Pedro Hernandez

Microsoft is working to make Office synonymous with mobile productivity, and that means following users to their choice of cloud storage providers. “We want Office to be the preferred way to work with documents no matter where they’re stored,” declared Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office, in a Feb. 17 announcement of two […]

Banks and financial services firms will be spending more in IT this year, according to Marcelo Marquez de la Garza, director of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft. Some investments will deliver a bigger bang for the buck, however. Big data will loom large over IT spending decisions this year as banks seek to attract new […]

A preview of Microsoft’s ambitious Windows 10 operating system is now available for a handful of Lumia devices, the company announced. Windows 10 is less of a desktop OS—although Microsoft is taking great pains to appeal to the keyboard and mouse crowd—and more of a software foundation for a wide variety of devices, from tiny […]

Users of Office Online apps, Microsoft’s free Web-based alternative to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, are gaining more file management capabilities in a new update. A new update, currently being rolled out to the service, provides new Save As options, the Office Team announced in a Feb. 11 blog post. The revamped dialog now supports […]

Tooltips are getting more personalized in Power Map for Excel’s February 2015 update. Power Map is a geospatial visualization add-on for Microsoft’s Office spreadsheet application that leverages Power BI, the company’s cloud-based business intelligence product, to overlay data on 3D maps of geographical regions. In the latest release, expected sometime this month, Microsoft is introducing […]

One of the most highly anticipated features in Microsoft’s upcoming operating system is Cortana, the company’s voice-enabled virtual assistant that debuted with Windows Phone 8.1. Now, she’s headed to the desktop. Cortana will be included as part of the stock Windows 10 experience when the OS is released later this year, Microsoft formally announced on […]

Days after the first rumblings spread among tech industry watchers, Microsoft announced Feb. 11 that it has acquired Sunrise Atelier, the New York City-based maker of the popular and well-regarded Sunrise calendar app for iOS and Android. The deal’s financial terms were not disclosed, but earlier reports peg the transaction’s value at around $100 million. […]

Microsoft is making it easier to trade photos and initiate calls in the latest round of updates for the company’s Android and iPhone flavors of the ever-evolving Skype platform. New to Skype 5.2 for Android is the ability to share photos with offline contacts, said Tom Huang, Microsoft product marketing manager, in a Feb. 9 […]

Microsoft is teaming with Y Combinator, the Mountain View, Calif.-based startup accelerator, to help fledgling tech firms take off. “Partnering with Y Combinator is both an extension of our commitment to startups, as well as an expression of Microsoft’s culture and values to add greater value through partnering than by going it alone,” remarked Steve […]

Microsoft, already a supporter of same-sex marriage, is now setting out to educate businesses on the effects of marriage equality on the workplace. “Diversity and inclusion help drive our business and our bottom line,” said Microsoft’s top lawyer, Brad Smith, in a statement using his own company as an example. “Our customers literally are as […]