Microsoft opens fourth Transparency Center to cater Latin America

BRASILIA — Microsoft Corp, still stung by accusations that it installed “back doors” for the U.S. government to access customers’ communications, opened a center in Brazil on Wednesday where officials will be able to inspect its programming code, in an attempt to allay suspicions in the region that its software programs are vulnerable to spying.

Behind reinforced walls and with strict security settings, the world’s biggest software company showed off its fourth ‘Transparency Center’ in Brasilia, where experts from Latin American and Caribbean governments will be able to view the source code of its products.

The effort to build trust follows heightened suspicions in the region after former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents in 2013 that showed the agency was capturing massive amounts of data from emails handled by major U.S. technology companies, including Microsoft.

The leak, in addition to another Snowden disclosure that the United States had been spying on communications including those of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, prompted Brazil and other governments around the world to reconsider how much they could trust U.S. technology companies not to install back doors at the request of U.S. intelligence agencies.

At the new site, visited on Wednesday by officials including the speaker of Brazil’s Congress, no electronics will be allowed into the secure viewing room.

Microsoft prevents anyone from copying the massive amount of coding on display – as much as 50 million lines for its email and server products. Viewers inspect copies of source code on computers connected only to local servers and cut off from the internet. The copies are later deleted.

Viewers can use software tools to examine the code, Microsoft said, but it was not immediately clear whether experts would be able to run deep code analysis necessary to uncover back doors or other bugs.

It is by no means certain the effort by Microsoft will diminish concerns about spying, but Brazil’s reaction to the generally secretive software company opening up its code was initially positive.

“This center is aimed at showing that there are no traps, it is a good step,” a Brazilian government official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak about cyber security, told Reuters.

The Brasilia facility is Microsoft’s fourth transparency center after the NSA scandal. It set up the first one at its Redmond, Washington headquarters in the United States in 2014, one in Brussels last year and one in Singapore earlier this month. It will soon open another in Beijing.

The centers allow for face-to-face discussions between government experts and developers. “Governments can verify for themselves that there are no back doors,” said Mark Estberg, senior director of Microsoft’s global government security program.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft says game over for Xbox 360

Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it would stop production of its popular Xbox 360 video game console, which helped the company gain a firm foothold in the market.

More than 80 million units of the console have been sold since it was launched in 2005.

Xbox 360 also introduced Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing game device. It was the company’s primary gaming console, until it launched the Xbox One in 2013.

The Xbox 360 launched with a number of popular video games including Activision Blizzard Inc’s “Call of Duty 2″ and Electronic Arts Inc’s “Need for Speed: Most Wanted”.

Microsoft said in a blog post it would continue to sell existing inventory of the consoles, and that it would continue to provide customer support.

The company’s Xbox Live network, which allows online multi-player gaming, will continue to be available for the Xbox 360.

Sales of older-generation consoles, such as the Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3, have been declining as consumers shift to newer versions of the consoles from the companies.

“While we’ve had an amazing run, the realities of manufacturing a product over a decade old are starting to creep up on us,” said Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft’s Xbox division.

The company has also introduced the ability for users to play games launched for the Xbox 360 on its latest console. Microsoft currently offers over 100 video game titles as a part of its “backward compatibility” feature.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft recalls 2.3 million power cords sold with Surface Pro tablets

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Microsoft Corp was recalling about 2.25 million AC power cords, less than a week after Apple Inc said it was recalling AC wall plug adapters due to a shock hazard.

Microsoft has received 56 reports of the AC cords overheating and emitting flames and five reports of electrical shock to consumers, the U.S. CPSC said on Tuesday.

The recall involves power cords sold with some models of the Microsoft Surface Pro convertible tablet devices before March 15.

Last week, Apple said it was voluntarily recalling AC wall plug adapters designed for use in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Continental Europe, New Zealand and South Korea.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft’s secret weapon for growth in the cloud: email

SAN FRANCISCO — In reporting better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday, Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella touted his company’s success in the cloud.

“Businesses everywhere are using the Microsoft Cloud as their digital platform to drive their ambitious transformation agendas,” he said.

What he didn’t mention was the role that one of the company’s much older products played in the success of this new technology: Microsoft Exchange Server, which many of the world’s largest companies rely on for email services.

When companies begin moving data to the cloud, typically a network of servers managed by an outside company, a common first step is to move email, often with other office software tools but sometimes on its own.

For companies already relying on Microsoft Exchange and Outlook for sending and receiving email, information technology managers say, turning to the same company to handle that data in the cloud seems like a logical move.

That’s what happened at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The school was looking to streamline its technology by moving to the cloud, starting with email, because it is “a pain to operate,” said Bob Plankers, a virtualization architect at the university. “Aside from email servers, you need to worry about spam and virus scanning,” he added.

For the transition, Plankers said he chose Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365 product because the university already used Outlook.

“It’s just a really natural thing,” said Matt McIllwain, an investor at Madrona Venture Group, about companies starting their cloud transition with email and other widely used office software from Microsoft. “It’s easier and can be more cost effective to run it on the cloud, and let Microsoft worry about your Exchange servers.”

Such thinking helps explain how Microsoft has become the second largest provider of cloud infrastructure, services and software, well ahead of Salesforce, Oracle and Google, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis.

The company announced Thursday that it was on track to generate $9.4 billion in annual cloud-based revenue, up from $5.5 billion a year ago.

Microsoft remains far behind market leader Amazon, but it has become the fastest-growing major cloud provider. Its key Azure business has more than doubled year on year, well above the 65 percent growth rate of market leader Amazon, according to Goldman.

Microsoft has worked hard to exploit the advantage its mail software provides. “Maybe one of the first steps is you want to move your email. That’s fine,” says Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president for cloud and enterprise marketing. “That gets us more opportunity to engage with customers.”

Investor McIllwain called that strategy smart, because customers who move their Outlook email to Microsoft’s cloud typically use a Microsoft directory service that controls access to that email. It then becomes simple to use that same directory to provide designated employees access to other data and services that are later moved to Microsoft’s cloud.

The strategy isn’t foolproof, however. Over seven months last year, Clif Bar, an Oakland, Calif.-based snack provider, moved all its Outlook email, along with other applications like document management and workflow, to Azure.

The company nevertheless moved its enterprise resource management to the cloud services of another longtime partner: Oracle.

As cloud services rapidly expand, Microsoft will have to demonstrate that its products are equal to, or better than, those of its competitors in both quality and price.

Currently, many companies favor Microsoft because it offers more flexibility in terms of moving software around, say from a company’s own data center to the one it has outsourced to Azure, said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research. But Amazon’s AWS offers more types of tools, and has a longer track record selling cloud services, he said.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft’s latest operating system running on 200 million devices

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft Corp’s latest operating system, Windows 10, is running on 200 million devices in what the company said was the fastest adoption rate of any of its operating systems.

Windows 10, which the company released as a free download in July, powers both personal computers and devices like phones. It replaced Windows 8, the heavily criticized system dating from 2012.

Just over two months ago, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said 110 million devices were running Windows 10, meaning the system is now on almost double the number of phones and PCs compared to before the holiday season.

“I would characterize this as white hot adoption out of the gate,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets, who has an “outperform” rating on the stock.

Much of the growth comes from retail consumers, with devices such as Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console helping drive adoption of Windows 10, the company said. Xbox’s busiest day ever was Dec. 28, it added.

But the ultimate success of Windows 10 will be judged by the take-up rate among businesses. About three-quarters of Microsoft’s enterprise customers are testing Windows 10, the company said.

Microsoft also needs more mobile developers to build apps for Windows 10 to help catch up with players like Apple and its popular iPhone and iPad devices. It reported some progress in that area Monday, citing more visits to its Windows Store for apps such as video service Netflix and music service Pandora.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft hands display ads to AOL, maps to Uber

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp said on Monday it will hand over its display advertising business to AOL Inc and sell some map-generating technology to ride-hailing app company Uber, as it slims down its money-losing online operations.

The moves mean Microsoft will focus on its growing search advertising business based on its Bing search engine, and displaying maps on its Windows devices rather than generating the maps themselves.

Microsoft, which employs hundreds of people in its display ad business around the world, said those employees would be offered the chance to transfer to AOL and that it was not making any layoffs.

The world’s largest software company no longer breaks out results for its online operations, chiefly its MSN web portal and Bing, but they have lost more than $10 billion over the past five years. Chief Executive Satya Nadella has said Bing will turn a profit next fiscal year.

“Today’s news is evidence of Microsoft’s increased focus on our strengths: in this case, search and search advertising and building great content and consumer services,” said Microsoft in a statement.

Under a 10-year deal struck with AOL, now a unit of Verizon Communications Inc, AOL will sell display ads on MSN, Outlook.com, Xbox, Skype and in some apps in major countries. As part of the deal, Bing will become the search engine behind web searches on AOL starting next year.

Microsoft also struck a multi-year extension to its existing deal with AppNexus, which provides the tech platform for buyers to purchase online ads.

Microsoft and Uber did not disclose financial terms of their deal, under which Uber will take over the part of Microsoft’s mapping unit that works on imagery acquisition and map data processing. Uber will offer jobs to the 100 or so Microsoft employees working in that area, according to a source familiar with the deal.

Fast-growing Uber, which is shaking up established taxi services worldwide, already uses a combination of map services from Google Inc, Apple Inc and China’s Baidu and the source said it will continue to do so.

Although Microsoft will no longer collect mapping imagery itself, Microsoft said it will continue to work with imagery providers for underlying data on its own maps. Microsoft already gets much of its map data from Finland’s Nokia.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft profit falls on sluggish Windows, currency pressure

SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp on Monday reported a fall in its quarterly profit that was in line with Wall Street forecasts, as sluggish personal computer sales dampened demand for Windows software and the company struggled with the impact of the strong U.S. dollar.

Shares of the world’s largest software company, which have surged to 14 year highs in the past few months, fell 3 percent in after-hours trading, to $45.63.

“While currency is a headwind for Microsoft and other large international companies, we would characterize the headline numbers as good enough, although some bulls may have been hoping for a bigger beat,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets.

Microsoft’s flagship Windows business has been under pressure for three years as PC sales have declined, although the market appears to be stabilizing in recent months.

Currency shifts against the strong U.S. dollar also crimped profit in the fiscal second quarter, ended Dec. 31, although Microsoft did not specify by how much. Microsoft gets almost three-quarters of its revenue from overseas, but a significant amount of that is still in U.S. dollars.

“Overall, the only surprise I think was in commercial licensing, where we had a little bit of a headwind from foreign exchange as well as macro conditions in China and Japan,” the company’s chief financial officer, Amy Hood, said in a phone interview with Reuters.

Commercial licensing is chiefly sales of Windows and Office to business customers, which is Microsoft’s biggest revenue generator.

Microsoft reported profit of $5.86 billion, or 71 cents per share for the latest quarter, compared with $6.56 billion, or 78 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Sales rose 8 percent to $26.47 billion, largely due to the acquisition of Nokia’s phone handset business last year.

Analysts had expected revenue of $26.3 billion and earnings of 71 cents per share, on average, including some restructuring costs.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft joins fitness bandwagon

NEW YORK — Microsoft unveiled its first fitness band Thursday, joining a crowded market of connected devices for tracking and analyzing personal health data.

The Microsoft Band, which went on sale Thursday in the US market, was released along with a new Microsoft Health software platform that includes a cloud service for consumers and the industry to store and combine health and fitness data.

“Today, we are taking our first steps with the industry to empower people to achieve more with their fitness and wellness,” Microsoft’s Todd Holmdahl said in a blog post.

The new fitness band has 10 smart sensors to monitor the heart rate around the clock, as well as measure the amount of calories burned, track sleep quality and provided guided workouts.

Holmdahl said “the Microsoft Band will keep you connected at a glance with helpful, smart notifications including incoming calls, emails, texts and social updates as well as access to Cortana,” Microsoft’s personal assistant software.

The device is selling online and in Microsoft stores for $199.

the software platform will also work with devices from rival makers, including UP by Jawbone, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal and RunKeeper.

“Soon, Microsoft Health will also allow you, at your choosing, to connect your Microsoft Health data to HealthVault to share with your medical provider,” Holmdahl said.

The platform works with Android and Apple’s iOS in addition to Windows Phone.

Holmdahl said the software includes an “intelligence engine” that will help people determine which exercises burned the most calories during a workout, the recommended recovery time from a workout and the amount of restful and restless sleep.

source: interaksyon.com

Microsoft plans to launch smartwatch within weeks – Forbes

NEW YORK — Microsoft Corp is preparing to launch a smartwatch within the next few weeks that will passively track a user’s heart rate and work across different mobile platforms, Forbes reported on Sunday.

The wearable gadget’s battery life will exceed two days of regular use, Forbes reported, citing unnamed sources close to the project. It will arrive in stores soon after being unveiled in an effort to capture the holiday season, Forbes reported.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Apple Inc unveiled a smartwatch on Sept. 9 that will combine health and fitness tracking with communications and will go on sale in early 2015, while Samsung Electronics Co unveiled its Galaxy Gear smartwatch in September 2013.

source: interaksyon.com