software - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

• 6 things Evernote does that Microsoft OneNote can't

  Consumers tend to stick with what works for them. The more time and money they invest in a product or service, the less likely they are to venture out and try competing products.

• SharePoint 2016: What do we know?

  At this past spring's Ignite -- Microsoft's new one-stop software conference that combined all of the other domestic technical events into one giant pot of soup -- the software giant revealed some interesting details about SharePoint 2016, the next release of the on-premises version of its collaboration and Office development platform.

• Haven't migrated from Windows Server 2003 yet? You're not alone

  Millions of CIOs are set to miss the July 14 deadline to migrate away from Windows Server 2003, despite the huge risks to their companies.

• IoT analytics brings new levels of innovation to new product development

  Studies show that around 40% of products fail. But what if product designers could understand what features are most and least popular, which components tend to fail sooner than others, and how customers actually use products versus how designers think they use them? And, what if product developers could then utilize these insights to develop products that perform better, potentially cost less and, most importantly, are aligned with actual customer needs?

• Windows 10 fragmentation? What fragmentation?

  Microsoft's Windows 10 will not have a fragmentation problem, analysts argued, even though its rapid development tempo and a host of update cadences will spin off so many versions that not everyone will be running the same code, or even have the same features, at any one time.

• Why Apple rules UX, its native iOS apps suck, and that's OK

  Every iPhone Apple sells today ships with 32 native applications but few, if any, are considered best in class. It may seem like Apple has lost its edge on mobile apps and software design, but the company's primary mission to sell hardware certainly hasn't suffered as a result. Indeed, the Apple experience -- a polished user interface married with premium hardware -- is as much about looks as functionality, and the technology ecosystem Apple has built continues to grow and mature.

• Is Windows Nano Server a data center game-changer?

  Back in April, Microsoft somewhat quietly previewed what its Windows Server engineering teams had been working on for quite some time. While it would be easy to write it off as just another iteration in a long line of never-ending releases, Windows Nano Server has the potential to reinvent your data center.

• Are you over-testing your software?

  Release candidate testing takes too long.

• How Office 365 balances IT control with user satisfaction

  At the end of 2014, Microsoft bought Acompli, creators of a popular email app that it quickly rebranded as Outlook. The familiar name doubtless drew in more users, but it also gave IT teams a set of expectations about the security and management options a product called Outlook would have.

• 3 steps to digitizing your work for maximum productivity

  From the earliest days as a marketing slogan, the elusive concept of the so-called paperless office may finally be taking shape, if anecdotal evidence is anything to go by. A growing number of small businesses and startups, unencumbered by legacy processes, are quietly ditching printouts for an all-digital ecosystem, buoyed by soaring BYOD ownership and growing familiarity with a plethora of cloud services.

• Inside Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group

  "Epic" was the word Regina Dugan used to describe her team's research and development projects that included enlisting "Fast and Furious" movie franchise director Justin Lin to help create the next-generation movie experience. Dugan, vice president of Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, delighted thousands of developers in May at Google's annual I/O conference as she orchestrated demonstrations of applied technologies that seemed to originate from just over the horizon of most humans' imaginations.

• An IT view of Google Docs vs. Microsoft Word Online

  Traditional document applications are still among many workers' core computing apps, but the cloud-based Google for Work and Microsoft's Office 365 suites facilitate more collaborative, real-time workflows. The differences between Google Docs and Word Online are sometimes indiscernible, but for the millions of people who spend hours with the platforms each week, small variances can be a big deal.

• Can LibreOffice successfully compete with Microsoft Office?

  It's hard to imagine an open source project more likely to fail than one that attempts to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft's Office productivity suite.

• When it comes to mobile apps, IT is ‘slow, poor and weak'

  When 80 percent of employees say mobile technology is critical for getting their job done, but the same number say they haven't asked their IT department for the apps they need because they don't think they'd get what they need, that's a sure sign of trouble.

• What does the future hold for Microsoft Dynamics?

  Alongside the news that the Microsoft teams that make devices like Surface and Surface Hub will now be in the same division that makes the operating system on which they run, Microsoft's latest reorg moves Dynamics to the Cloud & Enterprise group (Microsoft Dynamics is the company's line of ERP and CRM applications). That shifts it from the Applications & Services division that builds productivity products and cloud services like Office 365, and puts it alongside Azure, SQL Server, Intune, Power BI, Visual Studio and BizTalk.