Tag: Microsoft

Microsoft admits Nokia acquisition was a bad deal

Staff Writer

Barely a year after Microsoft paid $9.5 billion for Nokia’s handset unit, the company says it has lost $7.6 billion of that value. That’s equal to about 95 percent of what Microsoft paid for the assets, excluding the cash that came with them. Along with a hefty writedown, Microsoft plans to cut as many as 7,800 jobs, many of them related to the purchase of the Finnish mobile phone maker. Reports Bloomberg “I am committed to our first-party devices including phones,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s current CEO, wrote in an email to employees about the moves.…

Share this
Read More

Microsoft opens a ‘No Back Door’ Transparency Center to allow European governments a look at its source codes

Staff Writer
Microsoft

Microsoft has opened a Transparency Center in the Belgian capital, offering European governments a look at its source code. The center, opened in Brussels last week, will “enable governments to review and assess the source code of Microsoft products and to access important security information in a secure environment,” Microsoft said. The center is the second such facility the company has built – the first was opened in Redmond last year – and will be open to governments that have signed up to the company’s Government Security Program, which lets…

Share this
Read More

How 5 most valuable internet companies have changed over the past 2 decades

Staff Writer
Google

It’s mind-boggling how the 5 most valuable internet companies have changed over the past 20 years In 1995, the internet was just about to get started. It was only a year after big internet companies like Yahoo and Netscape were founded. Fast forward 20 years later, and the web business landscape looks a lot different from back then. In fact, only 1 out of the 5 most valuable public internet companies from 1995 are still in the top 5 list, according to Mary Meeker’s “Internet Trends” report. Check out the…

Share this
Read More

EU Parliament blocks Microsoft’s new Outlook apps over privacy concerns

Staff Writer

Access to Microsoft’s new Outlook apps has been blocked for members of the European Parliament because of “serious security issues.” Microsoft launched new Outlook apps for iOS and Android just over a week ago. The new apps are basically a rebranded version of a mail app made by Acompli, a company Microsoft bought in December for a reported US$200 million. Access to the apps though was blocked on Friday by the Parliament’s IT department, DG ITEC, in order to protect the confidentiality and privacy of its users, according to an…

Share this
Read More

Facebook, Apple, And Microsoft Are Ganging Up On Google — And It Couldn’t Happen At A Worse Time

Back in the old days, the big bad company in tech that all the other companies teamed-up against was Microsoft. Microsoft was the evil empire. So, Apple and Google worked together to squash Microsoft. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs used to mentor Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google CEO Eric Schmidt used to sit on the Apple board. This is no longer the case. These days, the common enemy is Google. In recent years, there have been a number of explicit and implicit partnerships between the three biggest…

Share this
Read More

WSJ: U.S. technology companies are in a pitched battle with Europe’s sovereign states

Staff Writer

Discontent on Continent Highlights Battle Over Economics, Culture, Internet Control BRUSSELS—From Berlin to Madrid, from London to Paris, U.S. technology companies are in a pitched battle with Europe’s sovereign states. It is a clash that pits governments against the new tech titans, established industries against upstart challengers, and freewheeling American business culture against a more regulated European framework. And it poses one of the greatest threats to U.S. technology giants since their emergence from garages and college campuses over the past four decades. First and foremost, the battle is about…

Share this
Read More

Apple users raise privacy concerns after hard-drive files uploaded to iCloud

Staff Writer

Line between devices and cloud services fades as online storage allows users to switch without losing data by for the Washington Post

After security researcher Jeffrey Paul upgraded the operating system on his MacBook Pro last week, he discovered that several of his personal files had found a new home – on the cloud. The computer had saved the files

Share this
Read More

Microsoft Office for iPad, How it all started

Staff Writer

Han-Yi Shaw didn’t like what he saw, and he told Microsoft so. The software giant, by Shaw’s reckoning, didn’t really understand Apple’s platform or how to develop Office for it. Shaw told Microsoft exactly what he thought — and the company responded by agreeing to all of his changes, then hiring him. That was more than a decade ago. Today, Shaw heads up Microsoft’s Office Design Studio and is the architect of one of the tech giant’s most important innovations in years: Office for iPad. The product is available now…

Share this
Read More

Microsoft May Introduce Office for Apple’s iPad Next Week

Staff Writer
Microsoft

Newly appointed Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is said to be announcing a version of the company’s popular Office productivity suite, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint for Apple’s iPad tablet devices at an event next week Microsoft may finally introduce a version of its Office software suite for Apple’s iPad devices at an event next Thursday, according to multiple reports. Sources close to Reuters, ZDNet and The Verge have said Microsoft’s about to introduce a suite of Microsoft Office applications designed for the Apple tablet. The suite is expected to include…

Share this
Read More

Microsoft Targets Cheaper Phones for Global Internet Growth

Staff Writer
Microsoft

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), under new Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella, will accelerate a push into mobile software, joining forces with hardware manufacturers and Qualcomm (QCOM) Inc. to develop cheaper phones for emerging markets. Microsoft said yesterday it’s working with Qualcomm on a low-cost phone design that developers and handset makers can use to build their own devices, and added partners including Lenovo Group Ltd. to make Windows smartphones. Nokia Oyj (NOK1V), whose mobile-phone business will become part of Microsoft, unveiled lower-priced handsets at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today.…

Share this
Read More