Tag: microsoft

Microsoft is the world’s most copied brand

Posted on August 22, 2023 by - News

Canalys Forum EuropeA new report by security outfit Cloudflare claims that the software king of the world, Microsoft is the world’s most impersonated brand.

Aside from impersonating Microsoft on several occasions, attackers use the company’s tools to commit fraud, the report said.

Cybercriminals posed as about 1,000 different organisations in almost a billion impersonation attempts against those using Cloudflare products. Notably, 51.7 per cent of the time, email attackers impersonated one of 20 well-known global brands, with Microsoft topping the charts.

Microsoft releases more AI products

Posted on August 14, 2023 by - News

Software King of the World, Microsoft has unveiled more generative AI products for frontline workers.

Vole teamed up with Aptos Labs to build new blockchain AI tools and has now introduced a new Copilot offering which uses generative AI to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of frontline professionals.

Windows Copilot AI-powered assistant is empowering service managers who receive customer escalations in Outlook or Microsoft Teams to use Copilot in Dynamics 365.

According to Microsoft, this AI-driven tool automates repetitive tasks to create work orders. Notably, there are other integrations within Microsoft 365 that further improve these capabilities. Frontline technicians will be able to access important work order information via Teams.

Microsoft makes Office concessions to AWS

Posted on August 7, 2023 by - News

Software King of the World, Microsoft is granting customers with specific licenses the power to run Office products within an AWS cloud.

This partially reverses a policy change made in 2019, which required customers with perpetual licenses to purchase new licenses if they wanted to run those applications on AWS, Google Cloud or Alibaba clouds.

Microsoft is the UK’s third largest cloud provider and so this has made it a target of a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  In the complaint Google accused Microsoft of using its dominant position to trap customers into contracts within its Azure cloud server business.

Microsoft investigated by European Commission

Posted on July 28, 2023 by - News

The European Commission has launched an antitrust probe into Microsoft bundling its Teams communications app with its Office suite, on concerns the firm could be cutting out competitors.

The investigation is concerned Vole is “abusing and defending its market position.”

The commission’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said: “Remote communication and collaboration tools like Teams have become indispensable for many businesses in Europe. We must therefore ensure that the markets for these products remain competitive, and companies are free to choose the products that best meet their needs.”

A Microsoft spokesman said the tech giant would cooperate with the commission’s investigation.

“We respect the European Commission’s work on this case and take our own responsibilities very seriously,” he said.

Microsoft sees record profits

Posted on July 27, 2023 by - News

Software King of the World Microsoft saw its revenues climb eight per cent to $56.2 billion in its FY23 fourth quarter results.

Net income jumped 20 per cent to bring in $20.1 billion.

Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella told listeners on an earnings conference call said that Microsoft Cloud surpassed $110 billion in annual revenue, up 27 per cent in constant currency with Azure all up accounting for more than 50 per cent of the total for the first time.
Another area were Vole was making cash was AI. Revenues in Microsoft’s intelligent cloud arm rose 15 per cent to $24 billion, Nadella said.

IaaS market growing claims Gartner

Posted on July 19, 2023 by - News

Canalys Forum EuropeThe worldwide infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market grew 29.7 per cent in 2022, to $120.3 billion, up from $92.8 billion in 2021, according to Gartner.

Amazon retained the top position in the IaaS market in 2022, followed by Microsoft, Alibaba, Google and Huawei.

Gartner VP analyst Sid Nag said that Cloud had been elevated from a technology disruptor to a business disruptor.

“IaaS is driving software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) growth as buyers to continue to add more applications to the cloud and modernise existing ones.”

“IaaS growth in 2022 was stronger than expected, despite a slight softening in the fourth quarter as customers focused on using their previously committed capacity to its fullest potential,” added Nag.

“This is expected to continue until mid-2023 and is a natural outcome of the market’s maturity. We expect an acceleration in 2024, as there is still room for additional growth.”

In 2022, the top five IaaS providers accounted for over 80 per cent of the market. Amazon continued to lead the worldwide IaaS market with revenue of $48.1 billion and a 40 per cent market share.

State-backed threat group attacked Microsoft accounts

Posted on July 14, 2023 by - News

Canalys Forum EuropeSoftware King of the World Microsoft says a state-backed threat group covertly accessed email accounts at around 25 organisations worldwide, including US and Western European government agencies.

The company attributed the attacks to Storm-0558, a threat actor based in China.

The group primarily focuses on government agencies in Western Europe, engaging in activities like espionage, data theft, and credential access.

Microsoft cracks down on rule breaking partners

Posted on July 11, 2023 by - News

Software King of the World, Microsoft has increased penalties for partners and suppliers who violate contracts and the Partner Code of Conduct.

The purge means that the vendor could revoke the solution provider’s ability to sell in certain partner programmes and even purge the provider from the partner ecosystem.

Vole said: “We’re committed to winning in the market ethically and in compliance with the laws and regulations of the countries/regions in which we operate.”

Microsoft denies cloud breach

Posted on July 6, 2023 by - News

Microsoft campusSoftware King of the World, Microsoft has denied that it suffered a massive cloud breach.

Russian hacking group Anonymous Sudan claims it is selling data allegedly belonging to Vole at about £39,400 a pop.

Last month, Microsoft confirmed that the service outages that affected its OneDrive web portals, Azure, and Outlook apps were a result of Layer 7 DDoS attacks. The company experienced these attacks on 5 June .

Anonymous Sudan recently announced that it had successfully hacked Microsoft and stolen a “large database” with over 30 million Microsoft accounts, passwords, and emails.

The group even proved the authenticity of its claims by sharing a data sample. Aside from this, Anonymous Sudan warned that Microsoft will probably deny losing the data.

Microsoft Azure cloud server business revenue disappointing

Posted on July 3, 2023 by - News

A badly redacted Microsoft document reportedly revealed that the vendor’s Azure cloud server business revenue in the 2022 fiscal year generated half the revenue of rival Amazon Web Services.

Microsoft has long reported the quarterly growth rate of Azure, software subscriptions and other cloud services combined. This has given analysts difficulty when comparing Microsoft’s revenue to AWS – which does report cloud server sales.

The Information said the Volish document from June 2022 was accidentally published on a US district court website, revealing that Microsoft expected Azure cloud server business revenue of $34 billion for the 12 months ended that month.

Mobile market continues to tank

Posted on June 20, 2023 by - News

While there are some hopes for hardware sellers, market analysts Context sees only doom for the mobile market

Context analysis of the second quarter indicates that the market has remained on a downward trajectory.

There are two possible scenarios for how the quarter will have gone, with the most optimistic expecting a 23.3 per cent year-on-year decline in the market. The most miserable prediction is for a 32.5 per cent decline. This follows a 21.6 per cent drop in units sold in the first quarter.

Context global managing director Adam Simon said that the gloomiest figure was a belief that the economy will get worse, but the more positive outlook assumes greater sell-out of excess stock.

Iomart swallows Extrinsica

Posted on June 6, 2023 by - News

Cloudy vendor Iomart Group is acquiring Microsoft Azure cloud solutions provider Extrinsica for £4 million.

This move will give the Glasgow-based Iomart a team of 33 based in the UK, customer references, and UK growth plan.

Extrinsica CEO Simon Smith will continue to lead the business as CEO.

“Joining Iomart marks an exciting phase for our highly skilled, experienced and ambitious team, providing us with a strengthened platform for growth. It allows us to use joint capabilities, capitalise on our understanding of the markets we operate in and build upon our significant achievements.

Microsoft’s Saurabh Rana joins Hexaware

Posted on May 26, 2023 by - News

Hexaware Technologies has poached Microsofty Saurabh Rana as its new Strategic Partnerships and Global Alliances Lead.

This move forms part of Hexaware’s cunning plan to deepen its commitment across the Cloud and Hyperscale Ecosystem to ensure the company fully harnesses the power of its partnerships, propelling clients forward in their digital, data, and cloud transformation journeys.

As a critical element of his role, Rana will accelerate strategic collaboration and establish dedicated business units for top Hyperscale partnerships. His leadership is expected to spur momentum and growth through increased co-selling of joint solutions, driving deal velocity, and bolstering Hexaware’s growth objectives.

UK telecoms regulator launches cloudy anti-trust investigation

Posted on April 6, 2023 by - News

UK telecoms regulator has launched a competition probe into the cloud market.

According to Ofcom, two US vendors Microsoft and Amazon enjoy a 60 per cent – 70 per cent share of the £15bn UK cloud services market.

Ofcom is proposing that the matter be referred to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for investigation.

Writing in its blog, Ofcom said that with business and the public sector ever more reliant on cloud services, this represents an imbalance that is bad for customer choice.

Microsoft reveals three new partner designations

Posted on March 24, 2023 by - News

Microsoft announced three new partner designations – including one aimed at SMB support providers.

The designations are part of Vole’s new partner programme which replaces its Partner Network – went live in October 2022.

Microsoft’s told its 2023 Partner Ecosystem briefing it had acted on partner feedback garnered since launch.

The Microsoft Cloud Partner Programme was designed to simplify life for partners by shelving the 18 Silver and 18 Gold competencies under MPN in favour of six new Solutions designations across Azure, Modern Work, Security and Business Applications. It was aimed at helping its partners better differentiate themselves.