ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — March 21, 2013 — As part of the recently launched Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative, Microsoft Corp. today announced a strategic cooperation with business incubator iHub and the m:lab East Africa consortium to enable startups, innovators and the developer community of East Africa to grow their skills and build businesses with Microsoft technologies. The cooperation further aims to offer these communities increased access to software, skills development opportunities and a means through which innovative startups can access capital investment and benefit from international outreach.

iHub is an innovation hub for the technology community that comprises an open space made available for technologists, investors and tech companies in Kenya and surrounding areas. m:lab is a consortium of four organizations that aims to be a leader in identifying, nurturing and helping to build sustainable enterprises in the knowledge economy. Together, they actively support the growth of entrepreneurs in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Somalia and Southern Sudan. Microsoft will cooperate with the iHub and m:lab network on multiple projects spanning these countries, including the following:

• Supporting the startup community with Microsoft BizSpark memberships, trainings, participation in events, and access to business networking and capital investment opportunities. BizSpark is a global program that helps startups grow into successful businesses through software support and a vibrant ecosystem that delivers exceptional business advantage. BizSpark has supported 625 African startups since the program was first introduced in 2009.

• Enabling developers to access the latest events and workshops on Microsoft’s newest development technologies through iHub and m:lab community events, including trainings with the iHub UX lab.

• Establishing a physical presence in iHub and m:lab facilities at which Microsoft devices, including Windows Phones and Windows-based tablets, will be available for testing applications and other software developed by the local IT communities.

• Establishing a connection between the iHub Research team and Microsoft Research to enable access to research tools and collaboration on mutually beneficial projects.

• Enabling collaboration between the iHub Consulting team and Microsoft Consulting Services on joint customer projects.

Speaking today at the Innovation Africa Digital Summit in Ethiopia, Fernando de Sousa, general manager, Microsoft Africa Initiatives, said, “Microsoft sees tremendous potential in African youth, developers and entrepreneurs, and we see this collaboration with iHub and m:lab as an excellent way to quickly and directly engage with these critical communities to listen to how we can best support their ambitions and goals. It is our hope that this collaboration will help many more African startups become strong players in the information and communication technology sector at a global scale.”

Erik Hersman, managing director and founder of iHub, added, “We are very pleased to establish this cooperation with Microsoft, spanning the iHub ecosystem, to enable us to provide tech community members with great programs that can help them develop innovative new software products, establish their businesses and reach new markets. Microsoft is clearly a brand that developers and startups want to engage with, and we look forward to this collaboration, which will accelerate the development of technology across East Africa.”

The Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative is designed to help Africa improve its global competitiveness. By 2016, various efforts under the 4Afrika banner spanning the continent, such as this new collaboration with iHub and m:lab, will help place tens of millions of smart devices in the hands of African youth, bring 1 million African small and medium-size enterprises online, upskill 100,000 members of Africa’s existing workforce, and help an additional 100,000 recent graduates develop skills for employability, 75 percent of which Microsoft will help place in jobs.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. 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 have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, Wash. — March 20, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. today announced via its website the general availability of the Windows Embedded 8 family of operating systems. Extending Windows 8 technologies to a spectrum of edge devices, Windows Embedded 8 helps enterprises capitalize on the Internet of Things with the platform to capture, analyze and act on valuable data across IT infrastructures.

“Edge devices connected and working in unison with an enterprise’s broader IT infrastructure unleash the potential of the Internet of Things by yielding the actionable data and operational intelligence that drive businesses forward,” said Kevin Dallas, general manager of Windows Embedded at Microsoft. “From the rich, familiar experience of Windows to integrated management, analytics and cloud platforms, Windows Embedded 8 coupled with the full breadth of Microsoft technologies for intelligent systems helps enterprises gain lasting competitive advantages in retail, manufacturing, healthcare and a variety of industries.”

Devices at the edge of enterprise networks connected to integrated Microsoft software and services help enterprises identify and act on opportunities that otherwise would be out of reach by improving access to data, enhancing performance, extending security and powering flexible line-of-business applications. With Windows Embedded 8, enterprises can harness Windows 8 technologies with additional features to support industry devices within intelligent systems — including rich, natural experiences that provide customers and employees with access to the information they are looking for while ensuring the consistency and predictability businesses require. Businesses will also have the ability to add or buy enterprise-specific functionality for their Windows Embedded 8-based solutions through licensing options Microsoft will make available in July.

For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and developers, Windows Embedded 8 delivers the power, familiarity and reliability of the Windows operating system to create advanced commercial devices. The Windows 8 innovations coupled with additional embedded functionality for edge devices will help them quickly and efficiently deliver differentiated solutions with security enhancements, a refined application model and touch-first industry experiences. Windows Embedded 8 Standard and Windows Embedded 8 Pro are available immediately for OEMs to build and ship solutions — Microsoft has launched http://www.getwindowsembedded8.com to provide download access to the platforms.

Windows Embedded 8 Industry, which targets retail point-of-service (POS) solutions and other scenarios across manufacturing and healthcare that require fixed experiences with enhanced lockdown, branding and the other benefits of Windows Embedded 8, will be available the week of April 1.

In addition, http://www.getwindowsembedded8.com also contains a video series of panel discussions and other resources for enterprises and OEMs to help them take advantage of intelligent systems with Windows Embedded 8. The videos focus on three key industries with significant potential for intelligent systems — healthcare, retail and manufacturing — all with unique needs and requirements for devices, from kiosks to human machine interface panels (HMI), digital signs and POS terminals. Panelists featured in the videos include Windows Embedded general managers Kevin Dallas and Barb Edson; Neil Jordan, managing director of the Worldwide Health Group, Microsoft; Rohit Bhargava, director of Global Technology Strategy for the Worldwide Manufacturing & Resources Sector, Microsoft; Brendan O’Meara, managing director of the Worldwide Retail Group, Microsoft; and industry research analysts Cornelia Wels-Maug (Ovum), Craig Resnick (ARC), and Jerry Sheldon (IHL Group). The panels are moderated by GigaOm Research’s Adam Lesser.

More information on Windows Embedded 8 is available at http://www.getwindowsembedded8.com and the Windows Embedded Newsroom. The Windows Embedded 8 conversation on Twitter is available at http://twitter.com/MSFTWEB and using #getWE8.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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 have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

GTC 2013 -- Top enterprise and mobile application companies are using GPUs to tackle big data analytics and advanced search for both consumer and commercial applications, NVIDIA today announced.

GTC 2013 -- NVIDIA today introduced the industry's first visual computing appliance -- enabling businesses to deliver ultra-fast GPU performance to any Windows, Linux or Mac client on their network.

NVIDIA today announced that enterprises can for the first time seamlessly deliver GPU-accelerated virtual desktops and professional-graphics applications from the cloud to any device, anytime, anywhere.

REDMOND, Wash. — March 19, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the launch of the Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge, a new Microsoft Imagine Cup competition that offers aspiring game developers, ages 9 to 18, the opportunity to learn coding by developing a video game with Kodu, an easy-to-learn, game-creation toolkit and programming language available for free download on Windows-based PCs. Microsoft has drawn on the expertise of Mercy Corps and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop to launch this new challenge as part of Imagine Cup, Microsoft’s student technology skills development program and competition.

“Microsoft developed Kodu to transform programming from a skill perceived as overly difficult to grasp to one that is fun and kid-friendly,” said Scott Fintel, producer for Kodu at Microsoft. “By getting students interested in game design at an early age through Imagine Cup, it’s our hope they will acquire new skills that will translate into a lifelong passion for computer programming and computer science and will encourage them to explore STEM-related careers in the future.”

The Kodu Challenge runs from March 19 through May 17, 2013, and invites students in two age brackets (9–12 and 13–18) to design games on the Kodu platform. For this challenge, participants will explore the relationships between water and people through the medium of Kodu video games. Although the only limits for these kids are their imaginations, the partnership with Mercy Corps offers the chance to learn and explore water-related issues, including disaster relief, clean-water engineering projects and much more, through a video series on the Kodu Challenge website. While acquiring valuable skills such as critical thinking, storytelling and programming, students in both age brackets will compete for first-place prizes of US$3,000, second-place prizes of US$2,000 and third-place prizes of US$1,000.

“At Mercy Corps, we are acutely aware of the relationship between water and people. While too much water can cause flooding, forcing people from their homes and destroying infrastructure, too little water can result in crop failure, conflict over scarce resources and malnutrition,” said Dr. Rebecca Wolfe, senior youth and peace-building advisor at Mercy Corps. “We believe in the power of games to help young people grapple with difficult issues. The Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge offers young students a valuable opportunity to develop new skills while creating games that illustrate the important role water plays in people’s lives around the world.”

With nearly one-half million downloads since its release and more than 16,000 kid-created games currently available for download, Kodu has proven an effective way to teach programming to young students. There will be additional Kodu-focused Imagine Cup challenges by Microsoft launching later this year, reflective of Imagine Cup’s evolution into an ongoing opportunity for students of all backgrounds and disciplines to learn coding and develop new skills with a chance to win cash prizes or travel.

“The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop studies how kids use and learn from digital media. The experience kids have creating their own video games with Kodu represents a strong, multidisciplinary approach to learning and skill development that harnesses kids’ natural love of play with creativity, technical abilities and a deep immersion in fascinating topics,” said Michael Levine, executive director of the Cooney Center.

As a key program of Microsoft YouthSpark, Imagine Cup inspires students to tackle software development projects using Microsoft’s tools and platforms from the initial brainstorming phase through final release and beyond, transforming them from passive consumers of technology to skilled creators. Through its varied contests such as the Kodu Challenge, Imagine Cup uses the thrill of competition to drive students to develop new skills, test themselves in new ways, lead multidisciplinary teams and take command of their future careers.

In addition to unveiling the Kodu Challenge, Microsoft recently launched two new Imagine Cup competitions that focus on women and female technology innovators. The Women’s Empowerment Award was established in partnership with UN Women, the U.N. organization working to accelerate gender equality and the empowerment of women, and will be awarded to two student teams of any gender that create projects that best address issues impacting women globally. Microsoft also announced the Women’s Athletics App Challenge, in partnership with the Seattle Storm women’s basketball team, which encourages female developers, innovators and entrepreneurs to create software related to sports, health or fitness.

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps helps people turn the crises they confront into the opportunities they deserve. Driven by local needs, its programs provide communities in the world’s toughest places with the tools and support they need to transform their own lives. Mercy Corps works in over 40 countries, improving the lives of 19 million people. For more information, see mercycorps.org.

About the Cooney Center

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center (www.joanganzcooneycenter.org) is an independent nonprofit research and innovation organization that focuses on the challenges of educating children in today’s rapidly changing digital media landscape. The Cooney Center conducts research on emerging technologies in learning and collaborates with educators, media producers, policymakers and investors to put research into action. The Cooney Center’s research and programs primarily focus on intergenerational learning, literacy and educational games. The Cooney Center is the founder of the Games and Learning Publishing Council and co-presents the National STEM Video Game Challenge.

About Microsoft Imagine Cup

This is the 11th year of Imagine Cup, part of Microsoft YouthSpark, which will be celebrated at the Worldwide Finals in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 8–11. Students ages 16 and older are eligible to register and compete in Imagine Cup by visiting http://www.imaginecup.com. A full list of competition categories is available at http://imaginecup.com/main/compete.

About Microsoft YouthSpark

Microsoft YouthSpark is a global initiative that aims to create opportunities for 300 million youth in more than 100 countries during the next three years. This companywide initiative includes Citizenship and other company programs — both new and enhanced — that empower youth to imagine and realize their full potential by connecting them with greater opportunities for education, employment and entrepreneurship. Find out more at http://www.microsoft.com/youthspark.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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 have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

NEW ORLEANS — March 19, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. today opened a sold-out Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2013 with a keynote address from Microsoft Business Solutions President Kirill Tatarinov featuring Microsoft Dynamics customers Chobani Inc., Habitat for Humanity International, Revlon Inc., Shock Doctor Inc. and Weight Watchers International Inc.

Speaking to more than 11,000 attendees, the largest in conference history, Tatarinov addressed how business leaders can reimagine the way they engage with customers, build brand relevance and collaborate with employees to stay ahead of the changing roles across all levels in business. Observing the increased influence of marketing and other areas of business over a company’s technology investments and the value of collaboration, Tatarinov reinforced the idea that business functions can work more effectively when they unite with their IT counterparts. Tatarinov noted that Microsoft Dynamics is uniquely positioned to serve as a catalyst for unity, and he announced new advancements in integrated marketing, embedded social capabilities, and new cloud and mobile scenarios enabled through Microsoft Dynamics solutions that will help businesses unite with their customers, unite their organizations, and unite their people and technology.

“To realize the promises and possibilities of a world ahead, organizations must be united” Tatarinov said. “Microsoft Dynamics solutions reimagine what’s possible for businesses, helping them unite to unlock innovation and creativity in people and to enable more meaningful experiences for their customers. When a business is truly united, great things happen.”

Revlon, one of the strongest consumer brand franchises in the world and a Microsoft Dynamics customer, brings the concept of unifying IT and business to life. The company is transforming the way people work and collaborate, starting by replacing 21 disparate business systems and 531 point systems with Microsoft Dynamics AX.

“The speed of beauty and glamour is unforgiving,” said David Giambruno, chief information officer of Revlon. “We are in a hypercompetitive market, and Microsoft Dynamics provides our employees with real-time information to access business-critical information virtually anywhere, anytime on almost any device, helping unite them with each other so they can innovate in a collaborative way across product development, manufacturing, sales and marketing.

Unite With Customers

Strengthening relationships by successfully engaging with customers is vital to business growth. Marketing, sales and customer service are essential to effective customer engagement, and the right business solution can unite these various functions. In addition, integrated marketing management has emerged as a critical strategy for companies that want to reach and engage with new customers while differentiating their brands, driving market excellence and making the most of their investments.

To help businesses achieve true integrated marketing, Microsoft announced a new version of the recently acquired MarketingPilot, which features a simplified user experience, a familiar look and feel, and seamlessly works with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Through MarketingPilot, marketers get access to a complete marketing automation solution with rich business intelligence, enabling them to successfully plan, track and optimize customer interactions across digital, social and traditional channels. This capability, when combined with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, fulfills the Holy Grail of marketing: omnichannel marketing that enables top-line revenue growth while managing costs and measuring return on marketing investment. The new version of MarketingPilot will be available to customers in the United States in March 2013. Microsoft plans to make MarketingPilot available to additional international markets later this year. More information is available at https://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/crmconnection/default.aspx.

“Marketing is changing and evolving rapidly, and we need business solutions that help us grow top-line revenue while managing costs. Our marketing needs require us to engage and interact with our customers, while providing technical solutions to efficiently distribute the appropriate information to our dealers to complement and enhance the sales process,” said John Johnston, director, Digital Marketing at Volvo. “We’ve been using Microsoft Dynamics to better align our marketing and sales processes and are constantly developing our solutions to increase our sales potential and personalize our customer interactions.”

Microsoft’s vision is to deliver social monitoring and analytics features as an integral part of the user experience and provide these capabilities to all roles and functions in an organization. To help businesses analyze and act on market intelligence from social conversations, including measuring sentiment across a wide array of social channels, Microsoft today announced an initiative to seamlessly embed social monitoring capabilities across Microsoft Dynamics CRM offerings. This effort has been accelerated with the acquisition of Netbreeze GmbH, which delivers cutting-edge native language analytics combined with data mining, transactional and text analysis capabilities. More information is available at https://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/crmconnection/default.aspx.

Chobani, maker of America’s No. 1-selling yogurt brand, uses a wide range of Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft Dynamics AX and CRM to keep pace with its aggressive plans for future global growth. The company uses Microsoft Dynamics CRM to communicate and connect with its consumers around the clock.

“As our company grew, so did the volume of messages from consumers across the world. We receive hundreds of contact messages and phone calls daily,” said Maureen Hurley, vice president of information technology at Chobani. “Microsoft Dynamics solutions have enabled us to make that feedback actionable, better track and understand what our customers want, and continue to provide best-in-class service. This has helped us build deeper, more immediate connections with our fans and continue our growth.”

Chobani also recently opened a new domestic manufacturing facility in Twin Falls, Idaho — considered the world’s largest of its kind — and was able to bring it online with Microsoft Dynamics AX in just 27 days.

Unite With Technology

Microsoft today announced a set of new applications for phones and tablets, which will be available with the next update to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. Designed to be personal, social and immersive, these mobile applications will provide a more relevant experience based on people’s roles and devices, help them connect with their social networks, and provide an engaging and actionable experience. In addition to the Business Analyzer application, which is currently available in the Windows Marketplace, the company unveiled a new set of application capabilities for mobile usage, targeting the following:

• Expense management. Helps workers both capture and reconcile expenses while traveling, cutting down time and effort — meaning getting money back more quickly; helps organizations implement expense policies more seamlessly

• Time. Captures time on projects “on the go,” simplifying this administrative burden while providing businesses with the opportunity to improve working capital through decreased billing cycle times

• Approvals. Enables managers to approve business requests such as budget requests, time sheets, submitted expense reports and purchase requisition to cut down on administrative task and time spend

These applications will be available for Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets, Windows Phone 8, Android phones, and iOS phone devices. To ensure extensibility and encourage innovation, Microsoft is also releasing documentation for its mobile APIs to help customers and partners build their own mobile applications. Learn more about these new applications at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dax.

In addition, Microsoft will deliver a mobile CRM sales application with the next Microsoft Dynamics CRM release in the second half of 2013. Optimized for tablets, this application will help people manage an opportunity from lead to close and easily connect with customers and colleagues, regardless of location. The application brings guided selling to Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets as well as the iPad. Businesses can configure this application, enabling them to tailor the experience to fit their sales processes and approaches.

Microsoft today announced the availability of the Community Technical Preview of the new Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services helping IT professionals simplify the application lifecycle experience. These services help organizations improve predictability of Microsoft Dynamics AX implementations by simplifying and standardizing implementation processes. They also allow them to proactively manage the application and reduce downtime. As an online service, Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services helps minimize an organization’s IT burden. Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 and Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 were released in Q4 2012 and were received positively by customers and partners. Enabled for the cloud, these solutions offer customers a complete choice of deployment both in the cloud and on-premises. In addition, these products will be available through partners to customers hosted on Windows Azure in June 2013.

Reaffirming the road map for Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft expects to release updates to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in the second half of 2013. In addition to new mobile scenarios for phone and tablet devices, this release will also include capabilities such as warehouse management and transportation management, giving customers a real-time global view of supply chain operations. The company also reaffirmed availability of the next major release of Microsoft Dynamics AX in the cloud on Windows Azure and on-premises with early adoption programs commencing in 2014.

Microsoft Dynamics Momentum

Microsoft announced the latest Microsoft Dynamics CRM adoption numbers, with more than 3 million users and more than 39,000 customers. Microsoft Dynamics AX continues on a strong growth path with more than 18,000 customers and an increase of more than 50 percent license growth in North America in the last Microsoft fiscal quarter. Microsoft Dynamics also announced a number of global independent software vendor (ISV) partners supporting Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, including Acorn Systems Inc., Bull, Flintfox International Ltd., Dominion, Hitachi Solutions Ltd., Hubwoo and XAPT Corp. These partners join Microsoft’s broad portfolio of other leading global ISVs, which view Microsoft Dynamics as a critical component in helping propel customers become Dynamic Businesses.

More Information

More information about Microsoft’s Dynamic Business vision can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/about.aspx. More information and news from Convergence 2013 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/dynamics. The opening keynote presentation and general session keynote speeches are available on the new virtual event platform for Convergence 2013 at http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/convergence. Those who want to follow and engage with the Microsoft Dynamics Twitter community can do so at @MSFTDynamics and @MSFTConvergence using #CONV13.

About Microsoft Dynamics

At the heart of every successful business are the people who make things happen. Microsoft Dynamics designs modern business solutions that empower individuals with intuitive tools that allow them to do their best work. Our proactive, easy-to-use business applications adapt to the way people and systems work, enabling businesses to rapidly deploy and be forward-looking in an ever-changing world.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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 have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

GTC 2013 -- NVIDIA today announced that Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA's co-founder and chief executive officer, will deliver the opening keynote address at the 2013 GPU Technology Conference (GTC) on Tuesday, March 19, beginning at 9 am PT.

GTC 2013 -- The growing ranks of programmers using the Python open-source language can now take full advantage of GPU acceleration for their high performance computing (HPC) and big data analytics applications by using the NVIDIA® CUDA® parallel programming model, NVIDIA today announced.