Tag: Recent News

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Download free map and skin pack, The Travelling Trader, and Minecraft will donate to charity:water

“But hang on,” I hear you cry. “Does this mean I get a free llama skin? Also, what does this have to do with charity: water?” Well, to answer both your questions, you actually get two llama skins, and as soon as The Travelling Trader has been downloaded from the Minecraft Marketplace 100,000 times, we’ll make a new donation to charity: water of $90,000. That’ll bring us to $100,000 donated, which means ten water projects supported by Minecraft!

Charity: water estimates that the number of people impacted by a $100,000 donation is over 3,300. So all you have to do is download a great map and skin pack, and you’ll help us help a fantastic cause! Every time we call on you to do something like this, you always smash the target in an incredibly short amount of time, and once you’ve downloaded the map 100,000 times, we’ll share the great news on Twitter!

Head to the Minecraft Marketplace now and thank you for helping us help charity: water!

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Introducing the 2019 Imagine Cup Americas Regional Final judges

Our 12 recently announced Imagine Cup Americas Regional Finalists are advancing to the in-person Regional Final in just less than a week to compete for over USD20,000 in prizes and the last spot in the 2019 World Championship.

Student teams will travel to Seattle, Washington and present a live demo of their projects in front of a panel of four expert judges. Coming from varied backgrounds in technology, industry, and management, judges’ professional experience will allow them to evaluate if a team’s solution uses innovative technology and presents an original idea built on Azure.

Judges for each Regional Final have the opportunity to ask questions and review each project hands-on before ultimately deciding who will move forward. Each team is judged on the same criteria: project technology, innovation, feasibility to take to market, and concept. The Americas Regional winner will advance to compete against teams Caeli from Asia and Finderr from the UK at the 2019 World Championship at Microsoft Build on May 6. Follow the action live on Twitter and Instagram as our Americas regional finalists and judges head to Seattle!

Meet our Americas Regional Final Judges

ic19-donovan-brown-180x240-0e47e90e2591.png

Donovan Brown
Principal Cloud Advocate, Microsoft

Donovan Brown is the Principal DevOps Manager of the League. The League is a team of Cloud Developer Advocates, focusing on Azure and DevOps. Before joining Microsoft, Donovan spent seven years as a Process Consultant and a Certified Scrum Master. Donovan has traveled the globe helping companies develop solutions using agile practices in many industries. Donovan is an avid programmer, often finding ways to integrate software into his other hobbies and activities.

ic19-rebecca-lovell-180x240-084fc73dc7ef.jpg

Rebecca Lovell
Director at Create33

Mission-driven leader with over 20 years of operating and management experience in public and private sectors, within for-profit and non-profit organizations. Experienced in strategy and program development and implementation, mentorship, and team-building. Accomplished public speaker committed to race and social justice, gender equity, education, and entrepreneurship.

ic19-paul-maher-180x240-3b64af9534f5.png

Paul Maher
GM Industry Experiences, Microsoft

Paul has over 20 years in the IT industry across a variety of technology focused roles. He was asked to return to Microsoft by Scott Guthrie to build a new team in Azure engineering called Industry Experiences. The team is focused on helping industry customers and partners with their move to the cloud. Paul lives with his wife and two children in Seattle and holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Sheffield University.

ic19-shana-matthews-180x240-63e07e777db9.jpgShana Matthews
Program Manager, Microsoft

Shana Matthews is a Program Manager at Microsoft focused on learning content, strategies, and tools for student developers. She strives to make cloud computing intuitive for young programmers through improving products, documentation, and learning resources. Previously, Shana was a software engineer on the Windows Mixed Reality team where she created geospatial APIs for 3rd party developers. Shana holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Iowa State University.

Don’t miss out on the chance to see which student developer team will take home USD100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Save the date for May 6 at 8:00am PT to watch the 2019 Imagine Cup World Championship live at Microsoft Build.

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Microsoft and Clooney Foundation for Justice announce Trial Watch program and app

Screenshot of TrialWatch app
The TrialWatch app.

In 1948, as the world recovered from the atrocities of the Second World War, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt, who led much of the work to craft the declaration, called it a “Magna Carta for all mankind.” The  world’s governments recognized in the declaration the fundamental right to a fair trial, including a “public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.”

Sadly, more than seven decades later, there are too many days when this right remains elusive for people whose freedom and lives are at stake. In some parts of the world, trials function as instruments of oppression to silence government critics, jail journalists or target minority populations. This injustice is a global cause that Amal and George Clooney, co-founders of the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), have set out to confront.

Today in New York City, Microsoft announced a partnership with CFJ to help advance human rights through TrialWatch, a program that trains and equips trial monitors to document and determine whether trials are conducted in a fair way. CFJ’s strategy, in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Columbia Law School and the American Bar Association, is to expose injustices, rally global support, and create pressure on nations to change. The foundation’s program will make the world a witness in courtrooms across the globe.

From the moment I first sat down with the Clooneys, I was impressed by their vision and struck by the similarity between their strategy and the successful work of election monitors in the 1980s. Just as election monitoring has boosted the fairness of elections around the world, CFJ’s TrialWatch project can promote fairer trials. But it’s difficult to pay equal attention to the critical daily proceedings that unfold in courtrooms in every corner of the globe. That’s why cutting-edge technology in the hands of human rights experts and volunteers can be a game changer by helping CFJ’s efforts scale.

As our developers have rolled up their sleeves to work arm-in-arm with CFJ’s team, they’ve incorporated artificial intelligence that will make human monitors and judicial experts more effective. AI-powered text to speech and language-translation capabilities will speed the input of data and enable experts around the world to help assess a trial’s fairness even if they don’t speak a local language. With this information, and backed by data science capabilities, CFJ can build quantitative and qualitative reports that will be reviewed and evaluated by its legal experts.

Our partnership with CFJ is a new cornerstone of the AI for Humanitarian Action program we launched last September at the United Nations General Assembly meetings. It builds on our ongoing partnership with the United Nations Human Rights Office, which is using new technology to better predict, analyze and respond to critical human rights situations around the world.

Already, the new TrialWatch technology has been deployed on a pilot basis in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America with work underway to rapidly expand further. It’s a showcase of how technology can make human beings more powerful, productive and effective.

By better protecting human rights in courtrooms, digital technology and CFJ’s volunteers and experts can help humanity curb oppression that’s as old as civilization itself. It’s a partnership the world needs to create a brighter future.

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Oversharing and safety in the age of social media

Many years ago, I worked with healthcare organizations to install infrastructure to support the modernization of their information systems. As I traversed hospitals – both in public and private sectors – I was often struck by one particular best practice: the privacy reminders were ubiquitous. If I stepped into an elevator or walked down a hallway, there was signage to remind everyone about patient privacy. Nothing was left to chance or interpretation. This was also pre-social media, so the concerns ranged from public conversations or inappropriate use of email, to leaving a document on a public printer.

Fast forward to 2019. Our society and culture have changed. We are much freer with our personal information on social media. We talk openly about our lives and post pictures and family information in the wild. We are less concerned about our privacy, as we use these platforms to connect with others – a connection we might be denied given our busy lives. However, as has oft been written, these platforms can be a cache of riches for someone seeking to steal your identity or compromise your email and other accounts. This same type of free flow of information is also following us to other parts of our lives and making it easier for the bad guys to attack and profit. Let me explain with a few examples.

I travel a bit (okay, a lot). While my global travel is mostly for work, this provides an informative world lens for people watching and listening. I am often between flights in an airport reading or catching up on email and overhear a wide variety of conversations – without even trying. Recently, I was in the U.S., delayed at the Chicago O’Hare airport for several hours as “there is (was) weather in Chicago,” the worst phrase in the US travel industry. I overheard a man on the phone discussing his declined credit card in detail, including his full name, billing ZIP code, card number, expiration date, and so on. My shock quickly faded when I started thinking about how many other times I was in public and overheard things that could lead to financial or IP or other loss for an individual or company. The number is non-trivial. That’s when I decided to tweet some simple advice, and solicit input via my twitter feed.

The results were equally horrifying and amusing. Some even thought my post was an attempt in social engineering. Overall, the response convinced me to write a blog as the evidence I gathered suggests this isn’t a small problem. Rather, it’s a real problem. So let me start by sharing some examples and then make some suggestions (which may seem obvious to many of you) on how to protect your privacy and security.

So how do you protect yourself from theft of personal or proprietary company information in public? The super obvious, somewhat flippant answer is: don’t share any of this type of information in public. But, at times, this is easier said than done. If you travel as much as I do, it becomes impossible to refrain from conducting some confidential business whilst you are on the road. So how do you actually protect yourself?

Many people will read this blog and say, “well that’s obvious,” but sadly it is not, based on what I have personally observed and the feedback I received in preparation for this post. When in these types of situations, my recommendations are:

  • Use privacy screens on your laptop and your phone when in public, in meetings, and on airplanes. I cannot tell you how much confidential information I could have obtained just sitting behind someone on a plane.
  • Do not discuss confidential information in a public place: restaurant, club, elevator, airplane, etc. Based on the Twitter solicited feedback, people somehow think planes are cones of silence.
  • If you must conduct personal/confidential business on the road, wait until you arrive at your hotel or find a quiet place in the airport/club/restaurant where your back is to a wall and you can see anyone who is located by you. Use your best judgment.
  • Never give anyone your password. I don’t know how to say this more strongly. Do not ever give anyone your password.
  • Use a password manager. Don’t reuse passwords. This way if someone does obtain one of your passwords, you limit your exposure.
  • Be cognizant of what you put on social media. I am very active on social media but, remember, your information can and will be used against you. Be careful of when and how you post to avoid advertising when your home will be vacant for vacation or any personally identifiable information that could expose your passwords.
  • If someone calls you claiming to be from your bank, the IRS, the police, your company, a tech support organization, offer to call them back from a number that is published on their legitimate website or the back of your credit card, etc. Do not give any confidential information to an inbound caller.
  • Use encryption for sensitive data and sensitive communications.
  • If you must install IoT devices at home, segment them to a unique network.
  • If you are renting a private vacation home, there are some very good apps to scan the network to make certain you have privacy (e.g., cameras in a location that was not disclosed by the owner)
  • I am not a fan – at all – of listening devices at home, but if you do have one, remember there is a possibility we will find out all of your conversations were recorded. Be aware of what you say….

The world is quickly evolving as we embrace more technology. The onus is largely on users to protect yourselves. While this blog is just a high-level discussion on social engineering and privacy, using common sense is always your best defense.

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New Garage project bakes accessibility into game development

At Game Developers Conference 2019, we shared an early peek at Responsive Spatial Audio for Immersive Gaming, a Microsoft Garage project. The Unity plug-in helps developers infuse accessibility into games by making it easy to annotate game objects with descriptive text and present it to players through interactive audio cues. The project is now available worldwide in the Unity Store.

Baking accessibility into game development

A number of hackers have joined the cause to make games more accessible. For example, Ear Hockey, a Microsoft Garage project, is a game designed around the blind and low vision community, and the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a Hackathon project turned Garage Wall of Famer, is a game controller designed for gamers of all abilities. The Garage project team members who developed Responsive Spatial Audio are taking a different approach, focusing on the game developer by baking accessibility right into an easy, drag-and-drop interaction toolkit.
With Responsive Spatial Audio, game developers can tag 3D objects with descriptive text, and the experience captures these tags and spatial coordinates to help players navigate. As players traverse through the game world and encounter tagged objects and designated points of interest, they are guided by audio cues via a built-in, text-to-speech API. An accessible FPS controller presents relevant descriptions at the right time by monitoring player movement, scanning their surroundings for metadata, and cuing spatial audio guidance for objects in the frame of view.
Responsive Spatial Audio_Screenshot_002

Key features to provide a more accessible experience

Responsive Spatial Audio offers a number of features that make prioritizing accessibility easy.

Accessible FPS Controller Convey object descriptions within the player’s frame of view via audio cues and adjust the viewing frustum length and arc

Annotate Game Objects Tag and manage objects with descriptive text—tag once and descriptions appear everywhere the object does

Vantage Point Objects Add and manage vantage points, or invisible doorframe-like points of interests that convey a whole view (as opposed to objects within the viewing frustum). Present different descriptions based on the direction the player is facing

Accessible Navigation Aid player navigation with a suite of interaction tools including:

Guide players to a selected object via a navigation agent with an orientation and spatial beacon
Add a script to guide players to nearby vantage points with auditory beeps
Enable bump noises with custom sounds, that will play spatial audio  upon collision, intelligently based on the orientation of the player
Change background audio based on the location of the player
Indicate the global north and south of the game with spatial sound
Inventory UI Leverage an optional in-box inventory UI to easily manage a library of game objects
To see how you can incorporate Responsive Spatial Audio into your games, see the project in action in a demo accompanying the plugin in the Unity Store.

One step closer to seamless, accessible development

We sat down with Brannon Zahand and Evelyn Thomas, each Senior Program Managers in Accessibility R&D who champion accessibility in the gaming space, to hear their reflections on the project. “The idea that I can drag and drop this into a game, with very little work to implement it, is a game changer for the industry” shared Brannon. Evelyn attended GDC 2019 to talk to developers about best practices in accessibility, highlighting the project at a conference talk and Microsoft’s accessibility booth.

“The idea that I can drag and drop this into a game, with very little work to implement it, is a game changer for the industry.”

Responsive Spatial Audio was developed by Manohar Swaminathan, a Senior Researcher in Microsoft Research, based in Bangalore, India. Manohar has been working in graphics for years, but found a passion for accessibility while working on CodeTalk, a solution that empowers developers in the blind and low vision community to do more with Visual Studio. He was searching for ways to do more impactful work in India when he met and teamed up with former Research Fellow Venkatesh Potluri, a blind developer who was interested in enhancing his productivity. After releasing CodeTalk, Manohar was inspired to combine his background with games and VR to make the gaming space more accessible through audio. “We thought ‘Can we use rich, spatial audio content to replace the visual information that is missing?” and decided to give it a shot,” he shared. It’s Manohar’s hope that plug-and-play tools will inspire developers to create fun and inclusive game experiences accessible to all.

Try It Out

Responsive Spatial Audio and a demo are now available worldwide in the Unity Store. The team looks forward to hearing feedback via UserVoice.
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Anniversary update for ‘Sea of Thieves’ available for free April 30

The Anniversary Update for Sea of Thieves is available for free on April 30 with Xbox Game Pass or on Xbox One, Windows 10 PC, and our biggest update yet is packed with content we know will appeal to players of all kinds. From the glory and gunfire of competitive multiplayer in The Arena to the serenity of fishing up your latest catch for the Hunter’s Call Trading Company, the Anniversary Update brings something for everyone. If you’re the adventurous kind of pirate, though, it’s likely Shores of Gold – our first set of narrative-driven Tall Tales – that caught your eye when we unveiled the update back in March.

Today, we’re taking a closer look at what it means to bring story-focused adventures to a shared-world game, and some of the new gameplay features players can expect as they seek out the mythical Shroudbreaker relic.

Shores of Gold is made up of nine distinct Tall Tales, each of which can be tackled as part of a pirate crew or by a solo player. Although each Tale is part of a larger saga that spans the Sea of Thieves, they can be enjoyed individually and you’re able to replay Tales you’ve completed previously. In fact, each Tale has been structured to be played repeatedly, meaning you won’t always find secrets and solutions in the places you might have been expecting them.

Your quest to reach the Shores of Gold, a legendary location filled with untold riches that lies within the deadly Devil’s Shroud, begins with the hunt for an ancient relic that can clear a path through the fog – a relic once sought by the Pirate Lord himself. All of this takes place upon the same shared seas as always, so other pirate crews may have their part to play in your adventure.

This perilous endeavour is just the start of an epic journey that will lead players across the Sea of Thieves. There’ll be ancient parchments to decipher, puzzles to solve, traps to dodge, and battles with fearsome enemies that stand between you and your ultimate destination – the massive, mysterious island known as the Shores of Gold.

Along the way you’ll meet a rag-tag cast of heroes and villains, some of whom are familiar faces from the game and the Sea of Thieves expanded universe, along with an all new assortment of warmongers, cursed rogues, star-crossed lovers and more. Every tale features professional voice acting to help advance the story, not to mention secret lore books and commendations to work towards as you play.

If all of this has you itching to take the wheel and weigh anchor, you haven’t got long to wait before the Tall Tales – Shores of Gold arrives as part of the Anniversary Update on April 30. Until then, more clues await in the official trailer.

Key Features

  • Tall Tales – Shores of Gold brings nine story-driven adventures to the shared world of Sea of Thieves.
  • Players can enjoy each adventure as part of a crew or alone, and Tales are designed to be replayed and enjoyed again and again.
  • New types of gameplay, including enchanted tools and artefacts to master and new locations to explore.
  • Decipher long-lost journals and ancient puzzles, battle against fearsome new foes and dodge deadly traps in underground labyrinths.
  • Tales designed to imbue excitement, fear, sadness and joy, with characters voiced by professional actors.
  • Available to all players for free as part of the Sea of Thieves Anniversary Update.

New to Sea of Thieves? Join the adventure with Xbox Game Pass or on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. If you haven’t tried Xbox Game Pass yet, join today to get your first month for $1 and get access to over 100 great games, with new titles being added all of the time. Prospective pirates can learn more at xbox.com/seaofthieves or visit the Sea of Thieves website at SeaofThieves.com to embark on an epic journey with one of gaming’s most welcoming communities.

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Microsoft Cloud strength drives third quarter results

Microsoft Cloud Strength Drives Third Quarter Results

REDMOND, Wash. — April 24, 2019 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

·        Revenue was $30.6 billion and increased 14%

·        Operating income was $10.3 billion and increased 25%

·        Net income was $8.8 billion and increased 19%

·        Diluted earnings per share was $1.14 and increased 20%

“Leading organizations of every size in every industry trust the Microsoft cloud. We are accelerating our innovation across the cloud and edge so our customers can build the digital capability increasingly required to compete and grow,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.

 

Microsoft returned $7.4 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the third quarter of fiscal year 2019.

“Demand for our cloud offerings drove commercial cloud revenue to $9.6 billion this quarter, up 41% year-over-year,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft. “We continue to drive growth in revenue and operating income with consistent execution from our sales teams and partners and targeted strategic investments.”

Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $10.2 billion and increased 14% (up 15% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:

·        Office Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 12% (up 14% in constant currency) driven by Office 365 Commercial revenue growth of 30% (up 31% in constant currency)

·        Office Consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 8% (up 10% in constant currency) and Office 365 Consumer subscribers increased to 34.2 million

·        LinkedIn revenue increased 27% (up 29% in constant currency) with record levels of engagement highlighted by LinkedIn sessions growth of 24%

·        Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 13% (up 15% in constant currency) driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 43% (up 44% in constant currency)

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $9.7 billion and increased 22% (up 24% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:

·        Server products and cloud services revenue increased 27% (up 29% in constant currency) driven by Azure revenue growth of 73% (up 75% in constant currency)

·        Enterprise Services revenue increased 4% (up 5% in constant currency)

Revenue in More Personal Computing was $10.7 billion and increased 8% (up 9% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:

·        Windows OEM revenue increased 9% (up 9% in constant currency)

·        Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 18% (up 20% in constant currency)

·        Surface revenue increased 21% (up 25% in constant currency)

·        Gaming revenue increased 5% (up 7% in constant currency) driven by Xbox software and services revenue growth of 12% (up 15% in constant currency)

·        Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 12% (up 14% in constant currency)

Business Outlook

Microsoft will provide forward-looking guidance in connection with this quarterly earnings announcement on its earnings conference call and webcast.

Quarterly Highlights, Product Releases, and Enhancements 

Every quarter Microsoft delivers hundreds of products, either as new releases, services, or enhancements to current products and services. These releases are a result of significant research and development investments, made over multiple years, designed to help customers be more productive and secure and to deliver differentiated value across the cloud and the edge.

 

Here are the major product releases and other highlights for the quarter, organized by product categories, to help illustrate how we are accelerating innovation across our businesses while expanding our market opportunities.

Webcast Details

Satya Nadella, chief executive officer, Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Frank Brod, chief accounting officer, Keith Dolliver, deputy general counsel, and Michael Spencer, general manager of investor relations, will host a conference call and webcast at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time (5:30 p.m. Eastern time) today to discuss details of the company’s performance for the quarter and certain forward-looking information. The session may be accessed at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor. The webcast will be available for replay through the close of business on April 24, 2020.

Constant Currency

Microsoft presents constant currency information to provide a framework for assessing how our underlying businesses performed excluding the effect of foreign currency rate fluctuations. To present this information, current and comparative prior period results for entities reporting in currencies other than United States dollars are converted into United States dollars using the average exchange rates from the comparative period rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the respective periods. All growth comparisons relate to the corresponding period in the last fiscal year. Microsoft has provided this non-GAAP financial information to aid investors in better understanding our performance. The non-GAAP financial measures presented in this release should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.


Financial Performance Constant Currency Reconciliation

 

Three Months Ended March 31,

 ($ in millions, except per share amounts)

Revenue

Operating Income

Net Income

Diluted Earnings per Share

2018 As Reported

$26,819

$8,292

$7,424

$0.95

2019 As Reported

$30,571

$10,341

$8,809

$1.14

Percentage Change Y/Y

14%

25%

19%

20%

Constant Currency Impact

$(420)

$(208)

$(126)

$(0.02)

Percentage Change Y/Y Constant Currency

16%

27%

20%

22%

 

Segment Revenue Constant Currency Reconciliation

 

Three Months Ended March 31,

 ($ in millions)

Productivity and Business Processes

Intelligent Cloud

More Personal Computing

2018 As Reported

$9,006

$7,896

$9,917

2019 As Reported

$10,242

$9,649

$10,680

Percentage Change Y/Y

14%

22%

8%

Constant Currency Impact

$(133)

$(144)

$(143)

Percentage Change Y/Y Constant Currency

15%

24%

9%

 

Selected Product and Service Revenue Constant Currency Reconciliation           

 

Three Months Ended March 31, 2019

Percentage Change Y/Y (GAAP)

Constant Currency Impact

Percentage Change Y/Y Constant Currency

Office Commercial products and cloud services

12%

2%

14%

Office 365 Commercial

30%

1%

31%

Office Consumer products and cloud services

8%

2%

10%

LinkedIn

27%

2%

29%

Dynamics products and cloud services

13%

2%

15%

Dynamics 365

43%

1%

44%

Server products and cloud services

27%

2%

29%

Azure

73%

2%

75%

Enterprise Services

4%

1%

5%

Windows OEM

9%

0%

9%

Windows Commercial products and cloud services

18%

2%

20%

Search advertising excluding traffic acquisition costs

12%

2%

14%

Surface

21%

4%

25%

Gaming

5%

2%

7%

Xbox software and services

12%

3%

15%

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this release that are “forward-looking statements” are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors such as:

·        intense competition in all of our markets that may lead to lower revenue or operating margins;

·        increasing focus on cloud-based services presenting execution and competitive risks;

·        significant investments in new products and services that may not achieve expected returns;

·        acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic alliances that may have an adverse effect on our business;

·        impairment of goodwill or amortizable intangible assets causing a significant charge to earnings;

·        legal changes, our evolving business model, piracy, and other factors may decrease the value of our intellectual property;

·        claims that Microsoft has infringed the intellectual property rights of others;

·        the possibility that we may fail to protect our source code;

·        cyberattacks and security vulnerabilities that could lead to reduced revenue, increased costs, liability claims, or harm to our reputation or competitive position;

·        disclosure and misuse of personal data that could cause liability and harm to our reputation;

·        the possibility that we may not be able to protect information stored in our products and services from use by others;

·        abuse of our advertising or social platforms that may harm our reputation or user engagement;

·        excessive outages, data losses, and disruptions of our online services if we fail to maintain an adequate operations infrastructure;

·        government litigation and regulatory activity relating to competition rules that may limit how we design and market our products;

·        potential liability under trade protection, anti-corruption, and other laws resulting from our global operations;

·        laws and regulations relating to the handling of personal data that may impede the adoption of our services or result in increased costs, legal claims, fines, or reputational damage;

·        the dependence of our business on our ability to attract and retain talented employees;

·        claims against us that may result in adverse outcomes in legal disputes;

·        additional tax liabilities;

·        quality or supply problems;

·        exposure to increased economic and operational uncertainties from operating a global business, including the effects of foreign currency exchange;

·        catastrophic events or geo-political conditions that may disrupt our business;

·        adverse economic or market conditions that may harm our business;

·        changes in our sales organization that may impact revenues;

·        the development of the internet of things presenting security, privacy, and execution risks;

·        issues about the use of artificial intelligence in our offerings that may result in competitive harm, legal liability, or reputational harm; and

·        damage to our reputation or our brands that may harm our business and operating results.

For more information about risks and uncertainties associated with Microsoft’s business, please refer to the “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Risk Factors” sections of Microsoft’s SEC filings, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, copies of which may be obtained by contacting Microsoft’s Investor Relations department at (800) 285-7772 or at Microsoft’s Investor Relations website at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor.

All information in this release is as of March 31, 2019. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company’s expectations.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications for Microsoft, (425) 638-7777,rrt@we-worldwide.com

For more information, financial analysts and investors only:

Michael Spencer, General Manager, Investor Relations, (425) 706-4400

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers, and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. Shareholder and financial information, as well as today’s 2:30 p.m. Pacific time conference call with investors and analysts, is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor.


 

MICROSOFT CORPORATION

INCOME STATEMENTS

(In millions, except per share amounts)(Unaudited)

Three Months Ended

 March 31,

Nine Months Ended

 March 31,

 

2019

 

2018

 

2019

 

2018

Revenue:

Product

 $15,448

 $15,114

 $48,966

 $47,338

Service and other

15,123

11,705

43,160

32,937

Total revenue

30,571

26,819

92,126

80,275

Cost of revenue:

Product

3,441

3,425

12,975

11,903

Service and other

6,729

5,844

19,523

16,708

Total cost of revenue

10,170

9,269

32,498

28,611

Gross margin

20,401

17,550

59,628

51,664

Research and development

4,316

3,715

12,363

10,793

Sales and marketing

4,565

4,335

13,251

12,709

General and administrative

1,179

1,208

3,460

3,483

Operating income

10,341

8,292

30,554

24,679

Other income, net

145

349

538

1,115

Income before income taxes

10,486

8,641

31,092

25,794

Provision for income taxes

1,677

1,217

5,039

18,096

Net income

 $8,809

 $7,424

 $26,053

 $7,698

Earnings per share:

Basic

 $1.15

 $0.96

 $3.39

 $1.00

Diluted

 $1.14

 $0.95

 $3.36

 $0.99

Weighted average shares outstanding:

Basic

7,672

7,698

7,679

7,706

Diluted

7,744

 

7,794

 

7,759

 

7,798

 


 

COMPREHENSIVE INCOME STATEMENTS

(In millions)(Unaudited)

Three Months Ended

 March 31,

Nine Months Ended

 March 31,

 

2019

 

2018

 

2019

 

2018

Net income

 $8,809

 $7,424

 $26,053

 $7,698

Other comprehensive income (loss), net of tax:

Net change related to derivatives

(33)

7

(93)

(106)

Net change related to investments

714

(1,016)

1,334

(2,182)

Translation adjustments and other

67

255

(252)

508

Other comprehensive income (loss)

748

(754)

989

(1,780)

Comprehensive income

 $9,557

 $6,670

 $27,042

 $5,918

 


 

BALANCE SHEETS

(In millions)(Unaudited)

 

March 31,

2019

 

June 30,

 2018

Assets

Current assets:

Cash and cash equivalents

 $11,212

 $11,946

Short-term investments

120,406

121,822

Total cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments

131,618

133,768

Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $336 and $377

19,269

26,481

Inventories

1,951

2,662

Other

7,049

6,751

Total current assets

159,887

169,662

Property and equipment, net of accumulated depreciation of $35,431 and $29,223

33,648

29,460

Operating lease right-of-use assets

7,121

6,686

Equity investments

2,403

1,862

Goodwill

41,861

35,683

Intangible assets, net

8,103

8,053

Other long-term assets

10,258

7,442

Total assets

 $263,281

 $258,848

Liabilities and stockholders’ equity

Current liabilities:

Accounts payable

 $7,544

 $8,617

Current portion of long-term debt

6,515

3,998

Accrued compensation

5,764

6,103

Short-term income taxes

1,950

2,121

Short-term unearned revenue

24,251

28,905

Other

7,837

8,744

Total current liabilities

53,861

58,488

Long-term debt

66,585

72,242

Long-term income taxes

29,514

30,265

Long-term unearned revenue

3,884

3,815

Deferred income taxes

1,838

541

Operating lease liabilities

5,972

5,568

Other long-term liabilities

6,763

5,211

Total liabilities

168,417

176,130

Commitments and contingencies

Stockholders’ equity:

Common stock and paid-in capital – shares authorized 24,000; outstanding 7,666 and 7,677

77,791

71,223

Retained earnings

18,338

13,682

Accumulated other comprehensive loss

(1,265)

(2,187)

Total stockholders’ equity

94,864

82,718

Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity

 $263,281

 $258,848

 


 

CASH FLOWS STATEMENTS

(In millions)(Unaudited)

Three Months Ended

 March 31,

Nine Months Ended

 March 31,

 

2019

 

2018

 

2019

 

2018

Operations

Net income

 $8,809

 $7,424

 $26,053

 $7,698

Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash from operations:

Depreciation, amortization, and other

2,926

2,710

8,758

7,745

Stock-based compensation expense

1,172

969

3,462

2,928

Net recognized gains on investments and derivatives

(95)

(438)

(470)

(1,645)

Deferred income taxes

(320)

(396)

(740)

(2,754)

Changes in operating assets and liabilities:

Accounts receivable

460

1,285

7,258

5,326

Inventories

12

(75)

710

107

Other current assets

(14)

(149)

(864)

(113)

Other long-term assets

(517)

(213)

(969)

(835)

Accounts payable

(197)

(393)

(1,032)

138

Unearned revenue

20

91

(4,543)

(2,780)

Income taxes

276

645

(879)

17,280

Other current liabilities

649

546

(1,017)

(975)

Other long-term liabilities

339

145

350

346

Net cash from operations

13,520

12,151

36,077

32,466

Financing

Repayments of short-term debt, maturities of 90 days or less, net

0

(7,373)

0

(7,324)

Proceeds from issuance of debt

0

0

0

7,183

Repayments of debt

0

(4,883)

(3,000)

(9,379)

Common stock issued

274

251

834

747

Common stock repurchased

(4,753)

(3,781)

(14,910)

(8,359)

Common stock cash dividends paid

(3,526)

(3,232)

(10,290)

(9,473)

Other, net

404

(640)

(835)

(946)

Net cash used in financing

(7,601)

(19,658)

(28,201)

(27,551)

Investing

Additions to property and equipment

(2,565)

(2,934)

(9,874)

(7,652)

Acquisition of companies, net of cash acquired, and purchases of intangible and other assets

(269)

(248)

(2,107)

(454)

Purchases of investments

(5,846)

(26,885)

(42,255)

(105,000)

Maturities of investments

5,893

7,674

14,889

19,252

Sales of investments

1,424

26,256

30,831

90,553

Securities lending payable

0

(19)

0

(90)

Net cash from (used in) investing

(1,363)

3,844

(8,516)

(3,391)

Effect of foreign exchange rates on cash and cash equivalents

18

25

(94)

34

Net change in cash and cash equivalents

4,574

(3,638)

(734)

1,558

Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period

6,638

12,859

11,946

7,663

Cash and cash equivalents, end of period

 $11,212

 $9,221

 $11,212

 $9,221

 


 

SEGMENT REVENUE AND OPERATING INCOME

(In millions)(Unaudited)

 

Three Months Ended

 March 31,

 

Nine Months Ended

 March 31,

 

 

 

2019

 

2018

 

2019

 

2018

Revenue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Productivity and Business Processes

 $10,242

 

 $9,006

 

 $30,113

 

$26,197

Intelligent Cloud

9,649

 

7,896

 

27,594

 

22,613

More Personal Computing

10,680

 

9,917

 

34,419

 

31,465

Total

 $30,571

 

$26,819

 

 $92,126

 

$80,275

Operating Income

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Productivity and Business Processes

 $3,979

 

 $3,115

 

 $11,875

 

 $9,458

Intelligent Cloud

3,208

 

2,654

 

9,418

 

7,623

More Personal Computing

3,154

 

2,523

 

9,261

 

7,598

Total

 $10,341

 

 $8,292

 

 $30,554

 

$24,679

 

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Introducing Security Policy Advisor—a new service to manage your Office 365 security policies

Securing your users has never been more important, or more difficult. For many, it’s become a scramble to simply stay ahead of the latest threats. And all too often the complexity and variety of the security solutions themselves only adds to your burden. What most people really need is someone to help shoulder the load. We hear you. And that’s why we’re taking steps to provide new, easy-to-use capabilities that support you as you protect the people, apps, devices, and data in your organizations.

Today, we’re excited to announce the public preview of Security Policy Advisor—the first in a series of security investments to further strengthen the apps in Office 365 ProPlus. Security Policy Advisor is a service that offers an easier, more effective way to manage your security policies. It provides custom policy recommendations, supported with rich data insights into how these policies would impact your group’s use of features in Office—allowing you to make decisions with full information.

Simplify policy management across devices

Earlier today, we announced the release of our new Office cloud policy service, an easy-to-use cloud-based tool that allows you to define policies for Office 365 ProPlus and assign them to users via Azure Active Directory groups. Once defined, policies are automatically enforced as individuals sign in. What’s more, Office cloud policy service extends your reach to managed and unmanaged devices without requiring any on-premises infrastructure or modern device management services. If you have a BYOD policy or users who occasionally sign in to Office 365 ProPlus from other devices, you’re covered.

Manage and monitor policy configurations with confidence

Now, we’re building on this service to help you secure your organization with confidence, taking the guesswork out of configuring security policies. In the past, the burden fell to you alone to determine if a particular policy would help or hurt a specific group. Setting macro policies, for example, involved numerous group policy objects (GPOs), each with multiple settings, detailed yet always too generic security baseline studies, and cumbersome deployment. And in the end, you still had to wait for frustrated support calls to know the user impact.

Security Policy Advisor changes the game with knowledge already available within your organization. It analyzes how individuals use Office and then recommends specific policies to boost your security profile. Even better, for each recommendation, you can see how people would be impacted, giving you greater confidence in choosing policies that are right for your environment. It may recommend, for example, disabling VBA macros in Word or macros in Excel files from the web—providing relevant threat intelligence (if available) and identifying just how frequently individuals in your group use those features and would be impacted by the policy.

When you’re ready, you can apply policies at the app, feature, or group level—all with one click.

The job doesn’t end once a policy is applied. In a dynamic workplace needs evolve, groups change, and a set of policies that worked just months ago may actually become a hinderance. Security Policy Advisor actively monitors policy impact on your employees, highlighting areas worth your attention or suggesting changes if needed. If you’ve enabled individuals to override specific policies, you’ll see how this is used. With cloud-based management, you can update or even roll back at the push of a button.

And rest assured: if you are currently using GPOs, they can run in parallel with any changes you make with the Office cloud policy service. Existing policies are retained and, if there are any conflicts, policies you apply via Office cloud policy service will always take precedence.

See what Security Policy Advisor recommends for you

Security Policy Advisor is now available in preview in English (en-us) with broad availability in coming weeks. If you’re an administrator in an organization that has deployed Office 365 ProPlus, you can start right now by signing in to the Office client management portal and configuring Office policies. For each configuration you create and assign to a group, you’ll receive recommendations with supporting data that you can review and deploy to users as a policy. Visit Tech Community for additional information and documentation.

This is just the beginning of a set of new security capabilities we’re working on for ProPlus. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback, and we’ll have more to share with you later this year.

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Breaking Bard: Using AI to unlock Shakespeare’s greatest works

Spoiler alert: At the end of Romeo and Juliet, they both die.

OK, as spoilers go, it’s not big. Most people have read the play, watched one of the famous films or sat through countless school lessons devoted to William Shakespeare and his work. They know it doesn’t end well for Verona’s most famous couple.

In fact, the challenge is finding something no one knows about the world-famous, 300-year-old play. That’s where artificial intelligence can help.

Phil Harvey, a Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft in the UK, used the company’s Text Analytics API on 19 of The Bard’s plays. The API, which is available to anyone as part of Microsoft’s Azure Cognitive Services, can be used to identify sentiment and topics in text, as well as pick out key phrases and entities. This API is one of several Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools available on Azure.

By creating a series of colourful, Power BI graphs (below) showing how negative (red) or positive (green) the language used by The Bard’s characters was, he hoped to shine a new light on some of the greatest pieces of literature, as well as make them more accessible to people who worry the plays are too complex to easily understand.

Harvey said: “People can see entire plotlines just by looking at my graphs on language sentiment. Because visual examples are much easier to absorb, it makes Shakespeare and his plays more accessible. Reading language from the 16th and 17th centuries can be challenging, so this is a quick way of showing them what Shakespeare is trying to do.

“It’s a great example of data giving us new things to know and new ways of knowing it; it’s a fundamental change to how we process the world around us. We can now pick up Shakespeare, turn it into a data set and process it with algorithms in a new way to learn something I didn’t know before.”

What Harvey’s graphs reveal is that Romeo struggles with more extreme emotions than Juliet. Love has a much greater effect on him challenging stereotypes of the time that women – the fairer sex – were more prone to the highs and lows of relationships.

“It’s interesting to see that the male lead is the one with more extreme emotions,” Harvey added. “The longest lines, both positive and negative, are spoken by him. Juliet is steadier; she is positive and negative but not extreme in what she says. Romeo is a fellow of more extreme emotion, he’s bouncing around all over the place.

“Macbeth is also interesting because there are these two peaks of emotion, and Shakespeare uses the wives at these points to turn the story. I also looked at Helena and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, because they have a crossed-over love story. They are both positive at the start but then they find out something and it gets negative towards the end.”

<img data-attachment-id="74802" data-permalink="https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2019/04/23/breaking-bard-using-microsoft-ai-to-unlock-shakespeares-greatest-works/ancient-architecture-art-189532/" data-orig-file="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/breaking-bard-using-ai-to-unlock-shakespeares-greatest-works.jpg" data-orig-size="6000,3376" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="ancient-architecture-art-189532" data-image-description="

statue of William Shakespeare

” data-medium-file=”https://3er1viui9wo30pkxh1v2nh4w-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/68/2019/04/ancient-architecture-art-189532-300×169.jpg” data-large-file=”http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/breaking-bard-using-ai-to-unlock-shakespeares-greatest-works.jpg” class=”wp-image-74802 size-full” src=”http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/breaking-bard-using-ai-to-unlock-shakespeares-greatest-works.jpg” alt=”statue of William Shakespeare” width=”6000″ height=”3376″ srcset=”http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/breaking-bard-using-ai-to-unlock-shakespeares-greatest-works.jpg 6000w, https://3er1viui9wo30pkxh1v2nh4w-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/68/2019/04/ancient-architecture-art-189532-300×169.jpg 300w, https://3er1viui9wo30pkxh1v2nh4w-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/68/2019/04/ancient-architecture-art-189532-768×432.jpg 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 6000px) 100vw, 6000px”>

The project required AI working alongside humans to truly understand and fully appreciate Shakespeare’s plays

His Shakespeare graphs are the final step in a long process. After downloading a text file of The Bard’s plays from the internet, Harvey had to process the data to prepare it for Microsoft’s AI algorithms. He removed all the stage directions, keeping the act and scene numbers, the characters’ names and what they said. He then uploaded the text to Microsoft Cognitive Services API, a set of tools that can be used in apps, websites and bots to see, hear, speak, understand and interpret users through natural methods of communication.

The Text Analytics API is pre-trained with an extensive body of text with sentiment associations. The model uses a combination of techniques during text analysis, including text processing, part-of-speech analysis, word placement and word associations.

After scanning the Shakespeare plays, Microsoft’s NLP tool gave the lines of dialogue a score between zero and one – scores close to one indicated a positive sentiment, and scores close to zero indicated a negative sentiment.

However, before you start imagining a world in which only robots read books before telling humans the gist of what happened, Harvey discovered some unexpected challenges with his test.

While the AI system worked well for Shakespeare plays that contained straightforward plots and dialogue, it struggled to determine if more nuanced speech was positive or negative. The algorithm couldn’t work out whether Hamlet’s mad ravings were real or imagined, whether characters were being deceptive or telling the truth. That meant that the AI labelled events as positive when they negative, and vice-versa. The AI believed The Comedy of Errors was a tragedy because of the physical, slapstick moments in the play.

Everything you need to know about Microsoft’s cloud

Harvey realised that the parts of the plays that dealt with what truly makes us unique as humans – joking, elation, lying, double meanings, subterfuge, sarcasm – could only be noticed and interpreted by human readers. His project required AI working alongside humans to truly understand and fully appreciate Shakespeare.

Harvey insists that his experiments with Shakespeare’s plays are just a starting point but that the same combination of AI and humans can eventually be extended to companies and their staff, too.

“Take the example of customers phoning their energy company,” he said. “With Microsoft’s NLP tools, you could see if conversations that happen after 5pm are more negative than those that happen at 9am, and deploy staff accordingly. You could also see if a call centre worker turns conversations negative, even if they start out positive, and work with that person to ensure that doesn’t happen in the future.

“It can help companies engage with data in a different way and assist them with everyday tasks.”

Harvey also said journalists could use the tool to see how readers are responding to their articles, or social media experts would get an idea of how consumers viewed their brand.

For now, Harvey is concentrating on the Classics and is turning his attention to Charles Dickens, if he can persuade the V&A in London to let him study some of their manuscripts.

“In the V&A manuscripts, you can see where Dickens has crossed out words. I would love to train a custom vision model on that to get a page by page view of his changes. I could then look at a published copy of the text and see which parts of the book he worked on most; maybe that part went well but he had trouble with this bit. Dickens’s work was serialised in newspapers, so we might be able to deduce whether he was receiving feedback from editors that we didn’t know about. I think that’s amazing.”

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‘Gears of War’ Esports Pro Circuit to wrap up Season 2 in Boston

After 15 Pro Circuit events and a total prize pool of $3 million, the final Gears Pro Circuit event of Gears of War 4 is here. With $300,000 on the line, the top pro and amateur teams from around the world will gather in Boston on April 26-28 at the Hynes Convention Center to take home the trophy and bragging rights leading into the next season of Gears Esports, set to debut following the launch of Gears 5 later this year.

There is no shortage of storylines coming into this event. Perennial favorites OpTic Gaming are looking to claim their 13th Pro Circuit trophy and further prove why they should be considered the most successful esports team of all time. Team Reciprocity (formerly Denial) is looking to avenge a devastating loss in Mexico City where, despite sending OpTic Gaming to the losers bracket, they couldn’t secure the victory in the grand finals. Rise Nation is full of confidence as they are bringing their complete roster for the first time since they placed 2nd at the Columbus Invitational last fall. Ghost Gaming, the top ranked Latin American team, and Elevate, the top European team, both dominate their regions and want to prove they can compete with their North American counterparts.

In addition to the 5v5 Escalation action, there will be the Gears Pro Circuit 2v2 tournament where 128 top teams can compete for a dedicated prize pool of $20,000. The action kicks off on Saturday, April 27 with key 2v2 matches played on the feature stage. The 2v2 tournament is free to join and open to all attendees. Registration takes place at the venue from Saturday, April 27 from 1:00-3:00 PM EDT.

Watch all the action at http://live.gearsofwar.com starting at 2PM EDT on Friday, April 26 and then again on Saturday and Sunday at 10:00 AM EDT.

Visit www.gears.gg and follow @EsportsGears on Twitter to keep up-to-date with the latest information about Gears Esports and the Gears Pro Circuit Boston Open.