Microsoft Office, Detail 15 features

SAN FRANCISCO, July 16 (UPI) -- Microsoft says its upcoming Microsoft Office15 productivity suite will work with touch, stylus, mouse or keyboard across new Windows devices including tablets.

The biggest change in Office, unveiled Monday in San Francisco, is how and where users will access files, as Microsoft moves to a subscription model that will allow users' files saved to the cloud by default.

Office files are tied to a Microsoft ID. Once users sign up, they can download the various desktop apps to a certain number of devices, and content -- saved to SkyDrive -- is always available across their tablet, PC and phone, Microsoft said in a release Monday.

Documents are also available offline and will sync whenever a user connects.

Office 15 will be available in three versions, the company said -- Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 Small Business Premium, and Office 365 Pro plus.

No pricing information has been announced.

A preview is available at office.com/preview until the final version goes on sale, Microsoft said.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Technology/2012/07/16/Microsoft-details-Office-15-features/UPI-97861342489651/#ixzz20sN5iFg1

3:51 AM | 0 comments | Read More

Built-in PDF Editing Reportedly Coming to Office 2013

The upcoming Office 2013 productivity suite from Microsoft is set to deliver an upgraded user experience through more than just visual changes.

We already learned that the Redmond-based software giant is set to pack the new application version with a series of graphical changes that would bring it in line with the Metro UI in Windows 8, but there’s more to it.

The functionality of the suite will be improved as well, through the addition of new features to its various components.

One of them is the Word 2013 application, which is now said to be en-route to receive full-blown support for PDF files.

The app was already capable of saving documents in PDF format in Office 2010, and could also allow for this feature through a plug-in available for Office 2007.

However, users could not edit PDF files in Office unless they grabbed and used a third-party application, something that should change in the next release of the suite.

According to a recent article on LiveSide, Microsoft will pack native support for PDF editing in Office 2013. All that users would need to do is to click File > Open > Browse, and select the wanted document.

Word 2013 will also come to the market with support for PDF file viewing, Paul Thurrott suggests, adding that the application will automatically reflow text in a columnar view for a better experience. It will also enable users to mark a spot on the document and return to it immediately as they reopen it.

Chances are that the feature will be visible in the Beta release of Office 2013, which Microsoft said would land sometime this summer. However, rumor has it that it could be released as soon as next week.

Office 2013 is expected to become commercially available in the beginning of the next year, following the release of Windows 8, pegged for mid-October 2012.

News By Softpedia

5:19 AM | 0 comments | Read More

Microsoft Details the Photos App for Windows 8

Windows 8 will come to the market with a series of applications that appear to be essential to any platform designed for mobile use out there.

Among them, we can count the Contacts app, the Messaging app, a Calendar app and other similar software, along with a Photos app, all designed under the same Metro-style principles as the entire platform.

The first thing that strikes about the application is the fact that it can bring all of your photos in a single place, regardless of their location.

Of course, the application will also provide users with the possibility to keep track of where these photos come from, but it will deliver a simplified view of their memories, Microsoft notes.

The company offers support those who will connect with a Microsoft account to Facebook, Flickr, or other services, and also for SkyDrive, while being capable of keeping users connected with their Windows Phone devices at all times.

The application was built to fit greatly with Windows 8 devices, and features a landscape design, so that users could enjoy a better experience when it comes to their photos.

“Our storyline view shows a photo just big enough to enjoy, but small enough to see more than one at a time. If you want to see more of your pictures at once, just pinch to zoom out, and you’ll see a thumbnail view of your collection,” Brad Weed, group program manager in the Windows Live team, explains.

“But notice: the thumbnail view isn’t just all of your photos cropped and displayed as square thumbnails. We show your thumbnails in the way that best represents the orientation of the photo.”

The app will also display photos in full screen, the same as any Metro app can deliver content to users. It also features a slide show, and can even send the photo stream to a home TV or a larger monitor through the Devices charm.

Through SkyDrive, users can have photos from all of their devices in a single place, for fast and easy access at all times. They will also be able to import photos on the Windows 8 PC they want to set as primary device.


The Photos app comes with a new homescreen in Windows 8 Release Preview, and was also enhanced to make it easier for users to share their memories with friends and family.

“Over the years we’ve all imported, shared, and saved photos to myriad SD cards, hard drives, and Internet services. It’s rare that we ever go back and relive those memories, because they’re in so many places that it’s become too onerous,” Brad Weed notes.

“The Photos app lets you see the last photo you took on your Windows Phone, or the very first photo you shot with your very first digital camera. We’ve taken a lot of photos and videos in our lives and we’re only going to take more. The Photos app not only brings all of those memories back, but it puts them in the palm of your hand.”

News By Softpedia

5:14 AM | 0 comments | Read More

Samsung Adopts Windows Azure for Smart TV Infrastructure Management

This week, Microsoft announced the addition of a new company on the list of Windows Azure customers, namely Samsung Electronics, who will be using the platform for the management of its Smart TV infrastructure.

According to Microsoft, the adoption of Windows Azure is meant to provide Samsung with the possibility to achieve significant reduction in costs, while benefiting from larger capacity to meet the demand for an increased number of users.

Samsung is currently offering Smart TV in over 120 countries all around the world, and is aiming at growing its foothold significantly.

For that, the company was looking for a solution that would provide support for ongoing, reliable service, as well as for large increase in traffic.

At the same time, the adoption of Windows Azure enables Samsung to not be dependent on specific suppliers, Microsoft explains.

The company also notes that Samsung did take other products into consideration before adopting Microsoft’s solution, but that it decided that Windows Azure would be perfect for its mission-critical needs and its planned expansion of service.

“After extensive testing, Windows Azure is the cloud offering that met our exacting conditions,” said an official at Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business Division.

By choosing the management of its infrastructure through the cloud, Samsung achieved a tenfold cost reduction.

Additionally, Windows Azure provided the company with the possibility to quickly secure needed server and storage resources and to focus on the high-quality software and services that its customers are looking to receive.

Samsung’s scalable infrastructure, including Windows Azure, will deliver a smooth, fast service to the company’s users. Moreover, the adoption of the cloud resulted in greater speed of service in Asia, where it registers most of its Smart TV traffic.

“Samsung Electronics’ Smart TV is taking advantage of the unique capabilities of Windows Azure,” said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of Windows Azure at Microsoft. “Windows Azure gives Samsung the ability to focus on its business rather than having its technical team deal with problem-solving and troubleshooting issues.”

News By Softpedia

5:09 AM | 0 comments | Read More

Internet Explorer 9 with Bing & MSN Brings a Better Experience to Windows Vista

Internet Explorer 9 already is one of the most popular browsers on Microsoft’s Windows 7 platform, but it seems that the company is trying to push further to the front.

Thus, it announced an enhanced flavor of the browser for those who still own computers running under Windows Vista, promising a great experience through Bing and MSN services.


Basically, we’re talking of the same Internet Explorer 9 browser, but with pre-set configurations for the use of Bing and MSN to save time and access results fast when browsing the Internet.

Internet Explorer has managed to remain the leading browser on Microsoft’s Windows platform, greatly helped by the features and enhancements that Microsoft has packed its latest releases with.

Windows Internet Explorer 9 Enhanced with Bing & MSN is one of these, now available for download for Windows Vista users. It requires Internet Explorer 7 or later to be present on the target machine.

“Windows Internet Explorer 9 has a streamlined look and many new features that speed up your web browsing experience. We give you more screen space to see your favorite sites, more than any other browser,” Microsoft notes.

“The new tab page intelligently displays your most visited sites. A combined search and address bar means you can search and navigate from one place. With Pinned Sites, you can get to your favorite sites directly from the Windows 7 taskbar—without having to open Internet Explorer first.”

Through having the browser’s homepage set to MSN and Bing set as the default search, users will get faster to the websites that interest them the most. Moreover, people can also add links to favorites to make sure that they access results faster when searching something over the Internet.

Specifically designed for Vista, the Windows Internet Explorer 9 Enhanced with Bing & MSN browser is now available for download from Microsoft’s website.

News By Softpedia

5:04 AM | 0 comments | Read More

Windows Phone 8 and Enterprise Applications

One device can also receive applications from multiple companies, as long as it has the necessary tokens installed on it. Enterprises would also be able to push one application to their enrolled devices, Meeus also said.Windows Phone 8 will land on shelves with over 100,000 applications already available for its users, Microsoft has long touting.

This is exactly what Alan Meeus, senior technical product manager, Windows Phone Division, Microsoft, reiterated during a Windows Phone 8 session at TechEd EMEA 2012 in Amsterdam.

However, he also took his time to discuss a bit more about the opportunities that Windows Phone 8 will open to enterprises, and to offer a glimpse at what app distribution and management will mean for them.

Windows Phone 8, the same as its predecessors, would arrive with support for great enterprise applications, Meeus said, adding that companies would have to register with Microsoft to have their software delivered to employees' phones.

The Redmond-based company already made available for download a series of tools to help IT departments within companies to get started with the development of applications for their users.

The process of pushing apps to the app store is rather simple. IT departments need to register with Microsoft for that, then they will be vetted and will be provided with certification to be able to sign their applications.


The registration process is yearly, but the fees are in line with those for other developers, Meeus also explained.

With their signing tools, certificate and specific enterprise ID, companies can then design apps, package them, submit them to the app catalog, and create tokens to push to the devices they want their apps loaded on.

One other thing that enterprises need to do is to create their own application portals, since their apps won't make it to the Windows Phone Marketplace, as they did before.

Meeus also noted that companies would be fully responsible for the experience that their applications will be able to offer to their users, as well as for the management of their applications.

One thing that is specific to Windows Phone 8 is the sandboxing of applications, which means that enterprises won't have their apps communicating to one another.

However, they can connect their software through a server back-end. They will also have the means to put different tokens on different devices, so as to target them only with specific applications.


NewS By Softpedia

5:00 AM | 0 comments | Read More

Microsoft Did Well to Build Surface Tablets, Bill Gates Says

While no specific info on any Windows 8 slates has been unveiled so far, rumor has it that they would cost above the $600 price point, and that some of them might even reach or top $1,000.A few weeks ago, Microsoft unveiled to the world Surface, its own tablet PCs running under the Windows 8 operating system.

Two such devices were announced, one powered by Windows 8 Pro and the other running under Windows RT, and they both took Microsoft’s OEM partners by surprise.

However, Bill Gates, former Microsoft CEO and the company’s founder, says that the Redmond-based software giant did well to launch its own devices.

In fact, he believes that this would be the right way to approach the current market, through both supporting partners and delivering proprietary hardware.

Bill Gates was a guest on Charlie Rose on Monday, when he said that Microsoft did well in the past through adopting a different marketing approach than Apple, but that the latest developments in the company are also welcome.

“I actually believe you can have the best of both worlds. You can have a rich eco-system of manufacturers and you can have a few signature devices that show off, wow, what's the difference between a tablet and a PC?” he said, BusinessInsider reports.

Moreover, he noted that tablet PCs running under the new Windows 8 operating system, including Microsoft’s own Surface devices, are bound to replace the traditional PCs soon.

"You can get everything you like about a tablet, everything you like [about] a PC, all in one device. That should change the way people look at things,” Bill Gates said.

Windows 8 is expected to become available for purchase this fall on devices coming from leading manufacturers such as HP, Dell, Asus, Lenovo and more.

The Surface tablets should land on shelves at around the same time, Microsoft announced, adding that they will be priced similarly with ultrabooks and rival tablet PCs today. 




  News By Softpedia

4:57 AM | 0 comments | Read More

Current Windows users will be able to upgrade to Windows 8 for just $39.99

Microsoft has confirmed that its previously announced Windows 8 upgrade will cost just $39.99. That means people already running Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 on their computers will pay a mere forty bucks for the latest version.

It's a notable price drop compared with other system updates from Microsoft, with the Pro version of Windows 7 carrying a $99 price tag and the Home Premium version costing $50. It will cost you a little extra if want the packaged DVD version of the new Windows 8. The company is also running a special offer for its newest customers: Windows 8 will be available for $14.99 for anyone purchasing a new PC after June 2.

The low price is also impressive considering the features it will bring to your computing experience. Windows 8 features the new Metro UI when your device initially boots up, as well as better search, a jump list, and Ribbon menus. Check out those features and compare them with Windows 7 here.

This article was written by Anna Washenko and originally appeared on Tecca

News By Yahoo News

4:20 AM | 0 comments | Read More