Weekly #WhyMSFT Round-Up 7/15/2011

Each week, we round up industry news and articles that you might have missed. Enjoy this week’s selections.

The Microsoft Advantage

Microsoft Challenges Competition with New Phones, Windows 8 Preview
In the second day of its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft reveals new “Mango” handsets from Samsung and others... Attendees were treated a few more details concerning Windows 8, which was officially unveiled on June 1st. Reller reiterated, as we’ve heard before, that the OS is designed to work with both touch tablets and keyboard and mouse. But Reller also confirmed that Windows 8 would have “the same [system] requirements or lower” than Windows 7.

Irish Students Win at Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition
Team Hermes won the $25,000 Software Design prize at the Imagine Cup finals, held in New York. The students wrote software to reduce driving deaths. The winning program used technology on Windows Phone, the Azure cloud platform and Bing Maps.

Microsoft’s Vision for Cloud Computing— Video Interview with Mark Russinovich
Paul Thurrott interviewed Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich about Microsoft’s vision for cloud computing. Mark discussed the role of Windows Azure, the various cloud offerings such as Platform as a Service, the role of the public cloud and the private cloud, on-premises versus hosted implementations, and the Windows Azure Platform Appliance (WAPA).

Office 365 News

Microsoft Office 365: The Final Frontier
We all remember when Microsoft stunned investors by agreeing to pay $8.5 billion for Skype back in May. Well it seems Microsoft has big plans for the VoIP platform with Office 365. For now, Microsoft claims that Skype and Lync Communication tools will remain separately but closely tied. This would mean that Office users could seamlessly integrate their existing data.

Office 365 Review: Should Your Business Use It?
With Office 365, you can do everything from instant messaging and online meetings to email migration and website development. It’s essentially a virtual office to where files can be shared, projects can be started, and content can be created for the company website or blog. The great thing about Office 365 is it comes with all the Office programs you already know and trust: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote etc.

Do you have a blog post or article you want to see in next week's round-up? Tweet a link to us at @whymicrosoft or post it in the comments below!