Pedro Hernandez

While mostly under the leadership of new CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft beat Wall Street analyst estimates on the company’s profitability for the third-quarter fiscal year 2014 ending March 31, 2014. Nadella took over as CEO from Steve Ballmer on Feb. 4. After market close on April 24, the software and cloud services giant announced that […]

Microsoft has formalized its policies regarding how the tech giant sources materials for its hardware and packaging, announced Brian Tobey, the company’s corporate vice president of Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Information Services. Characterized as a “natural evolution” of Microsoft’s Supplier Social and Environmental Accountability program, the new policy, called “Microsoft’s Responsible Sourcing of Raw Materials,” […]

Data center operator Equinix is now offering Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute to select customers as the company plans to gear up and expand the offering to 16 markets across four continents. ExpressRoute allows businesses to link public and private cloud infrastructures, essentially enabling them to launch hybrid clouds that can seamlessly scale in accordance to their […]

After a limited pilot program, Microsoft is opening an express lane for schools interested in the company’s ad-free, safe-search program called Bing in the Classroom. A new streamlined sign-on process with “no waitlist, no installation or new settings” is now available to schools, said Derrick Connell, corporate vice president of Bing Search, in an April […]

Earth Day (April 22) has emerged as an opportunity for tech companies to voice their support for clean energy, low-waste IT operations and environmentally-friendly policies. This year, Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, has joined the chorus. Amid the backdrop of the eco-themed day’s festivities, Nadella touted his company’s efforts in steering the tech industry toward […]

Microsoft is working on technology that makes linear, by-the-numbers presentations a thing of the past. As countless office workers can attest, PowerPoint, while useful for structuring meetings and illustrating complex issues, is predominantly an on-rails affair. Interactivity and deviations from the slide deck aren’t part of the deal, in general. Microsoft is readying a free […]

Microsoft is expanding is data center operations in Iowa. The giant software and cloud services provider has been identified as the company behind the massive “Project Alluvion” on a 154-acre site in West Des Moines. The data center is expected to cost nearly $1.13 billion, according to a report in The Quad-City Times. It will […]

Microsoft will end this week with Nokia’s devices unit officially under its corporate umbrella. “Today we are excited to share that we have completed the steps necessary to finalize Microsoft’s acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business,” announced Microsoft’s Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president of the software giant’s Legal and Corporate […]

Cortana can speak, listen, decipher text queries and get to know users, courtesy of Microsoft’s search and machine-learning technologies. According to the software giant’s research arm, the company has much bigger plans for Cortana. Drawing parallels from the current state of Cortana to the simplistic, bare-bones experiences provided by early search engines, Microsoft Research Distinguished […]

Microsoft has just passed a major milestone—having shipped 5 million Xbox One gaming consoles. “More than 5 million Xbox One consoles have been sold-in to retailers since our launch,” Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of Marketing, Strategy and Business at Xbox, announced in an April 17 blog post. The Xbox One first hit store shelves […]

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took to the stage during a customer event in San Francisco on April 15 to commemorate the launch of SQL Server 2014. While the newest edition of the company’s database has been generally available since April 1, Nadella used the occasion to celebrate its launch and showcase how it fits into […]

As the cloud computing market grows bigger, so do the power requirements to keep it afloat. Tech companies are increasingly turning to renewables and energy-efficient technologies to decrease their reliance on old, power grids that burn fossil fuels to generate electricity. Microsoft announced April 16 that it had partnered with the University of Texas at […]