Reacting to chronic complaints that Office applications have become unwieldy with endless menus and features, Microsoft is developing a streamlined presentation application built from the ground up for mobile devices and cloud computing.
Humbled by businesses' dislike for Windows 8, Microsoft has issued a mea culpa, offered the world a first peek at Windows 10 and pledged that the new OS will delight IT executives. But the true test of whether Microsoft can move past its Windows 8 mistakes will come when Windows 10 is commercially released at some point next summer.
Aware that the "if you build it, they will come" principle doesn't always apply to newly deployed IT systems, Microsoft has developed a website to help companies promote Office 365 usage among employees.
After spending the past two years in damage control mode over Windows 8, Microsoft will officially begin a new era for its OS on Tuesday, when it's expected to unveil a preview of Windows' next major version during an event focused on enterprise customers.
Microsoft, which recently announced the consolidation of several of its conferences, is now going in the opposite direction and resurrecting WinHEC, which was last held in 2008.
The release of Delve, the first application to use Microsoft's Office Graph machine learning engine, will be remembered years from now as either the genesis of a revolutionary technology or as a fireworks-style launch that dazzled everyone only for a brief moment.
As had been rumoured earlier this week, Microsoft lopped off a second set of jobs Thursday, cutting 2,100 positions, as part of a restructuring plan announced two months ago to eliminate 18,000 positions, or about 14 percent of the company's workforce.
In a move that could prove unpopular with IT administrators, Google has granted rights to end users of its Apps workplace email and collaboration suite to install third-party software from the company's Google Apps Marketplace.
Microsoft's massive staff reduction, which shocked many when it was announced in July, is back in the spotlight with a pair of reports that the ax will come down on another group of employees Thursday.
Dropbox's Datastore API, which gives apps a lightweight cloud database for storing structured user data, like settings and contacts, has been extended to let apps store data locally if users aren't logged into Dropbox.
Box foresees a significant jump in usage of its iPad and iPhone app resulting from one of the new extensions Apple will launch with the new iOS 8.
Jive has built links between its enterprise social networking (ESN) suite and Microsoft's Office 365 to let users leverage Jive collaboration features with the cloud versions of Outlook, Office, SharePoint and OneDrive for Business.
A special version of Skype designed for professional TV broadcasts reached another milestone with its release to manufacturers and the signing of three hardware partners.
Google has added features to Drive and the Docs apps suite to make the products easier to use for people who are blind or have poor eyesight, an issue over which the company has been criticized.
Addressing an issue often overlooked by cloud storage users when choosing a service, Microsoft has increased the maximum size for files uploaded to OneDrive from 2GB to 10GB.