REDMOND, Wash. — June 3, 2013 — Today, Microsoft Corp. announced Chip In, a new seasonal buying program to help students get the Windows PC or tablet they need for school. With Chip In, students crowdsource contributions from friends and family toward the purchase of a new Windows PC or tablet. Microsoft will chip in 10 percent of the purchase price on select PCs, and the first 10,000 students to fully fund their PC will also get a four-year subscription to Office 365 University.*

“We know that heading to college is one of the top reasons students buy a new PC — it’s a powerful tool to support their education and stay in touch with their families and friends,” said Kristina Libby, head of Consumer Communications for Windows. “With Chip In from Microsoft, students can leverage the power of their social networks to help them get a new PC and Office 365 University this back-to-school season.”

How d oes it w ork?

Students can participate in Chip In exclusively at http://www.windowschipin.com. Participating students choose from a wide range of qualified Windows 8 PCs and tablets and create a “giving page.” Then they can share their page with friends and family via social media or email to ask for contributions in any amount up to the total cost of the PC.

The first 10,000 students to fully fund their PC before Sept. 1 will also get a four-year subscription of Office 365 University. The subscription gives students the latest, most complete Office applications (which can be downloaded on up to two devices), 20 GB of additional SkyDrive storage and 60 Skype world minutes.

Chip In runs now through Sept. 1, 2013. To participate, students need a valid .edu email address or documentation to prove enrollment in a university or accredited institution. More about the offer can be found at http://www.windowschipin.com.

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

* Office 365 University four-year subscriptions available to the first 10,000 participants who fully fund a PC through Chip In.

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., and LAVAL, Quebec — June 3, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. and InCycle Software Inc. today announced that Microsoft has reached an agreement to acquire the InRelease Business Unit from InCycle Software, a leading provider of application lifecycle management (ALM) services and Release Management solutions on the .NET platform. The acquisition of the continuous deployment solution, InRelease, will add Release Management capabilities to Microsoft’s ALM and DevOps solutions, helping customers deliver applications faster, better and more efficiently.

“DevOps is an increasingly important part of ALM and a growing area of interest to chief information officers as businesses are pressured to develop and deploy quality applications at an increasingly faster pace,” said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president, Developer Division for Microsoft. “The InRelease continuous delivery solution will automate the development-to-production release process from Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, helping enable faster and simpler delivery of applications.”

InCycle Software’s InRelease Release Management solution was developed using the latest Microsoft technologies and integrated directly with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server to provide a mechanism in which application components can be deployed automatically to various target servers in different environments. This also enables all the configuration information to be centralized, managing the deployments as part of a business-driven release workflow that involves multiple roles in the organization. A continuous deployment approach brings together key stakeholders from across the build-deploy-test process to ensure that the application delivers the highest-quality experience across every operating environment to which the application is deployed. This constant feedback loop also allows development teams to bring applications to deployment at a much more rapid release cadence.

“InRelease was designed to build upon the existing features in Visual Studio, and we’re excited it will now be part of an integrated ALM solution bringing value to Visual Studio customers everywhere,” said Claude Remillard, president of InCycle Software.

Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Microsoft will acquire the business unit of InCycle Software that provides its InRelease automated deployment solution. InCycle Software, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, will remain a separate entity focused on ALM consulting.

Somasegar added, “InCycle Software will continue on as a valued partner to Microsoft, and a great resource for customers evaluating ALM solutions based on the InRelease technology.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About InCycle Software

Microsoft Gold partner since 2005, InCycle Software is the North American leader in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) consulting services that help .NET organizations go to the next level.

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 — June 3, 2013 — At TechEd North America 2013, Microsoft Corp. introduced a portfolio of new solutions to help businesses thrive in the era of cloud computing and connected devices. In today’s keynote address, Server & Tools Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson and fellow executives showcased how new offerings across client, datacenter infrastructure, public cloud and application development help deliver the most comprehensive, connected enterprise platform.

“The products and services introduced today illustrate how Microsoft is the company that businesses can bet on as they embrace cloud computing, deliver critical applications, and empower employee productivity in new and exciting ways,” Anderson said. “Only Microsoft connects the dots for the enterprise from ‘client to cloud.’”

Today’s keynote featured several customers, including luxury car manufacturer Aston Martin. The company is an example of the many enterprises that use the full range of Microsoft products and cloud platforms for IT success.

“Our staff’s sole purpose is to provide advanced technology that enables Aston Martin to build the most beautiful, iconic sports cars in the world,” said Daniel Roach-Rooke, IT infrastructure manager, Aston Martin. “From corporate desktops and software development to private and public cloud, Microsoft is our IT vendor of choice.”

Fueling hybrid cloud

At TechEd, Microsoft introduced upcoming releases of its key enterprise IT solutions for hybrid cloud: Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2014. Available in preview later this month, the products break down boundaries between customer datacenters, service provider datacenters and Windows Azure. Using them, enterprises can make IT services and applications available across clouds and scale them up or down according to business needs. Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2 are slated to release by the end of calendar year 2013, with SQL Server 2014 slated for release shortly thereafter.

With advances in virtualization, software-defined networking, data storage and recovery, in-memory transaction processing, and more, these solutions were engineered with Microsoft’s “cloud-first” focus, including a faster pace of development and release to market. They incorporate Microsoft’s experience running large-scale cloud services, connect to Windows Azure and work together to provide a consistent platform for powerful hybrid cloud scenarios. More information can be found at blog posts by Anderson about Windows Server and System Center and by Quentin Clark about SQL Server.

Further showcasing Microsoft’s hybrid cloud advantage, today the company also announced the public preview of Windows Azure BizTalk Services for enterprise integration solutions, both on-premises and in the cloud. In addition, Windows Azure now offers industry-leading, per-minute billing for virtual machines, Web roles and worker roles that improves cloud economics for customers. More information is available at the Windows Azure blog.

Windows 8.1: Empowering modern business

During the keynote address, Iain McDonald, partner director of program management for Windows, detailed key business features in the recently announced Windows 8.1 update — including advances in security, management, mobility and networking — to offer the best business tablets with the most powerful operating system for today’s modern business needs.

New networking features in Windows 8.1 aim to improve mobile productivity for today’s workforce, with system-on-a-chip (SoC)-integrated mobile broadband, native Miracast wireless display and near field communication (NFC)-based pairing with enterprise printers. Security is also enhanced in the new update to address device proliferation and to protect corporate data and applications with fingerprint-based biometrics, multifactor authentication on tablets and remote business data removal to securely wipe company data from a device. And improved management capabilities in Windows 8.1 give customers more flexibility with supported options such as System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2 and new mobile device management (MDM) solutions with third-party MDM partners, in addition to updated Windows Intune support.

On June 26, at the Build 2013 developer conference in San Francisco, Microsoft will release a public preview of the Windows 8.1 update for Windows 8 and Windows RT customers. More information on new features found in Windows 8.1 for businesses, including updated Windows deployment guidance for businesses, is available on the Windows for your Business blog.

Fostering modern application development

Microsoft today also introduced Visual Studio 2013 and demonstrated new capabilities for improving the application lifecycle, both on-premises and in the cloud. A preview of Visual Studio 2013, with its new enhancements for agile portfolio planning, developer productivity, team collaboration, quality enablement and DevOps, is slated for release in the coming weeks, timed with the Build conference.

Furthermore, Microsoft today announced an agreement to acquire InCycle Software Inc.’s InRelease Business Unit. InRelease is a leading release management solution for Microsoft .NET and Windows Server applications. This acquisition will extend Microsoft’s offerings in the application lifecycle management and DevOps market. More information is available on S. Somasegar’s blog.

In addition, the company today announced new benefits that enable Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers to more easily develop and test more applications with Windows Azure. New enhancements include up to $150 worth of Windows Azure platform services per month at no additional cost for Visual Studio Professional, Premium or Ultimate MSDN subscribers and new use rights to run select MSDN software in the cloud.

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.

NVIDIA today introduced the NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX™ 700M series of notebook GPUs, which enable gaming notebook PC designs that are smaller and more powerful than ever before.