Weekend Reading: Feb. 21st Edition — Your personal cloud is now OneDrive, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to add marketing capabilities

In this edition of Weekend Reading, we’ve got stories about free cloud storage OneDrive being globally available, Microsoft Dynamics CRM adding more capabilities to deliver even better customer service, and new and updated Bing apps for Windows Phone.

Who knew moving day could be so easy? Microsoft’s free cloud storage, OneDrive, became available this week. Existing SkyDrive customers only need to head over to OneDrive.com and log in to get files moved over. There are some changes we think you’ll like, including automatic camera backup for Android, and the ability to share and view videos just as easily as photos. There’s also some new ways to get more storage, on top of the 7 GB you get for free. And OneDrive is accessible everywhere – on all of Microsoft’s latest devices and services (from Xbox to Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 to Office), as well as on the Web and other platforms, including iOS and Android.

New marketing, customer care and social listening capabilities will be part of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM release , expected to be available in the second quarter this year. Bob Stutz, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, said the update “democratizes social listening, adds new marketing capabilities for more impact and enables businesses to deliver outstanding customer service. With this new release, we are essentially changing the CRM game.” The new Microsoft Social Listening service will let businesses analyze and act on market intelligence from social conversations, including measuring sentiment across a wide array of social channels.

Several new and updated Bing apps for Windows Phone are available to help you when it comes to food, fitness and travel and more -- and each app syncs across all of your Windows devices . Fans of the Windows 8 Food & Drink app will recognize the companion Bing Food & Drink app for Windows Phone, designed with both the novice cook and expert chef in mind, with thousands of recipes from leading culinary content partners. Health & Fitness is designed to be your all-in-one tool for wellness, centralizing your nutrition, fitness and medical information, as well as giving you hundreds of customizable workouts and tools. The Bing Travel app provides destination guides, gorgeous photos and expert reviews.

The first public demonstration of video calling between Lync and Skype was shown this week at the Lync Conference in Las Vegas, “making it possible for consumers and businesses everywhere to use video for nearly every conversation,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president for Lync & Skype Engineering. Pall said “video everywhere” is just one of the changes coming to Lync and Skype to take the services from offering unified communications to universal communications.

Have you met Office Online at Office.com ? If not, say “hello.” It’s the new name for Office Web Apps, so you know where to find our free online experience. As the Office Blogs notes, renaming Office Web Apps to Office Online will help alleviate any confusion associated with the service, which is free on any Web browser.

Microsoft’s employees raised a record-breaking $113 million for more than 19,000 nonprofit organizations worldwide in 2013. “ The $113 million total includes our employees’ cash donations, the company’s matching contributions, and $7.8 million from Microsoft to match volunteer hours logged by our employees,” said Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president of Legal & Corporate Affairs at Microsoft.

This week on the Microsoft Facebook page , we ventured into majestic forests with this free Windows theme .

That’s it for this edition of Weekend Reading. Thanks for visiting, and have a great weekend!

Posted by Suzanne Choney
Microsoft News Center Staff