Half of 2018 has finished and looking at how everyone has fared, it can be safe to assume that till now 2018 has been a difficult year for everyone, and it has been no different for the good folks at Microsoft as well.
If being criticized for environmental pollution for their submerged data centers was not enough, a lot of other things have gone wrong for them, as well as a Microsoft acquisitions shopping spree to maybe ward off the sad news galore.
Microsoft In the First Half Of 2018
Let’s pick up from the biggest news of the lot. The Azure servers in Northern Europe suffered an outage, and it was not for a couple of minutes. The unusually warm summers that Ireland is experiencing have somewhat led to the servers overheating and resulting in a shutdown.
Someone at Microsoft seems to have not accounted for global warming impacts on the server atmospheric conditions planning. And this Azure absenteeism is on the back of two new data centers being promised by Microsoft in Norway - talk about not breaking their spirit.
Microsoft loosened its purse some more to acquire Bonsai, an AI startup proving once again its dedication to not falling back in the artificial intelligence game.
Considering the past half-decade, Microsoft cannot afford a slip-up here. However, their mobile solution failed to take off the way they would have intended it to be.
Flipgrid was another grab for Microsoft to make its mark stronger in the classroom space to meet Google head-on.
Last but not least, the launch of Bing visual search, on Android and iOS. Although this is great news for the Redmond giant. But, it is nothing path-breaking since Google already has a solution like this in place through its Google Lens. Moreover, we still haven’t understood why they have not yet rolled the feature straight into its Android Camera app.
But what is more surprising is that Microsoft did not launch Bing visual search on its own Windows platform. Although Microsoft has released a statement that they will be launching the Windows version soon. Strategically it is a good ploy as Android and iOS both make up over 90% of the smartphone OS share.
The second half of 2018 is going to be tougher going at Redmond. Smaller fish such as the slacking sales of the Xbox VR headset, GitHub being made free for schools, etc. Microsoft must pull up its socks and deliver a magical rabbit out of a hat.
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