Category: Microsoft

Before Twitter was taken over by llamas and dresses of different colors, there was a flutter of a different type.  It started with Google’s purchase of SoftCard, a mobile payment solution, and the subsequent dropping of Windows Phone support just two days after the acquisition.  The result means that Microsoft and Windows Phone have no mobile payment app or system available in the short term (rumor has it that Microsoft is coming out with something with Windows 10 for Phones) so we loyal users will need to continue to whip out the plastic to make a purchase and not our shiny Lumia’s.

The undertone of the move however was far more ominous than just Google pulling support for one Windows Phone solution.  Google has never supported Windows Phone and scarcely Windows on the desktop.  In fact if you search the Windows Store you will find exactly one app from Google for Windows 8.1.  That one app is Google Search.  There is no Gmail app.  No Google+ app. Not even YouTube. Nothing.  Meanwhile, in the Google Play store, if you do a search for Microsoft you will find 64 apps they have developed for Android.  Sixty Four!  To make it more challenging, many of these apps are better on Android than they are on Windows Phone.  I expect that to change in Windows 10 for Phones but today, it is what it is.

If you look in the Windows Phone Store for Google apps you will find exactly one app as well, Google Search.  So really, the comparisons are not even a comparison.  It’s one sided.  But it gets worse and it is quite clear that Google wants nothing to do with Microsoft.  Need proof?  Go look at iTunes.

Microsoft continues their drive into the education sector with another important announcement around OneNote today.  If you missed it, yesterday they announced that students globally can get a free subscription to Office 365 (if their school is eligible).  Today the Redmond company has announced a new OneNote Staff Notebook for educators to share content and collaborate together.  It is a part of the Office 365 suite and adds a layer of content to the app for staff members of educational facilities.

Today’s announcement from the OneDrive team of the new OneDrive API is great news.  For those of you who aren’t developers, the new OneDrive API will allow developers to allow full functionality of OneDrive in their apps.  It also provides better speed and includes the ability to retrieve new changes to files and folders to keep a large set of files efficiently in sync.  It allows rsumable uploads of files up to 10GB via file-fragment uploading for things like videos and it allows for a customizable file thumbnail images to be delivered between the developers app and OneDrive.  For consumers, the new OneDrive API may not sound super sexy but it will bring a new level of OneDrive integration into apps regardless of the platform of that app – iOS, Android, Windows or Windows Phone.  What it means is you can expect more apps on your favorite devices to be integrated with OneDrive.

The more exciting news and one that I suspect many people – including developers – missed is one line that is in the blog post about the new OneDrive API.

Internally, we are beginning to use the new API in all of our apps. This ensures that everyone is building on the platform with the same set of tools. Whenever we have access to new functionality, so will you.

For the developer community this is huge for one reason if for no other.  It means that Microsoft will not change the OneDrive API just for themselves.  It will be for everyone including them internally.  That in effect future proofs their apps and makes OneDrive as a platform far more viable.  This is big news peeps.

Microsoft has announced that students around the world can access Office 365 free-of-charge through their school.  The news is an exciting development that will open up the online version of Office as well as an installed version of Office to students globally.  Until today this was only available to students and educators in the United States.

To find out if you are eligible, you need a valid school address and have access to that email to get the verification information.  For students, go to this link to see if you qualify.  For Teachers, you go to this link.  Once you have been verified, you can get the latest version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access and Publisher and can install it on up to five PCs or Macs and up to 5 mobile devices.  In addition, you get 1TB of OneDrive storage so you can share all your files across your devices and of course access to the online versions of Office.

It is an amazing deal and great to see how Microsoft is supporting educators and students by providing this powerful suite of applications free.  It also should squelch some undertones in the market that Microsoft is not really interested in the Education market, having all-but given up on it thanks to the heavy push from Apple.  Clearly that is not the case.  By giving educators and students access to a full Office 365 account should remove any doubt.

For more information on this program, check out the Office Blogs.

Microsoft’s continued drive in their “Mobile First, Cloud First” mantra has continued with the news that they have teamed up with iPass to bring eligible Microsoft users access to 18 million global access points for free.  While the details are still not fully defined, particularly this “eligible” customer portion, the news is exciting and could open a new wave of connectivity for millions of users who travel.  iPass, for those who don’t know, has a network of WiFi access points (commonly shared with other vendors) that is unsurpassed in the world.  They bill themselves as having the “largest commercial WiFi network” and having been an iPass user for many years, the value this could bring to Microsoft customers may be hard to measure when it is all said and done.

Microsoft continues to give away OneDrive storage like it is candy.  Earlier today I post about Bing Rewards customers globally getting a free 100GB of storage just by signing up.  Now Redmond has extended an offer of an additional 100GB of storage for those of you with a Dropbox account.  While Microsoft and Dropbox have done a lot of work together over these past few months including bringing an official Dropbox app to Windows and Windows Phone 8.1, they are still competitors and Microsoft clearly is showing they intend to win as many customers to their cloud storage service as possible.

Here is the deal:  First, you have to have an active Dropbox account.  If you don’t have one because you already use OneDrive, no problem.  Go open a free 2GB account at Dropbox.  I’ll wait while you go do that….