Microsoft admits reading Hotmail inbox of blogger. 21 March 2014Last updated at 00:38 ET Microsoft started an investigation after details of its new Windows 8 operating system were released early Microsoft is caught up in a privacy storm after it admitted it read the Hotmail inbox of a blogger while pursuing a software leak investigation.
On Thursday, the firm acknowledged it read the anonymous blogger's emails in order to identify an employee it suspected of leaking information. Microsoft owns Hotmail, a free email service now called Outlook.com. John Frank, deputy general counsel for Microsoft, said it took "extraordinary actions in this case". While the search was technically legal, he added Microsoft would consult outside counsel in the future. Legal actions. Lawyers coming out of the clouds. Microsoft's cloud principal program manager said 90 per cent of the cloud discussions now covered potential security breaches and service outages.
Companies are engaging lawyers to decide whether the promised savings and efficiencies of cloud computing outweigh the security risks. According to Microsoft's cloud principal program manager, Jeff Woolsey, who was in Australia last week to spruik the new Windows Server 2012 at the company's annual TechEd event on the Gold Coast, businesses have gone past initial doubts surrounding cloud adoption. Cloud computing describes third-party computing resources that can be scaled up and down as needs change. Businesses use them to supplement or replace in-house systems. Mostly a pay-as-you-use model predicated on big savings, its uptake has been impeded by questions about data sovereignty and security.
Advertisement ''[Customers want to] understand how much or how little risk it is, or if it's even a concern,'' he said. Microsoft plans large expansion in China to push cloud services. News By Michael Kan September 6, 2012 02:01 AM ET IDG News Service - To benefit from a growing Chinese market, Microsoft on Thursday said it is increasing its investment in the country, with new hires, more research for local requirements, and an expansion to additional cities and provinces to bring cloud computing services to its enterprise customers.
Microsoft's so-called "go big" strategy for China, includes hiring 1,000 additional employees over the fiscal year, that will work in research, enterprise services, and support for the company. The company has about 4,500 employees in the country. The company also plans to increase its research and development investment in China next year, bringing it up by 15% from the current annual amount of $500 million. As part of the overall strategy, the company will expand its presence in 15 provinces and 20 cities in China by bolstering its staff and management and working with local government offices. Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Windows Server 2012 : Microsoft déballe son "OS cloud par essence" Microsoft annonce la disponibilité générale de Windows Server 2012.
L’OS serveur est décliné en quatre versions : « Datacenter » et « Standard » pour les grandes entreprises (disponibles dès aujourd’hui), « Essentials » et « Foundation » pour les PME (attendues à la fin de l’année). Microsoft’s user agreement update lets it share your data across all cloud services. Microsoft’s new service agreement gives the company the ability to share a user’s data with all of its cloud-based services.
The new service agreement change, which the company issued to users in an email Friday, basically throws out the company’s previous policy of letting users choose how their data is used for each service. The change is similar to what Google is already doing with its Google+ initiative, which treats all Google services as if it was one. So what does this actually mean for users and their privacy? My guess is that most people probably won’t notice much of a difference, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t impact your privacy rights. Essentially, this change to the service agreement will mean that Microsoft can now use data from your Outlook/Hotmail, SkyDrive, or Office account and use it in conjunction with other online service like the Bing search engine. Does the idea of Microsoft sharing your data across services bother you?
Via The Verge. Microsoft: New server OS needed for cloud era. The increasing adoption of cloud computing, which has led to the growing deluge of data, devices and apps, calls for a new server operating system (OS) that is designed for the cloud in order for companies to realize the true benefits of scalability, agility and availability, said Microsoft executives.
Michael Park, corporate vice president for Windows Server and Microsoft's management marketing group, told ZDNet Asia in an interview Tuesday that the role of the sever OS is expanding, driven by the exponential growth of data, devices and apps as well as cloud computing. "In the past it's been about managing hardware and platforms, but there's a new role for the OS in the era of cloud which has dealt IT a level of scale that most people hadn't thought about before," Park said.
He noted that most companies' server rooms are seldom homogenous and just as many workloads will be housed on premise as they are hosted on public cloud services.