Pedro Hernandez

The Android version of Microsoft’s popular Skype video calling app had one unpopular quirk: It placed a noticeable, sometimes massive, drain on batteries. The company had welcome news for users in a March 18 blog post. Eric Lin, a product marketing manager at Skype, announced that the newly released Skype 4.7 app for Android solves […]

Microsoft has released a new study from IDC and the National University of Singapore (NUS) that warns businesses of the risks of running unlicensed software. The study is based on a survey of 1,700 IT professionals, government workers and consumers in 15 markets. The study, sponsored by Microsoft, “revealed that enterprises are particularly hard hit […]

The successor to Microsoft SQL Server 2012 is nearing release. The company announced March 18 that SQL Server 2014 has been released to manufacturing (RTM), the final step before the software is made generally available. Describing it as an “important component of Microsoft’s overall cloud-first data platform,” Quentin Clark, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Data […]

The rumors were true. On March 18, Microsoft caught up with Apple in one crucial feature for many tablet users: 4G connectivity. Since the Surface’s launch in October 2012, Microsoft has only offered WiFi connectivity options. The first clues of the tablet’s impending launch emerged when the device showed up in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) […]

After years of rumors, Microsoft may be finally getting ready to pull the trigger on Office for iPad. In a March 17 Reuters report, Bill Rigby wrote that a source had indicated that Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s new CEO, “may unveil an iPad version of the company’s Office software suite on March 27.” Nadella’s first major […]

This spring, Microsoft is launching Office 365 Personal, a single-user version of the cloud-enabled productivity software suite for consumers that like to fly solo. “It’s designed for an individual, allows for one PC or Mac and one tablet to be connected to the service and will be available for $69.99/year or $6.99 USD month,” said […]

SharePoint Online, Microsoft’s cloud-based business collaboration platform, has been given a big storage upgrade. The company announced that it has increased SharePoint Online’s site collection limit to a full terabyte, up from 100 gigabytes previously. Business customers now have substantially more headroom for bigger, more storage-intensive projects without overhauling their IT environments—one of the biggest […]

Microsoft’s Office for Mac 2011 was launched in October 2010. And while it largely caught up with the Windows editions at the time, since then it has fallen behind the company’s cloud-enabled, often-updated Office 365 offerings. That’s set to change this year, according to Thomas Cloer of Germany’s Computerwoche. Microsoft’s German Office chief, Thorsten Hübschen, […]

Microsoft has made a break from tradition by licensing Windows Phone 8.1 to some Indian smartphone makers for free. The Times of India reported on March 13 that Lava and Karbonn, which Microsoft welcomed as new Windows Phone licensees during this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, have had their fees waived. In effect, […]

Microsoft is betting that its Office Graph technology and “Oslo,” as the accompanying app is code-named, will take social-enabled business productivity to new heights. First previewed at the company’s SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas on March 3, Office Graph is the “new Office 365 intelligence fabric,” according to Microsoft. It leverages the company’s machine learning […]

Data privacy is a touchy topic these days. When it affects kids, Microsoft is making its stance unabashedly clear. At the Microsoft in Education Global Forum in Barcelona, Spain, March 12, the company signaled that children are off-limits. The software giant claims that 98 percent of schools worldwide use its technology. Comments made at the […]

Today’s launch of Titanfall, a major title for the Xbox One console (also available for Windows PCs and on the Xbox 360 later this month), is not only a big milestone for Microsoft’s latest video game machine, it will also test the mettle of the company’s Windows Azure cloud computing platform. Although Titanfall is developed […]