Software : Satya Nadella introduces Microsoft's new toolset for IT professionals

Satya Nadella introduces Microsoft's new toolset for IT professionals
Updated: Office for iPad unveiled, brings suite of Microsoft services to Apple's tab
Twitter mobile apps now let you tag people in pics, share multiple photos
HTC to let other Android phones in on the BlinkFeed fun

Satya Nadella introduces Microsoft's new toolset for IT professionals

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Fresh-faced Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stage today at his first major press event since taking over at the company to introduce Microsoft Office for iPad and Microsoft's new Enterprise Mobility Suite.

The suite includes a series of tools designed to make it easier for corporate employees to manage their many devices, easier for companies to protect their sensitive data, and easier for IT professionals to facilitate both of those goals.

"It's all grounded on the complexity that needs to be tamed today," Nadella said.

He continued, "What we are announcing today is both offerings and a road map to build a comprehensive enterprise architecture for IT professionals to be able to bring together their identity management, access management, device management, and data protection into one suite and one enterprise architecture that works across all devices: Android, iOS, Windows."

New tools for IT

One of the main ideas behind Microsoft's Enterprise Mobility Suite is that users are now bringing their own devices to work more than ever before, and IT professionals until now have not had an easy toolset to manage all those devices simultaneously.

Microsoft Office Division Product Manager Julia White took the stage from Nadella during the presentation to go in-depth on some new capabilities, which take full advantage of Microsoft's Azure cloud services, including Windows Intune and Azure Active Directory.

windows azure ems

For example users and IT workers can wipe specific devices remotely of all business information, leaving the rest of their data intact. In addition developers will now be able to integrate Office's DocuSign sign-in verification natively into their own apps, a feature that Nadella called "Facebook for enterprise."

There are also new security features arriving that will allow Microsoft's servers to better detect abnormalities that might indicate a security problem.

Many of these features will go live in April, while the full Enterprise Mobility Suite arrives May 1.

"A cloud for everyone"

White stressed that everything Microsoft showed off today was delivered by the cloud. "We really are delivering a cloud for everyone on every device," she said.

"The combination of what we're doing with Office as well as Azure provides developers the richest developer surface area for them to be able to express themselves," Nadella added later.

The CEO described a future in which form factors are more varied and every interaction humans have, both with other humans and with machines, is instantly digitized.

He called it "the world of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence." Part of that is the "coming together" of developers, end users and IT professionals, and that's where Microsoft's Enterprise Mobility Suite will apparently help.

What is Satya Nadella's strategy for Microsoft?

Updated: Office for iPad unveiled, brings suite of Microsoft services to Apple's tab

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Microsoft has unveiled Office for iPad, as many suspected would be the big announcement coming out of a March 27 press briefing currently underway.

Office for iPad will go live at 11 a.m. PT. Don't expect a ported Windows app; Microsoft made a point that Office for iPad is uniquely built for the tablet, featuring full fat tools and a "great touch experience."

Users will find Word, Excel and PowerPoint ready for their fingerprints right on their Apple tab. Collaborative work is possible thanks to the suite as multiple users can tinker with a doc or presentation.

Microsoft said Office for iPad follows a "freemium" business model, but Office 365 subscribers will have full capability to the application once it goes live.

More to follow...

Twitter mobile apps now let you tag people in pics, share multiple photos

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Twitter's mobile photo prowess just grew 10-fold, then by another 4-fold.

Now users can tag up to 10 people in a photo without affecting the character count of their tweet. You can add @'s all you want and still have your 140 characters.

If you're tagged in someone's picture, you'll receive a notification, similar to how Twitter sends alerts when people you follow are talking about a TV show or have followed the same person.

You can adjust the kinds of notifications you receive and manage who can tag you by diving into Settings. Twitter has also added some pertinent info to is "Posting photos on Twitter" support page.

Swing over to the App Store and Google Play to tag up on Twitter.

Sharing is caring

In addition to photo tagging, Twitter will now let mobile users share up to four photos in a single tweet.

Instead of a side-by-side photo layout, your pic quartet will automatically form a collage. To view a single full image, users can tap preview to see the photo and swipe to see the next.

iPhone users will see multiple photo uploads start rolling out today, and those on Android and twitter.com are due for the feature soon. Users can view tweets with more than one pic on any of these platforms.

Photo tagging and tweets packed with multiple pics will also be viewable in embedded tweets.

Heard of this little thing called the iPad mini 2?

HTC to let other Android phones in on the BlinkFeed fun

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HTC's signature home screen reader BlinkFeed will soon be available on other Android devices, the company has announced.

BlinkFeed is a tile-based Android home screen interface that so far has been exclusive to HTC's Sense firmware.

BlinkFeed has already launched in the Google Play marketplace, but so far it's only compatible with the HTC One (M8).

HTC said in a press release that BlinkFeed will be available soon for other devices, too.

Back by popular demand

The Taiwanese phone maker said it's launching BlinkFeed as a standalone app due to "its popularity with HTC users."

HTC also announced this week that it's letting third-party apps in on BlinkFeed, starting with Fitbit and Foursquare.

The fitness app's BlinkFeed integration will let users see data like how many steps they've taken right on the home screen, while Foursquare will provide location-based suggestions.

Meanwhile HTC's latest flagship, the HTC One (M8), is finally available from most of the US' major carriers.

There's another new flagship in town - here's TechRadar's Samsung Galaxy S5 review

Yahuui Blog

Thursday, March 27, 2014