Join Scott Guthrie and James Staten for Microsoft Tech Summit Middle East and Africa and discover how Microsoft’s enterprise cloud solutions can help you stay competitive in today’s digital transformation landscape.
Tech Summit is a free, two-day technical training event for IT professionals and developers with experts who build the cloud services across Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Windows 10.
The Microsoft Tech Summit is travelling around the world. There’ll be two events planned out for the Africa and Middle East regions. One in Johannesburg, South Africa and the other in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Microsoft Tech Summit Tel Aviv, Israel.
Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group, Scott Guthrie will be in Tel Aviv as the Keynote speaker. The summit will take place on December 7th, 10 a.m. IDT (7am GMT). He’ll speak like in recent conferences,on how Microsoft’s cloud solutions can help deliver new ways to engage customers, be more productive and create new business models that optimize operations.
The Microsoft Tech Summit Johannesburg will take place on the 6th to the 7th of February in 2017. The event will take place at the Sandton Convention Center, Randburg, Johannesburg.
Microsoft’s General Manger and Chief Strategist Cloud and Enterprise group, James Staten will speak at the keynote event. He’ll be sharing on how Microsoft’s enterprise solutions can help you be more successful, more productive and add value to your IT organization in today’s digital transformation landscape.
Register and get more information for the Johannesburg event here .
The events will feature about 50 technical training sessions. Topics will range from Microsoft Azure, the hybrid platform including security, networking, data, storage, identity, mobile, cloud infrastructure, management, devops, app platform and productivity.
There’ll be opportunities to speak to the experts and receive hands on help. You’ll also have the opportunity to trial and test some of these solutions at the Hands-on Labs. There’ll also be various sessions to shop during the 2 day events.
Are you planning and looking forward to attending? Follow the events on social platforms with the hashtag #MSTechSummit and #TechSummitSA
Creators Update is the name of Microsoft’s next Windows 10 major update. The update is scheduled to arrive early spring 2017 and for free.
Microsoft announced at the October Microsoft Event what Windows 10 users can expect in the next Update of the OS. The Update is geared towards a generation that want to create.
Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of the Windows and Devices Group, Terry Myerson, speaking out at the event about the update outlined 3 major updates Windows 10 users can look forward to.
Terry’s highlights on the Windows 10 Creators Update include:
Coming as a free update early next year to the more than 400 million devices running Windows 10 and available to Windows Insiders this week.
Expanding vision for mixed reality. Virtual, Augmented reality and holographic computing with 3D for every one. Create share and experience 3D in mixed reality.
3D helps to bring your ideas to life. With 3D in the Windows 10 Creators Update you can capture, create, view and share in 3D. Microsoft says “See how amazing the world is when you unleash your imagination in a new dimension”.
Gamers can experience best in 4K gaming and in game broadcasting.
The Windows 10 Creators Update will allow gamers to easily broadcast their gameplay and create their own tournaments. Integration of new stream service Beam, built into the game play. So you can share or watch live game streams and interact in real time with broadcasters as well. Read more from the Xbox wire.
A faster way to connect and share with the people who matter most, family, friends, collaborators and fellow gamers.
Microsoft wants to put the people who matter and you care about in the middle of your Windows 10 experience. How do they achieve this? Well, there’s a new feature called MyPeople.
Your most important friends, family, and co-workers will be instantly accessible. With Windows MyPeople, you can pin your favorite contacts to the Windows task bar and easily drag and drop any document, photo or video right on top of the contact for easy sharing. You can receive unique notifications, Shoulder Taps, and easily view and open emails, IMs, shared documents and more, all in one place. The Windows MyPeople experience is also integrated across universal Windows apps for easy sharing.
Windows 10 still growing!
Current Windows 10 user statistics; Over 400 million people using Windows 10. That’s over 600 people who choose Windows 10 every minute of every hour of every day for the last year. Spent 200 billon hours of lives on Windows 10. 500% increase in gaming. 3 times as many developers building Windows 10 apps.
Just like the other major Windows 10 update, I expect this to arrive in April 2017. You can also trial out these update before their release by becoming a Windows Insider. There are may more features coming in the update. Check out more details of the Windows 10 Creators Update from our friends at Windows Central.
What do you think about the OS update announcement? A step in the right direction, a new set of disruptive helpful tools? share with the community. We’ll like to know hat you think.
Microsoft has announced the launch of the 2017 Imagine Cup Competition. The global student technology competition also enters it’s 15th year since it’s launch.
Microsoft’s Global student developer competition, Imagine Cup, open to Microsoft Student Partners (MSP) around the world has been launched. The 2017 edition is special in two ways. First the completion turns 15 years. Secondly to celebrate the milestone the usual award price of $ 50,000 gets doubled to $ 100,000.
The have been some changes to categorization in 2017’s competition. The focus will be more apps and solutions oriented, which should allow more innovations to be included.
First, as cloud technologies become more and more pervasive, we feel it’s paramount that Imagine Cup help student developers prepare for their futures by building skills using today’s premier cloud platforms. To that end, we highly encourage all Imagine Cup projects to showcase one or more Microsoft Azure services within their solutions.
Also, we’re changing the way we judge projects. For the 2017 Imagine Cup competition, we’re placing greater emphasis on each project’s underlying technology. What that means is that Imagine Cup will be on the lookout for deep technology integration in fully formed apps, services and games with the potential to be viable in the commercial marketplace.
Finally, we’ve decided to forego categories in favor of opening the competition up to apps and solutions that might not have neatly fit into one of those categories in past years . . . in other words, all big ideas are welcome in Imagine Cup.
Looking forward to the 2017 Imagine Cup Competition? Join a Microsoft Student Partners (MSP) group in your institution and you could be on your way. Currently there are MSP groups in Ghana Telecom University, University of Cape Coast, Ghana Institute of Journalism, University of Ghana, GIMPA.
Microsoft Ghana has partnered with Tigo Business (Tigo Ghana), Lenovo Africa, ITWORX and ZEPTO. The partnership is to empower small and medium enterprise businesses in Ghana. Through the Tigo Business SME Empowerment Roadshow program.
Photo Credit : ModernGhana.com
Tigo Ghana’s enterprise division, Tigo Business is taking with it a host of partners on it’s SME Empowerment Roadshow. They get joined by Microsoft Ghana, Lenovo Africa, ITWORX and ZEPTO. Each partner will contribute a package to make small to medium enterprises benefit from the program.
Microsoft Ghana will contribute through it’s Biz4Afrika initiative. Biz4Afrika is an online hub for African small and medium enterprises under the Microsoft 4Afrika program.
Biz4Afrika is an Africa-wide network of SMEs designed to enable a sustainable and connected community of entrepreneurs that will have a meaningful impact on job creation, global competitiveness and wealth creation in the long run.
Mr. Derek Appiah, Country Manager for Microsoft in Ghana on the partnership said;
Microsoft’s goal is to enable SME’s in Africa to start, grow and accelerate their businesses through affordable access to technology, world-class skills and innovation.
We aim to help this sector sustain their growth, reach their full potential and turn their ideas into reality via initiatives such as Biz4Afrika – an online hub for SMEs in Africa
Modern Ghana shares on how the partnership will work,
The partnership brings together an ecosystem of business solution providers ranging from content, connectivity, devices, software and financial expertise to help businesses build solid processes at world class standards and give them a competitive edge both locally and in the sub-region.
Each partner brings an array of expertise to the table. Microsoft will provide access to email, domain names, and basic book keeping tools under the Office 365 services. Through its subsidiary partners; ITworx, will provide a rich portfolio of enterprise productivity solutions, while Zepto will provide tablets with keyboards for easy use in stores, POS terminals and software solutions specifically designed for the enterprise space by ITWorx.
The ZEPTO UmiTab 10.1″ 2 in 1 device has seen some more interest from the public. So I received one and took it for a spin so I can answer properly questions asked.
I received the Cyan colored ZEPTO UmiTab 10 device running Windows 10. I decided to upgrade it to the Windows 10 Anniversary Update(AU) for better performance. The Windows 10 AU definitely has a lot of bug fixes and improvements to battery life etc., etc. seem only fair.
We earlier did a specifications post on the ZEPTO UmiTab and you can check it out if you want to know what powers it.
It sits in a class of its own. It’s not a high end nor is it a low-end device. I believe it’s just perfect for the kind of customers it’ll attract. I see students and workers who need a PC for browsing, taking notes, watching movies and playing music.
The ZEPTO UmiTab 10 surely has some pro’s and con’s and i’ll dig a bit into it.
DESIGN
It certainly has a nice feel to it. It’s a detachable two in one device. Good thing the soft keyboard which doubles as a cover comes included. It’s easy to attach and detach. It has the Microsoft Surface magnetic clip thing. only I think the Surface clicks in and holds more solidly and firmly. But so far as it sits on a steady surface like a table, you need not worry.
At 550 grams it doesn’t feel heavy. You can carry it in hand as you would your notepad or diary, only this ends up being more powerful.
Performance
Sporting a Quad-core Intel Baytrail T-Z3735 processor with 2GB RAM and 32GB ROM means light work can be done. If you are a video and photo editing person, these aren’t the specifications that excite you. It works well-browsing websites and having quite a number of tabs open. Video and Music play works well. Using the installed Office 365 Home package that comes preinstalled is hustle free and effective.
Hardware There are a number of helpful hardware features that comes in the device. There’s the SIM card slot on the side, that allows for data connections. The data connection is pretty straight forward and very easy to set up and use.
Folks have asked if it can be used for making calls? Well unfortunately it doesn’t. The device doesn’t fall in the Mobile classification 8″ and below. So if you search for the Microsoft Phone from the app store you won’t find it. or it’ll show and tell you non-compatible device.
A mini HDMI, USB, Headphone and MicroSD card slot can be found on the side of the ZEPTO UmiTab 10. The available MicroSD card slot can help with expanding your storage space. It’s on the side, as a result, it is easy to pull and plugin. I used a micro USB OTG in the USB slot to access the contents on my phone. There’s also the option of connecting any USB device via an OTG, don’t know if it comes in the box. Didn’t get one but i’ll check and update.
Sound, Mic, Camera, Speakers
Having a 2 or 5MP camera isn’t a luxury in today’s world where some phones have bigger and better. However, I think it’s enough to get the light things like a video call out of the way. Well unless of course, you want HD. But then you pay more for those than this :). The 2MP front camera has face detection and the back 5MP seems quite decent with autofocus.
The Microphone wasn’t very loud in my test playbacks. Speakers were just okay for music and video. I’ll say not the best compared to sophisticated devices on the market.
Battery Life
Battery life is estimated to be between 6 to 8 hours. I experienced something around 5 and 6 hours. But battery lives are always subject to use. I one time during a video playback had around 10 hours estimated.
What I think:
It’s great value for money.
The soft keyboard didn’t quite hit it for me. it’ll take some getting use to. Gestures on the trackpad aren’t great. Maybe a firmware fix might come in handy.
The internal memory of 32 GB is just too small. You’ll have about 7GB of storage left to use. This is where the MicroSD card slot comes in.
It’s not lappable. More of either detach and use as a tablet or dock it on a table for effective use
The PC’s come in red, cyan/blue, black, gray and pink colors.
If there’s something you’ll like to know that I didn’t touch on. Or have you used or owned one and experienced it differently? Kindly share with us in the comments.
