Microsoft

Microsoft Opens Skype to the Business World

Leave a Comment / Skype, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows Phone /

You’ve probably used Skype to chat with your family and friends. Now you can use it to chat with colleagues and co-workers as part of your official workday.
Unveiled Monday, the Skype for Business Technical Preview will give you a chance to try the workday edition of the software before it officially launches next month, Giovanni Mezgec, general manager for the Skype for Business team, said in a blog post.

Designed to replace and expand on Microsoft’s Lync communications platform, Skype for Business will allow you to search for, connect with and chat with other Skype users, whether inside or outside your organization. The new Skype for Business will also be integrated into Microsoft Office, so instant messages and voice and video calling with be accessible within Office as well. Otherwise, Skype for Business will work and act like the consumer version.

Meanwhile, don’t fret about any changes to those weekly video chats between the little ones and their grandparents. “The consumer experience known and loved around the world will continue to be referred to as Skype,” Microsoft’s Skype team said in a blog post. “You will still be able to use Skype the way you always have — with the same user account and contacts.”

Since taking over as Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella has been on a mission to transform the company into one that emphasizes “productivity and platform” and not just devices and services. Skype for Business falls into that new strategy, as the product is geared toward helping business users better collaborate with each other. The business-oriented version also emphasizes Microsoft’s need to continue to focus on corporations as a key source of customers and revenue.

Skype for Business is specifically geared toward companies and other organization as it offers enterprise-level security along with the necessary management controls for IT professionals. IT pros and business users can browse to the Office Evalutions page to register for and download Skype for Business.

Along with Skype for Business, a preview edition of Microsoft Office 2016 is now available for the enterprise crowd. The IT Pro and Developer Preview of Office 2016 for the Windows desktop offers enhancements for both users and IT administrators, including quicker searching and improved readability in Outlook and easier ways to deploy Office bug fixes and updates.

IT admins and business users who want to check out the new Office can sign in to download the program at the Office 2016 Preview (for Business) Profile page.

Source: Microsoft opens Skype to the business world – CNET.

Microsoft Opens Skype to the Business World Read More »

Microsoft To Deliver Windows 10 Updates Using Peer-to-Peer Technology

Leave a Comment / Windows 10 /

Microsoft is planning to distribute future Windows 10 updates using a peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol. While Microsoft has traditionally uses Windows Update to deliver OS and some application updates from a single source, the latest leaked build of Windows 10 reveals that the company is moving towards P2P. A new option allows Windows 10 users to enable “updates from more than one place,” with the ability to download apps and OS updates from multiple sources to get them more quickly.

Apps and OS updates can be downloaded from Microsoft and PCs on a local network, or a combination of local PCs, internet PCs, and Microsoft’s traditional Windows Update servers. It’s no surprise that Microsoft is moving towards this distribution model. The software maker acquired Pando Networks in 2013, the maker of a peer-to-peer file sharing technology that’s similar to BitTorrent. It’s not clear what technology Microsoft is using for its Windows 10 testing, but it’s reasonable to expect it has evolved from the Pando Networks acquisition.

Microsoft has not yet officially announced its P2P plans, but the company is planning to release an official Windows 10 preview shortly that will likely include the new changes. While Microsoft’s changes could prompt security concerns over the validity of OS updates, it’s likely that the company has built-in methods to prevent tampering and a means to verify update packages before they’re applied to Windows 10 systems.

Source: Microsoft to deliver Windows 10 updates using peer-to-peer technology | The Verge.

Microsoft To Deliver Windows 10 Updates Using Peer-to-Peer Technology Read More »

HoloLens Is And Isn’t Xbox One’s Answer To PlayStation 4’s Virtual Reality Headset

Leave a Comment / Microsoft Hololens, Technology /

Microsoft’s Xbox lead Phil Spencer about virtual reality headsets. “For us, I think this is the area,” Spencer told a group of interviewers at yesterday’s Windows 10 event. He was responding to whether there’s also a virtual reality headset in the works at Microsoft, just an hour after the company unveiled HoloLens: a “mixed reality” headset that enables the wearer to see holograms in real life.

Microsoft+HoloLens+RGB2

For Spencer, HoloLens is both Microsoft’s alternate answer to the recent virtual reality explosion and a potential answer to Sony’s Project Morpheus headset — a VR peripheral that works with the PlayStation 4, where HoloLens could work with the Xbox One. “It’s very cool. To me there’s not a successful consumer electronics device on the planet where gaming is not a primary form of app category on the thing,” Spencer said. There’s even a “Minecraft-inspired” demo — which answers that question — for HoloLens that shows the implications of gaming with holograms. But no demo showed the headset working with the Xbox One in any capacity. Spencer instead talked around that possibility:

“I think gaming will be important. Specific scenarios with the Xbox, we’re thinking hard about. People could ask about streaming solutions. Could I use it as a display for my Xbox? We don’t have answers to any of those things, but know it’s all part of the same organization.”

And that’s why I say HoloLens both is and isn’t an answer to Sony’s Project Morpheus, or the Oculus Rift, or even Samsung’s Gear VR. It’s similarly impressive, and head-mounted, and even delivers some similar experiences, but it’s not virtual reality and it’s not a head-mounted display. It’s… something else.

…

HoloLens Is And Isn’t Xbox One’s Answer To PlayStation 4’s Virtual Reality HeadsetRead More »

HoloLens Is And Isn’t Xbox One’s Answer To PlayStation 4’s Virtual Reality Headset Read More »

Microsoft’s New Browser Previewed In Video

Leave a Comment / Project Spartan, Technology, Windows 8.1 /

It was back in January that Microsoft showed off its long-awaited replacement for Internet Explorer, currently named “Project Spartan.” The new browser is designed to be light, nimble and secure, with the company stressing how deeply Cortana, Microsoft’s virtual assistant, is baked into the software. Now, thanks to WinBeta, we’ve gotten the first sense of how that’ll work out in the real world. For instance, visit the homepage of a restaurant and the blue circle in the address bar will bounce to advise you that more information is available. In addition, you can highlight and right-click a word to define it, and typing in keywords in the address bar — such as weather — will bring up relevant information. The video is short, but you can expect plenty more like that when the previews of Windows 10 (with Spartan) arrive at the end of the month.

Source: Engadget – Microsoft’s new browser previewed in video

 

Microsoft’s New Browser Previewed In Video Read More »

Microsoft Garage After-Hours Employee App Project Offers A Slate Of New Software

Leave a Comment / Software Development, Windows 8.1, Windows Phone /

Microsoft Garage is an initiative at Microsoft that works like an internal accelerator, taking ideas that employees have outside of their ordinary day jobs and turning them into real apps. The first batch broke cover last October, and now there are nine new projects making their official debut today.

These include a mobile app that lets software engineers check in on Visual Studio Online projects in a secure way without having to be on the company intranet on their notebook; a weather app designed for use in China that offers air quality reports customised for each user; and a conference call management app that can pull meeting ID and pins from invites and automatically enter the details to connect you to your call with a simple tap or voice command.

DevSpace, Your Weather and Join Conference are the apps Microsoft highlighted in a blog post announcing the new slate, but a few that might be even more useful for some users include Keyboard for Excel, which replaces your software keyboard with something specific to Excel, for optimal input of figures and formulas. The SquadWatch app, another Garage production, provides real-time location on friends and family who agree to take part, much like a Find My Friends for Windows Phone.

Other new apps that have already broken cover but that are re-launching with new features or updates in this batch include Mouse without Borders, which allows you to control multiple computers with a single mouse and keyboard; Developer Assistant, which offers a way to browse and re-use code snippets and samples from Visual Studio; Picturesque Lock Screen, which puts Bing home page pictures on your Android lock screen, as well as direct search and call/text notifications; and finally Torque, which gets updates that let you define Android shake behaviour to trigger a range of actions, including voice search, calls, dictation or app launching.

Microsoft’s Garage is producing some of the most interesting software to come out of Redmond or any of the MS satellite offices in years, and this collection is no exception. Fostering innovation in an organisation that size, which in many ways depends on stability and an innate conservatism is no small feat. Garage has managed to produce some interesting stuff you probably wouldn’t see come out of Microsoft’s main businesses, so it’s definitely helping to reduce the risks associated with large, slow-moving corporate entities.

Source:  Tech Crunch – Microsoft’s After-Hours Employee App Project Offers A Slate Of New Software.

Microsoft Garage After-Hours Employee App Project Offers A Slate Of New Software Read More »