Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing and Operations

Today Microsoft released Office Mobile for iPhone, which is available at no extra charge from the Apple App Store for Office 365 Home Premium and Office 365 ProPlus subscribers. This new iPhone app enables great Office content viewing and on-the-go content editing.

After signing in to an Office 365 account, you can access, view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents from anywhere. And, Office Mobile will keep all your content and formatting intact so documents still look professional when you're back on your PC or Mac.

Posted by Frédéric Aatz
Director of Interoperability Strategy, Microsoft France

Recently 6,000 participants gathered in Paris to participate in the fifteenth annual Solutions Linux event, which brings together many businesses and open source communities to share emerging best practices and discuss IT market trends.

This was Microsoft’s ninth year participating in the event, this year as a gold sponsor. It was an excellent opportunity for us to connect with a broad range of companies and individuals who are focused on open source solutions and interoperability for enterprises with mixed IT environments.

Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing and Operations

In Brisbane this week, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) launched the Open Source Software Group and Virtual Lab at the university’s new Science and Engineering Center. This exciting venture will help students acquire critical technology skills and create software solutions for real-world problems.

The new lab will be a hub for emerging technologies, hackathons, open data projects in biology and healthcare, and global competitions like QUT’s Change the World series and the Microsoft Imagine Cup.

The new Science and Engineering Center (left) on the QUT campus

Microsoft Research supported the venture, alongside Microsoft Australia, Red Hat Asia Pacific, and Technology One, a Brisbane-based enterprise software company. Each of these key supporters see the value in working cooperatively on open source projects, understanding the model of community driven projects operating hand-in-hand with commercial services and products.

Posted by Derrick Connell
Corporate Vice President, Bing

Yesterday at WWDC, Apple announced iOS 7, which brings Bing web search integration to Siri, Apple's breakthrough personal assistant, for the first time.

Starting this fall with iOS 7, Bing will power Siri's new integrated web search. When users ask Siri a question either the specific answer or web search links will now be delivered automatically so users can find information even faster.

Posted by Kerry Godes
Senior Manager, Worldwide Marketing & Operations

Shell’s energy and petrochemical operations span more than 80 countries, with more than 3,000 proprietary applications that support everything from exploration and production to manufacturing and distribution. To improve visibility and increase standardization across this global and highly complex enterprise, Shell created the Technical and Competitive IT (TaCIT) division for its 1,000 developers around the world.

The TaCIT’s first task was to identify a standard development environment for its mixed IT environment to more efficiently support key workflows, including coding, reviews, testing, and change management. The solution needed to support a broad range of platforms and application types, as well as third-party testing tools and frameworks.

After in-depth research, Shell adopted Microsoft Team Foundation Server as its application lifecycle management solution for its projects worldwide to increase visibility for better decision-making, facilitate sharing of best practices among teams, and improve security processes.

“We looked at a lot of different products, but most only handle one piece of a development project and don’t work with other tools to provide an integrated process,” says Henk Middendorp, Software Engineering Architect, TaCIT at Shell. “Team Foundation Server handles everything from developing requirements to deployment, and is usable across Windows and Linux for desktop, server, web, and mobile projects.”