Microsoft Released Its Diversity Numbers, So How Does It Compare?

In the past few years a host of tech companies had their diversity numbers in their work force. But most of the big names of the Silicon Valley had just kept it themselves which includes Amazon, IBM and Orcale. Though there is no obligation on the companies under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 wherein every company is required to file an EEO-1 form and listing all the employment data by race/ethnicity, gender and job category. The government is prohibited from making this data public but companies reveal it in order to boost its reputation and gain favour from the masses. Microsoft has just released its federally mandated diversity data in the public forum.

How Does Microsoft Fares Compared To Other Tech Companies? 

Microsoft has distinct diversity present right at the top order with an African-American board chairman, a female CFO and an Indian CEO. The overall statistics shows the same trend as of any other tech company with 60.6% white employed and 71% of workforce is composed of men.

Male Dominated WorkForce

Microsoft is ahead of Google, Twitter and Apple in terms of having higher number of male workers at a whopping 71%. However Intel is the most male-dominated tech firm in U.S with around 77% male domination and just 23% of females. Microsoft stats clearly state that the female staffs are quite marginalized in on the world’s biggest tech firm at just 29%. However Microsoft has a considerably small workforce at just 128,000 employees worldwide.

Fewer Women Finds Themselves Handling Tough Jobs

The tech companies have shown a trend that even having too many women in the workforce doesn’t guarantee an uplift advance to the higher positions of managers. These are namely a few women in leadership roles in companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Microsoft has created various initiatives and programs to hire more women.

Microsoft diversity stats also show a pronounced gender imbalance in its technical ranks. There are surprisingly only 17% women in the role of programmers, coders and other engineering type roles. Microsoft female tech headcount is better than the Twitter’s which just have 10% female in tech jobs.

A Huge Racial And Diversity Gap 

Microsoft has 61% white, 29% Asian, 5% Hispanic/Latino and just 3% black in its vast workforce. Comparatively Yahoo shows a 50% white headcount and Apple has a greater percentage of minority workers with Hispanic at 11% and black at 7%. Diversity stats has shown that 72.2% of all leadership positions are held by whites in Microsoft while Yahoo has 78% whereas Facebook just has 74%.

Steps and Programs Are Undertaken to Improve the Diversity

Comparing the Microsoft’s diversity stats from last the new report has shown that Microsoft is actively working towards closing the diversity gaps. Though it is been at a snail’s paper as it registered 1% percent fewer white employees from last year. Hispanics saw an increase of 0.5% while blacks and Asian rose by 0.3 % and 0.2 % respectively.

Microsoft Reveals Shocking Windows Phone Usage Statistics

Windows phone has been in circulation for quite some time but it didn’t get as much popularity as the Android based smartphones. But the monthly mobile usage statistics uncovered by the Washington based research company namely Redmond points out some amazing trends and truths of widows phone. It has been widely known that Microsoft had so far concentrated on building high-end devices for the consumers which still finds itself lagging behind Android based phones due to variety of reasons. Windows phones mainly suffered from low RAM, not so friendly user interface and expensive pricing but usage statistics reveals never known brighter sides.

Higher Percentage of Apps Downloads

Microsoft had stated that about 71% of the downloaded apps were initialized from its low memory Lumia devices in the recent past. The most popular Lumia phone does so is the Nokia Lumia 520 which offers just 512 of RAM to the consumers.

Even the Redmond statistics claims that judging on the basis of the top ten popular devices which tends to download apps aggressively has a surprising seven different models of Windows phone in the kitty. Further these different models have low memory and RAM issues as well. On the basis of this remarkable fact Microsoft had decided to take constructive efforts to build apps which fulfil the requirement within this particular range of popular Windows phones.

Microsoft Soon To Bring More Apps For Lumia Devices

Microsoft has stated taking the initial steps for generating more user friendly apps for its phones. It has made some agreements with the Windows based app developers to build distinct apps in order to grab the potential apps market with authority. It has taken decision to enlarge its circle of active apps zone within the low on memory devices. In the recent times apps market has become a major revenue generators for Apple with its App Store and Google with its Play Store. Microsoft also provides its users with a Windows Phone Store which allows the users to download apps which are applicable for its OS.

Microsoft To Enhance Its Game Apps

Alongside the mobile apps Microsoft is also working towards developing more games which can run efficiently on the low memory devices. It has been that the high end devices lags behind the entry or budget level phones in terms of generating the more number of games downloads. It is logical that the Microsoft is aiming at proving better game apps for its devices to move forward its users to the high-end games as well get better sales volume with low-end games.

Microsoft Is Concerned About Popularity Not The Revenue

Contrary to the perception Microsoft is strengthening its apps zone not for the ‘aggressive revenue’ but for making its devices much more popular among the consumers and others alike. But the pricing of the in-app purchase shows a different outlook. Most of the in-app purchases includes a decent price tags of $4.99, $9.99 and $19.99 which couldn’t be justified as low price at all. However regardless of high price point it is Windows users who are going to benefit from wide range of low-end apps which could run like charm on their low ram devices.

Is Microsoft About to Kill Off Internet Explorer?

Credit:The Hacker News

Rumor about Microsoft making some of the big changes to their internet explorer in Windows 10 has been for a long time and it is said that they are making Internet explorer “Spartan” feel and look like Firefox and Chrome. According to some insider and market sources, the truth seems to be that Microsoft is building a completely new browser, which now has been codenamed as Spartan.

Earlier this month, Thomas Nigro, who is Microsoft Student Partner lead and developer of the modern version of VLC had already indicated about Microsoft building a new browser. According to him, he came to know about this through the talk, which was going on during the LiveTile Podcast December episode.

Spartan- The new browser: 

According to the company sources, Spartan is still expected to use the Chakra JavaScript engine and Trident-rendering engine (not WebKit) of Microsoft. According to the report released in September, Neowin's Brad Sams stated that, the new browser would not only look and feel like Firefox and Chrome, but will be able to extensions. He also reported that the company is working on two different types of trident, which supports claims made by the company about two different Trident-based browsers.

However, according the sources Spartan is a light-weight and new browser and should not be considered as Inter explorer 12. Some of the sources also revealed that Windows 10 (the desktop version) is expected to have both IE 11 and Spartan. The IE 11 is expected to be given as backward-compatibility's sake. According to the sources both desktop and mobile (phone/tablet) versions of Windows 10 will have Spartan.

The codename for the browser has been given as Spartan but at the same time, there is no information about the name expected at the debut. The name has been changed so that the developers can make the users get information about the new browser being more standards-compliant IE and different from the older version of internet explorer.

The company is planning to reveal the Spartan on 21st January, this is the time they are expected to reveal their next set of windows 10 features. However, sources also revealed that there is no surety if Spartan will be functional enough to be included in their Windows 10, January Technical Preview, and mobile preview builds. These builds are expected to be available for testing from early 2015. Therefore, we cannot expect the browser to show up in the test builds until later point of the year.

At present no one of sure of Microsoft will be ready to port out Spartan to other systems like Android, iOS and/or any other non-Windows operating systems. But some of the people of IE team stated that the company doesn’t have any plan of porting out the new IE to any other non-windows operating systems. But as Spartan is not IE and Microsoft already porting out their software and services to others, there is a slight chance to get the new browser in other operating systems as well.

Once Again Microsoft Is Ready To Set IE As the Default Browser

Once again Microsoft is set to make the IE as the default web browser in Windows, as from last five years, Microsoft was forced to provide the choice of web browser in Windows for European market. 

In 2009, due to the ruling of EU, Microsoft was forced to offer the choice of web browser in European market because it was found that Microsoft is unfairly abusing the monopoly in operating system and pushing the millions of users to use the Internet Explorer. But the deal with EU was only for five years to play fair and now the period is over and Once again, Microsoft is total free to set the Internet Explorer as the default web browser in Windows.

As we all have seen Internet Explorer as the default Windows web browser from long time, Internet Explorer 4 was bundled with almost all versions of Windows after its invention. As the time passes Internet Explorer get the vital part of Windows, until it hit the mother lode; Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. The pairing of Windows and Internet Explorer has gain more than 95 per cent market share in PC and browser segment.

As we all know that Microsoft is in very powerful position and have a kind of monopoly in operating systems, and for this only success of Windows is important. Both, EU’s European Commission and as well as United States’ Department of Justice found that these practices are objectionable, but it eventually get the fairly protection in court cases. In US, under original ruling Microsoft was found guilty, but split ups never happened and it settled when Microsoft get opened for APIs to third parties.

However, In the Europe Microsoft faced some serious consequences such as fine of $1 billion and the agreement to include a Browser Choice ballot in Windows. This ballot first ran while installing the a copy of Windows in Europe and it was used to offered 11 different browsers on two pages where they was arranged in random order at page load.

The first page of consist of “first tier” web browsers such as; Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, Safari, Maxthon or Chrome, where as second page was featured the lesser-known “second tier” browsers such as; Rockmelt, Avant, Sleipnir and more. The basic idea was behind this to give the choice and opportunity to user to select their preferences for installing a different browser, But now after 5 years once again Microsoft is free to set Internet Explorer as the default browser in Windows.

In some ways for Microsoft, it’s good that ballot is gone, now Internet Explorer is back at square one with more than millions of new Windows 10 and Windows 8, where users will have to use the Internet Explorer without any choice. Now it’s obvious that Microsoft’s browser market share in European market will change, without any doubt. But the truth is that each and every user know how to download Firefox from Internet Explorer.

Microsoft Combats Tech Support Scammers with Lawsuit

Microsoft is currently trying to fight one of the biggest frauds in the recent days by means of lawsuits. What lead to this legal battle? There are people who have received calls from people claiming to be with Microsoft and informing that their computer has got affected by the virus.

They claim to fix the issue after the payment of a fee. On 18th Dec, a civil lawsuit was filed by Microsoft's Digital Crimes unit in the Central District of California. This lawsuit was filed against the company called as the Omnitech Support and other firms, citing the reason as "unfair and misleading business practices and trademark encroachment.

According to the blog pertaining to this lawsuit, Microsoft has charged Omnitech Support, a division of Customer Focus Services for misusing the Microsoft name, service and the trademark, with the ultimate aim of defrauding the customers out of their money and other personal information. They pretended that the customer’s PC was affected by a virus.

Pattern of these scams

Most of the computer related scams follow a similar pattern wherein it starts with a phone call from someone pretending to be working with Microsoft or claiming to be the partner’s of Microsoft. They will give you some technical details about how they identified the virus on your computer. They will them convince the customer to install the remote control software on the PC and then take full control over the computer of the customers. They will use a scareware to show that there is a virus affecting your system and they can have it fixed after paying a certain amount of fee. If the customer agrees, they can now get additional details about the customer apart from the access to the customer’s credit card.

According to the information on the Microsoft Blog, the scammer have been able to create security issues as they have installed malicious software, which includes password grabbers to get all the financial and personal details of the customer.

Microsoft with the help of investigators has been able to back up their lawsuit by contacting the defendants’ names in the lawsuit. Each investigator contacted the defendant with a computer having no virus or malicious software but were convinced by the latter that there is a virus and need to pay a large sum of fee for them get that removed and get the corrupted windows work again. Many of the customers had contacted Microsoft stating that computer is not in good shape post the repair. According to Microsoft, around $1.5 billion each year is lost by customers due to these kinds of frauds.

Due to the action of the Omnitech Support, Microsoft has claimed that they lost their goodwill and looking forwards for claiming financial damages apart from permanent injunction on the actions. Microsoft has requested for a jury trial as per the details mentioned in the lawsuit. According to the Microsoft spokesperson, all the details pertaining to the lawsuit and the scam has been updated in their official blog but Omnitech Support denied to comment of any of these.For complaining to FTC

Windows 10 Will Bring Native Support For .Mkv And Flac Files

Microsoft is planning to add the .MKV and FLAC support on Windows 10 for next year, to expand its support for other popular media file formats. Microsoft is also adding the native support for audio codecs and advanced video in Windows 10 Developer Preview. 

Windows 10 build 9860 was recently released by Microsoft, wherein they have also given the native support for .MKV and FLAC media formats. As far as these media formats are concerned, these were not supported by Microsoft in any of their builds and as recent as Windows 8.1. This lead to the user getting the pop-up displaying that, “File is not supported by the player”, when they tried opening these formats in windows media player. Gabriel Aul from the Windows Insider Program posted some of the screenshots on Twitter depicting the FLAC support in Windows media player. Going by the lossless nature of the file format, the FLAC support by the media player for Windows 10 has taken the high-end audio fanatic community by a large storm.

Further, the company is also looking to offer platform-level support for MKV and FLAC media formats, this means that now a 3rd party application also will be able to play these files. One of the best features is the fact that a user does not need to search and install plug-ins in their media player to play these files. This news is even more exciting as Microsoft is currently working on unveiling their new consumer-centric features of Windows 10 in late of January 2015. From this, it is very clear that the company is trying to reach out to the fans of the AV and making the right changes, which will mainly helping in boosting the multimedia competency of Windows 10.

Need of FLAC and .MKV format: 

High-end audio fans love to use FLAC files as it promises everything, which required for crystal clear sounds. But unfortunately, this format is not widely-supported; however it is going to get the space in Windows 10. Last month Microsoft officials stated that now Windows 10 will support .MKV format also.

As now Microsoft is providing the platform-level support for FLAC and .MKV format, so it clear that now third party applications will be able to play their specific files on Windows 10. It will be helpful for users as; now they don’t need to face any hassle such as; installing plug-ins and other software’s in order to play the files of these formats.

Although FLAC is not a very widely supported format, but it is loved by the high end audio fans as it preserves the quality of the music as it would be in any music studio. It has the capability of reducing the original audio file to 60 % of its original size. This is possible through the fancy algorithm of FLAC. With the passing, we are getting new information about the yet to be launched Windows 10 operating system

The other positive aspect of FLAC is that it is an open and non-proprietary format with royalty-free licensing. Currently, there is no patent or any kind of issues that anyone has to worry about regarding FLAC. FLAC is known for boasting about their support for metadata tagging, cover art, album and fast seeking. Microsoft is ready to unveil these consumer-centric features in January 2015, for Windows 10. It is making the clear statement that now in January is targeting the AV geeks and enthusiasts.

Microsoft’s Creation Reminds – Learning Knows No Bounds

Microsoft’s Relentless Software Development 

Tasks becoming easier day by day for presentations of new ideas through internet access where Microsoft’s software advance development – app Sway – is assisting as catalytic agent. The dreams or imagination can be shaped into existence by collecting information and the relevant images to make the ideas most colourful, gorgeous and presentable.

Bing Image Search Enhanced Sway Preview Software easier

Thus Microsoft has developed it’s app Sway presentation software by pulling Bing Image Search into app Sway which will facilitate the users to navigate finding desired contents on particular subject, for comprehensive assessment to thoroughly check the terms of license before application to the subject contents as well as to take the full advantage from the devices of Microsoft improved and integrated software development. Hence, users can now navigate diverse multimedia through the improved device of Sway Preview at ease.

Continuous Improvement of Software for conveniences of users

Microsoft Sway Preview is inherited from diverse sources of named “cloud” from where users freely and easily visit the sources of their choice and pull the contents into users Sway. The company’s Sway is already built-in with varieties of sources of the beginning, such as OneDrive, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, +AdSource and local storage. After listening suggestions of UserVoice, and closely examining the +AdSource, Microsoft introduced functions of Bing Image Search to Sway Preview. The Bing Image Search is developed in such a way that users do not have the necessity to download and upload. It is a simple drag and drop process into users Sway. But, Microsoft has a commitment to develop the software continuously for searchers / users.

Features of Programme’s Easy Acceptability

As the contents change, Sway starts itself to assess the suitable topics applicable to the contents. Side by side Suggested will show the applicable concepts for the topics and determine the search terms for the specific content. So, Sway on its own will, the searchers / users to follow the guidelines. Also as per the demands of the users, Microsoft has also arranged the Bing Image Search on which users first find out the contents and later go through the terms of the license. Following the menu driven guidelines on the selected Bing, the source of each image will be known to users and afterwards users will find the original image and examine the terms to make the users convinced that users are permitted to use the image.

Microsoft is trying to develop its software through continuous processes and will uplift the programme of the Sway to users’ preference and friendly.

Bing Images Search Enliven the Office Presentation Convincingly 

Moreover, over the past few years, Microsoft was observing that uses of Office Clip Art are reducing and thereby they have closed the website. But, users will get a different route to Word and Power Point to use clip art in their presentation through Bing Image Search. The users for office presentation will get images of higher quality instead of poor quality images that were available from Clip Art.

Email App Developer Acompli acquired by Microsoft

On December 1st, 2014, Microsoft made the official announcement through their blog post about the acquisition of Acompli. According to Re/code, the acquisition amount was whopping $ 200 million. Acompli is the developers of the email client app for android and iOS. The Acompli Email is very well known for its wide range of features which includes Microsoft Exchange support, ease of use with attachments and files and easy navigation to access recent contacts and emails.

As far as this acquisition is concerned, it is a definite a push forwards towards the company’s recent approach to increase their mobile productivity, which includes the introduction and inclusion of office in the iOS. Microsoft has been able to roll out continuous updates towards the iOS versions of Office as well, apart from addition of third party fonts, printing capability and counting the most recent update rolled out for optimizing the iPhone versions of Excel, PowerPoint and word for their smaller screen phones. So, Acompli has joined Microsoft and has become part of their wide range of productivity-based offerings.

According to the information posted on the blog, the company is very excited about their current work as well as the app that can be developed in the future and bringing these apps together with the work being done by the Outlook team. The main goal of the company is to develop as many apps as possible, which will allow people to use these amazing cross-platform apps, meant to primarily support a whole range of email services used by the people.

They want these cross-platform apps to encourage people and help them to achieve more. According to the blog, they also appreciate this acquisition due to the fact that they are getting an innovative technology based app apart from very talented people focused on reinventing the means of communication and email on mobile screens.

The company believes that this acquisition will expedite their work and help them to deliver the full power of Office to the mobile devices. At present the company has also indicated about some hidden surprises stating that people have to wait for some more details in the next few months.

What was the issue? 

Due to the unavailability of the proper Outlook app for iOS, many of the mobile users were forced to resort to third-party apps. These apps also lacked certain features, especially Exchange support and insufficient prove. At present, it might be easy to see how Microsoft can fit this new aspect in their wide mobile productivity suite of apps, but still there is no official statement has been released about the use of Acompli apart from using it to boost the Outlook effort.

At present, Acompli email is very much available for free download on the App Store for the time being. According to Javier Soltero from Acompli, their company always focused on building app to make mobile email better but now joining the Market giant will enable them to reach out to millions of people as never before.

Microsoft fixes '19-year-old' bug with emergency patch

The 19-year-old software bug that was discovered by IBM has not been fixed by Microsoft. IBM came to know about this flaw long back (May) but wanted to get the issue fixed as it was affecting office and windows products before making any statement to the general public.

According to IBM, this software bug was present in every single version of Windows since 1995. Windows users are being requested to download the update for the respective windows version, as hackers and attackers will be easily able to exploit their personal computer, which is already affected with the bug. Microsoft has already addressed this issue in their monthly security update and has added more patches to fix the other security issues of the users. They are currently working on few more updates and patches, which will be rolled out soon.

Robert Freeman, IBM researcher has explained the susceptibility in depth in his blog post. He has written that this bug can be easily used by any attacker for creating drive-by attacks and easily run codes remotely on anyone’s computer and they can practically take over the entire machine or system. A drive-by attack in a computer security means that the system attacker will be able to make the user of the system download vulnerable and malicious software.

According to the reports given by IBM, this bug was practically hiding in the plain sight. On the CVSS (the Common Vulnerability Scoring System), the vulnerability - dubbed WinShock has been rated 9.3 out of a possible 10. This means a severity in terms of computer security.

Potential disaster: 

Another bug that has been identified affects the Windows Server platforms of Microsoft. This potentially puts the security of websites at risk, which mainly handle the encrypted data. This bug has been specifically linked with Schannel, which is the company’s software for applying the secure transfer of data. Schannel is also known as Microsoft’s secure channel. Some of the major problems discovered in secure standards include GNUTLS, Apple SecureTransport, NSS, OpenSSL, and Schannel now.

This security flaws has also been compared with Heartbleed bug by the security experts. However, they have also added that the impact of the bug might be on the similar scale as that of Heartbleed bug but the level of exploitation will be difficult for the attackers. When it came to Heartbleed bug, the technological vulnerability was associated with the exploitation of the secure data transfer also known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

Now, the bug has been identified by IBM and a patch has already been released by Microsoft to tackle the issue, there is been no evidence of any complaints being received about potential attacks. However, security experts believe that there are chances of security attacks in the system, which are out of date.

According to the Market researchers, if the bug had been sold out to hackers and attackers, the worth of the same would have easily been in six figures. According to Gavin from Tenable Network Security, just because there is no evidence of any attacks, we should not leave out the security concerns.

Microsoft to Integrate MS Office with the Dropbox for Increasing the Cloud Productivity

In the recent times, we have seen many market giants and rival companies collaborating for increasing the quality of their product or even their service. One of the latest additions in this is the approach from Microsoft.

Microsoft is coming together with one of their major competitor and has struck a deal with the DropBox Company; this will allow enhanced interoperability between the Dropbox’s cloud storage and Microsoft Office and further improve the file sharing services offered to the businesses as well as consumers.

This partnership was announced on Tuesday and took the entire industry by surprise as it was being terms as a “coopetition” relationship which indicated co-operation as well as competition. This was due to the fact that Dropbox’s name sake consumer service as well as Dropbox for Business was competing against the Microsoft’s OneDrive and OneDrive for Business.

What is the motivation behind this deal? 

The main motivation behind this step is to make the life much easier for the company’s vast number of customers who are currently storing 35 billion Office files in the Dropbox. Although in Microsoft, almost all the Office users completely rely on the OneDrive for Business and OneDrive, Dropbox has managed to amaze people with 300 million people using their service and on the other hand Microsoft Office has about 1.2 billion users.

The driving force behind this deal is one the same line with the other motivations which has encouraged Microsoft to get into partnerships in the recent times. The Company has made a deal with IBM about cloud computing and tie with Salesforce.com.

According to Satya Nadella, CEO, they will keep on looking for possible partnership deals as long as it will yield a considerable amount of benefit for their existing customers by ensuring they are developing products that work together more efficiently and being offered by the teaming up of Microsoft and the other companies.

What in-stored in the future? 

According to Nadella, they will keep on looking for all possible partnerships in the coming months. They understand that at the moment we have “heterogeneous mobile-first cloud-first world” environment and partnerships are becoming the best way to provide excellent services and products to the customers.

With this new partnership of Office and Dropbox, the users will be able to access Dropbox from their office interface and this is being achieved by focusing on the Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Users will be able to make changes to their office files in Dropbox interface and the updated file can be synched between many devices.

In the coming weeks, this updated is expected to be rolled out on Office apps for Android and iOS. The company is hoping to release the web version of the same during the first quarter of 2015. According to this deal, Dropbox will be required to develop a mobile app for the windows platform in the coming few months. This most recent feature will be available to office users having access to Dropbox account as well.

Microsoft's Unveils RemoteIE To Test Web Pages In Internet Explorer On Any OS

The ultimate aim of this move by the company is to attract as many developers as possible so that they can develop websites which is compatible with their browser’s latest version. So, the latest version or so called developer tool that was unveiled by the company has been named as “Remote IE”, which basically will allow the latest version of the IE to work on any operating system like OS X devices as well as iOS and Android. At the moment this launch has been limited at the testing level.

The company is hoping that the developers will be able to run the browser preview build without the need for them to be actually on the latest version of the OS or Windows. Currently the Remote Internet Explorer, the company’s had made sure that it runs on the company’s cloud computing platform called Azure and they can’t expect all the developers to use their windows platform. According to Microsoft, at present the service has been reserved and restricted to safeguard their server resources and that is the reason the remote IE has been kept at the testing level.

The company has made sure that no single session last more than 60 minutes and any session kept idle for even 10 minutes will log out the user. Moreover, there are some tradeoffs considering the fact that at the moment Remote IE has been made free for everyone and also the company’s focus was completely on getting the attention of more developers to modify their websites to make it compatible with the new Internet Explorer.

At the end, you are among the developers, irrespective of software or system environment you work in and use, Microsoft has come up with a blessing in which you will be easily able to test your website’s compatibility with that of Microsoft's browser. On the other side, Remote Internet Explorer has been given access to the latest builds of the IE that are currently in the testing process for use on Windows 10 technical preview.

How the developers can use the service: 

In order to use this service, the developers will be required to register themselves on the Remote IE website. They will be directed for downloading a client application for selected operating systems. The developer can either press F12, or use the IE menu to get access to the developer tools. The previous version of IE is not available for testing as the current Remote IE is based on the Windows Server 2012 R2. According to Microsoft they are working towards getting the previous version to be available for testing.

At the moment testing time limits have been set and the company is working on increasing the same depending on the demand and the resource availability. One this user’s will have to remember is the fact that they can’t make any changes in the settings in the application, but certainly the web developers will be able to test their unique creations.

Microsoft Poised to Launch Smartwatch With More Battery Life

Let’s accept it, we’re all gadget freaks. We like to update ourselves on the latest gear on the market, be it the iPhone 6 or the latest Galaxy Grand. ‘Till now we had been stuck to phones and tabs, being unable to move beyond them as technology did not permit more. But the wait is over. The global tech market is about to be hit by a new missile. Yes, you are right; Microsoft has finally announced the launch of the brand new Microsoft SmartWatch. Think about never having to reach into your pocket to check your photos, the date, weather forecasts, and of course, the time! The Microsoft SmartWatch is said to have all the basic home screen features of a Smartphone, and should be compatible to run on different platforms.

The features

The Microsoft SmartWatch is said to be the one stop gadget for fitness freaks. It will keep you updated about your heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and much more. It can be connected to most of the latest Smartphones, and of course the Samsung SmartWatch will be updated through the phone.

The downs

The Microsoft SmartWatch will have a battery life of only two days. Now that’s a bummer. We don’t really want a watch, which goes out of charge in public, do we? The Microsoft SmartWatch runs on Windows 95. So we don’t really expect it to be fast. And in this world of hurry, I for one wouldn’t like a machine that can’t do its work in a flash.

Microsoft has had a history with wearable technology. It had collaborated with a brand called Fossil on Spot, which stood for Smart Personal Objects Technology. This was almost a decade ago and Spot ran into some bad business and the project was scrapped. They were said trying to get the watch to update on the stock or the weather.

The way we see it, the tech world is an oligopolistic market and that means more products. Apple and Samsung are said to have been working on wearable technology which can be connected to their respective Smartphones. The Apple CEO Tim Cook has been heard talking about the iWatch but he has also stated that it will need daily charging.

To look at all these products and observe, one would see a race with time. We are trying to feed the buyers with products that will have no use to their daily lives. Will checking one’s heart rate each day really lead to a better living? Or aren’t the stock updates available on your phone already? Are we deliberately confining human body movements? Or is this the next big leap in the world of technological advancement? The choice is yours to make, I however, will not be falling for this one.

'Cloud' Boosts Microsoft Earnings Beyond Their Expectations

According to the reports published by Microsoft, although their revenue was more than what was forecasted by the analysts, the net profits of the company during the same quarter of last year dipped from $ 5.2 billion to $ 4.5 billion.

Now Microsoft has reported in quarterly profits, which are beyond their expectations. The company has attributed this boost to their Xbox consoles and internet cloud services that were being offered to different enterprises.

According to financial reports, the revenue of the company has reached over $ 23 billion, which is the best figure for the first quarter of any fiscal year. This boost in the revenue has pushed the shares of the US technology giant by nearly 3.8 % which is now at $ 46.75 in all after-market trades.

According to Satya Nadella, “Microsoft Company is looking towards faster innovation, engaging far more deeply through the industry and they are ensuring that their customers are the focal point of every process as it will help in shaping up the future of the company.

The company has confirmed that the record setting high revenue is because of the huge popularity of their Xbox video game consoles and Surface tablet computers apart from turning business to software offered as services as in the Internet "cloud."


According to Kevin Turner, who is Microsoft’s chief operating officer, the customers are now willingly accepting their latest technologies like Office 365 and Surface Pro 3 to Azure and SQL Server (cloud based) meant for corporate customers.

The net revenue of the Microsoft's customer and device unit increased to 47 % and reached $ 10.96 billion. The company was able to bring in nearly $ 1 billion from the sales of their Surface Pro 3 tablet computer.

The sale of Xbox consoles increased and was nearly doubled their value at $ 2.4 million in the quarter, which basically observed the new versions of the Xbox consoles being sold out in more than 28 new markets. According to Microsoft, there was a 10 % increase in the revenue from the commercial offerings of the company like that of Office 365. 128% growth was seen in Azure according to the company.

Nadella during their press brief held in San Francisco gave details about the latest changes and modifications in the strategies of Microsoft, which will enable them to attract more companies and businesses.

They are aiming to do so with their ability to hit the power of colossal online data centers whenever required. At this event Nadella was seen boasting about the fact that the company’s cloud is currently the most completed cloud services offered, which can empower every organization, every company across various industries and different locations and geography.

Microsoft was focused on highlighting the main fact that they have been using their power in the software’s which are used by companies to basically benefit from a trend which is moving towards renting of the computer power, their storage as well as software as services that is hosted at data centers with the cloud internet.

Microsoft Advances Research In Their Roomalive- New Concept Towards Futuristic Gaming

RoomAlive game is a combination of 2 technologies that is Microsoft’s Kinect motion-tracking system and LCD projector. The latest demonstration of the video was released about the UIST (User Interface Software and Technology) for the ACM Symposium at Honolulu. This video was released in current week.

RoomAlive, Microsoft’s XBOX game can literally make your entire room come alive. The gamer’s entire room will be changed into an interactive gaming world and the environment. This new game of Microsoft came into life nearly two years ago and still was able to gain much hype and attention from the marketing companies.

At last the marketing people focused on changing the name of the game from Beamatron to IllumiRoom, until they finally froze on a name which is atleast 50 percent decent when compared to the previous versions.

Kinect motion-tracking system by Microsoft

This new motion tracking system actually utilizes Fusion room-modelling technology and the 3D map of the environment is constructed for the game. This infrastructure construction also includes the floor, walls, furniture and everything present in the room at the time of playing the game.

This system further amalgamates the room model with the help of the plugin given with the Unity game engine and then to a projector which displays all the images required for creating a complete gaming and interactive experience with the people present in the room.

Room Alive is Microsoft’s IllumiRoom’s 2.0 version. Last year at CES, the Company had demonstrated the first version of the IllumiRoom research project, which was able to generate an overwhelming response and attention among the people. The demonstration highlighted how the game can be extended from our TV to our walls. The demo was more than a short display of the concept, but according to the company this was still just a starting phase of the research.

The video projectors and the kinetic combination of the RoomAlive’s might be bit costliest now and probably might be very large for the living rooms of many people. Despite the current roadblocks, the Company is looking forward to a future which will show that this technology is very small and low priced.

Although a similar virtual reality experiment was created by Sony, Microsoft’s RoomAlive system has the capability to automatically detect the walls and floors for their users to get the entire gaming experience to reach anywhere.

Currently the High definition projector of the RoomAlive can cost a person around $600 and this doesn’t include the price of $49 for V1 Kinect, the motor control and the RoomAlive’s software package. At the moment the entire set can cost around $1000. In comparison to this system, a person will able to own Xbox by paying around $499.

According to the Spokesperson of Microsoft, the company still has lots of exploring in RoomAlive. The company is working towards a gaming future which will enable the game to utilize all the articles available as part of their system and game.

A New Tool for Skype users- Translates Different Languages

Microsoft has revealed a latest Skype tool that permits voice chats to be translated into another language or words in near real-time. This real-time translation tool for Skype helps the users to carry out cross-lingual communications over the internet phone facility. There have been a lot of attempts over some years, through the Microsoft Research, to display such features of translating human communication. However, delivery of anything that is practical in real life, to suit the voice and words of many types of users and the tones of various languages has been regarded a nearly impossible job.

Researches to make such translator-

Microsoft Research has basically been concentrated on machine translation for over 10 years. Primary outcomes came with conversions for the product friendly Knowledge Base of Microsoft. The system became accessible for public use like the technology behind Bing Translator, prompting the tool’s development and status since its release. Nowadays, Bing Translator is utilized by many people and accepted by organizations globally.

If the translation method is centered on written content, it may work very weakly with spoken language. In case of Skype Translator research has been made on the neural networks that apply senones, that is, little pronunciation parts and these are the major component in speech decoding. In the opinion of Microsoft, it develops the exactness of speech-recognition nearly by sixteen percent, and hence enhances translations.

The company has stated that the technology starts a new system for speech detection and real-time speech translation, and gives a sight into a future generation language will no longer have to be a obstacle.

Skype Translator primarily will be obtainable as a Windows 8 beta application before the ending part of 2014. However, it is yet undecided whether the service would be free for the Skype users, or would be spread to other platforms.

Members present at the time of launching-

Gurdeep Pall, who is the vice president of the company Skype revealed the device at one of Code Conferences organized in Rancho Palos Verdes of California, recently. Here, chief executive of Microsoft Satya Nadella was also present. The demo illustrated the real-time audio conversion from English to the language of German and also vice versa, merging Skype voice and immediate messaging systems with Microsoft Translator tool, and neural network related speech recognition. 

Some other translators-

Microsoft is not the only one in its endeavor to present real-time conversion. Japanese wireless transporter NTT Docomo has presented a Japanese to English voice translator from the year 2011. Google also gave some endeavor to interpret voice chats, and by now offers an aspect for words on its own translation system. The big dissimilarity in this context is the sheer level of Skype that according to Microsoft gets above 300 million users joined every month, who spend over 2 billion minutes chatting every day.

Thus, with the help of it, you can converse in your local language to a different user who talks in a different tongue, and Microsoft will interpret it to the other individual.

Ten Things to Know About Windows 10

At last we have the official look of the new windows version from Microsoft. Many speculations and unofficial leaks have raised the curiosity among the people. The biggest surprise came in the form of the name as Windows 10. After drawing lots of criticism for their Windows 8 version. The company has gone back to provide some predictable features and some surprises. The new version is being considered to have the best combination of both strategy as well as redesign.

1. New version to be designed to be appealing to office workers: 

Microsoft has been dealing with many complaints about the Windows 8 version for being too complicated to be implemented in larger corporation as well as the retraining requirement for the users needing huge resources. Microsoft has now taken action to appeal to the office workers by using familiar features and removing the features which might not be required. The prime example of this is the Start Menu

2. Appealing to Corporate and IT managers: 

With the increasing security issues, Microsoft has promised an increased level of security, easy manageability and enhanced capabilities on the management side. Upgrade process also has been made easier with improvement in installing and dealing process. Customer app stores will enable the organizations to deal with software deployment as well as permissions.

3. The New version is expected to scale from small smartphones to huge data centers: 

The new version is expected to be available on the latest version of windows phone and tablets, desktop PCs, and even portable devices as well. The same is feature is expected in Xbox one too.

4. The new start menu will be combination of Windows 8's tiles with Windows 7's usability: 

While changes can be expected in the final version after release, but the current preview has indicated a 2 column start menu with old styled icon.

5. Modern apps will be running on desktop through windows: 

Desktop users will now be able to download modern apps and use it like any other apps from the windows store. These will be resizable and can be pinned to the taskbar.

6. Virtual desktops reaching the windows: 

A new task view will let the windows users to have an overview of all the running apps and the user will be able to arrange them between the desktops.

7. Snaps improved: 

This feature will be rejoicing for users with large monitors. They will be able to tile four apps just by dragging on the corner of the screen.

8. Search and power feature expected to be improved: 

The new feature is organized to combine the web and local results. The user can just start by typing in the start menu similar to that of Windows 8. Power users will be able to use Ctrl+V feature to copy-paste into the command prompt.

9. Charms bar to still exist: 

This feature will still be present and visible to users with touch-first devices. This feature is expected to be improved.

10. More expectation: 

With Microsoft indicating many reasons for completely skipping the Windows 9 version, users should be expecting many improvement and refinements in the concept as well as the features.

Microsoft Announces Windows 10 to Emphasize On Improvements

On September 30, Microsoft announced their latest operating system “Windows 10”, after they received negative feedbacks from their previous version Windows 8. They have completely skipped in the next version after 8 to unite the thinking of people on phone, tablets and traditional desktop PCs. This new version aims at capturing the profitable business market, which was basically missed by the previous version.

According to Microsoft's head of operating systems, Terry Myerson, this new version will be their greatest enterprise platform. As much as the traditional PC users dislike the previous version, only 20% of the organization migrated to the windows 8 for operation and management. Most of the dislike was attributed to the loss of the traditional start menu.

According to Terry, the new operating system was secretly named as “Threshold” based on the leap the company was taking. This is a new system aimed at uniting the computer with mobile devices. He stated that the new operating system will be able to adapt to the customer’s device they are using, like tablet, Xbox, tablets to even more small gadgets.

With the increase in the number of options in the market in the form of Android devices from Google, iPhone and iPads from Apple, the company has a huge struggle if they want to reignite the excitement in people of their new OS. People are no longer depending on windows operating system anymore.

As per the reports published by Gartner, a research firm, currently windows is running on only 14% of the devices. This is a huge change when compared to the monopoly they used to enjoy 10 years ago. The news of the new version, created a mixed response in the market and the company saw a 8 cents decrease in the share value on Nasdaq.

During the demonstration, the windows version indicated usage in two modes. One mode is for touch-controlled tablets and the other one for PCs still using a mouse and keyboard. The users of the new OS will be able to switch between these two.

Although an accurate release data has not been mentioned during the initial announcement and demonstration, insiders are indicating that the company is aiming for a release during spring 2015. Microsoft has provided a downloadable technical preview of the new operating system, which a user will be able to download and give feedback to the company as well.

According to Gartner analyst Steve Kleynhans, the company wanted to relay the message that they don’t need to abandon their learning over the past 15 years as they can present what is about the future without much confusion.

According to Terry, the company and their team were playing around with different names for this version, they initially thought of calling it as “Windows One”, which will indicate the merger of all their operating systems and products but since the name was already used, they had to agree on Windows 10. This new version will be focusing on advances and improvements hence skip Windows 9 operating system completely.

Reasons of Setbacks for the Launching Of Xbox One

Microsoft has kept on waiting until practically the final possible moment to delay the release of the Xbox One in the country of China. It was originally scheduled to be launched on Tuesday, that is, September 23rd. At present, they are stating it will be out in the nation prior to the end of the year. However, they are quite ambiguous about the causes behind the delay.

A Microsoft spokesperson declared that they are really proud as they are able to deliver exciting games and amusement by means of Xbox. He also said that to keep that promise it is needed to alter the launching date of this Xbox. Working in collaboration with their associate, BesTV, they look forward to release it in China by the closing stages of this year.

Selling of Xbox One-

According to the other sources of news, it has been learned that the Xbox One appear in Japan, selling almost 23,562 pieces its first 4 days. In the past, the Xbox has not been sold great in Japan. The 360 traded 62,135 units in 2 days after releasing in Japan, while the new Xbox was sold 123,929 its initial weekend. This dispute is contradicted by those referencing unofficial news that the Xbox One had one lakh preorders in China ahead of its launching. Microsoft is working with twenty-five various sales partners in China, with nearly four thousand physical outlets. Excited gamers can even buy the Xbox One via online.

Reasons of the delay-

The delay is the most recent in a sequence of setbacks for the company Microsoft in China, where this is under investigation for supposed anti-trust violations associated with the Windows operating system and also Microsoft Office.The Chinese government raised a 2000 ban on the gaming consoles previously this year. Microsoft had reached a deal with Chinese internet television set-top box creator BesTV New Media Co Ltd to make a joint venture to produce the consoles in Shanghai's Free Trade Zone one year ago.

China has the huge, infamous video game black market filled with low-priced, cracked systems. The problems with being the first new console to release in China have probably made Microsoft understand that they have to build a few extra things out. Still, it is surprising that the delay was proclaimed literally 3 days away from the assumed launch, indicating something rather great must have come up rather soon.

From the last obtainable data or as per the global information, the Xbox One sold at 5.1M pieces lags behind Nintendo's Wii U as well as Sony's PS4 (10M). The ratios of their sales are more balanced in the country of America that has always had a soft corner for Xbox, but distorted elsewhere in the world, mainly in the Asian as well as European markets where it is released. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo president stated in May that the company wants to launch new game tools in emerging market in the year 2015 but did not indicate its plans any more than that.

Windows 10 – Launching Window Insider Program

The latest report is that Microsoft has officially announced the next version of its computer operating system called `Windows 10’ and will be launching a Window Insider Program enabling users to comfortably run the early beta software access to Window 10.

Its first preview would be made available for desktops and laptops and a build for server would be following later on. The company provided details stating that its new operating system will have a tailored user experience with various screen sizes, for instance if the user has a smaller device, then you will see different form of user interface and the code would run across all device categories - `One product family, One platform, One store’.

The amazing news is that Windows 10 has been designed to run across all the devices including, tablets, phablets and smartphones besides, laptops and desktops.Microsoft has stated that they are opening this beta process in order to get feedback from users early on and that this would also be a learning experience for the company as well as user would get some experiments in new builds thoughprobably would not make it to the final version.

Enterprise Value/Device Management/Customize….

Microsoft is presently focusing on Enterprise value, device management, the ability to customize the store to the device the user is on and an option to protect data, to be more precise, the ability of the enterprise to manage their devise and customize their application store, etc.

According to Terry Myerson, Microsoft Executive VP of Operating Systems, he states that `Windows 10 will be running on the broadest amount of devices with a tailored experience for each device. There would also be one way to write a universal application, one store, and one way for apps to be discovered, purchased and updated across all of these devices’.

The company, as expected is striving to bring back some of the features of Windows 7 which includes a redesigned start menu combining the basic Windows 7 menu with the resizable tiles of the Windows 8 start screen. Windows 8 Metro app also can be opened in a windowed mode on the desktop to save from being taken into the full screen mode through default and can use `modern’ Windows 8 alongside with a standard Windows desktop app.

Swiping from Left – Task View

With its focus mainly on the keyboard and regular mouse combo for functions with the operating system, the company has emphasized that it is not doing away with `touch’ and Windows 10 will continue to have a similar Windows 8 Start Screen for touch enabled machines.

Some changes in the gestures will alter a bit in Windows 10 where swiping in from the left now tends to give a task view, though the overall features will be same to Windows 8 and the Windows 8 Charms bar would be still available.

The release of Microsoft’s OS is expected to be sometime in 2015 after the company’s Build Developer Conference to be held in April. If users intend to get their hand on an early version of Windows 10, they could sign up for the Windows Insider Program on October 1 to get the early preview build on laptops and desktops.

Microsoft to Purchase Minecraft Creator Mojang for $2.5 Billion

According to the reports, Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), developers of Xbox video-game console are now ready to acquire the software company, Mojang AB. This company is behind the most popular game Minecraft and now will be acquired for $2.5 billion. This was carried out in a bid with the aim to boost their Xbox and mobile business.

According to Microsoft, even though Stockholm-based Mojang will be officially joining the game-studio division of the world’s largest software developers, the company’s founder is expected to carry on with their other projects of the company.

As per the statement given by Microsoft on September 16th, this purchase is expected to be closed late this year and will be launched on 2015. This deal is being considered as the biggest deal since the change of CEO at Microsoft. This game will give Nadella, CEO, with a game which is popular and all platforms and devices made by the company itself as well as rivals like Apple etc.

This acquisition has come at the right time wherein the company is looking for investment in their Xbox strategy and trying to venture into highly competitive mobile-phone arena. Microsoft is looking forward to make Minecraft be available on all software platforms which includes personal computer, Apple iOS, Google Inc Android and Sony Corporation play station console.

Overseas Revenue: 

According to Peter Wootton, company spokesman, Redmond which is the Microsoft’s Washington based office, is planning to pay for this deal through their cash which is held overseas. This means company will have favorable tax results. According to the CEO, they don’t consider Mindcraft just as a great gaming franchise, but it is an open platform around the world and is pushed forward through a very vibrant community of people, which the company cherishes. This platform will offer vast opportunity for Microsoft as well as the community. As per the reports till June, 54 million copies of this Mojang game has been sold in all different forms.

Approach of Markus Persson

This deal was reached due to the conversation between the Majong’s founder and Microsoft regarding their experience with Minecraft on Xbox. This deal was advised by JPMorgan Chase & Co and based on this Majong agreed for the deal with Microsoft and been working on framework and pricing. According to Mojang’s co-founder Markus Persson, he is just a basic computer programmer not an entrepreneur. He stated that he doesn’t understand the concept and how it works and doesn’t want anything to come back to him.

Risks to Microsoft

Microsoft is taking a huge risk purchasing Minecraft, which is currently at the apex of popularity and Mojang without their founders may not be able to grow at a fast pace and develop sequel. Minecraft was available earlier this month on all new generation of consoles, PlayStation 4, etc.