Microsoft Turns a Minecraft Mod Into an Education Business

Teachers in thousands of schools in dozens of countries use the video game Minecraft to teach subjects from math to English to computer programming through MinecraftEdu. They use a modified version of the game first made in 2011 by an independent group of teachers and computer programmers. Microsoft is validating their work by turning MinecraftEdu into the centerpiece of its own business plans for Minecraft as an educational tool. But MinecraftEdu's creators aren't coming along for the ride.

Now Microsoft is buying the MinecraftEdu franchise.

Microsoft is as excited as the other giants of the technology industry to gain a foothold in schools. Since Minecraft is that rare product considered both potentially educational and fun, the company sees a big opportunity here.

Read the post

Reliance to start investing in startups, here are 11 companies it helped accelerate

The GenNext Innovation Hub is a joint initiative of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Microsoft Ventures to develop the startup community across India. The Mumbai-based accelerator recently announced the graduation of 11 technology startups from its accelerator program. Here are the 11 companies:

Full Post

Documentary On The History Of Apple And Microsoft Show It Was All About Copying, Not Patents

We recently posted about an absolutely ridiculous NY Times op-ed piece in which Pat Choate argued both that patent laws have been getting weaker, and that if we had today's patent laws in the 1970s that Apple and Microsoft wouldn't have survived since bigger companies would just copy what they were doing and put them out of business. We noted that this was completely laughable to anyone who knew the actual history. A day or so ago, someone (and forgive me, because I can no longer find the tweet) pointed me on Twitter to a 45 minute excerpt from a documentary about the early days of Microsoft and Apple and it's worth watching just to show how laughably wrong Choate obviously is.

Full Post

TypeScript: Interoperable Programming Language

In addition to supporting industry-standard languages like C++, Python, and JavaScript, Microsoft has always been at the forefront of creating great programming languages – Visual Basic, C#, and F# being the recent examples. We create these languages to better support a broad ecosystem of developers, increase productivity, and solve interoperability problems.

Earlier this month, Microsoft introduced a new programming language called TypeScript that solves a very specific problem – getting JavaScript development to scale across the current world of devices and platforms.

Know more about TypeScript

Interesting articles to read -- 14-09-2012

Interesting articles to read -- 14-09-2012

CSR: A pragmatic approach. Instead of focussing only on philanthropy, resources could be pooled to create more ethical companies in the country. Read

Microsoft India to incubate 11 firms in Bangalore Read

Universities and mass action. Universities are temples of learning and factories of ideas, thought, dialogues, analysis, research and interpersonal interactions. Read

Remembering two giants of Indian science. Read

A whole new serving. Here are ways to rustle up healthier versions of your child’s favourite foods. Read

Engage yourself in this “Stand By Me”, Playing For Change Song Around the World Both entertaining and inspiring. Listen

Archives

How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo: Steve Ballmer and Corporate America’s Most Spectacular Decline

Once upon a time, Microsoft dominated the tech industry; indeed, it was the wealthiest corporation in the world. But since 2000, as Apple, Google, and Facebook whizzed by, it has fallen flat in every arena it entered: e-books, music, search, social networking, etc., etc. Talking to former and current Microsoft executives, Kurt Eichenwald finds the fingers pointing at C.E.O. Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates’s successor, as the man who led them astray.

Read this interesting post

13 Most Important Microsoft Product Lines

Microsoft is an unusual company for the sheer number of product lines that bring in more than a billion dollars. While the company doesn't break out revenues for all of its product lines, Communications Director Frank Shaw famously revealed Microsoft's billion-dollar businesses to the TechFlash news blog last year. Under those businesses, of course, are Microsoft's most important product lines. Microsoft has its hands in many areas -- here's the 13 most important products to keep an eye on in 2012.

1. Windows
2. Office
3. Exchange
4. SharePoint
5. SQL Server
6. Windows Server
7. Visual Studio
8. Xbox
9. Bing
10. Dynamics
11. System Center
12. Skype
13. Windows Azure

Red the full post

Video: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 1

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 2

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 3

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 4

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 5

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 6

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 7

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 8

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 9

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 10

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 11

Microsoft Azure tutorial: A look at the cloud platform

Microsoft Azure has become the company's flagship cloud service. Designed to lead the predicted rise in Platform as a Service (PaaS), Azure lets users store data, write applications directly onto invisible virtual machines and control those machines directly, all on Microsoft’s next-gen data center. The company even uses Azure for some of its own internal projects, but the platform is so new that even its proud papa doesn’t quite know what to do with it. In just over a year, Microsoft's deep pockets and stated commitment to cloud strategies have helped establish Azure as a major player in the cloud development world. Microsoft is also fast adding infrastructure-themed features and new services in an attempt to keep Azure competitive with market leaders like Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud and Rackspace Cloud. This tutorial presents, through news and technical tips, an overview of everything on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform.