Pedro Hernandez

Microsoft on March 27 launched a native Office app for Apple’s best-selling tablet, the iPad, in 135 markets and 29 languages. The app for iOS 7 and up is available now at the Apple App Store at no additional cost for Office 365 subscribers (non-subscribers can only use the app to view, but not edit […]

Dell and Microsoft have entered into a patent licensing agreement, giving each company access to parts of the other’s patent portfolio. The companies “have agreed to license each company’s applicable intellectual property related to Android and Chrome OS devices,” announced Microsoft in a March 26 statement. Dell’s Android tablet offerings include the Venue 7 and […]

Microsoft’s cloud has settled over a large new market: China. “I am pleased to share that Microsoft Azure, operated by 21Vianet, is now generally available for our customers in China,” announced Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of Cloud and Enterprise Marketing for Microsoft, in a March 26 statement. 21Vianet Group is a large provider of […]

Decades before Windows 8.1 and Office 365 hit the market, MS-DOS and Word for Windows graced the hulking, low-resolution CRT monitors of ’80s-era PC users. Now, Microsoft is finally letting the public peek into the code that made those two early software offerings tick and helped set the stage for one of the IT industry’s […]

In two short weeks, Microsoft will end support for Windows XP, effectively marking the end of the popular desktop PC operating system. Although XP is getting the lion’s share of attention as the April 8 deadline approaches, the company is getting ready to say good-bye to another major, company-defining product: Office 2003. Over a decade […]

Windows Azure, Microsoft’s suite of cloud computing services, will soon float on without being bogged down by its sometimes divisive PC-era brand. The software giant officially announced on March 25 that beginning in early April, its cloud computing platform will be renamed to Microsoft Azure. “This change reflects Microsoft’s strategy and focus on Azure as […]

For Microsoft, last week’s Games Developers Conference in San Francisco served as more than DirectX 12’s debut. The company also used the event to show off how much progress the software giant has made in attracting independent developers to the Xbox One. In an online video, the company showcased some of the 25 games headed […]

Microsoft’s rebranding efforts are spreading into its cloud services portfolio. In a sign that the Redmond, Wash.-based software titan’s cloud ecosystem has grown more platform-agnostic, Microsoft is getting ready for a change. According to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, the company will soon announce that Windows Azure is going by a new name: Microsoft Azure. “The […]

Alex Kibkalo, an ex-employee of Microsoft, was arrested in Seattle on March 19 in connection with some major leaks at the software giant. But it’s Microsoft that’s drawing the public’s ire. During the company’s investigation, it accessed the Hotmail account of a blogger who had been in touch with Kibkalo and collected confidential files from […]

During this week’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, Microsoft finally took the wraps off DirectX 12, the long-awaited update to the company’s multimedia APIs. Matt Sandy, a Direct3D program manager at Microsoft, said in a March 20 blog post that DirectX 12 “introduces the next version of Direct3D, the graphics API at the […]

An ex-employee of Microsoft, Alex Kibkalo, was arrested in Seattle March 19 on charges that he leaked early, pre-release Windows 8 code and copied a confidential software development kit (SDK) used in the software giant’s Activation Server Software, which provides product key validation services. According to his LinkedIn profile, Kibkalo, a Russian national, had worked […]

Windows Phone 8.1 may be inching closer toward release, according to an eagle-eyed blogger. Ubergizmo’s Tyler Lee spotted a reference to the mobile OS on the official Windows Phone Website. A screenshot shows the words “Windows Phone 8.1” alongside version 8 under the Features page. Microsoft has since scrubbed the page of any mention of […]