Daily Video: Microsoft Pulls Open-Source Unit Back Into the Fold

Hey there, here are your top news stories from eWEEK, sponsored by Dell and Intel. Today’s topics include the closing of Microsoft’s MS Open Tech subsidiary, news on the availability of Microsoft SharePoint, HP’s future plans for 3D printers and Google’s intention to encrypt most Web advertisements.

Microsoft has closed its MS Open Tech subsidiary to bring the staff back into the Microsoft fold. In a blog post, Jean Paoli, president of MS Open Tech, said Microsoft was folding his unit back into the company because it had completed its goal of making open-source technology more prominent at the parent company. Microsoft launched MS Open Tech in 2012 to develop the company’s investment in open technology, including interoperability, open standards and open source. The unit announced its first deliverable, Redis on Windows, in April 2012. But its services as a separate entity are no longer required.

In an April 16 announcement, Seth Patton, senior director of product management for Microsoft SharePoint, confirmed that SharePoint Server 2016 will “become generally available in the second quarter of 2016, with a public beta planned for the fourth quarter of 2015.” He added that regardless of Microsoft’s cloud-first leanings of late, the company will continue to serve organizations that prefer locally installed instances of the collaboration platform.

Hewlett-Packard is moving ahead with the development and production of its own line of business 3D printers by the end of 2016. Currently, HP rebrands 3D printers produced by Stratasys and markets them mostly in Europe. The company’s sales experience with Stratasys printers helped convince HP that the company should get into the market with its own 3D printer models, according to Scott Schiller, worldwide director for 3D printing at HP. The first HP 3D printers will be aimed at small and midsize businesses and so-called service bureaus.

Most of the advertisements that Google serves up on its various online properties will be fully encrypted, starting later this year. The company has already moved all YouTube ads to the secure HTTPS protocol and is now working toward encrypting search ads across all its systems, two Google vice presidents wrote in a blog post Friday. By the end of June, most mobile, video and desktop display advertisements served to the Google Display Network, AdMob and DoubleClick publishers will be fully encrypted.

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