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Microsoft to Google: You're not 'serious' about business apps

Even though Google execs have made some recent noises about making inroads on Microsoft's business-applications turf, the software giant claims it's not breaking a sweat.

Google "has not yet shown they are truly serious," about the enterprise app business, general manager in Microsoft's business division Julia White told the New York Times. "From the outside, they are an advertising company."

Google has increasingly beefed up its enterprise businesses, such as Google Apps and Google Cloud Services, which compete directly with Microsoft. Earlier this week, Google's head of enterprise Amit Singh announced to … Read more

Five days, two e-mail outages for Microsoft's Office 365

On November 13, some Microsoft Office 365 customers in North America were reporting (via Twitter and e-mail) that they were experiencing e-mail problems -- just like they were five days ago.

A Microsoft representative provided the following update around 11 a.m. PT today:

"On Tuesday, Nov. 13, some customers served from our North America data centers are experiencing intermittent access to e-mail services. Customers are being updated regularly via our normal communication channels. We sincerely apologize to our customers for any inconvenience."

This tweet was posted shortly thereafter:

This isn't the first time this month some … Read more

Microsoft releases new Office to manufacturers

Microsoft officials are finally going public with the planned timeline for Office Next/Office 2013.

First up is release to manufacturing (RTM). Believe it or not, the next version of Office has RTM'd today, October 11 -- a month earlier than my sources and many Microsoft customers, partners, and pundits were predicting.

(A quick aside: The naming of the clients, servers, and services known by codename Office 15 is fairly confusing. Products with "2013" in the name -- like Office 2013 or Exchange Server 2013 -- seem to be the on-premises/locally installed versions. "Office Next&… Read more

Evernote unveils small business app. A Google Apps offense?

Evernote is expanding its cloud-based clipping and documents platform to small businesses with the introduction of Evernote Business.

Announced amid the Evernote Trunk Conference in San Francisco today, Evernote Business is touted to optimize the "remember everything" app for businesses by allowing employees to create, collaborate and find documents and projects from wherever they are. The extra business-friendly add-on is that the platform should support organization-wide deployment, including the option for company-wide sharing for individual notes and notebooks. However, individual users will still have full ownership over their personal Evernote notebooks.From the management side, Evernote Business includes … Read more

Some Office 365 users reporting Outlook.com sign-up problems

A number of users attempting to sign up for Microsoft's new Outlook.com free e-mail preview are reporting they are having problems that seem to be connected to their Office 365 accounts.Peter Bright, an editor with Ars Technica, said he believed the issue to be connected with Office 365 cookies that may not be clearing correctly.

 

"The big problem is that O365 used the Outlook domain for some things, and it doesn't let you clear the cookies right," he said on Twitter, where I asked individuals experiencing problems to weigh in. "Because the … Read more

Get the Microsoft Office 2013 Customer Preview right now

Today, Microsoft announced the latest version of its popular productivity suite, Office 2013. The Office suite has been reworked with Windows 8 and touch-screen tablets in mind. One more key feature is that it will rely heavily on the cloud.

If you're eager to get your hands on this new set of tools, you'll be glad to know you won't have to wait. Microsoft has posted a Customer Preview of Office 2013 here. You'll need to be running Windows 7 or the Release Preview of Windows 8 in order to install it. You will notice the … Read more

Microsoft takes steps to drown Google Apps before it's too late

Microsoft might be a little more scared of Google Apps for Business than it's publicly letting on, according to a new report.

The software giant has, over the last several months, made several moves to stop enterprise customers from adopting Google Apps, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported on those decisions today. Microsoft has cut pricing on its cloud-based alternative, Office 365, as well as increased commissions it pays to resellers to make the prospect of switching to Google's service less palatable.

According to the Journal, Microsoft has established a "Google Compete" team designed … Read more

Google, Microsoft said to be creating new cloud services

Google and Microsoft are reportedly neck and neck to get an Infrastructure as a Service cloud computing offering off the ground in the near future.

According to tech news site GigaOM, sources say that while Google has been busy building a cloud service that will compete with Amazon's EC2 cloud, Microsoft has also been racing to get its own Infrastructure as a Service platform out. For now, it's looking like Microsoft may cross the finish line first.

GigaOM reports that Google's plan is set to debut a virtual renting service by the end of the year and … Read more

Microsoft vs Google and the race for the top cloud

If you want controversy, forget Coke versus Pepsi, or Ginger vs. Mary Ann. Try Microsoft against Google. Ed Bott and Christopher Dawson are tearing it up in their Great Debate over at ZDNet today, arguing the pros and cons of Microsoft Office 365 versus Google Apps for Business.

The subject du jour is one that's likely to command greater attention throughout the rest of the year now that both Microsoft and Google have competing business software suites in the "cloud." As Bott notes, "Google has done a good job of scaling its free Gmail service into … Read more