Edunology - Saumya Aggarwal

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After have downloading Office 2013 for many months, I finally installed and tested it. Though there are not many new changes, however following are worth mentioning.

Much-improved interface

Office 2013 has got much improved interface, doing away with the sometimes-distracting 3D look of the Ribbon, and adding swaths of flat color. It's far easier on the eyes than earlier versions of Office.

The File tab (previously called Backstage) has been revamped, to great effect. For example, when you create a new document now, you get to see thumbnails of available templates. There's a lot more as well, including simple ways to make the Ribbon disappear and then come back when you need it.

Full editing of PDF files

How many times you have found PDF files very hard to work with since editing is just not on.

No longer. Word now opens PDF files, and gives you full editing capabilities. You can save the resulting files as PDFs or any file type that Word supports. This, by itself, is reason enough to upgrade.

Auto-created bookmarks

This new feature will prove to be a big productivity-booster for those who work with long Word files. Save a Word file and then open it at some later point, and you have the option of jumping to the location you were when you last were working on or viewing the file. No more scrolling and search -- you jump straight there.

In-Office image search

Finding images to insert into Office documents such as PowerPoint presentations has never been an easy experience. That changes with Office 2013. From right within Office, you can use Bing search (you were expecting maybe Google?) to find suitable images, and then pop them right into any Office document.

Excel's QuickAnalysis tool

If you're not a spreadsheet jockey, figuring out the best way to analyze and present data can be a puzzler. No longer. With Excel's Quick Analysis tool, just highlight the data, and Excel will offer suggestions on the best way to format it, analyze it, present it, and more. Even experienced Excel users will welcome this new feature.

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Microsoft has decided to keep us guessing if windows phone 7 apps will run on windows 8.


In short, Windows Phone 8 is the son of Windows 8, which tallies with previous rumors that WP8 would even use the Windows 8 kernel. Taking a quick gallop through ancient history might seem a bit obtuse, but back in reality this is a no-brainer for Microsoft. Windows Phone 7 apps are just Silverlight apps, and Windows Phone 8 apps will almost certainly be XAML-based Metro apps. Microsoft has already said that WP7 and WP8 apps would work on Windows 8 with only a few changes to the code — but really, there’s no technical limitation that would prevent Microsoft from providing a framework that can run WP7 and WP8 apps as-is in Windows 8.

There are practical concerns, however. For a start, Windows Phone 7 apps are designed for low-res (800×480) portrait displays, while Windows 8 will generally be used in landscape orientation and at much higher resolutions. Thanks to the Metro style’s reliance on geometric shapes and typography, scaling itself probably won’t be an issue, but I foresee a lot of apps that hug the left and make very little use of the rest of the screen. The Windows Phone and Windows 8 app stores are obviously quite different as well — the approval processes are completely different, for a start — but this isn’t an insurmountable issue.

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Heads up, corporateers. Just like the company previously hinted, Microsoft Lync will soon make its smartphone debut. Currently, the enterprise instant messaging client (formerly known as Microsoft Office Communicator) has only been available to Mac and PC users, but all that is set to change next month when the software becomes available for Android, BlackBerry, iOS and Windows Phone. Curiously, Microsoft's New Zealand outfit had formerly stated that Symbian would be among the mix, although its mention is entirely absent from this announcement. Granted, the news seems rather informal at this point, and there's only so much you can cram into 140 characters.

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Kaspersky Labrecently announced that it has appointed Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador, starting October 2011. Calling it an “exclusive association in the antimalware field,” Sachin will represent Kaspersky Lab brand in India, as well as other regional markets around the world.

“Cricket is like religion in India. The youth of this nation looks up to Sachin Tendulkar as a huge inspiration. We are naturally excited to be associated with the cricketing maestro....Sachin Tendulkar personifies our core brand truths of Relentless Expertise, Always Ahead, Different, Optimized and Reassuring. We recognized the great synergy between our brand and Sachin Tendulkar, both being leaders and specialists in their own fields. Through this association, Kaspersky Lab aims to strengthen brand recall to meet the company’s ambitious growth plans. We believe that Kaspersky Lab will benefit from the tremendous credibility and influence of brand Sachin.”

''I am very happy to be associated with Kaspersky Lab - a leader in IT security space. To be part of their major involvement in sponsorship of world-class sporting events such as motor sports, rugby, and now cricket will indeed be wonderful. I myself have used Kaspersky products in the past to protect my personal computers and mobile devices, and am satisfied with the performance, security and speed. Just like in cricket, where you need quicker reflexes, what I understand is that Kaspersky’s response time to threats is much quicker and faster than the others.” 

My view on the tieup:
Very strategic move by Kaspersky Lab. It is already known by moderate computer users in India. With Brand Ambassador in place, surely the target segment is home user rather than corporate world. Even having brand presence in mind of users, Indian market is tough to sell softwares more importantly security products. I do believe Kaspersky will be more present but will that mean translation into more sales, we will have to see.
Especially, the market has seen giant Microsoft coming up with free antivirus software "Security Essentials" and we can not deny Norton brand presence in minds of most of Indian users.

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RIM has tied up with Microsoft to offer Bing Maps and Search on their upcoming BlackBerry smartphones; a deal that was announced at the BlackBerry World event yesterday. It certainly seems as if Microsoft is looking to tie up with major non-Google-aligned parties in order to take on the current domination of the Android platform, a fact mirrored in the Nokia-Windows Phone partnership, where Nokia’s Ovi Maps and Microsoft’s Bing search were once again a major part of the collaboration.

It’s interesting to see three major players tying up to battle what is, at least by name, an open source platform that innumerable manufacturers are flocking to. That RIM will benefit from the partnership is obvious, with Bing and other Microsoft services evolving in collaboration with Nokia. We’re likely to see a lot of exchange of IP soon, with RIM sharing some of its expertise.

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Microsoft has shown its commitment to improving the browsing experience, increasing the use of standards, and its commitment to maintaining its leadership in the cloud-space.

Just 4 weeks after releasing IE9, Microsoft has announced the first platform preview of  Internet Explorer 10 today at its MIX 11 Web developer event, going on all week.  Platform previews illustrate technologies that Microsoft  considers viable.  Platform previews for IE 10 will appear every 12 weeks, allowing for continuous developer  feedback, according to Microsoft’s announcement.

The current platform preview contains a demo of  CSS 3 gradient backgrounds, achieved using the HTML 5 spec, and another demo shows CSS3′s multiple columns handling.  Varying-length paragraphs of text  from a Twitter feed are flowed into multiple columns.  Microsoft also continues  to hammer home its point that the browser, operating system, and graphics acceleration hardware all contribute to the user experience by presenting the new IE 10 platform preview in a fish-bowl demo, showing how Google’s Chrome browser is unable to match the animation and rendering speeds of the IE 10 platform preview.

Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s corporate VP for  Internet Explorer discusses these points and more on stage during the MIX keynote address, and in Microsoft’s IE blog.

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Nokia has revealed that the deal with Microsoft enables them to heavily customize the Windows Phone 7 platform on their devices.

However, they are not going to take this route. Instead, they are going to try to make updates that can be sent back to Microsoft for inclusion in the standard WP7 editions so that every operator can benefit from it.

The basic idea is to prevent the fragmentation that is happening in the Android ecosystem. Heavy customization would result in delayed releases of updates.

This means that Nokia would have to differentiate themselves on the basis of hardware quality and features when it comes to WP7 based smartphones.

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Worried that Dell's Streak 10 might pull a Streak 5 and ship with a aging, smartphone-specific OS? Fear no more -- Dell told investors that the 10.1-inch Android tablet will arrive later this year with Honeycomb safely nestled inside. Also, it seems Dell may looking to consolidate the number of form factors and software platforms it supports, as an executive stated during today's Q4 earnings call that the company's other 10.1-inch tablet -- a Windows device -- could have the same shell. When asked broadly about the company's tablet strategy with regards to other operating systems, this was the answer Dell had on tap:

    For tablets, it's Android Honeycomb and Windows, and we have customers with a preference for either one. We can create platforms that share a great degree of hardware commonality that can run both -- or either -- operating system, and we don't see any other options that are worthy of consideration.

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Take heart Windows 7 users, the first W7 service pack finally has an official mass-market release date: February 22nd.

If you are a MSDN or TechNet Subscriber, or a Volume License customer, you can get your hands on the final software straight out of Redmond on February 16th.

The February 22nd launch date is right on time, squaring with our previous knowledge that the service pack would be released in the first quarter of 2011. There have been various leaks throughout the history of Service Pack 1, but at long last the official software will be released.

What should you expect? RemoteFX, a tool to help boost the 3-D graphical experience for users who are remote will be included alongside a host of minor (read: incremental) upgrades and improvements. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 will be released at the same time.

The release of various service packs for different versions of Windows often mark their ‘coming of age’ for certain corporate customers who only want to bet on proven tools. Not that Windows 7 is selling poorly, the opposite, in fact, but this can only help boost already strong numbers.

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The Mobile World Congress has now brought news of some much-needed Windows Phone 7 updates, but we wonder if these would be enough to fill all the gaps of the platform’s glaring omissions. Steve Ballmer announced two updates – but not many details were in tow, with no exact release date, or list of features.

We do know that this first update will be due in the first two weeks of March, and will include the much-vaunted ability to copy and paste, apart from performance enhancements. There will also be an improved Windows Marketplace app for the ecosystem. With CDMA-support promised, carriers in India might be just start getting excited about at the implications of a Nokia Windows Phone 7 in the Indian market.

The next update will include some very essential features, with true multitasking including third party programs, using a task switcher ‘inspired’ by the acclaimed webOS card-style. Along with native Twitter support, the update will also bring IE9 to WP7 – implying a degree of built-in hardware-acceleration.

The second, larger update, due sometime in the second half of the year, will apparently offer more than what we know of now, features that will hopefully bring it onto a more level playing field with its tried and tested competitors. The update will be revealed in more detail at developer-centric MIX11 conference scheduled for April – as well as a list of SDK features. Other features were demonstrated, but not detailed, including a WP7 being used to interface with an Xbox 360 Kinect game.

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Today I was a guest speaker at Microsoft Gurgaon Office for Windows Phone 7 Day. The event rocked all across web with hashtag #wp7day. The event started with my session and had pretty large audience. Whats more the event was live streamed across the globe.

You can checkout my slides at:

Windows Phone 7_Saumya Aggarwal

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Recently, I was interviewed to share my journey as Microsoft Student Partner at Microsoft Feed.

Catch the whole interview at:

http://microsoftfeed.com/2011/meet-saumya-aggarwal-msp-from-international-management-institute-india/

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The biggest search engine in the world has decided to take on the US government, suing it for anticompetitive practices. Certainly big news, it still isn’t much of a shocker, as Google seems to be rather justified in its stance.


Google is suing the Department of Interior (DOI) for not considering Google Apps for its web-based document and messaging needs in its Request for Quotation, which stated that the solution had to be a part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. This according to Google is “unduly restrictive of competition”, and an "arbitrary and capricious, and abuse of discretion, and otherwise contrary to law" requirement.

DOI so far maintains that Microsoft’s solutions offered something the competition didn’t, specifically “unified/consolidated email” and “enhanced security”. Google of course disputes this claim, and pointed out several flaws and problems with Microsoft’s solutions, including recent vulnerabilities and downtime issues. In other words, Google is accusing the DOI of Microsoft favouritism.

Google has been competing against Microsoft for various government contracts so far, and both have had their victories at the state and city level. According to Google though, it has been attempting to demonstrate the many benefits of Google Apps to the DOI since June last year, but it had been reputedly refused since. Google now says that though DOI kept insisting that the contract was wide open in this period, work had already started with Microsoft's solution. Now, Google wants a fair chance to make a bid for the job, 'in accordance with applicable law and regulations'.

Microsoft has not commented on the lawsuit so far.

via Thinkdigit

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Facebook Inc expanded its partnership with Microsoft Corp.s Bing  search engine, letting people automatically see what their Facebook friends think about the topics they're seeking information on.

Bing's new search screen also will let users become a person's friend on Facebook or send a message to the social- networking service, Microsoft and Facebook said at a media event in Mountain View, California. Searches for restaurants or movies will spotlight the ones that a user's friends like. Terms of the partnership weren't disclosed.



"This is a new era," Qi Lu, president of online services at Microsoft, said at the event. "Can the search experience be better if all the people you trust are part of that experience? You will find that the experience will be much better."

Microsoft is counting on traffic from Facebook, the world's most popular social network, as it steps up competition with Google Inc. Microsoft is merging its search operations with Yahoo! Inc. this year in a bid to challenge Google's dominance in the market. The new features "offer a lot of promise," said Danny Sullivan, who runs the search-analysis website Search Engine Land.

"This opens the idea that your friends can somewhat mind- meld with your search engine," he said. "But there's still more to be done. The early implementation shows a lot of gaps so far to me."


Better results?

The queries from Facebook users will help Microsoft refine its searches, said Yusuf Mehdi, a senior vice president at the Redmond, Washington-based company. Bing users can opt out of being integrated with Facebook, he said.

Microsoft aims to get an edge on Google, which is making its own search-engine refinements. Last month, Google unveiled a faster search feature called Instant that gives users results as they type in a query. Advertisers will spend $12.4 billion on search ads this year, up from $10.7 billion in 2009, EMarketer Inc. estimates.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, credited Bing with spurring innovation in search, saying at the event that search user interface hadn't changed for eight years before Bing.

"The thing that makes Microsoft a great partner for us is that they really are the underdog here," he said at the event. "Because of that, they're in a structural position where they're incentivized to just go all out and innovate."

Ad partnership

Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, paid $240 million for a stake in Facebook in 2007. Facebook uses Microsoft for search-linked advertisements, though it stopped running its partner's banner ads this year. Facebook opted to focus on its own efforts in that area.

Google's share of US Internet search rose to 66.1 percent last month from 65.4 in August, according to Reston, Virginia- based ComScore Inc. Microsoft's share edged up to 11.2 percent from 11.1 percent. Yahoo, which has begun using Bing for search, dropped to 16.7 percent from 17.4 percent, ComScore said.

via TOI

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That's a million dollar question! Undoubtely Internet Explorer 9 beta is the one of the major releases of IE since long time. With this Microsoft gave away cluttered User Interface and seems to be following route of other browsers with adherence to Web standards.

IE9 is a crucially important browser for Microsoft, and hopefully it eventually will represent the future on mobile devices, too. Microsoft needs to be as competitive, if not more, in mobile browsing as PCs. According to the U.S. State Department, 5 billion of the world's 6.6 billion people use cell phones. The total install base of PCs is about 1 billion units. Granted, the percentage of PCs capable of browsing the Web is higher than the percentage of handsets.

For now, Microsoft must recover lost territory on PCs. According to Net Applications, Internet Explorer usage share was 60.4 percent in August. Before Mozilla released Firefox 1.0 in November 2004, IE commanded more than 90 percent usage share, according to combined analyst reports.

The excitement and efforts around IE9 gives encouragement. Will it be IE9 for Microsoft?

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Now that Microsoft and Yahoo have joined hands, Yahoo will be powered by Bing in US and Canada. This is the sign for more positive things coming in near future.
As a proof of correction, Nielsen says its search data only counts "genuine intentional searches" that users type into a search box, and does not include contextual searches that are automatically generated by search engines based on browsing behavior. However, other US search-measuring groups, including comScore, Experian Hitwise, and StatCounter, still show Yahoo in second place and Bing in third.