An interesting exchange took place between two top tech giants – Microsoft and Baidu.

Microsoft offered cloud services to Baidu and in return got an autonomous car!

Yesterday, China’s Baidu announced Microsoft as a partner on its new open-source driving platform that’s called Apollo. Baidu started building this platform using actual data bout autonomous driving from China’s streets, and it expects this car to hit the roads by 2020.

Baidu has been working on this ambitious project for sometime now, as it has opened centers in Singapore and the U.S to collaborate with local partners to build this new platform. According to a spokesperson of the company, Apollo is more an open-source autonomous platform that aims to power the global self-driving industry rather than restrict itself to a small geographic or technological niche.

Microsoft, on the other hand, will be providing the cloud services needed to power this platform. Both companies haven’t said much about the specific services that’ll be used. In fact, a question to Microsoft in this regard was not answered and at this time, it looks like both the companies want to keep the specifics under wraps.

Nevertheless, this move by Microsoft is a smart one, according to analysts. Since autonomous driving is likely to be the future of our roads, it makes sense for Microsoft to get on it at the earliest. Instead of focusing on building its own cars, this company is doing what it knows best, which is to provide the technology that can drive these cars.

Already, Microsoft has partnered with companies like Ford to power thier infotainment system called SYNC. Currently, this is running in about five million cars and over the next few years, it is expected to double. This product uses Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Automotive to create unique in-car experiences for automobile owners and drivers. To take this idea to the next level, Microsoft has entered into this agreement with Baidu.

This is a sensible move on the economic front too because China is a big market for automobiles, and getting a firm foothold in it early can give a big market lead for Microsoft. of course, in China, no foreign company can go alone. Rather, they have to tie up with local Chinese companies to reach the market and that’s exactly what Microsoft has also done.

The good part about this deal is that Baidu started exploring this option only in April of this year, which means, there’s room for a solid partnership and growth for both Microsoft and Baidu. When the self-driving car industry matures, both these companies would be in the driver’s seat to tap into the opportunities and the exploding revenue expected from it.

For all these reasons, it’s a smart move by Microsoft to enter into a deal with Baidu. Let’s hope this translates into a fruitful venture for both these companies and for the eager customers and self-driving industry as a whole.

The post An Interesting Exchange Between Microsoft and Baidu appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

In a clear sign of reorganization within the company, Microsoft has announced that it will be focusing more intently on its cloud services. The announcement said that Microsoft is reorganizing its global workforce to give more importance to cloud services than mere standalone pieces of software.

It’s not so much of a surprise due to many reasons. Firstly, its cloud business is doing amazingly well and has exceeded all expectations. At the same time, revenue from its traditional businesses has slowed down. Putting all this together, cloud is definitely the future of this company, so it’s only right that it focuses its resources on the most profitable sections.

Secondly, reorganization has been taking place in fairly frequent intervals since Satya Nadella took over as the CEO in 2014. Through his visionary ideas, he has been able to make Microsoft a key player in the cloud. At the same time, it has also necessitated many structural changes and Nadella has been doing it to improve the overall efficiency of the organization.

However, this is not good news for many employees who work here. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft plans to cut down thousands of jobs as a part of this latest reorganization. Most of these jobs are likely to be on the sales side.

Though the exact numbers and the locations where the layoffs will happen is not yet clear, it is worrying to some extent because economies of the U.S and other Western countries is slowly stabilizing after the 2008 financial crisis. Even unemployment rates are one of the lowest in a decade. Considering these improvements in the economy, it’s a spot of bother if Microsoft embarks on any mass layoff.

Also, countries like India and China are facing an economic slowdown, so if the layoffs happen here, it could again create an unpleasant effect.

Microsoft though expects no huge impact on its business on a day-to-day business. So, we’ll have to wait and see the impact these layoffs will have on economies and maybe even the IT industry as a whole.

But one thing that we can infer is the growing might of cloud. All major companies believe that we’re moving into a new phase of technology that is likely to be dominated by cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning. In fact, many analysts and economists are already warning about spikes in unemployment that can come when machines start performing many of the mundane jobs currently being done by lower and middle class residents of a country.

This doesn’t mean machines will take over humans, just like what happens in Hollywood movies. Rather what it means is that the nature of jobs will change. Many of the lower-end jobs will be replaced by machines and robots and we’ll move higher up to create robots or even do other things that’ll drastically improve the overall quality of our lives.

In this sense, there’s much to look forward to, even if Microsoft and others layoff people now.

The post Microsoft Could Lay off Thousands of Employees appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today. With more than a billion people, this country presents excellent opportunities for any company that is looking to expand and meet the demands of this burgeoning market. And cloud is not any different.

India represents almost a billion opportunities for the cloud market. This market is valued at about $1 billion currently and is growing at a rate of about 30 percent per year. There are many reasons for this astounding growth.

Firstly, India has a relatively young population that is making the most of technology. They are truly living through a digital revolution and this means, there’s abundance opportunity for the tech industry as a whole, and cloud industry in specific because cloud is the current and future of technology.

Secondly, IT leaders in India are looking to build an agile infrastructure, which again is going to be cloud-based. Thirdly, the government is taking extensive measures to make it easy for its people to interact with different departments, and they are also increasingly relying on cloud to implement this transition.

Fourth and probably the biggest reason is the presence of millions of businesses in the small and medium enterprise (SME) category that can benefit hugely from this move to the cloud. It is estimated that there are more than 30 million SMEs spread across the country and a vast majority are yet to embrace the cloud.

With such factors in place, cloud companies are expanding their presence in India to make the most of these opportunities. Among all the major players, Microsoft is well-poised to tap into this endless opportunity. According to Rajeev Sodhi, the country head of Microsoft India, the company spends more than $12 billion in research each year to create customized solutions and to help every business to leverage the power of cloud.

Keeping in tune with the local culture, Microsoft has adopted a people-centric approach to increase their clientele and this has worked well for the company so far.

To get a pulse of what Indians think of technology, Microsoft commissioned a study called “Asia Digital Transformation Study.” The results bring out some important trends. The survey clearly showed that Indians believe that artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things is essential for a digital transformation. Both these technologies have cloud as its underlying infrastructure.

To top it, 88 percent of surveyed individuals think that cloud computing and the widespread use of mobile devices will make it easier and more affordable to access data and information.

Microsoft has started making a few tweaks to its products based on the response received through this survey. In April, it announced new Azure tools and resources to help Indian companies adopt a hybrid environment for data storage and computing.

It even allows organizations to use Azure hybrid option directly from their Azure management portal itself, thereby simplifying a ton of tasks and process.

With such measures, Microsoft is looking to establish itself as a leader in this booming cloud market.

The post Microsoft is Poised to Meet the Growing Demands from India appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

Is the Microsoft Cloud secure? We’ll you’ll be surprised to know some interesting facts and what goes on behind the scenes.

For starters, Microsoft cloud is constantly under attack, which is not a surprise, given that Azure is one of the most cloud computing platforms today. With its thousands of clients and users, hackers are always tempted to break its security, so they can steal whatever information they want.

But, it’s not been that easy for these hackers. A recent report released by Microsoft shows that this company thwarts roughly about 1.5 million hacks every day. That’s overwhelming to say the least.

Microsoft has employees more than 3,500 security employees and an advanced AI grpah thathelps to keep these attacks at bay. It’s a perfect combination of men and machine that keep every piece of data safe and secure.

When it comes to machines, Microsoft feeds hundreds of gigabytes of telemetry data into it’s intelligent AI-based system called the Intelligent Security Graph. Using some advanced machine learning algorithms, the system is able to predict with reasonable accuracy the source and time of attack. In addition, Microsoft claims that it scans more than 400 billion emails that go through Office 365 and Outlook every month to identify malware and other kinds of phishing scams.

All these measures cost money and this is why Microsoft spends more than $1 billion each year to beef up its security. Besides this money, the company also spends on research and development to further enhance its security and to stay updated – all in an effort to prevent hackers from breaking its security.

Though this may sound great, the fact is Microsoft is not the only provider that faces such a barrage of attacks from hackers. All cloud based companies keeping facing such attacks and some of them fall prey to these hackers. A case in point is OneLogin, a popular password management site, that was hacked, and it uses AWS as its cloud service provider.

In this sense, hacking is a part of everyday operations for these cloud companies and they’re doing everything they can to stay away from them. But sometimes, mishaps happen and data is lost. While this is not an argument to support the cloud providers, it’s time we understand the efforts that go behind maintaining the security of a cloud platform.

This scenario also explains why venture capitalist firms keep investing in cloud security firms. One such company that has benefited from such funding is Netskope that received more than a $100 million in a series E funding led by some of the top investors in this industry. This is, in fact, a trend that we’ve been seeing for some time now.

More people are investing in these cloud access security brokers simply because they believe these companies can find a more lasting and practical solution to the security problem, as hackers are only expected to get more aggressive in the future because of the huge money they can get from the dark web for stolen data.

The post Is Microsoft Cloud Secure? appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

How cool would it be if all our data is stored inside a DNA instead of tapes and drives? Imagine the amount of data that can be stored when you use DNA for storage instead of tapes and other relatively bulkier forms of storage.

Well, that will soon be a reality, going by what Microsoft is planning. Computer architects and researchers in this company are formalizing the goal of having a DNA system for storage inside large data centers by the end of this decade. They are working towards having a working prototype for using DNA to store the ever-growing volume of data.

Researchers primarily want to use the DNA to replace tape drives that are currently used for archiving information. The obvious advantage with this form of storage is the space and money savings that’ll accrue to a company. When you store in a DNA, you can store tons of data when compared to tapes because a DNA is only a miniscule size when compared to tapes.

Also, the cost per square foot of storage goes down because you can store petabytes of data in a small space and this is another added advantage that companies can get.

Already, there’s much buzz surrounding the announcement made by Microsoft. Researchers, IT administrators and tech geeks are looking forward to how see how this idea will shape up in the next few years.

On one side, it also reflects the commitment of companies like Microsoft that are taking innovation to the next level. A wild and weird idea like saving valuable documents, photos, videos and more in a small molecules that are genes are made of, is gaining traction. In fact, the company has allocated money and resources to further this abstract and wild idea in the hope that something would come out of it in the future.

That’s the spirit of innovation and this spirit is what takes companies and ideas to new heights. In fact, history is filled with the successful implementation of such ideas. When a couple of PH.D students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were working on a search engine, little would they have thought that today Google would become such a large corporation. The same goes for Bill Gates and millions of other entrepreneurs and scientists who have changed the way we live and communicate.

Considering these past examples, we can’t dismiss Microsoft’s idea as absurd or impractical. For all you know, it could be on the threshold of a great discovery that can set it apart from other companies in the tech world.

Right now, the efforts to shrink memory size are reaching physical limits. There’s only so much you can go in terms of size, so the next option would be to look for something that is already small and is capable of taking data. What better than the DNA as it fits the description well, both in terms of size and in terms of storage capacity.

Exciting days are surely ahead for mankind.

The post Microsoft Wants to Add DNA Storage appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

Africa is catching on with technology as many countries as adopting computers and cloud in a big way. The widespread work of many private organizations, philanthropists and nongovernmental organizations have helped to eradicate poverty and illiteracy in many communities, and this new generation of educated people are turning to technology to improve their lives and those of others in their communities.

With such a trend, it’s only natural for all major companies to make a bee-line to this continent to tap into the new and growing opportunities it presents. Microsoft has announced that it will be opening two data centers here by next year to serve customers who use the Azure cloud platform. This will be one of the largest data centers ever in this continent and Microsoft plans to open them in Johannesburg and Cape Town, both located in South Africa.

The choice of location is a little disappointing from a technology adoption point of view. South Africa is the most developed country in the African continent and has one of the highest rates of literacy. Also, there’s much economic development happening there already. Microsoft could have chosen a developing economy to boost their presence and impact on the local markets.

In their defense though, Microsoft would argue that it’s the nest choice from an economic standpoint. South Africa is a stable nation with plenty of educated workforce, so the data centers are more likely to be safe and secure here. In addition, cloud growth is happening more in this country than other areas in Africa.

According to Data Corp International, the renowned Research Firm, cloud revenue in South Africa was a mere $243 million last year, but is expected to grow by an annual rate of 20% a year through 2021. Considering these numbers, it’s only fair that Microsoft cater to this growing market before expanding to other regions within this continent.

Like Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon also have been working to capture this potential market, but none have so far opened a dedicated operational center in this continent yet. In this sense, Microsoft has a lead over the other two. But, we can expect both Alphabet and Amazon to follow suit soon.

Reports show that these three major companies combined together have $31.54 billion in 2016 alone for capital expenses and leases. This is a whopping 22% more than what these companies spent in 2015. Though not every penny was spent on cloud infrastructure or data centers, a substantial part of this investment went into their cloud computing line of business.

This entry of Microsoft marks a new beginning for Africa and hopefully it can act as a catalyst for this continent to develop more rapidly. We can hope that these companies will soon move beyond lucrative countries like South Africa and spread their operations in poorer countries too, in order to give every community a chance at development.

Overall, this is a positive move that could transform Africa, like it did for many Asian countries that were grappling with many social and developmental issues.

The post Microsoft Enters Africa appeared first on Cloud News Daily.