Category Archives: Cortana

5 Reasons Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac Is Better than VMWare Fusion 8.5

For the last 10 years, the best and most comprehensive option to run Windows® on Mac® has been Parallels Desktop for Mac. Our competitors all have one thing in common: They use cost as a driving reason as to why you should not use Parallels Desktop. However, our competitors often fail to mention the vast […]

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5 Reasons Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac Is Better than VMWare Fusion 8.5

For the last 10 years, the best and most comprehensive option to run Windows® on Mac® has been Parallels Desktop for Mac. Our competitors all have one thing in common: They use cost as a driving reason as to why you should not use Parallels Desktop. However, our competitors often fail to mention the vast […]

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Microsoft continues cloud transformation with 100% Azure growth

Microsoft1Microsoft has reported 5% growth to $22.6 billion as the Intelligent Cloud business unit led the charge, with the Azure public cloud offering more than doubling in revenues and compute usage, reports Telecoms.com.

The Intelligent Cloud unit, which includes server products and cloud services, Azure and enterprise mobility offerings grew 7% to $6.7 billion, while the Productivity and Business Processes, which includes Office commercial and consumer product lines as well as the Dynamics suite, grew 5% to $7 billion. Despite revenues in More Personal Computing declining 4% to $8.9 billion, Xbox Live monthly active users grew 33% year-over-year to 49 million and search advertising revenue grew 16% over the period.

“We delivered $22.6 billion in revenue this quarter, an increase of 5% for the quarter in constant currency,” said Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft. “This past year was pivotal in both our own transformation and in partnering with our customers who are navigating their own digital transformations. The Microsoft Cloud is seeing significant customer momentum and we’re well positioned to reach new opportunities in the year ahead.”

Cloud computing has once again brought Microsoft to the forefront of the technology industry following a challenging couple of years. It would appear the transition from software to cloud computing brand is being successfully navigated, though there were a few missed steps along the way, most notably the team’s foray into mobile. Microsoft is moving towards the position of ‘mega-vendor’, infiltrating almost all aspects of an organization (cloud, hardware, social, databases etc.), to make it an indispensable factor of a CIOs roster.

The Intelligent Cloud unit continues as the focal point of the company’s growth strategy, as Nadella claims nearly 60% of the Fortune 500 companies use at least three of the company’s cloud offerings, generating more than $12 billion in Commercial Cloud annualized revenue run rate.

“Companies looking to digitally transform need a trusted cloud partner and turn to Microsoft,” said Nadella. “As a result, Azure revenue and usage again grew by more than 100% this quarter. We see customers choose Microsoft for three reasons. They want a cloud provider that offers solutions that reflect the realities of today’s world and their enterprise-grade needs. They want higher level services to drive digital transformation, and they want a cloud open to developers of all types.”

AI has previously been positioned as one of the cornerstones of growth for the company, and this was reinforced during the earnings call, as Nadella noted the component of the Intelligent Cloud business unit. The Cortana Intelligence Suite, formerly known as Cortana Analytics Suite, is built on the company’s on-going research into big data, machine learning, perception, analytics and intelligent bots. The offering allows developers to build apps and bots which interact with customers in a personalized way, but also react to real-world developments in real-time.

“Just yesterday, we announced Boeing will use Azure, our IoT suite, and Cortana Intelligence to drive digital transformation in commercial aviation, with connected airline systems optimization, predictive maintenance, and much more,” said Nadella. “This builds on great momentum in IoT. This is great progress, but our ambitions are set even higher. Our Intelligent Cloud also enables cognitive services. Cortana Intelligence Suite offers machine learning capabilities and advanced predictive analytics.

“Central to our Intelligent Cloud ambition is providing developers with the tools and capabilities they need to build apps and services for the platforms and devices of their choice. The new Azure Container service as well as .NET Core 1.0 for open source and our ongoing work with companies such as Red Hat, Docker, and Mesosphere reflects significant progress on this front. We continue to see traction from open source, with nearly a third of customer virtual machines on Azure running Linux.”

The company exceeded analyst expectations for the quarter, which was reflected in pre-market trading which saw shares in the giant growing 4%. In terms of outlook for the next quarter, most business units are expected to be down a fraction on the Q2 reported figures, unsurprising considering the summer period. Intelligent Cloud is expected to bring between $6.1-6.3 million, Productivity and Business Processes $6.4-6.6 billion, and More Personal Computing $8.7-9 billion.

Microsoft launches Spark for Azure HDInsight and pushes into consumer AI

CortanaAlmost 12 months after releasing the public preview of Spark for Azure HDInsight Microsoft has announced general availability of the proposition to the industry, as well as extending Cortana’s offering to the Xbox.

Making the announcement on the Azure blog, Oliver Chiu, Product Marketing Manager for Hadoop/Big Data and Data Warehousing, outlined the improvements made on the offering as well as the company’s efforts to make big data easy and more approachable. The company claims the Hadoop and Spark cloud service is now an enterprise-ready solution which is fully managed, secured, and highly available.

“Since we announced the public preview, Spark for HDInsight has gained rapid adoption and is now 50% of all new HDInsight clusters deployed,” said Chiu. “With GA (General Availability), we are revealing improvements we’ve made to the service to make Spark hardened for the enterprise and easy for your users. This includes improvements to the availability, scalability, and productivity of our managed Spark service.”

Features for the new services include new capabilities to the YARN resource manager to create an open source Apache licensed REST web service, as well as integrations between Spark and Azure Data Lake Store to increase scalability, Spark and Data Lake Store to increase security, Jupyter (iPython) notebooks and Power BI to build interactive visualizations over data of any size.

Alongside the Spark announcement, the Microsoft team has also ventured into the consumer AI market as Cortana will now be available on Xbox One, Xbox Live and Windows Stores. Starting with a limited Xbox Preview audience for Xbox One, the offering will be more widely released to the Xbox app (beta) on Windows 10 over the course of the summer.

Starting out with U.S., U.K., France, Italy, Germany and Spain, Cortana voice commands on Xbox One will work with both headsets and Kinect. Firstly users will be able to find new games, see what your friends are up to, start a party and accomplish common tasks, though new features will be adding over time.

Despite the company suffering a very public set-back in the AI world with the malfunction of Tay, the team have pressed forward, seemingly prioritizing AI for new features throughout the portfolio. CEO Satya Nadella stated at the Microsoft Build 2016 event AI would feature heavily in future investments, as the team target a Conversation-as-a-Platform proposition. The Cortana Intelligence Suite, which was launched at the event, allows developers to build apps and bots which interact with customers in a personalized way, but also react to real-world developments in real-time.

“As an industry, we are on the cusp of a new frontier that pairs the power of natural human language with advanced machine intelligence,” said Nadella. “At Microsoft, we call this Conversation-as-a-Platform, and it builds on and extends the power of the Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows platforms to empower developers everywhere.”

Siri vs. Cortana: Shoot-Out on the iPhone Revisited

Siri vs. Cortana Shoot-out Revisited – despite one disappointing setback, Cortana leaps ahead! Since my first Siri vs. Cortana shoot-out, Apple has revised Siri, Microsoft has revised Cortana, and Microsoft has released Cortana for the iPhone. Sounds like time for another shoot-out. So that we can compare the older shoot-out with a newer one, I […]

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Siri vs. Cortana: Shoot-Out on the iPhone

With a Windows 10 virtual machine and Parallels Desktop 11, you have access to Microsoft’s personal digital assistant, Cortana, at any time. Whether you’re using a Windows app like Internet Explorer or Edge, a Mac app like Keynote or Pages, or just the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer, Cortana is always there. With the addition […]

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Cortana on Your iPhone or iPad

synergy |ˈsinərjē| noun the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects: the synergy between artist and record company. The term synergy comes from the Attic Greek word συνεργία synergia from synergos, συνεργός, meaning “working together”.   Don’t you […]

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Always on Cortana in Parallels Desktop 11

One of the most widely anticipated features of Parallels Desktop 11 is Always on Cortana, the first awesome feature that Microsoft built into Windows 10 that’s worth bringing to Mac, in my opinion. I’m not just a fan of Cortana because of Halo (though it doesn’t hurt for this gamer’s heart–Cortana is the AI from […]

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