Microsoft Subnet - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Biggest tech industry layoffs of 2015, so far

  While the United States unemployment rate has hit a post-recession low, the network and computing industry has not been without significant layoffs so far in 2015.

• 'Largest DDoS attack' in GitHub's history targets anticensorship projects

  GitHub has been hammered by a continuous DDoS attack for three days. It's the "largest DDoS attack in github.com's history." The attack is aimed at anti-censorship GreatFire and CN-NYTimes projects, but affected all of GitHub; the traffic is coming from China as attackers are reportedly using China's search engine Baidu for the purpose of "HTTP hijacking."

• Microsoft cloud services provide construction firm with cost-savings, increased productivity

  Chicago-based Walsh Group Construction is finding that buying into Microsoft's Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility Suite is yielding a mixed bag of benefits -- better BYOD, cost-saving, time-saving, increased productivity -- but adopting the cloud services required a dose of blind trust in their security.

• Microsoft's $84 million man: What's Nadella done to earn it?

  What could Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella have done in just 10 months to convince shareholders he's worth the $84 million pay package they approved earlier this month?

• Microsoft Office advancements are a boost for BYOD programs

  Microsoft is giving corporate BYOD programs a boost by upgrading its Office offerings for iPhone, iPad and Android to deliver more features free, increasing the likelihood that mobile workers will have better tools available to be more productive.

• Microsoft Releases NEW Office for the Mac (Oct/2014)

  Apple Mac users are cheering the release of a NEW Office for Mac client that has a more unified Microsoft Office look and feel, and supports modern functionality like email archives, ribbon, etc.

• Microsoft offers sweeteners to get enterprises to buy Surface Pro 3

  Microsoft is wooing enterprise IT purchasing execs with a set of enticements it hopes will convince them to buy Surface Pro 3 – "the tablet that can replace your laptop" – to actually replace corporate laptops.

• Microsoft boards-up research lab amid more layoffs

  Microsoft Research is shutting down its Mountain View, Calif., facility as part of a move that included a reported 2,100 more layoffs throughout the company.

• Citing super-busy schedule, Ballmer resigns from Microsoft board

  Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has broken another tie with the company, stepping down from the company's board of directors effective immediately.

• Great privacy essay: Fourth Amendment Doctrine in the Era of Total Surveillance

  When you signed up with your ISP, or with a wireless carrier for mobile devices, if you gave it any thought at all when you signed your name on the contract, you likely didn't expect your activities to be a secret, or to be anonymous, but how about at least some degree of private? Is that reasonable? No, as the law currently suggests that as a subscriber, you "volunteer" your personal information to be shared with third-parties. Perhaps not the content of your communications, but the transactional information that tells things like times, places, phone numbers, or addresses; transactional data that paints a very clear picture of your life and for which no warrant is required.

• Apple-IBM partnership is a direct challenge to Microsoft

  IBM and Apple are teaming up to create enterprise apps to can run on Apple devices that business customers can manage and secure, creating a formidable direct challenge to plans Microsoft is trying to carry out on its own.

• 10 changes CEO Nadella wants from Microsoft workers

  CEO Satya Nadella last week gave what amounted to a public tongue-lashing to Microsoft's 127,000 employees, which was followed up by an analyst's report that the company plans to announce layoffs of up to 10% of that number at its quarterly earnings report July 22.

• If Office comes to Android, will anyone want it?

  The sleuths over at The Verge reported last week that Microsoft is looking for beta testers for the pre-release versions of Office for Android. Despite a slow holiday week, the news traveled pretty fast. If you have an Android tablet, you can sign up at the SharePoint website for recruiting testers.

• 9 of 10 online accounts intercepted by NSA are not intended surveillance target

  Although NSA officials were not sure about what all documents Edward Snowden took with him, they've changed their tune a few times after some new leak proves their previous proclamations to be false...like when former NSA Chief Keith Alexander admitted to lying about phone surveillance stopping 54 terror plots. Despite a year of NSA officials claiming that Edward Snowden had access to reports about NSA surveillance, but no access to actual surveillance intercepts, that ends up being lie too.

• Wzor's return brings Windows 9 rumors

  Russian Microsoft leaker Wzor has resurfaced three months after going into hiding with new information on Windows 8.1 Update 2, as well as details on new security measures at Microsoft and Windows 9.