Blair Hanley Frank
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Blair Hanley Frank
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New Slack tools let you chat with bots using buttons
Slack is making it easier for people to interact with third-party services that integrate with its chat app with the launch of a new developer tool that lets bots add clickable buttons to their messages. What that means is that someone can submit an expense request to an app that's integrated into Slack, and that person's manager can then receive it -- within the chat interface -- along with buttons that let them easily approve or deny the request. It's part of Slack's push to enhance its chat application with third-party integrations. This makes it easier for people to interact with outside services from within Slack, something the company has been emphasizing as one of its key features. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft’s Sharepoint app for iOS is here
Microsoft announced earlier this year that its popular SharePoint collaboration software was getting a full-featured mobile app. Starting Tuesday, iPhone users can take a crack at it. The SharePoint mobile app brings the key features from the popular enterprise collaboration software to users' smartphones, so they have an easier time of accessing things like company bulletins, SharePoint applications and shared workspaces while on the go. That's important for Microsoft, since launching a mobile app makes SharePoint more relevant for a workforce that is increasingly trying to access work data on their smartphones. It's facing competition from multiple angles, with different companies coming in to challenge Microsoft's dominance of the productivity software space. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft buys Wand to improve chat capabilities
Satya Nadella wasn't kidding when he said earlier this year that he believed in using chat as a platform for computing. Microsoft just bought Wand, a chat app for iOS, to further that vision. The Wand team will be joining Bing's engineering and platform group, Corporate Vice President David Ku wrote in a post announcing the deal Thursday. The company's team members will be working primarily on Microsoft's push to enable the creation of intelligent chatbots and virtual assistants. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Salesforce also bid for LinkedIn, but lost out to Microsoft
Microsoft surprised everyone Monday when it announced plans to acquire LinkedIn for more than $26 billion. But it wasn't the only suitor: Salesforce wanted in, too. The San Francisco-based software-as-a-service vendor was interested in LinkedIn primarily for its recruiting business, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told Recode on Thursday. The company gave LinkedIn a "solid look" but was unable to match Microsoft's huge offer.Salesforce's interest makes sense: information from the business-focused social network could have proved useful to people working with Salesforce products. Microsoft has similar ambitions for LinkedIn, which it sees as a potential boon to its Dynamics CRM and Office offerings in particular. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft’s Project Bletchley will let companies add middleware to blockchains
Microsoft is extending blockchain technology with a new set of tools designed to make it possible to build a new ecosystem of enterprise applications on top of it.On Wednesday, the company unveiled Project Bletchley, its term for a pair of tools to expand the potential uses of blockchains. It plans to get more utility out of the distributed ledger technology by using the new secure middleware.The first tool, known as "Cryptlets," is a set of services that let companies bring in data from outside a blockchain system without breaking the security of that system. Cryptlets can be written in any programming language and run within a secure, trusted container.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Starbucks launches its Outlook add-in for coffee fiends
Nothing says "I vaguely appreciate you in a professional manner" quite like a Starbucks gift card. It's great for coworkers because Starbucks cafes are everywhere, and you don't actually have to spend time thinking about a personalized gift, or how you might go about giving the gift of actually good coffee.Starbucks and Microsoft are capitalizing on that with the launch Wednesday of an Outlook add-in that lets users easily send those ubiquitous gift cards to one another in an email. Users have to install the add-in, then connect to a Starbucks account, which they also need. After that, they can pull up a sidebar that makes it easy to add a gift card to future emails.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Major Windows 10 update nears as Microsoft stops adding features
Microsoft is hurtling towards the consumer release of its big Windows 10 Anniversary Update with the latest beta build for its operating system that launched on Tuesday. The launch of build 14366 signals a temporary end to Microsoft releasing new features for Windows 10, according to a blog post by Dona Sarkar, the voice of the Windows Insider Program. The focus of this update is on a "Bug Bash" event this week that's supposed to help beta testers find bugs so Microsoft can fix them before broadly releasing its big Anniversary Update. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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The future of Office may lie in ‘decomposable’ documents
Microsoft wants you to spend less time thinking about Office and more time getting things done.An executive who helped design one of Office's most iconic features outlined a plan for its future on Tuesday, one that calls for smarter software assisted by AI and "decomposable" documents that are easier to find."No one wants to necessarily learn about the ins and outs of the tool; they have something that they're trying to get done," said Julie Larson-Green, chief experience officer for Microsoft Office, when asked about the future of the software at a Bloomberg conference.Microsoft has already added AI-powered features to the latest versions of Office that help people find functions they're looking for, and more AI is coming. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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These are the top 5 productivity improvements from Apple’s WWDC
Apple kicked off its Worldwide Developers Conference Monday and announced a metric ton of new features for its products. Most of them target consumers, but there were several announcements that improve productivity and will benefit business users as well. Here are the top five:1. New Phone features The developer tools for iOS 10, due later this year, will include CallKit, a framework that lets developers of VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) applications make it easier for iPhone and iPad users to take calls sent from communication apps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Google goes after SharePoint with new enterprise tools
Google isn't kidding when it says it's serious about the enterprise. The company announced a pair of new services on Monday that are aimed squarely at helping businesses access information and share it internally, similar to what Microsoft's SharePoint product offers. A new Springboard app gives employees at companies subscribed to Google Apps for Work a unified search box for finding just about anything, including files in Google Drive, emails in Gmail and contacts.The company also unveiled the beta version of a revamped Google Sites, which is aimed at letting less sophisticated users inside a business build websites that can be used to share information internally. The new Sites gives users templates and an easy to use editor. The editor is supposed to help create good-looking sites for communicating things like what a particular team is up to at a company with far-flung offices. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft buys LinkedIn for $26.2B to expand its business products
Microsoft has made a big bet on LinkedIn, announcing Monday that it will spend nearly $26.2 billion in cash to purchase the enterprise-focused social networking and recruiting company. The acquisition -- which is the largest in Microsoft's history and one of the biggest tech acquisitions ever -- will combine the world's largest enterprise-focused social network with one of the biggest enterprise software companies.It's more than just a social play, though. In addition to LinkedIn's core professional networking product, Microsoft also gains access to products including presentation- sharing software SlideShare and professional training service Lynda.com. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft scoops up LinkedIn for $26.2B in cash
Microsoft announced early Monday that it will acquire enterprise social network LinkedIn for approximately $26.2 billion in cash. In a press release announcing the news, Microsoft said that LinkedIn will retain its brand, culture and independence as part of the deal. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner will remain in power there, and will report directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as a member of his senior staff. This is the largest acquisition in Microsoft's history, worth more than its acquisitions of Nokia and Skype combined. The deal is supported by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and controlling shareholder of LinkedIn. It's expected to close by the end of 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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VMware launches new service to manage endpoint security
VMware wants to help companies get a better handle on the security of the computers their employees use. The new TrustPoint product the company announced Monday uses software to make it possible to track and manage computers easily and quickly, without taking up a whole bunch of data. First off, the software allows companies to detect what devices are on their networks, along with which ones are being managed by IT. That helps businesses understand if they have machines operating outside the reach of their security systems, which could be a problem for protecting company data. In addition, businesses will also be able to use TrustPoint to handle operating system imaging with VMware's technology, so it's easier for them to patch systems that are managed with TrustPoint. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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VMware launches new service to manage endpoint security
VMware wants to help companies get a better handle on the security of the computers their employees use. The new TrustPoint product the company announced Monday uses software to make it possible to track and manage computers easily and quickly, without taking up a whole bunch of data. First off, the software allows companies to detect what devices are on their networks, along with which ones are being managed by IT. That helps businesses understand if they have machines operating outside the reach of their security systems, which could be a problem for protecting company data. In addition, businesses will also be able to use TrustPoint to handle operating system imaging with VMware's technology, so it's easier for them to patch systems that are managed with TrustPoint. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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5 questions for Apple to answer at WWDC
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is coming to San Francisco next week, giving CEO Tim Cook a chance to get developers fired up over the latest that Apple has to offer.Don’t expect a new iPhone. WWDC is all about software and services, but we'll also get a general update on the state of Apple. Here are some questions Apple needs to answer at the event.How will Siri compete with Cortana and the Google Assistant? When Siri launched in 2011, it was one of the first virtual assistants of its kind, but it now has competitors from Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google. Apple needs to show how Siri is better than — or can at least keep pace with — its rivals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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New Windows 10 build brings Ink improvements, container support
Microsoft has released a new beta build of Windows 10 aimed at enhancing various aspects of the operating system, including support for the LastPass extension in the Edge browser, as the company hurtles toward releasing a major update in the coming months. Build 14361, released Wednesday, includes updated icons, the LastPass password manager extension for Microsoft Edge, and support for running Docker containers natively on Windows. Windows Ink, Microsoft's tools for working with pen input on a touchscreen Windows 10 device, also received several improvements.The build is another one on the road to what Microsoft is calling the Windows 10 Anniversary Update -- a major release of its latest operating system that packs in a slew of new features. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Slack could host your next conference call
Get ready to start fielding voice calls in Slack. The company announced Tuesday that all users of its popular chat app will be able to ring their teammates with a couple of clicks. People who access Slack on a Mac or Windows PC using either Google Chrome or the communication service's own app will see a phone icon in the header. Users can click that button and start a voice-only call without making other participants open up a second app. Slack This phone glyph in the header of a Slack window lets users place a call to one of their teammates.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Egnyte wants to protect business data, wherever it’s stored
Egnyte, an enterprise-focused file sync and sharing startup, is expanding beyond its roots in holding onto companies' data for them, and now aims to protect any data a company has, no matter where it's stored. Egnyte Protect is a service that aims to provide a single tool for controlling and securing company data that's stored in private data centers and in the public cloud. It's based on the content protection capabilities that are built into Egnyte's file sync and share product, and works with products including SharePoint, OneDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive, the company said Tuesday. Moving into the content services business means that Egnyte can meet enterprises where they are, even if they never plan to use its file storage service, which is now known as Egnyte Connect.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Prezi tries again to get companies to change their presentations
Prezi, the seven-year-old startup that aims to reinvent the way that people make presentations, has launched a new business-focused offering that's aimed at getting companies to use its software instead of rivals like PowerPoint. Teams that sign up for Prezi Business will get several new features, including the ability to present over the Web, analytics to understand how different parts of presentations fly with audiences, and real-time collaboration. It's a major push for the presentation software company, which is competing against the likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple with a cloud-based tool that pans and zooms through a canvas, rather than showing an audience a series of slides. Prezi CEO Peter Arvai argued in an interview that the software's ability to easily show relationships between presentation elements makes it a more effective tool for convincing an audience.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft takes a swing at Trello and Asana with new Planner app
Microsoft has taken a big step toward helping employees stay on track with the launch of a new app called Planner.It's a Web-based tool for Office 365 subscribers designed to let them easily lay out plans for projects and business objectives and then share them with other people. After creating a plan, users can create and assign tasks, share files and update their colleagues on the status of key to-dos.Planner appears to be a response to the likes of Trello and Asana -- startups that have built their businesses on making it easier for other companies to improve their employees' productivity. Microsoft has positioned Office 365 as a key part of a users' productivity workflow, and this app is supposed to make it easier for them to stay on track and effectively collaborate with colleagues. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here