In a bid to expand its presence in Europe, Microsoft has embarked on a strategy to reach out to European software companies.

As a first step, Microsoft has created a program called “Microsoft for Startups” accelerator and this program will be based out of Berlin. Under this program, Microsoft plans to have a four-month program for startup software companies in Europe, and at the end of this program, $500,000 worth of Azure credits will be given to the best performers. Besides Azure credits, these chosen companies will also get access to outside investors, technical advisers, and inputs from the Microsoft sales team.

From a startup’s perspective, this can be a great opportunity to expand and learn under the proper guidance of an established tech company, while for Microsoft, it is a great strategy to expand its presence and customer base within the European Union. The idea is to catch these companies young and get them hooked on Azure, so when they grow, the use of Azure will also increase. Also, Microsoft believes with such a strategy, it can capitalize on the success of these startups in the future.

That said, Microsoft has laid down certain conditions on which companies can qualify for this course. First off, these companies should be headquartered within the EU and a substantial part of their operations should be geared for the European market. These startups should operate only in the areas of connected factories, connected vehicles, AI, blockchain databases and computer vision.

In addition, these companies should have raised early stage funding and should have at least a functioning prototype of their product. In other words, this program is not for startups, but for those companies that have reached a certain stage of operations and want a boost or accelerator to take their company forward.

By tapping into the startups, Microsoft wants to establish itself as the leader in Europe. But that’s not going to be easy, as similar programs have been rolled by its competitors such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google. In fact, Amazon’s AWS Activate Portfolio and Portfolio Plus packages reach out to startups that are in the acceleration and incubating stage and offer them anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 in AWS credit, along with technical help. Likewise, Alphabet’s Google Cloud Platform for Startup Program gives credits to use the Google Cloud Platform, besides technical and marketing help.

Both these programs from AWS and Google are available for European startups too.

In the light of this situation, how does Microsoft plan to achieve its goals? Well, for starters, it’s offering way more than what other cloud companies offer in terms of credit worth. This alone should be a deciding factor. Secondly, it’s ensuring that the money is used only for the brightest of prospects that have the highest chances of success, so this way Microsoft is associating itself only with the best startups.

Maybe both these aspects can give it a lead, but it’s definitely hard to say at this point in time.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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