Category: Tech

Boost your Cloud Skills at the Microsoft Cloud Summer Camp in Mauritius

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — July 30, 2017: Microsoft Gulf has announced the launch of its Cloud Summer Camp, that will take place in Mauritius this August. The initiative is part of the Microsoft Cloud society, a unique program that gives IT Pros an opportunity to advance their technical acumen and become world-class experts in the space of cloud computing. 

Interested candidates can now avail the chance to win a spot in the Cloud Summer Camp and fly to Mauritius this August by registering on Microsoft Cloud Society and completing any of the available Azure Skillscourses in the month of July; or alternatively by attending more than 4 Azure sessions on TeachMeNow.

Upon achievement of these courses, participants can publish a copy of completion certificate on their personal LinkedIn page with hash-tag #MSCloudSociety and share the link of this post on the Microsoft Gulf IT Pro page.Winners amongst eligible participants will be selected based on the highest number of endorsements achieved on LinkedIn in “Cloud Computing”.

Names of confirmed winners will be posted online on Microsoft’s IT Pro Facebook page. 

So, whether you’re new to Azure or already a cloud professional; come jump start your skills with the most up-to-date training on Microsoft Azure in a concise, intensive and real-time environment. For more details on Cloud Summer Camp visit here.

Microsoft, ADSIC raise Cybersecurity Awareness in the UAE

08 May 2017, Abu Dhabi – Microsoft and the Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Center (ADSIC), have teamed up to host a series of digital transformation workshops geared towards increasing awareness about the importance of digital technology and the immense impact it can have in the public sector. The workshops will focus on government workforce digital transformation readiness and building effective and sustainable digital strategies across all Abu Dhabi Government entities.

The first workshop of the series, titled Empowering Digital Government: Cyber Security took place last month at the Beach Rotana Hotel, Abu Dhabi with the participation of more than 20 government entities and 50 executives and employees, in addition to a select group of digital transformation specialists. The sessions took a significant step towards enhancing awareness on Cyber security threats and how users can safeguard against malicious content in the digital world. The full day event provided insights into the current security landscape and featured demos as well as discussions on Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise, Microsoft Enterprise Mobility and Security and Microsoft Office 365 Security features such as Advanced Threat Protection and Data Loss Prevention. Microsoft Cyber Security experts addressed best practices, frameworks and the importance of an advanced security strategy for the digital age that can proactively safeguard public sector organizations without limiting the productivity of their employees.

Mr. Said Al Mansouri, Executive Director of Shared Government Services at ADSIC said, “As the entity in charge of developing the local ICT sector, ADSIC places great strategic emphasis on protecting the assets and data of our partners from the government sector and end-users of the digital solutions that we either directly provide or oversee.”

Al Mansouri added, “Our collaboration with Microsoft and other leading ICT experts from the private sector assists us in achieving our mandate, while creating notable awareness on advanced security best practises.”

According to a Microsoft research, the number of attempted cyber-attacks over a week rose 600,000 in the past three of years. These figures clearly point towards a need for implementation of strict security measures with organisations. The company’s ongoing strategy builds on it’s intelligent security portfolio that safeguards organization with protection of all endpoints, detection of threats before they happen and faster response with informed security analytics and machine learning.

The partnership between Microsoft and the Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Center (ADSIC) is set to continue with the joint goal of empowering the productivity of government employees and ensuring the consistent delivery of enhanced and personalized citizen experiences through operational optimization and transformation of services and products. More workshops in the series, focused on Microsoft Azure Public Cloud Security and Datacenter Management, are planned to be held later this year.

Microsoft unveils cross-platform power of Visual Studio 2017 to regional developers

9th April 2017; Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Microsoft introduced the very latest in application development tools to the region’s software professionals, as it launched Visual Studio 2017 during an exclusive event at VOX Cinemas, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai.

The company is celebrating 20 years of Visual Studio’s integrated development environment (IDE), a suite that allows coders to build enterprise-grade solutions for their platform of choice, using their language of choice. At the event, Microsoft demonstrated the vast range of new features in Visual Studio 2017, which make the latest version an IDE for any developer and any OS. Attendees were then invited to join the Microsoft team for a special screening of Kong: Skull Island.

“We are committed to provide developers with a versatile toolkit that stands apart in the industry,” said Michael Mansour, Chief Innovation Officer, Microsoft Gulf. “Visual Studio 2017 gives programmers the depth and breadth of capabilities they need to build meaningful solutions for their organisations. This is a cross-device, language-neutral, multi-platform IDE that provides tools spanning the DevOps process, from conception, through every stage of testing, to application deployment.”

Visual Studio 2017 covers more developer activities than ever before, with the latest features focused on enhanced productivity, refined fundamentals, streamlined Azure development, and best-in-class mobile development.

Enhanced productivity: Visual Studio 2017 carries enhanced code navigation; improved IntelliSense; streamlined refactoring, code-fixing and debugging capabilities; and other time-saving measures on everyday tasks, regardless of language or platform. In addition, for teams embracing DevOps, Visual Studio 2017 streamlines the developer inner loop and speeds up code flow with brand new real-time features, such as live unit-testing and live dependency validation.
Refined fundamentals: Visual Studio 2017 speeds up execution of day-to-day development tasks. A new lightweight, modular installation allows coders to install only those tools they require; a faster IDE optimises work, from start-up to shut down; and new ways to view, edit, and debug code without the need for projects or solutions, allows programmers to focus on the big picture.

Streamlined Azure development: Built-in tools within Visual Studio 2017 provide comprehensive integration with the cross-platform .NET Core, Azure applications, services, Docker Containers and more. Visual Studio 2017 makes it easier than ever to configure, build, debug, package and deploy applications and services on Microsoft Azure, directly from within the IDE.

Best-in-class mobile development: Visual Studio 2017 now offers Xamarin, the common-language platform that makes it faster and easier than ever for developers to build, connect, and tune mobile apps for Android, iOS, and Windows. Developers can also choose to develop mobile apps with Apache Cordova or the Visual C++ cross-platform library. Whichever path a coder chooses, they have access to advanced debugging and profiling tools and unit-test generation features.

“Whether you are building for Web, standalone, mobile or cloud; whether you are building for healthcare, manufacturing, education or government – Visual Studio has you covered in every language, on every device and on every platform,” Mansour added.

Emaar announces sponsorship of Microsoft Imagine Cup UAE 2017

Global developer Emaar Properties today announced its sponsorship of the Microsoft UAE Imagine Cup 2017 student competition, which will hold its regional heats in April this year.

The partnership with Microsoft Gulf reflects Emaar’s focus on nurturing the next generation of talent, adopting innovating technologies and supporting the innovation environment of the UAE to bring far-reaching benefits to the nation.

The year-long Imagine Cup debuted in 2003 and remains the world’s largest student competition. This year the contest is no longer bound by categories, inviting viable technology solutions of every type, from every field. The only requirements for participating teams are that their submitted solutions can run on the Azure cloud and demonstrate the potential for digital transformation.

Imagine Cup 2017 starts with local and online contests held in more than 100 countries, with expert judging panels selecting the most promising ideas. Successful teams will then embark on an all-expenses-paid trip to the World Finals, where the winner takes away a $100,000 cash prize.

Veresh Sita, Chief Digital Officer for Emaar Properties, said: “Nurturing the next generation is a strategic priority at Emaar, which ensures that we are the cutting edge of technology and in creating long-term value for our company and to the community. Through our support to Microsoft on UAE Imagine Cup 2017, we are encouraging new and talent innovators, who will bring us the next advancements in technology.”

Microsoft will conduct an Imagine Cup roadshow in February and March, making stops at leading UAE universities. The presentations are expected to create awareness among students and encourage participation in the competition; with ideas that will fuel UAE’s vision for smart cities. Interested students will be able to attend intensive training sessions to prepare them for how to submit their ideas. The sessions will cover contest rules and criteria, and walk competitors through the processes of conceptualisation, design, development and testing, which help lead to the most viable solutions. The cash prize awards for this year’s competition will be; $15,000 for first, $10,000 for second, and $7,000 for third place winners.

“The premise of the Imagine Cup is that many technology platforms now taken for granted began as student projects,” said Samer Abu Ltaif, Regional General Manager, Microsoft Gulf. “Microsoft YouthSpark initiative, of which Imagine Cup is a part, was founded to seek out the brightest innovators on the planet, nurture them, and help them achieve more. It is a value we share with Emaar, and that is why it is so exciting to partner with them on UAE Imagine Cup 2017.”

The Microsoft YouthSpark initiative, including Imagine Cup, is designed to create an avenue for young entrepreneurs and innovators in bringing their ideas to market. Programmes help students to harness their creativity, generate ideas, collaborate on technology applications and develop clear business plans, using the latest tools and services.

The Imagine Cup in UAE is expected to reach over 5,000 students via online campaigns and offline roadshows in universities across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah. The Pan-Arab Finals 2017 will be held in April, with worldwide finals in July.

Etisalat Introduces iPhone Upgrade Program In The UAE

iPhone Upgrade Program UAE

When Apple introduced the iPhone upgrade program last year, many people weren’t that impressed with it. But then this year when Apple announced the iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus and announced the members of the upgrade program would get it for free, many people regretted not subscribing to it. Then Apple announced that they’re expanding the program to more countries. Hopes mounted up again and went down instantly when the expansion was only to two countries the UK and China.

Lucky for the people of UAE, the biggest carrier in the country has announced the program exclusively to its customers. And the best part is that the program comes for free. That’s right!!

All you need to do is subscribe one of Etisalat’s 18 month or 24 month contract with the new iPhone 7 or 7 Plus and then receive a new iPhone absolutely for free after 12 months. This means the next iPhone comes to you for free when you complete 12 months in your contract. Check out the plans below from Etisalat.

Smartpay Offer

Postpaid Offers

Prepaid & Standalone Offer

Starting from 10th of October 2016, customers who purchased iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus on 18 or 24 month contract and completed the initial 12 months contract period, will be eligible to subscribe to “iPhone for Life Program” and enjoy a free upgrade to iPhone 7. So everybody is a winner.

Recall: Your Galaxy Note 7 May Be Waterproof But Not Blast Proof

Samsung’s latest addition to the Galaxy series the Note 7 have been receiving a lot of exploding reviews online. That being said, some of the new Note 7s have been exploding in many places. Samsung has identified this issue as battery fault and has released an official recall. All the devices will be replaced for free in the coming weeks. If you haven’t already bought one, you may have to wait a couple of weeks until they officially continue to sell the devices again. Meanwhile, read the official statement from Samsung below.

Samsung is committed to producing the highest quality products and we take every incident report from our valued customers very seriously. In response to recently reported cases of the new Galaxy Note7, we conducted a thorough investigation and found a battery cell issue.

To date (as of September 1) there have been 35 cases that have been reported globally and we are currently conducting a thorough inspection with our suppliers to identify possible affected batteries in the market. However, because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7.

For customers who already have Galaxy Note7 devices, we will voluntarily replace their current device with a new one over the coming weeks.

We acknowledge the inconvenience this may cause in the market but this is to ensure that Samsung continues to deliver the highest quality products to our customers. We are working closely with our partners to ensure the replacement experience is as convenient and efficient as possible.

iPhone 7 To Be Announced On September 7th

After numerous rumors and speculations on the iPhone launch event, Apple has finally sent out the invitation for the next generation iPhone. This will be Apple’s tenth iPhone since its launch in 2007. Arguably the iPhone SE could be considered as a new iPhone, but we all know it isn’t. The new iPhone is expected to have a dual camera, a new battery and should be able to accompany you to the beach for some splashing photos. If the rumors are right, the new iPhone will also be waterproof and presumably dustproof too.

If you’re a loyal Apple fan, you know that its time to stop going behind the rumors now. It’s time to get your shiny credit cards ready for the pre-order. If Apple follows their usual trend, pre-orders should be available on 9th and iPhone should be shipped to customers the week after. So, which iPhone are you going for this time?

Microsoft Azure named leader in Gartner’s IaaS Magic Quadrant for third year running

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — August 17, 2016. Gartner has identified Microsoft Azure as a leader in the analyst firm’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), for the third year in a row, with the company placed favorably based on both completeness of vision and ability to execute.

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant analysis series has long been regarded as a decision-makers’ touchstone for determining the quality of both strategy and delivery for market players. Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform enables the creation of virtual networks, servers and machines, and supports multitenant storage, object storage and a robust content delivery network for both Microsoft`s and other vendor solutions. In addition, the Azure Marketplace offers third-party partners the ability to use the power and flexibility of the cloud to sell their own software and services. Azure also provides advanced services such as machine learning and Internet of things.

The Azure infrastructure is built on software that has security integrated from the ground up, and all data, whether at rest or in transit, is strongly encrypted. All of these offerings are supported by a leading-edge Cyber Defense Operations Centre that monitors customer infrastructure around the clock.

“We are, of course, thrilled and honoured that Microsoft Azure named a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader for the third year in a row,” said Necip Ozyucel, Cloud and Enterprise Business Solutions Lead, Microsoft Gulf. “The cloud remains a powerful tool for business and public-sector innovation and we are always focused on bringing the very best technologies to bear, so that our customers can get creative without having to consider the unwieldy logistics of growing their network or upgrading hardware and software. Microsoft Azure is open, flexible and enterprise platform that we believe strong enabler for businesses growth and competitiveness”

Gartner’s announcement comes at a time when the Gulf region is taking strident steps towards cloud infrastructure adoption. Saudi Arabia plans to invest $2 trillion in IT projects in the coming years, with a significant portion to be invested in cloud. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates will see a gradual growth in IT spend from now until 2020, according to a report from BMI Research. A compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.4% will inflate the sector to $5.3 billion by the end of this period, with service revenue taking $2.2 billion. An accompanying decline in hardware sales together with BMI’s prediction that SaaS will take an increasing share of software sales, strongly indicates a decisive shift to cloud for the country.

When Microsoft announced the G series of virtual machines, back in Q1 of 2015, it represented the most memory, highest processing power and the largest local SSD capacity of any VMs then available in the public cloud. The G series, has allowed Azure to lead the market with continued innovation supporting SAP HANA workloads up to 32 TB. Azure also has industry-wide recognition for its support of Linux and other open-source technologies having nearly one third of all Azure VMs on Linux boxes.

Gartner’s report singled out Microsoft’s “rapid rollout” of these new features and many others, signaling that the company’s brand and history, both with its customers and with its delivery of enterprise-class solutions and services, had all combined to allow the company to “rapidly attain the status of strategic cloud IaaS provider”.

“Microsoft Azure encompasses integrated IaaS and PaaS components that operate and feel like a unified whole,” Gartner analysts wrote. “Microsoft has been rapidly rolling out new features and services, including differentiated capabilities. It has a vision of infrastructure and platform services that are not only leading standalone offerings, but also seamlessly extend and interoperate with on-premises Microsoft infrastructure (rooted in Hyper-V, Windows Server, Active Directory and System Center), development tools (including Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server [TFS]), middleware and applications, as well as Microsoft’s SaaS offerings.”

Gartner’s analysts also cited Microsoft’s “deep investments” in engineering and “innovative roadmap” as crucial factors in the company’s current IaaS market standing. The report further recommends Microsoft Azure for General business applications and development environments that use Microsoft technologies; migration of virtualized workloads for Microsoft-centric organizations; cloud-native applications (including Internet of Things applications); and batch computing.

Microsoft To Buy LinkedIn For $26.2 Billion

Microsoft has agreed to acquire LinkedIn the largest professional network for a whopping $26.2 billion. This makes it ones of the biggest tech acquisitions in the history.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said this acquisition aims to bridge the gap between the Microsoft tools people use to get a job done such as the Office with the tools that helps professionals connect with each other. This opens up a lot of possibilities like you can already connect to the person you’re meeting with. See what they do and if you use Microsoft Dynamics for managing customer relationships, then this gets even better as you have access to the LinkedIn data.

Its exciting to see this merger. Lets see what comes out of this in the coming months.