Microsoft Windows Cloud Computing News & Information | Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows

May 14, 2013

link

City of Boston Drops Microsoft for Google

Last week, the City of Boston announced that it was making "a move to the cloud" by adopting Google Apps for all city workers and schools. Google Apps will replace "multiple aging on-premises email systems currently in use"—read: "Exchange Server"—and will even save the city money each year, it's claimed. This is disappointing, and I think that the City of Boston is making a huge mistake....More
May 13, 2013

link

Samsung Claims 5G Wireless Technology Breakthrough

Samsung this week claimed to have made a technological breakthrough that will enable true 5G wireless networks with speeds “several hundred times faster” than today’s wireless networks. The catch? It won’t be commercially available until as late as 2020....More
May 13, 2013

Article

Did Google Just One-Up SkyDrive for Free Storage? 10

Google today announced that users of its free Gmail, Google+ Photos and Google Drive customers will receive a combined 15 GB of storage which they can split as needed between the three services. This offering somewhat exceeds the 7 GB of free storage that Microsoft provides to SkyDrive users. Did Google just one-up Microsoft?...More
May 13, 2013

Article

Microsoft Improves the SkyDrive Photos Experience 8

Microsoft today announced several new features for SkyDrive that make it easier for users to upload and manage their photos in the cloud storage service. The improvement comes a week after the firm revealed that over 250 million people actively use the service....More
May 13, 2013

Article

Skype Updated for Windows Desktop and Windows Phone 8 5

Skype today released minor updates to its Windows desktop application and Windows Phone 8 app. But the Microsoft business unit noted that it is still trying to address some key issues with the Windows Phone 8 app, with fixes to come at a later date....More
May 13, 2013

link

Microsoft Reportedly Offers to Buy NOOK for $1 Billion

A report claims that Microsoft is close to purchasing Barnes & Noble’s NOOK business for $1 billion. But Microsoft apparently isn’t interested in the chain’s struggling eBook reader devices. Instead, the firm is looking to obtain NOOK’s digital assets, which it could integrate into its growing digital content ecosystem....More
May 8, 2013

Article

Office Web Apps to Improve with Android Editing and Real-Time Coauthoring 3

In keeping with its vow to regularly update its various Office offerings, Microsoft this week announced some major changes coming soon to the Office Web Apps, the free web-based versions of four key Office applications. Among the changes, the Office Web Apps will be extended to support document editing from Android Tablets and real time co-authoring....More
May 7, 2013

Article

Office 365 to Go: The iOS Experience 2

Wrapping up my look at configuring Office 365 for businesses on mobile devices, this time we’ll take a look at Apple iOS, which powers the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. As with Android, getting Office 365 up and running via Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) on iOS is a bit more complicated than with Windows devices....More
May 7, 2013

Commentary

Is Microsoft Set to Add Hosted VDI to Azure?

If a credible recent rumor is true, Microsoft is preparing a dramatic expansion of Windows Azure that will include an Azure-hosted desktop virtualization service, or what I think of as a hosted VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) solution. Is VDI about to get a lot less expensive and complex?...More
May 6, 2013

Article

SkyDrive Hits 250 Million Users 14

I’m always amused when people buy into the “Microsoft is dead” meme, as it relies on curiously out of touch opinions about the firm being slow moving or old fashioned. This week’s case in point: Microsoft’s cloud storage service SkyDrive now has over 250 million users, 50 million of whom came on board since Windows 8’s late 2012 launch....More
May 3, 2013

Article

Outlook.com Tip: Send Email from Another Account 11

When I started writing a series of Outlook.com tips last summer, Microsoft didn’t provide an elegant way to use Outlook.com to send email from other accounts, somewhat mitigating its appeal. But this week, Microsoft added that capability, called Send Email, and you can now safely aggregate all of your other email accounts through Outlook.com if you’d like....More
May 2, 2013

Article

Skype Previews Video Messaging for Windows 8 and Windows Desktop

Skype this week added a preview version of video messaging to both the Skype “Metro” mobile app for Windows 8/RT and the Skype desktop application for Windows. Video messaging lets you record a video a video message and then send it to your friends and other contacts via Skype....More
May 2, 2013

Article

Microsoft Completes the Transition from Hotmail to Outlook.com, Adds New Features 23

Microsoft announced today that it has completed transitioning user accounts from Hotmail to Outlook.com, providing those users with a modern and capable web email service. During the 6-week transition period, Microsoft moved hundreds of millions of accounts and over 150 petabytes of email data. And now they’re adding more features too....More
May 2, 2013

Article

Why is the Facebook Beta App for Windows Phone 8 Identical to the Android and iOS Apps? 31

This week’s release of a new Facebook Beta app for Windows Phone 8 had enthusiasts of the platform hopping. But as excitement over early access to the app turned to confusion over the new, non-Metro user interface of the app, questions arose. Why would Microsoft (allegedly) make a Facebook app for Windows Phone that looks exactly like the Android and iOS versions of that app? And what does this mean to the future of this platform?...More
Apr. 30, 2013

Article

Facebook App Beta for Windows Phone 8 25

Now this is interesting: Microsoft is giving users an early peek at the next version of the official Facebook app for Windows Phone 8. It’s not exactly the early update release program for enthusiasts the company promised last June, but when you consider how core Facebook is to the mobile phone experience, this is should still be quite compelling for many users....More
Apr. 30, 2013

Article

Skype + Outlook.com 8

Here’s question I’ve received many times: When will Microsoft integrate Skype with its Outlook.com web email platform? Well, this week I’ve got good news to share: It’s happening in preview form, starting today....More
Apr. 29, 2013

Article

Sleeping with the Enemy: Google Now for iPhone, iPad 13

Google has ported its innovative Now user experience to Apple’s iOS devices—iPhone, iPad, iPod touch—via an update to the Google Search app. This is a full frontal assault on Apple’s hype-tastic Siri feature, which also offers voice search....More
Apr. 29, 2013

Article

Windows 8/RT App Updates: Bing Weather 12

Following in the footsteps of five other Bing app updates by two weeks, the Weather app that ships with Windows 8 and RT was updated this week to include a number of additional new features. As is the case with the previous Bing apps updates, this is a case of a good app getting even better....More
Apr. 23, 2013

link

Microsoft Begins Consumer Privacy Campaign

Coming in the wake of its eye-opening “Scroogled” campaign, which points the cold, harsh light of reality on Google’s questionable business practices, Microsoft’s latest promotion won’t surprise you: This one focuses on consumer privacy and its efforts to rally the industry around technologies that protect individuals from being tracked online....More
Apr. 22, 2013

News

Surprisingly Strong Quarter Suggests Microsoft Transition is On Track

For the naysayers writing the obituaries for the PC industry and for Microsoft over the past several weeks, the firm’s surprisingly strong quarterly results—including record revenues of $20.49 billion—must have come as a shock. But this isn’t the first time Microsoft has confounded its critics, who routinely overlook the company’s successful transition to the cloud....More
Apr. 19, 2013

Article

Enable and Use Two-Step Authentication with Your Microsoft Account 40

I’ve finally had a chance to enable two-step authentication on my Microsoft account. As expected, it works much like the two-factor authentication Google uses with its accounts, helping to protect your account from being compromised. Here’s what I know about this important security feature so far....More
Apr. 17, 2013

Article

More Improvements to Outlook.com 7

In addition to the earlier news about global two-step verification functionality for all services that use the Microsoft account, Microsoft today announced two more new features for its Outlook.com web-based email service: The ability to sign-in to the service with an alias and support for international domains....More
Apr. 17, 2013

Article

Microsoft Account Gets Enhanced Security 4

As expected, Microsoft has responded to calls for it to add a security feature, similar to Google’s two-factor authentication, which will protect users’ increasingly important Microsoft accounts from attack. Today, the firm announced a “two-step verification” option to Microsoft account, which works across all the services that use this account....More
Apr. 16, 2013

Article

Sleeping with the Enemy: Outlook for Android Gets a Major UX Upgrade 23

When Microsoft delivered the first version of its Outlook app for Android, it became obvious quickly that it was just a slightly altered version of the Hotmail app. But the version released today features a complete user experience refresh that makes the app look and work more like the excellent web client....More
Apr. 15, 2013

Article

Skype for Windows Phone 8 Update 8

When Skype made significant changes to its mobile app for Windows Phone 8 last month, I selected it as an app pick for the platform, noting that it was a big deal that fixed previous issues and added new features. This week, that app was updated again, this time to address a number of remaining issues. If you’re using Skype on Windows Phone 8, you’re going to want to upgrade....More