Stuart J. Johnston

Play hard, work hard? That might be close to Microsoft’s thinking when it comes to Kinect, the company’s motion-capture gaming technology that looks to be a big seller this holiday season. Now, Microsoft is integrating Kinect with Lync, the company’s unified communications offering. At last week’s rollout of the Lync Server 2010 in New York, […]

It wasn’t so long ago that Microsoft took the covers off the upgraded Dynamics GP 2010. Now, seven months later, the software giant is teasing the features it plans to include in the next iteration of its enterprise resource planning product, to be known as Release 2, or “R2,” colloquially. In the upcoming Dynamics GP […]

When Microsoft launches a new product, it’s usually noteworthy by default. Wednesday’s unveiling of Lync Server 2010, the company’s unified communications server, was no exception. As EnterpriseVoIP Planet reports, Lync Server 2010 follows the company’s earlier Office Communications Server as part of a rebranding and upgrade of the UC product line. Microsoft said Lync Server […]

Microsoft is looking to lend a hand to the scientific research community. The company has developed a version of the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s (NCBI) Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, or BLAST, based on its Azure cloud-computing platform. The new BLAST on Azure platform, announced at the Supercomputing 10 conference in New Orleans, is […]

When is enough enough? Microsoft has faced waves of competitive challenges on a variety of fronts that have undermined the company’s competitive position from where it stood in the 1990s. And yet, it remains extremely profitable and turns in one record quarter after another. So what gives with the lackluster share price? That’s what investors […]

In the spirit of National Education Week, Microsoft has signed up North Carolina as the inaugural state to participate in its certification program for high school students. Under the Microsoft IT Academy Program, the company offers high school students the opportunity to obtain Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) and Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) certificates. Microsoft already […]

The U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) have deployed Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM Task Management Tracker with an assist from consulting firm Avanade. As eCRM Guide reports, Microsoft claims the implementation will help the military cut costs, reduce their dependency on third-party contractors and give U.S. and multinational forces a holistic view of all their various […]

In an inevitable byproduct of a major new product release, Microsoft is now having to address its customers’ concerns about making the transition to Windows 7. In a new blog post, the company details virtualization techniques businesses can use to help with their migration. The company describes three layers of virtualization — end user, application […]

If Microsoft expects to capitalize on the full opportunity that Windows 7 represents, then it should help foot the bill for enterprises to transition their Web apps built for Internet Explorer 6 to IE 8, according to a new report from analyst shop Gartner. Gartner analysts are arguing that since businesses have sunk so much […]

Like a Bach fugue, the contrapuntal rhythm that so often characterizes high-tech patent disputes is playing out again this week, with Motorola answering Microsoft’s infringement lawsuit with its own countersuit, accusing the software giant of infringing on 16 of its patents. The escalating tensions between the two companies have seen Microsoft sue Motorola twice in […]

As Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration business continues to grow globally, documents and other content on the system won’t all necessarily be in English or used by English speaking users. SharePoint Briefing has the skinny on a new set of language translation services from LingoTek currently in beta, that offer a range of options to those SharePoint […]

Microsoft will supply the software. Intel will bring the hardware, and NEC will work on the applications and integration. Together, they hope to expand and mature the digital signage market, announcing a strategic alliance that aims to develop a prototype to exhibit at the National Retail Foundation’s conference in January. The new collaboration builds on […]