News


VMware Inks Largest Acquisition with $1.26 Billion Nicira Buy

Virtualization giant VMware has agreed to purchase Nicira Inc., a provider of software defined networking (SDN) virtualization technology, for $1.26 billion -- the largest and perhaps most significant acquisition by VMware to date.

SharePoint 2013, Excel 2013 Previews Get BI Boost

Microsoft on Monday outlined some finer points for organizations wanting to test the business intelligence (BI) capabilities available in the SharePoint 2013 and Excel 2013 previews released last week.

Price Hike Coming for MPN Gold Competency

Microsoft will raise the gold competency membership fee in the Microsoft Partner Network by an undisclosed amount later this year.

Office 365 Metro Apps Missing from Microsoft Demo

The Metro user interface for the service-enabled version of Office was missing during last week's Microsoft San Francisco event.

Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Exchange 2013 Previews Released

On the heels of Monday's "customer preview" release of the next version of Office 365, Microsoft this week announced the availability of preview trials of other 2013-branded products, including SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, Office Web Apps Server, Project, Visio and Office Professional Plus.

'Soft PC Sales' Bring Down Microsoft Q4 Earnings

Microsoft's fiscal fourth quarter report reflected mostly positive news across divisions, although the Windows and Online Services divisions slipped again.

Microsoft Finalizes Yammer Acquisition

Yammer is now part of Microsoft's Office Division, Microsoft said on Thursday.

Microsoft: Windows 8 Hitting General Availability Oct. 26

The official release date for Windows 8 will be Oct. 26, 2012, according to a Windows Team blog post on Wednesday.

Microsoft Threatened with Sanctions over Missing Browser Choice Screens

Microsoft is facing possible sanctions by the European Commission (EC) for failing to fully abide by its promise to give European users a choice of Web browser with their Windows distributions.

Judge Rules To Dismiss Novell Antitrust Lawsuit Against Microsoft

An order issued by a U.S. district court judge on Monday halts Novell's lawsuit against Microsoft over the alleged hobbling of WordPerfect in 1995.

Yahoo Appoints Google Maps VP as New CEO

Yahoo has appointed former Google executive Marissa Mayer as its new president and CEO, effective Tuesday, the company announced this week.

Microsoft Releases 'Customer Preview' of Next-Gen Office 365

Microsoft on Monday took the wraps off the next version of its Office 365 cloud suite that's based on Office 2013 (previously code-named "Office 15").

WPC 2012: Vendor News Roundup

A selection of new products and announcements from Microsoft's partners at this year's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto.

Windows Server 2012 Essentials Beta Released

Microsoft made a beta test version of Windows Server 2012 Essentials available for download on Wednesday.

Amazon Hires Windows Phone Exec, Fueling Smartphone Rumors

Robert Williams, most recently the senior director of business development for Microsoft's Windows Phone unit, has left Redmond to join Amazon.com.

Microsoft Details Windows 8's New 'File History' Feature

Microsoft laid out the details of Windows 8's new "File History" backup-and-restore feature for use with personal files in a blog post on Tuesday.

Microsoft Inks Android IP Deals with Coby Electronics, Aluratek

Two more companies have entered an agreement with Microsoft to pay it royalties for the rights to use technologies associated with Google's Chrome and Android operating systems.

WPC 2012: Microsoft Upends Dynamics Partner Incentive Model

Microsoft is making major changes to the way partners can earn money on the Dynamics suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) products.

WPC 2012: Quest Adds Global Partners, Service Providers to Partner Program

Quest Software, one of the largest providers of Microsoft tools, is expanding the Quest Partner Circle (QPC) program to include global partners and service providers.

WPC 2012: Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 To RTM First Week of August

Windows 8 will be released to manufacturing (RTM) in the first week of August and be generally available in October.