. The course can be taught using any modern web browser so it will even work on phones and tablets. It’s also a provides everything a teacher would need including lesson plans, presentations, student assignments and quizzes. The course is flexible and can accommodate the free time available in the semester.
This is a smart move by Microsoft and it would be even smarter for schools to take up the curriculum. Computers aren’t going to go away any time soon and will most likely become more prevalent so the more coders we have out in the world, the better.
You can check out the course here.

As Microsoft lets go of roughly 7,800 employees on the hardware and marketing side of business, it’s simultaneously bolstering its software side of employment. Each recent purchase or acquisition Microsoft has been tied to lately have been done so with a specific software goal in mind. Microsoft is continually beefing up its play for productivity and enterprise customers, and the recent acquisition of Seattle startup company, VoloMetrix continues that trend.
VoloMetrix started up just a little over four years ago, but Microsoft saw value in the companies ‘organizational analytics’ strategy and swooped in quickly to add it to one of its already existing properties. VoloMetrix is a relatively small startup specializing in ‘people analytics’. According to the VoloMetrix website, the company specifically;

extracts and analyzes anonymized, aggregated header-level data from your corporate communication systems. Without compromising employee privacy, this data provides insight into the subject, timing, and format of collaboration, as well as an understanding of the role and geographic location of individuals involved. Together, People Analytics data provides a holistic map of your company’s communication and collaboration behavior.”

With the purchase of VoloMetrix, Microsoft intends beef up its Office 365 business feature Delve. A little over a year ago, Microsoft introduced the Digital Office 365 assistant to business customers. At the time, Delve handled queries about schedules, emails, meetings, contracts, social networks and business documents saved in Office 365. Incorporating VoloMetrix’s analytics tools should help boost employer and employee knowledge about how to communicate best within a business.
According to a Microsoft spokesman who spoke with Business Insider, “a significant number” of employees from VoloMetrix will remain with the company and be working from their offices in Seattle. This should be pleasant news for those employees as Microsoft’s trend lately has been to trim rather than add to the company.

Microsoft announced a new type of series for Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) called the GS-series. This series builds upon the G-series VMs, which were introduced earlier this year. The GS-series takes the G-series high compute power and combines it with premium storage to create an even more powerful VM option in Azure.
Azure VMs can be a particular useful and effective solution for organizations that run applications in the cloud and want to take advantage of running their application through scalable VMs. The new GS-series offers VMs based on high performance cloud computing that is capable of the following features at the highest tier in the GS-series offering:

• Intel Xeon E5 v3 family processors
• 64TB of storage
• 80,000 storage I/Os per second
• 2,000 MB/s of storage throughput
• Up to 20 Gbps network bandwidth

Some of the applications that Microsoft Azure thinks the GS-series VMs are perfect for are: relational databases, data warehouses, and enterprise applications like Exchange and Dynamics. In the announcement of the GS-series, Microsoft also notes that the G-series has grown by 50% in the past three months. The post also boasts that the highest GS-series tier offers more than double the disk throughput compared to any other hyperscale public cloud provider.
What do you think Azure’s new GS-series would be great for? Would it be the right choice for your organization’s VM needs? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

The name Skype may bring up visions of talking to long distance relatives over video, but there’s a whole lot more to it than that. In fact there’s a whole community of Skype Vloggers and viewers. In order to encourage creativity in that community the developers of Skype went to three “Superstar” Vloggers (Jamie Jo Blaine (BananaJamana), Anna Brisbin (Brizzy Voices), and Anna Akana) and asked each of them to create a story.
Each girl had to create a story around the themes of diversity, acceptance and openness, and encouraged their viewers to suggest keywords that would guide the story. Then each of the stories was narrated by Anna, characters voiced by Brizzy and illustrated by Jamie Jo. The results weren’t too bad at all and you can see the three stories below.



Skype is also the software of choice for the WinBeta podcast show hosted by Zac and Sean. You can check it out live every Friday at 3PM EDT. If you miss it, you can catchup by clicking the WinBeta Podcast link at the top of every page.

Lenovo has announced a few new business-oriented Windows 10 PCs. Among the new computers launched today are the ThinkPad Yoga 260 and 460 2-in-1 laptops with 12.5-inch and 14-inch displays respectively, as well as the ThinkCentre M900 Tiny, an ultra-compact business PC.
The new computers are great for small businesses and consumers who want something a little more than your average everyday PC. The specs on these devices are pretty good, and they use Intel’s new Skylake processors.
The ThinkPad Yoga 260 features a 12.5-inch display. Depending on their use case, customers can choose between 1366×768 and 1920×1080 options. The Yoga 260 comes with Intel’s new Skylake processors, ranging from the low-end i3-6100U all the way up to the i7-6600U. The laptop can be customized with up to 16 GB of DDR4 memory with storage options up to a 512 GB solid state drive. As far as battery life is concerned, Lenovo claims the Yoga 260 can get up to 10-hours of battery life.

The ThinkPad Yoga 460 is the bigger brother to the Yoga 260 offering a 14-inch IPS display with 1920×1080 and 2560×1440 options. This laptop includes a processor of either i5 or i7 from the same U series as the ThinkPad Yoga 260. Strangely, this laptop only offers only 8 GB of DDR3L memory with storage up to 256 GB SSD or 1 TB HDD. Lenovo claims the same 10-hour battery life on this laptop as the ThinkPad Yoga 260.

Lenovo hasn’t for gotten about the desk jockey either with their new lineup. The company also announced the new ThinkCentre Tiny PC which will also comes with Intel Skylake processors up to an i7 U series. The maximum memory available on this tiny box PC is 32 GB of DDR4 RAM, with plenty of storage options ranging from 512 GB SSD to 2 TB HDD. With portability not being a concern, Lenovo packed the Tiny PC with all the necessary ports. This desktop PC include six USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet, headset jack, SD card slot, and an optional serial port. This all-in-one offering of this PC comes with a 1920×1080 monitor with optional touchscreen capabilities.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad 260 will have a starting price tag at $949 available in November in select countries while the ThinkPad 460 will start at $1049 available in October. The new ThinkCentre will have a starting price of $749 and will be available sometime later this year.
Lenovo does make some interesting business-class PCs. Let us know what you think of about these new PCs in the comments down below!

It’s IFA, and that means one thing: exciting new hardware. Many of the major technology manufacturers from around the world have gathered in Berlin to show their wares, and the results have proven to be exciting.
Of these, the Satellite Radius 12, a new 2-in-1 device from Toshiba is easily among the most interesting. As a part of the firm’s premium ultrabook range, the 2-in-1 device has the specs to match its price point. With a choice between a 4K or Full HD 12.5 inch screen, a backlit keyboard, a selection of processors from Intel’s new Skylake range and up to 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM, it has enough power for most.
That is not all however; it also comes with several unique features that compliment the new functionality found in Windows 10. These include a dedicated ‘Cortana’ key and a built-in webcam that is compatible with Microsoft’s new biometric identification system, Windows Hello. The device also comes with a USB-C port, two USB3 ports and a HDMI socket that allows for output of up to 4K.
Expected to be available in the UK before Christmas, this device is among the first of many Windows 10 laptops that can be expected to be released over the next few months.
Does the Satellite Radius 12 interest you? Let us know in the comments below.

What is productivity? Ask anyone around the world and the answer will likely be the same; that is to say: being more productive. And yet, what constitutes being more ‘productive’?

That is the million dollar question; with the likes of Google, Microsoft and Apple having turned themselves to solving the problem. For Microsoft, the question is perhaps more important than for its competitors however.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Microsoft: the emperor of enterprise, the patriarch of productivity[/pullquote]

Under Satya Nadella, the software giant has attempted to position itself as the emperor of enterprise, the patriarch of productivity, offering complete cloud solutions for businesses around the world. Indeed, as Apple dominates the premium consumer market with its ‘iX’ devices, and Google (or Alphabet, take your pick) has insinuated itself everywhere else by means of search and Android, this was the only real solution for Redmond, at least when it comes to the mobile space.

‘Productivity’ is what Microsoft has chosen to prioritize, to boast that it alone can effectively offer, above all others. As with all boasts, this is intended to mask a little insecurity, a bit of fear, for the future looks tough.

This battle is for the IT Manager, the common person with the power to bulk purchase hardware for their office. The pros and cons of each option will be weighed up and assessed, whichever vision of ‘productivity’ best suits the reality of their day to day needs. These few are what is meant by ‘enterprise’ or business, the customers who really count. Forced to be objective, the next few months of hardware releases will define purchasing orders for at least the year ahead, a crucial time as Microsoft attempts to consolidate Windows 10 Mobile.

iOS 9 was revealed by Cupertino at WWDC 2015, the latest iteration of its most successful operating system. Typically, any updates revealed by Cupertino, at least on the software side, have tended to be somewhat conservative in their approach. If nothing else, iOS 9 repeats this trend, but in another direction, towards one thing: the enterprise market. If the rumors are correct, and Apple is treading new ground, then the iPad may become the new device of choices for businesses around the world.

Apple doesn’t quite operate like other firms. Everything Microsoft does, and Google to some degree, is in reaction to the competition. As the most valuable company in the world by some margin, Apple has no ‘competition’ as such. The rumors have been that it intends to launch a 12-inch ‘iPad Pro’, target at the same market as the likes of the Surface Pro 3.

If this is indeed the case, it isn’t to oust Microsoft; Redmond likely doesn’t even figure in the equation, rather it would be to combat the decline in sales that the iPad line (like the rest of the tablet market) has suffered over the past year or so. And, unfortunately for Microsoft, this rumor is most likely true.

Two things point towards this being the case. The first is simple: difficult to notice, but also to overstate. Last year, with the release of the iPad Air 2, Apple did something almost unprecedented, it bumped up the RAM, from 1GB to 2GB.

With a tightly managed OS, it has typically been the case that iOS devices did not need much memory to operate, that Cupertino changed this also constituted a very definite change in its ambitions for the line. More features require more power, more power requires more room in which to play, hence the memory increase.

The second follows on from the first, with iOS 9, Apple debuted its own version of ‘Snap’, that is to say, multi-tasking within iOS, again something never attempted by the firm. From this it is clear, the iPad is intended to seize the enterprise market, and a new ‘Pro’ line is intended to be the vehicle. Already possessing a presence within the enterprise crowd, both as a result of home and professional use, its potential for growth is considerable.

Should this be the case, then the timing couldn’t be worse for Microsoft. At the moment, it is focused heavily on the development of Windows 10 Mobile, with the release of Windows 10 for Desktop now behind and further development progressing nicely.

Over the past few years, Redmond’s forays into the mobile space have been confused, and convoluted. With both Windows Phone and RT bearing the name, but not the power, of the Windows brand, consumers switched off, with the line possessing a poor market share, even after 5 years of existence.

Opportunities have remained however. With iOS generally being a poor choice for enterprise given the lack of flexibility, and Android effectively being the software incarnation of the Wild West, the business consumer to this date does not have a great deal of choice.

Continuum, and a host of other features, are Microsoft’s attempts to combat this. Earlier this year, I wondered whether the Lumia line was intended to become the ‘Thinkpad of Mobile‘ and all evidence now points to this being the case. From the design, to the marketing, it is now up to other manufacturers to provide the perfect consumer device for the Windows Phone market; Lumia is somewhat ‘off-limits’.

Yet, with all this promise, one thing yet remains, to the detriment of its product line: time. That is to say, the protracted period of development and testing that the firm often subjects its products and services to, while competitors race ahead. The new iOS, along with new devices is set to arrive on the 9th of September, while rumors abound that Microsoft is to do nothing until at least the 19th of October, with the expected release of Windows 10 Mobile not for some time after that point.

Moreover, there is the app problem. With Windows 10, and universal apps, Microsoft is taking one great leap in the hope that it will plug the app gap. With both iOS and Android possessing much, much greater app offerings than Windows Phone in the present, whether developers will leap with Microsoft still remains in question. Furthermore, whether desktop developers will choose to make their programs available for mobile is still yet to be seen. There are many questions that have yet to be answered, or addressed.

In the mean time, Google too is catching up. The many headed hydra that is Android has traditionally had something of a hard time when it comes to enterprise, with a lack of security among the biggest reasons cited. Yet, with Samsung pushing a new iteration of the productivity orientated Note series (with Microsoft services bundled), and Blackberry reportedly working with Google, not only to beef up the security of Android, but to bring enterprise focused handsets to the fray, the market continues to become more crowded.

It has been said again and again, after years of resting on its laurels, the next few months will go a great distance towards hardening both the perceptions and the reality of where Microsoft is in the mobile space, especially with regards to enterprise.

As others are greedily eyeing what is quite a juicy gap in the market, it is clear that Redmond recognizes the potential for everything to go belly up. And yet, whether there is enough passion to really drive its mobile offering is yet to be seen. By committing so many fingers to lots of different pies, it is arguable that Microsoft still just has an ambition, rather than a hard goal. Omnipresence at any cost is not the same as market relevance, and whether the firm sees a future similar to that of IBM is an eventuality that is not quite yet off the table.

Still, success is still there for the taking, and the others have equally pressing problems, Google with its confusing (and confused) ‘Alphabet’ saga, and Apple with its new commitment to half-hearted software features are by no means going to crush Microsoft.

What ‘productivity’ means is the great question that needs to be answered before the enterprise market (that is to say IT managers) will fully commit to one mobile solution. Whether it is a suite of Apple, Microsoft or Android devices, all working in tandem, will be the solution to the problem. With all committed to marketing their respective solutions however, there likely will not be an answer for some time yet.

Do you think Microsoft is doing enough to win over enterprise? Let us know in the comments below.

Game of Thrones, for those that did not know, is a fantastic fantasy drama series on HBO having attracted a number of viewers and obtained an exceptionally broad fan base. Having won numerous awards, Game of Thrones involves a civil war between noble houses for the illustrious “Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms!”
Game of Thrones is currently on hiatus until next year, but you can relive Season 5 (the most recent season) right now from the Windows Store. Microsoft currently has all ten episodes, including five extras, to keep you entertained. Each episode runs for $2.99, and the whole season costs $28.99 in SD and $38.99 in HD. Thats over nine hours of content you can watch! Once you purchase the season, you can watch it on Xbox, Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8. You can also download the season to watch it later.
“A plethora of compelling storylines play out to their inevitable, often bloody conclusions in Season 5 of the Emmy(R)-winning drama series. In the wake of the numerous shocking deaths of Season 4, the season opens with a power vacuum that the various players all across Westeros and Essos scramble to fill. At Castle Black, Jon Snow must balance the demands of the Night’s Watch with those of the newly arrived Stannis Baratheon. Meanwhile, Cersei struggles to hold on to power in King’s Landing; Jaime embarks on a secret mission; Arya seeks out an old friend; Tyrion–now a fugitive–finds a new cause; and Daenerys finds that her tenuous hold on the city of Meereen requires hard sacrifices,” the Windows Store description reads.
You can head over here to purchase Season 5. We’ve embedded the trailer for Season 5 below, in case you want to see what it’s about. For those of you new to the series, I highly recommend starting from the beginning with Season 1 first (also available for the same price). It will be worth your while!

It’s well known that government agencies need to streamline their services and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has gone to the cloud to solve their data needs. In a lucrative $108 contract commissioned by the agency, the Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Microsoft Azure cloud services will be used to consolidate the agency’s data.
With competitors on their heels, this partnership is a huge change of tack for the two leading cloud computing providers who are normally competing against each other on contracts. It is unknown how the data will be divided up amongst each service or even why the FAA didn’t choose just one service. However, it’s a win for both parties as the deal could be worth $1 billion dollars if all goes to plan. Meanwhile, the FAA will get flexible and secure web hosted data at a reduced storage cost.
Cloud computing is beginning to gather steam with Microsoft Azure growing in popularity by 88 percent in the last quarter and the company hopes it will soon be worth $6.3 billion annually. With a strategy statement of “Mobile first, Cloud first” Microsoft has invested heavily in this particular area and it’s good to see it finally begin to pay off.

If you’ve been looking for some Microsoft news, look no further. This Friday at 6AM PDT, Microsoft is going to be holding its live stream at IFA (labeled “Windows 10 Lights Up New Devices”,) and they’re sure to be showing off some of the new devices that will be running Windows 10. Microsoft is likely to be showing off some variety of new hardware, however, we wouldn’t hold our breath for a big announcement along the lines of a flagship mobile device.
It’s possible that Microsoft may use this platform in order to formally announce the rumored October event, in which they may finally go about announcing the flagships that Windows 10 Mobile so desperately needs. Hopefully, with an event with as much attention as IFA, Microsoft can recognize that now is a great time to work on building some excitement for its upcoming projects. Using a tagline like “Windows 10 Lights Up New Devices” gets me very interested in seeing a possible flagship announcement in the near future.
If you’re like me and intend to wake up criminally early to catch this live-stream, (or are lucky, and live in a place in which this event occurs at a reasonable hour) you can catch the stream right here. Oh, and don’t worry, we’ll remind you as the date nears.
 

The team working at Microsoft’s Legal & Corporate Affairs (LCA) has, for some time, been using an in-house program by the name of “Matter Center” in order to run things at their office. Matter Center seamlessly mixes the features of Office 365 (programs like Microsoft Word and Outlook) and creates a suite of features invaluable to law firms, organizing legal documents at any time, from any place.
Matter Center allows law firms to boost productivity by allowing them to collaborate on projects with coworkers or clients simultaneously, keeping track of changes with version control and easily sharing documents. The new legal suite also allows users to protect sensitive information, making sure that access to documents is restricted to only the users that should be able to view or edit them. On top of that, law firms can tag important documents in case they need to be frequently revisited.
Matter Center is a tool built around offering legal firms the efficiency they need to get their work done correctly. The toolkit has already been tested among 200 different law firms, and with the feedback received from that test run, Microsoft believes that Matter Center is ready for the public to use. Microsoft is currently rolling out Matter Center for customers and partners, as well as more than 1,200 Microsoft legal professionals worldwide.
This is just another piece of software Microsoft is offering to the public to make businesses run more efficiently. The company’s dedication to making people’s lives easier is clear and present, and this suite of tools is sure to help any legal firm that has been struggling to stay organized. If your organization wants to try Matter Center for itself, you can visit the Matter Center website to find out more about how you can start implementing its features.

Since Satya Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft, there has been a large effort for consolidating and refocusing Microsoft under his new vision to be a leader in a mobile-first, cloud-first world. This has included massive layoffs and internal reorganizations, most recently the consolidations of the Windows Group and the Devices Group under Terry Myerson as the Nokia acquisition was written down with an impairment charge.
As all of these new changes have come about, we have seen what a mobile-first, cloud-first strategy looks like in regards to specific products, but Nadella’s words, even with a new mission statement, still leave a question of what’s the most fundamental kernel of the new strategy that applies to everything at the new “One Microsoft.”
Over the weekend, Matt Weinberger of Business Insider wrote an article about “Microsoft’s genius plan,” which reduces to a very simple statement what all of these mobile-first, cloud-first moves mean; Microsoft is swapping its Windows monopoly in the declining PC business with Office’s monopoly in productivity, across all platforms.
Windows 10 has been a well accepted and well reviewed operating system that’s a big step forward for the Redmond based company after the less than stellar reception of Windows 8. But overall the consensus is that the PC is declining and analysts aren’t putting much stock in a resurgence to the “old days” as smartphones and tablets continue to grow at faster rates.
Instead of Window being Microsoft’s defining product (now a service with Windows 10’s shift to Windows as a Service), the software giant is shifting to its various cloud connected versions of Office applications, and new cloud based productivity suites, as the future defining service of the company; across all platforms, PC or not.
Weinberger declares this is Nadella’s master plan: “Make Office into the new Windows.”
Weinberger goes on to note that Microsoft is learning from its missteps in mobile and has decided “if Microsoft can’t come up with a smartphone platform that can topple the iPhone or Android, why not just take over the iPhone and Android?”
And over the past year we have seen Microsoft’s foray into cloud-based productivity succeed in supplanting Google Apps. Microsoft has also been quick to buy up some of the most popular productivity apps on other platforms, such as Accompli, Sunrise Calendar, and Wunderlist. And of course Microsoft is putting its traditional Office apps onto Apple and Android, as well as new apps like Cortana and GigJam.
Weinberger further notes that putting Office and other Microsoft productivity apps on every platform is just one part of the plan. The other is to have Office 365 “at center of a whole new family of Microsoft online services that work together, using the cloud as their glue.”
Simply put, Weinberger says that,

“At the old Microsoft, it didn’t care what apps you ran, as long as you ran them on Windows. The new Microsoft doesn’t care what operating system you run, as long as you’re running Microsoft services.”

Microsoft doesn’t want to place its biggest bets on what hardware you are buying. Instead, they want to be both consumers’ and businesses’ focal point for connecting their cloud services, and the preferred set of universal tools that you rely on to get things done. Regardless of what logo is on the back of your smartphone, tablet, or whatever comes next, Microsoft just wants your Office account to be what really makes a device most useful to you.