Pedro Hernandez

Microsoft is reversing course on a restrictive new Office 2013 licensing policy that threatened to overshadow the software’s improvements and new cloud-enabled enhancements like solid SkyDrive integration, which the company is banking on to drive adoption. In February, in the wake of the Office 365 Home Premium Subscription, the software giant courted controversy when it […]

Windows Azure customers and developers now have a free tool to help them better gauge the performance of their cloud apps. Microsoft announced March 5 that it had acquired MetricsHub, a Bellevue, Wash.-based provider of cloud application monitoring services. MetricsHub participated in the Microsoft Accelerator BizSpark program that provides startups with $20,000, software development kits […]

Windows 8 and the Kinect motion controller are just early glimpses of a touch-, voice- and gesture-based future that Microsoft believes will become commonplace over the next five to 10 years. For a clearer look at how Microsoft expects personal computing to evolve, the software giant is showing off newly rebuilt and freshly opened Envisioning […]

Facebook is acquiring the Atlas Advertiser Suite, Microsoft’s online ad-serving and measurement platform, to boost the social media giant’s advertising business. Terms have not yet been disclosed, but reports place the deal’s value at $30 million to $50 million. Atlas addresses the shortcomings of a fragmented online marketing landscape, according to Brian Boland, product marketing […]

The Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA), a group whose mission is to promote an open and interoperable IT ecosystem for data center operators, has attracted a new member, and it’s a big one. Microsoft has joined the ranks as a contributing member. According to Windows Azure General Manager Bill Hilf, the company will bring its […]

Microsoft officially released three new business-flavored versions of its Office 365 product in a bid to thwart the cloud-based competition. And according to the company, its hybrid approach to productivity software is gaining steam. Microsoft Office general manager Julia White described the product revamp to eWEEK as “the next major upgrade of the Office 365 […]

Microsoft is finally letting Windows 7 users experience Internet Explorer 10 (IE10), months after it was officially released with Windows 8 on Oct. 26, by opening up the download floodgates. The browser was released worldwide on Feb. 26 in 95 languages for both the 32- and 64-bit versions of the popular desktop OS. Although the […]

More details surrounding Windows Blue, an upcoming update to Windows 8, have leaked and signs point to a release as early as August along with significant improvements to the operating system’s search capabilities. Just don’t call it a Service Pack. Windows Blue is a big departure for Microsoft. According to reports, Windows Blue is the […]

Microsoft signed another patent licensing deal related to the Android operating system, this time with camera maker Nikon. Under the terms of the agreement, Nikon will pay royalties to Microsoft for “broad coverage” under the latter’s patent portfolio. The companies are keeping the specifics under wraps, but Microsoft did reveal that the deal affects some […]

Microsoft Office 2013, designed for the era of touch, mobility and the cloud, is coming under fire for a holdover of the PC age: software licensing. In a move that raised alarm among IT support staffers and frequent upgraders, Microsoft released Office 2013 with a licensing structure that effectively ties the software to a specific […]

Not only is Yammer doing well under Microsoft’s stewardship, it’s thriving, the software giant said Feb. 20. Microsoft released statistics to highlight how the enterprise social network fared in 2012, a year that brought a major change to San Francisco-based Yammer. In June, following several days of rumors, Microsoft made headlines when it announced that […]

Microsoft’s unified communications platform, is undergoing some major changes that according to Giovanni Mezgec, general manager of Lync, will bridge the disparate worlds of enterprise and consumer communications. In June, Microsoft will enable voice and chat along with presence reporting between Lync and Skype. It’s a move by Microsoft to shift the concept of communications […]