Weekend Reading: July 11th Edition — A message from Satya Nadella, Lumia 930 on sale, Microsoft Azure StorSimple previewed

It may feel like the dog days of summer where you sit, but in this edition of Weekend Reading, we’re still going full steam ahead with an important message from CEO Satya Nadella and a busy July ahead.

Check out how summer sizzles at Microsoft in Washington state, Washington D.C. and beyond …

In a message to employees, Nadella kicked off what’s going to be a big One Microsoft month by highlighting the company’s charge to enable people to thrive in a mobile-first and cloud-first world, and harkening to what he said his first day as CEO: “Our industry does not respect tradition – it only respects innovation. … We must all understand and embrace what only Microsoft can contribute to the world and how we can once again change the world.”

The Worldwide Partner Conference starts Sunday in Washington D.C. and Phil Sorgen, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of the Worldwide Partner Channel has a preview that includes Microsoft Azure StorSimple, a hybrid cloud storage solution that makes managing a company’s growing volume of data more efficient and an Azure Machine Learning technology that partners can use to build advanced analytic cloud services for their customers, in minutes.

Did we say mobile first? The super sleek, brilliantly crafted Nokia Lumia 930 went on sale this week. It includes a 20-megapixel PureView camera with ZEISS optics and optical image stabilization and is the world‘s first smartphone that can capture and playback high-quality audio in Dolby Surround Sound.

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Also next week is the 2014 Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, and our annual glimpse into the future of computing. The event brings 350 elite academic researchers to Redmond, Washington. Watch the live stream beginning July 14.

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In other news, Yammer Enterprise has been added to all Office 365 Midsize Business and Office 365 Education plans, which gives these customers Yammer Enterprise licenses and no longer requires them to purchase licenses for users on their external networks.

If you’re headed to the ballpark this weekend, bring some Windows Phone apps along to help you capture all the action. The Nokia Camera app lets you take a series of fast-action photos, on-the-go editor Adobe Photoshop Express will help enhance those images, and use Creative Studio’s Focus + Blur, Color Pop and Collage features to put on the finishing touches. Plus, this week, an update to the Twitter App for Windows Phone makes it possible to upload multiple photos and easier to tag your friends. On the game front, engage in the fantasy adventure of otherworldly combat with “Order & Chaos Duels,” based on a popular collectible trading card game. The game is new to the Windows Phone Store. Or, if you just want to chillax, crank up the OnAir Player app for Windows, which lets you access music from all your devices and stream it through your house using your tablet, PC or smartphone as a remote control.

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This week on the Microsoft Facebook page, we introduced you to two artists in Paris who created a mind-bending art installation with Kinect. Tell us what you’ve created using #ICreatedThis.

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Speaking of Nadella “firsts,” from Snaps, this week, we present: A Microsoft logo on display at Satya Nadella’s first event as CEO on March 27, 2014 and captured by Brian Smale.

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Back to your regularly scheduled dog days of summer. Join us here next week for more hot news.

Posted by Aimee Riordan
Microsoft News Center Staff

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