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☆ Microsoft's Surface Pro is fine, but it isn't the AI device to change personal computing
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-04 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Among the first of the devices — called Copilot+ PCs — to hit the market is a Surface Pro convertible tablet. If you join video calls, you can open the Settings app on the Surface Pro Copilot+ PC and turn on an option called Eye Contact. A standard Surface Pro Keyboard that magnetically snaps onto the bottom of the Surface Pro sells for $139.99, and if you'd also like a model with Microsoft's Slim Pen stylus, you'll pay $279.99. I didn't find the accessory to be a big upgrade from the good old Surface Pro Keyboard. Jordan Novet | CNBCWhat's badThe biggest AI feature coming to this new Surface Pro and other Copilot+ PCs isn't available yet.

Persons: Jordan Novet, I've, you'll, Apple, NPU, Microsoft's Copilot, you'd, Slim Organizations: CNBC, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple, Google, Windows, AMD, Copilot, MacBook, Bluetooth

☆ Microsoft earnings are coming up. Here’s what traders are looking for in the report
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Jesse Pound | In Jesse-Pound | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Investors will be looking to see if Microsoft's report can restart the rally, but the bar for success might be high. The AI narrative Microsoft is viewed as one of the companies best-positioned to take advantage of recent advances in artificial intelligence. Another area is Copilot , the AI tool that Microsoft is packaging with its Office suite of software products. "That said, we expect AI contribution to Azure growth to increase w/ our checks pointing to strong demand for Azure AI services & elevated workloads as more models go into production. Wall Street is overwhelmingly positive on the stock, with more than 90% of the analysts covering Microsoft giving it a rating of "buy" or "strong buy," according to LSEG.

Persons: Jefferies, Brent Thill, MSFT's, LSEG, Brad Reback, Reback, MSFT, Guggenheim, John DiFucci, DiFucci, — CNBC's Michael Bloom Organizations: Microsoft, Investors, Wall Street Locations: MSFT, F4Q

A significant chunk of that money was strategic, in that it came from tech companies rather than venture capitalists or other institutions. The company has refocused much of its product development on generative AI, and its newly rebranded Gemini model, adding features into search, documents, maps and elsewhere. Alphabet and Nvidia are also investors in Runway ML, a generative AI company known for its video-editing and visual effects tools. Microsoft has invested in many of the techniques underpinning generative AI through its Microsoft Research division. Apple researchers recently published details of their work on MM1, a family of small AI models that can take both text and visual input.

Persons: Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Justin Sullivan, Claude, Fred Havemeyer, Havemeyer, that's, Anthropic, Gemini Ai, Michael M, It's, Amy Hood, dealmaking Daniel Newman, Mustafa Suleyman, Newman, Lina Khan Organizations: Getty, Getty Images Tech, aren't, GPT, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Nvidia, Google, Web Services, Amazon, Santiago, AMD, Runway ML, Mistral, Big Tech, Microsoft Research, Baidu, Futurum, Anthropic, Federal Trade Commission Locations: San Francisco, Macquarie, Anthropic, New York City, Mistral, U.S, China

That's Wall Street's reaction to quarterly results on Tuesday from Alphabet and Microsoft . Both companies reported revenue and earnings that exceeded estimates, yet the stocks sold off in extended trading. Alphabet on Tuesday reported 13% revenue growth, the fastest rate of expansion since early 2022. Revenue at Microsoft increased 18% to $62.02 billion, topping the $61.12 billion average analyst estimate. Both companies also beat expectations in their cloud businesses, with Google Cloud reporting 25% growth and Microsoft's larger Azure and other cloud services expanding by 30%.

Persons: Sundar Pichai Organizations: Americas, U.S . Chamber, Commerce, Microsoft, Apple, Google Locations: Los Angeles , California

The startup's newly appointed interim head moved quickly to dismiss speculation that OpenAI's board ousted Altman due to a spat over the safety of powerful AI models. It was not clear why Murati had stepped down as interim CEO. [1/4]Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023. Some of those joining Altman at Microsoft include senior researchers Szymon Sidor and Jakub Pachocki, according to Brockman. Microsoft had supported a return by Altman to the startup, according to sources, a move that seemed likely only hours prior to Monday's announcements.

Persons: OpenAI, Emmett Shear, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI's, Altman, Shear, Ilya Sutskever, we've, Sutskever, Mira Murati, reinstates Altman, Brockman, Bret Taylor, Will Hurd, Murati, Carlos Barria, Richard Windsor, Satya Nadella, Szymon Sidor, Jakub Pachocki, Russ Mould, AJ Bell, Nadella, Jeffry Dastin, Anna Tong, Krystal Hu, Akash Sriram, Aditya Soni, Urvi, Shubham, Stephanie Kelly, Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Miyoung Kim, Sam Holmes, Susan Fenton, Chizu Nomiyama, Anil D'Silva Organizations: Microsoft, FRANCISCO, Google, OpenAI, Reuters, Economic Cooperation, REUTERS, Radio Free Mobile, Thomson Locations: OpenAI, Texas, Asia, San Francisco , California, U.S, San Franciso, New York, Bengaluru

☆ Who's on the OpenAI board — the group behind Sam Altman's ouster
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

On Friday, the board of OpenAI, the buzzy AI company behind viral chatbot ChatGPT, suddenly and publicly ousted its CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI's board said it conducted "a deliberative review process" and that Altman "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities." She is an adjunct senior management scientist at Rand Corporation and has been on the OpenAI board since 2018. "While our partnership with Microsoft includes a multibillion-dollar investment, OpenAI remains an entirely independent company governed by the OpenAI Nonprofit," OpenAI has publicly stated. On that day, Altman told Nadella, "I think we have the best partnership in tech and I'm excited for us to build AGI together."

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, OpenAI, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Adam D'Angelo, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner, Reid Hoffman, Neuralink, Zilis, Will Hurd, Brockman, Sam, Sutskever, he's, D'Angelo, McCauley, Toner, Andreessen Horowitz, AGI, weren't, Mira Murati, OpenAI's Dev, Satya Nadella, Nadella, Dev, Brad Lightcap Organizations: Thursday's APEC, Summit, Google, Facebook, OpenAI, GeoSim Systems, Rand Corporation, University of Oxford's Center, Georgetown's Center for Security, Emerging Technology, Sequoia Capital, Microsoft, CNBC, Fortune Locations: Texas, OpenAI

☆ Amazon's $1 billion cloud deal with Microsoft includes 550,000 licenses for corporate employees and 1 million for warehouse workers
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon's multiyear commitment to use Microsoft 365 includes more than 1.5 million license seats across different tiers of Microsoft's cloud-based productivity suite, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal. The pact includes around 550,000 seats of Microsoft's M365 E5 product for corporate workers and 1 million seats of M365 F5 for frontline staff such as fulfillment center employees, the person said. A person familiar with Amazon's operations said the company stayed off of the cloud version of Microsoft's 365 products because they didn't previously want to save anything on a competitor's cloud. F5 is an upgraded version of Microsoft's M365 product for frontline workers. M365 F5 starts at $8 per user per month, which would be $480 million for all 1 million licenses over 5 years.

Persons: Amazon's, It's Organizations: Microsoft, Amazon

☆ Top Wall Street analysts are banking on these stocks for solid returns
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-06 | by ( Tipranks.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

In this article GMMSFTSPOTMETADPZ Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNTThe Spotify logo on the New York Stock Exchange, April 3, 2018. Here are five stocks chosen by Wall Street's top analysts, according to TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their past performance. Domino's PizzaMeta PlatformsNext up is Meta Platforms (META). Nonetheless, Goldman Sachs analyst Kash Rangan, who ranks 459th among more than 8,500 analysts tracked on TipRanks, remains bullish on MSFT stock. However, he observed that historically, whenever Microsoft increased its capital expenditure in the cloud market, Azure growth rate shot up meaningfully and margins rebounded, driving the stock price higher.

Persons: Lucas Jackson, Wall, Brian White, White, Goldman Sachs, Kash Rangan, Rangan Organizations: GM, New York Stock Exchange, Reuters, Meta, TipRanks, Spotify, Microsoft, General

☆ CNBC Daily Open: The long-awaited recession might not arrive
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Yeo Boon Ping | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Waiting for earningsU.S. stocks made slight gains Monday, but trading volume was lower than average as investors braced for second-quarter earning. Merger bonanzaWarren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reduced its stake in Activision Blizzard from 6.7% last year to 1.9% yesterday, according to a securities filing released Monday. Buffett previously revealed Berkshire added to its initial Activision stake in a bet the deal would close and cause shares to rise.

Persons: Antonio Guterres, Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett, Jim Jordan, Mark Zuckerberg, Ed Yardeni Organizations: CNBC, Initiative, Activision Blizzard, Microsoft, Activision, Twitter, Yardeni Research Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Berkshire

☆ CNBC Daily Open: The long-awaited recession might not come
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Yeo Boon Ping | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Meanwhile, China's lackluster gross domestic product figures, released yesterday, prompted Wall Street to cut their expectations of China's annual growth to around 5%. Peak oil demandIndia imported 2.2 million barrels of Russian oil per day in June. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year and oil price caps were instituted, India has become one of the leading importers of Russian oil. Buffett previously revealed Berkshire added to its initial Activision stake in a bet the deal would close and cause shares to rise.

Persons: Hong, Hong Hao, Viktor Katona, Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett, Bitcoin, bitcoin Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, CNBC, Grow Investment, Activision Blizzard, Microsoft, Activision, BlackRock Locations: New York City, Asia, Pacific, India, Russia, Ukraine, Berkshire

☆ Microsoft opens up Bing access and adds chat history and export features
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft said Thursday that it's dispensing with the waiting list it has had in place for the past three months for its revamped Bing search engine, allowing anyone with a Microsoft account to use it. Kumar said the company will provide more details on how developers can build for the Bing chatbot at its Microsoft Build developer conference, which starts on May 23. That means Google has yet to allow people to use the Bing chatbot from Google's dominant Chrome browser. Microsoft includes Edge in its Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems, and the default search engine in Edge is Bing. may ruin Alphabet's only real business: Google Search, says CIC Wealth's Malcolm Ethridge

☆ Leaked email shows Google engineering head Urs Hölzle's plan for increased efficiency, starting with rebalancing the different types of engineers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Rosalie Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Google will be focusing on efficiency this year "given the economic environment," engineering senior vice president Urs Hölzle told technical infrastructure teams. Additionally, the team will aim to use automation to reduce the ratio of site reliability engineers to software engineers to less than 5%. Site reliability engineers manage the operations of Google's systems and keep them running, while software engineers work on developing Google's infrastructure and products. Besides efficiency, Google's technical infrastructure teams plan to focus on reliability, infrastructure innovation, security of infrastructure and data, climate and sustainability, and effectiveness. Below are more details on what Google's technical infrastructure teams plan to focus on:Theme #1: EfficiencyHölzle said that the team should focus on technical efficiency.

☆ ChatGPT, other AI models to disrupt Indian IT firms - JPM
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 10 (Reuters) - Generative AI models such as ChatGPT will slow down market share gains and deflate pricing for Indian IT companies in the short term, analysts at J.P.Morgan said on Friday. As generative AI is implemented more broadly, consulting firms like Accenture and Deloitte and will gain market share over Indian IT firms like Infosys Ltd (INFY.NS) and Wipro Ltd (WIPR.NS) in the near term, analysts at the brokerage said in a note to clients. Generative AI can be a "deflation driver" in the near term on legacy services as they compete on pricing, necessitate staff retraining and drive loss of competitiveness, they added. Since then, other large tech companies like Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and China's Baidu Inc (9888.HK) have rushed to announce their own in-house developments of generative AI. JPM said that among Indian IT companies, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS.NS) might retrain staff faster than smaller peers due to their better graduate hiring and training infrastructure.

☆ Microsoft CEO Nadella calls AI-powered search biggest thing for company since cloud 15 years ago
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on Tuesday that search powered by artificial intelligence is the biggest thing to happen to his company in the nine years he's been at the helm. "I have not seen something like this since I would say 2007-2008, when the cloud was just first coming out," Nadella told CNBC's Jon Fortt in an interview. Microsoft invited reporters to its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, for an event that centered around new AI-powered updates to the company's Bing search engine and Edge browser. Nadella said search is a very profitable business, so these developments reflect a big opportunity for Microsoft. Microsoft's event Tuesday follows the company's January announcement regarding a multibillion-dollar investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

☆ Tech stocks lead a Wall Street rally on week's final trading day — listen to 'The Homestretch'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

THAT'S WHEN, REMEMBER, THE FEDWAS SAYING THAT INFLATION WASTRANSITORY OVER A YEAR AGO, ITWAS THE MARKET THAT SNIFFED THATOUT FIRST. THEN MICROSOFT, I THINK IT ISREACTING VERY WELL TO THE FACTTHAT IT DID LAYOFF THOSE PEOPLEINITIALLY. THEY WILL BE HIGHER AND THATMAKES THE STOCK LOOK CHEAPERTHAN WHAT IT WAS, SAY, AT THESTART OF THE YEAR. I THINK THE STOCK IS GOING TO200, SPLITTING INTO TWODIFFERENT DIVISIONS. >> LOOK, MICROSOFT IS A COMPANYTHAT I THINK, AS I SAID INYESTERDAY'S MEETING, THE CLASSICTECH THAT GOES UP IF THE FEDSTARTS TIGHTENING AND ONE DAYTHE FED WILL, INDEED, STOPTIGHTENING.

☆ BC Partners to acquire account-based marketing firm Madison Logic
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Chibuike Oguh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Private equity firm BC Partners said on Thursday it has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Madison Logic, a provider of business-to-business digital marketing services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter told Reuters the transaction valued Madison Logic at about $750 million. BC Partners is acquiring Madison Logic from Clarion Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm that had acquired the company in 2016. Madison Logic helps businesses track and target enterprise customers with digital marketing to generate sales. Spending on business-to-business digital marketing constitutes a small but growing part of the nearly $300 billion U.S. digital advertising market.

☆ Microsoft buys stake in London Stock Exchange in cloud data deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

London CNN —Microsoft (MSFT) is buying a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange as part of a deal that will see the market operator spend at least $2.8 billion over 10 years on the software provider’s cloud services. Shares of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) gained 4% in early trade. The partnership “creates attractive revenue growth opportunities for both companies,” LSEG CEO David Schwimmer said in the statement. As part of the deal, the London Stock Exchange’s data platform and other technology infrastructure will migrate into Microsoft’s Azure cloud environment. As a start, the exchange will be able to share its data and analytics with Teams and Microsoft 365, which includes Excel and PowerPoint.

☆ A review of Microsoft's sexual harassment policies found it could have acted earlier to address executive misconduct alleged in Insider report
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft released results of what it said was an independent review of its sexual harassment policies. The review cites Insider's report about allegations of misconduct from "golden boy" executives whose value gave them impunity. Current and former Microsoft employees alleged Kipman repeatedly got away with inappropriate behavior toward women employees, including unwanted touching. Microsoft, according to ArentFox's report, provided the firm with records related to allegations of misconduct by Kipman and Keane from 2021 and earlier. The firm did not investigate the allegations, but reviewed the results of Microsoft's own investigations into the allegations and found the company could have addressed inappropriate conduct earlier.

☆ Leaked Microsoft org chart shows the 12 people running its big future bets, from quantum computing to government cloud services
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Microsoft last year created an division for the company's big bets, from quantum to government IT. An internal org chart viewed by Insider shows the 12 people in charge of these emerging businesses. The org chart was part of a presentation about the team's first growth strategy. An internal Microsoft org chart shows the 12 people in charge of Microsoft's emerging technologies and businesses. Also included in the org chart are legal, finance, marketing, and human resources executives an internal presentation lists as SMT "business partners."

☆ Корпорация Microsoft в 2022 году откажется от поддержки Internet Explorer
▼ + stars: | 2021-05-20 | by ( Mld Media Srl | ) noi.md time to read: +1 min

Корпорация Microsoft Inc. откажется от поддержки браузера Internet Explorer в пользу Edge. Реализовать это нововведение планируют к 15 апреля 2022 года, об этом сообщается в блоге на сайте компании. Так, Edge предлагает функцию, защищающую от фишинговых атак и вредоносных программ. Отмечается, что режим Internet Explorer будет встроен в Edge, что сделает его единственным браузером, поддерживающим как современные, так и устаревшие версии веб-страниц. Компания уже подготовила список указаний для предприятий, использующих Internet Explorer в качестве основного браузера.

Persons: 21H1 Organizations: Microsoft Inc, IE, Microsoft

☆ Microsoft încheie un contract de circa 22 de miliarde de dolari cu armata americană
▼ + stars: | 2021-04-02 | by ( ) www.jurnal.md time to read: +1 min

Sursa foto: ShutterstockMicrosoft încheie un contract de circa 22 de miliarde de dolari cu armata americanăGigantul tehnologic american Microsoft urmează să vândă căști de realitate augmentată armatei SUA, într-o afacere în valoare de până la 21,9 miliarde de dolari, pe parcursul a 10 ani, relatează BBC. HoloLens, folosit la scară largăHoloLens este disponibil comercial pentru 3.500 dolari, iar Microsoft îl vinde în primul rând companiilor, care adesea îl împerechează cu aplicații software personalizate. Firmele de arhitectură, spitalele, universitățile, producătorii de mașini și agenția spațială americană NASA se numără printre utilizatorii tehnologiei. În ultimii doi ani, Microsoft a lucrat cu armata SUA la faza de prototip a ceea ce se numește Sistemul Integrat de Augmentare Vizuală (IVAS), care este o versiune de nivel militar a HoloLens. Compania a spus că armata a trecut la faza de producție a proiectului.

Organizations: Microsoft, BBC, NASA Locations: SUA

Microsoft a lansat noi actualizări de securitate ale lunii ianuarie 2021. Au fost depistate 10 vulnerabilități ca fiind criticeMicrosoft a emis o nouă serie de actualizări pentru luna ianuarie 2021 care abordează un număr de 83 de vulnerabilități de securitate ce afectează diferite versiuni ale sistemului de operare Windows și ale software-ului aferent acestuia. Din totalul de 83 de vulnerabilități de securitate fixate, 10 sunt clasificate ca fiind critice și 73 – importante, informează Serviciul Tehnologia Informației și Securitate Cibernetică. Alte vulnerabilități remediate de Microsoft includ defecte de corupere a memoriei în browser-ul Microsoft Edge, o eroare a caracteristicii de securitate de bază pentru Windows Desktop Protocol, de asemenea o eroare de creștere a privilegiilor în API-ul GDI Print/Pnt Spooler (sptwow64.exe). Toate detaliile despre actualizările de securitate din această lună, care includ detaliile tehnice privind severitatea, impactul și descrierea acestora pot fi accesate aici.

Persons: Edge Organizations: Microsoft, Windows, Microsoft Office, NET Core, Securitate Cibernetică Locations: ChakraCore

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