The Creators Update for Windows 10 is still a ways off from its spring 2017 release, but Microsoft continues to share what's in development and what users can look forward to. The latest blog post from the company details some of the accessibility features that will be included with the update, allowing the Windows 10 OS to be just as easy to use for those with disabilities.
Today Microsoft Teams takes on the other big name in chat-based workspace software Slack. To do this, they've made their process quite simple - and today we're making it even simpler to understand. As Microsoft enters this field of play with a competitor already well-fit in with work teams globally, we aim to explain how they plan to do it. Here we'll also explain what it Microsoft Teams means for the average consumer.
Microsoft has always had a presence on Apple platforms via its Office suite, competing fiercely with Apple's own blessed iWorks software. But with the launch of the iPad Pro, Redmond has surprisingly become even more aggressive in pushing Office, especially Office 365, to Apple users, both on iOS and on the Mac. This latest announcement aims to endear them further with Apple's own fans, bringing one of the best features of Office to iOS and giving some Mac users early access to upcoming Office features.
Excited, or at least curious, for what might be one of the winning points for Windows 10 Mobile? Better rein in that enthusiasm and read the fine print first. In a post sharing the wonderful updates to Office 365 and Office apps, Microsoft let slip a detail that hasn't been mentioned before or at least never given much attention. Continuum, which would "expand" a mobile app to desktop when an external display is connected, will require a paid Office 365 subscription to edit files starting April next year.
Microsoft announces availability of a number of additions to voice, video, and meeting experiences in Office 356. This update includes "modernizations" of each of these modes of communication, all the while "saving companies substantial costs in their communication infrastructure." This means companies are being encouraged to drop their phones, drop their video meeting systems, and pick up Office 356's solutions instead. That means a fully operational Skype for Business experience, all within Office 365.
PowerPoint presentations aren’t hard to make, but they’re rarely attractive. Microsoft aims to change that, and has introduced two new tools as part of its effort: Morph and Designer. The tools have arrived first for Office 365 subscribers, with Morph offering seamless animation and Designer using smart image analysis to automatically suggest attractive, professional slide designs
Last year, Microsoft seemed to be intent on pushing OneDrive as a serious competitor to the likes of Dropbox and Google Drive. It announced several promos, some of them permanent, to entice users to switch over to its cloud storage solution. Among them was a 15 GB starting space for all free accounts. Now it seems that Microsoft is rather abruptly and unceremoniously putting a stop to most of those benefits, ending the unlimited storage offer for Office 365 users and reducing the free storage from 15 to 5 GB. All because of abusers.
The recently announced iPad Pro is certainly poised to offer the perfect combination of portability and heavy-duty multi-tasking computing, but for any users planning to make the mobile versions of Microsoft's Office their apps of choice, there's going to be an extra cost. Microsoft has said that in order to use the Office apps on the iPad Pro, users will need to be subscribers to Office 365, even for simple tasks like viewing or editing documents.
This morning Microsoft Office has released an update with a new Google Drive plugin. This update allows users to use Office for Windows to open Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents stored in Google Drive on the web, straight from the cloud, edit them, then save them back to Drive (in the cloud) when they're done. This is a strange move from Microsoft* since they've recently called Google out as having inferior technology on the office front. Between Google Apps and Microsoft Office there's a war going on in an to control the digital business-place across the planet.
This week the folks at Microsoft have released the full version of Office for Mac 2016. This is a release that was preceded by an Office for Mac 2016 "Preview" edition, today coming as an official public build. This software requires that the user have an Office 365 subscription in order to download and work. It should be made obvious that this is a truly cloud-aimed sort of work environment, but you will be able to edit documents on your computer at home with ease.
Microsoft has announced a new Skype for Business technical preview available for Office 365 enterprise users. The preview ushers in a trio of new features, two of which are limited to customers located in the United States. The new Skype Meeting Broadcast is perhaps the most notable change for enterprise users, allowing customers worldwide to broadcast a meeting taking place over Skype for Business to up to 10,000 users across multiple devices.
We are now on the verge of counting down the days to Microsoft's most anticipated, whether with excitement or with dread, Windows 10 release. But before that ball starts rolling, the company has a few more builds for its Insiders to try out. By this time, major changes to functionality should already be minimal in order to prepare for the final release. And that indeed shows in this latest 10158 build, which focuses more on polishing the user interface and getting things to work just right.
