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Today’s topics include Microsoft’s promotion of LinkedIn executive Kevin Scott to CTO, Google’s introduction of the latest Chromebook models designed with education in mind, while Microsoft responded by showing off a lineup of new Windows 10 notebooks designed for education market and Cisco’s $3.7 billion acquisition of application intelligence software provider AppDynamics.
Kevin Scott, senior vice president of Infrastructure at LinkedIn, has been appointed as Microsoft’s chief technology officer reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella, the Redmond, Wash., software giant announced today.
“Kevin will bring to Microsoft his unique expertise developing platforms and services that empower people and organizations,” said Nadella in a Jan. 24 statement.
Signaling that Microsoft is ready to move full-speed ahead on the planned integrations between LinkedIn and the technology giant’s business technology ecosystem, Nadella added that the new CTO’s “first area of focus is to bring together the world’s leading professional network and professional cloud.”
Schools that have been purchasing Chromebooks for students and educators in recent years will soon have an opportunity to refresh their technology with newer models featuring support for Android applications.
At the Bett education technology conference in London this week, Google announced a new generation of Chromebooks designed specifically for the education sector. The laptops will start reaching the market in late spring from several vendors including Acer, Asus, Lenovo, HP and Dell.
Google featured two of the newly announced Chromebooks at the Bett event—an Acer and an Asus model. Both devices support new Android applications as well as stylus and touch capabilities that, according to Google, have been designed for the specific needs of schools.
Meanwhile Microsoft countered Google’s Chromebook presentation at the Bett conference by highlighting low-cost Windows 10 notebook models designed by its hardware partners for the education market.
PCs from its OEM partners with starting prices that sneak under the $200 mark and a new version of Intune for shared learning environments. Intune for Education offers an express setup feature that enables classrooms, schools or entire school districts to set up and propagate default policies in minutes.
Microsoft is showcasing notebooks such as HP’s Stream 11 Pro G3 for Education, the Acer TravelMate Spin B118, which is an 11.6-inch convertible notebook, Lenovo’s ruggedized ThinkPad 11e series notebooks.
Cisco Systems, the world’s largest IT networking provider that has been busy moving into new markets during the last several years, revealed Jan. 24 that it will acquire AppDynamics, Inc., a privately held application intelligence software provider, for $3.7 billion in cash.
AppDynamics’ cloud application and business-monitoring platform enables large enterprises to improve application and business performance to save time and money.
Cisco will use AppDynamics to provide its customers with actionable insights, helping them make speedy business decisions and improve business performance, said Rob Salvagno, Head of Corporate Development and Cisco Investments.