After a 25-year presence, Microsoft has officially shut down its office in Pakistan as part of a broader global restructuring initiative. The decision reflects the company’s ongoing transition to a cloud-first, partner-led model.

This closure coincides with Microsoft’s latest round of global layoffs, which will impact around 9,100 employees—approximately 4% of its total workforce—marking its most significant workforce reduction since 2023, according to The Verge.

Microsoft never maintained a full-scale commercial operation in Pakistan. Instead, its local office functioned primarily as a liaison center, catering to enterprise, education, and government clients. In recent years, much of this activity had already been delegated to regional partners, with licensing and contract management handled out of Microsoft’s European headquarters in Ireland.

Former President Dr. Arif Alvi criticized the move on social media, calling it a “troubling sign.” He stated that Microsoft once considered Pakistan for expansion but ultimately opted for Vietnam by late 2022 due to local instability. “The opportunity was lost,” he wrote.

Jawwad Rehman, Microsoft Pakistan’s founding country manager, echoed this sentiment, noting that the exit reflects the challenging business environment. “Even global giants like Microsoft find it unsustainable to stay,” he said in a LinkedIn post.

Tech entrepreneur Habibullah Khan added that Microsoft’s revenue from Pakistan was estimated at around $50 million—less than 0.02% of the company’s global income—and that local staffing had already been significantly reduced. “Their relationship with Pakistan was very tenuous,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Despite the closure, Microsoft will continue to serve Pakistani customers through its regional teams and partner network. However, the move highlights the increasing pressure on multinational companies to streamline international operations in response to evolving global strategies.

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Microsoft may introduce the new function by the end of March in an effort to compete with Alphabet’s search engine Google, according to a report from a San Francisco-based technology news website.

Microsoft announced its intention to incorporate OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 image-generation software into Bing in a blog post last year. Microsoft and OpenAI declined to comment.

Microsoft offered $1 billion in cash to San Francisco-based OpenAI in 2019, supporting the startup. In order to build artificial intelligence supercomputing technologies on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service, the two have established a multi-year agreement.

On November 30, OpenAI made the ChatGPT chatbot, its most recent development, available for free public testing. The chatbot is a piece of software created to replicate human-like dialogue in response to user input and can answer a wide variety of queries while mimicking human speaking styles.

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Microsoft’s Gaming division CEO Phil Spencer previously stated that the company would launch a service that would allow Xbox games to be streamed on TV.

Microsoft said in June 2021 that it would release a smart TV app and an Xbox stick to do the same. After almost a year, the firm is closer than ever to putting that plan into action. According to Venture Beat, Microsoft is planning to sell an Xbox cloud-gaming streaming device later this year.

It’ll probably look like an Amazon Fire TV Stick or a Chromecast, and it’ll enable customers stream movies and TV shows while also giving them access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. According to reports, Microsoft and Samsung are working together to develop the streaming software, which will come pre-installed on Samsung Smart TVs.

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Console video games rarely have advertising, allowing gamers to play a game from beginning to end without being interrupted. Microsoft, on the other hand, intends to change this in the near future.

The corporation may soon incorporate advertisements to games. The Redmond-based software firm is currently on the lookout for advertising firms to assist with the plan’s implementation.

Adverts can be annoying for mobile game players, resulting in unwanted disruptions. Microsoft, on the other hand, does not want to take players out of the game to show adverts; instead, it wants to embed them into the game.

The plan is a “in-world billboard” that corporations may use to promote their products or services. Within the game, the ads will appear as digitally produced billboards. It’s unclear what other formats the advertising could take or whether they’ll feature audio or video.

Microsoft will have to feature titles that support its strategy in order to use this non-intrusive marketing method. The firm is presently looking for similar games to add to their collection.

Microsoft has yet to reveal how it intends to carry out the strategy. Microsoft, according to a spokeswoman, is “always exploring for ways to improve the experience for players and developers.”

Advertisements in-game are slated to debut in the third quarter of this year.

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Microsoft has effectively acquired domains used by APT28, a Russian military intelligence-sponsored outfit that targets Ukrainian institutions.

Strontium — Microsoft’s moniker for APT28 or “Fancy Bear,” a hacking group linked to Russia’s GRU — used the domains to target multiple Ukrainian institutions, including media organisations, as well as government institutions and think tanks involved in foreign policy in the United States and Europe, according to a blog post published on Thursday.

“We believe Strontium was seeking to get long-term access to its targets’ computers, provide tactical assistance for a physical invasion, and exfiltrate sensitive data,” said Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president of customer security.

On April 6, Microsoft claimed it received a court order authorising it to take control of seven domains used by APT28 to carry out its cyberattacks.

“We’ve since redirected these names to a sinkhole maintained by Microsoft, allowing us to reduce Strontium’s present use of these domains while still enabling victim notifications,” Burt explained. “We informed the Ukrainian authorities of the activity we discovered and the actions we took.”

This action is part of a larger Microsoft investigation that began in 2016 against a Russian state-sponsored hacking gang. In recent years, Microsoft has won many court rulings allowing it to seize APT28’s infrastructure. Microsoft has so far filed 15 more lawsuits against the Russian-backed threat group, resulting in the seizure of over 100 malicious domains controlled by Russian spies.

Since at least 2009, the Russia-backed hacking group has been active, mostly targeting media, military, security institutions, and governments around the world, including a 2015 hack of the German federal parliament and a 2016 attack on the Democratic National Committee.

APT28 has also been linked to the recent cyber attack on Viasat, a US satellite communications company that caused satellite service interruptions across Central and Eastern Europe. According to a recent SentinelOne analysis, the attack was most likely the consequence of destructive wiper malware, which has infected thousands of household and small business routers and network equipment throughout the world. APT28 was blamed by the FBI in 2018 for the VPNFilter operation.

APT28’s attacks, according to Microsoft’s Burt, are “only a small part of the activity we’ve seen in Ukraine,” with the company having “seen practically all of Russia’s nation-state actors involved in the current full-scale offensive against Ukraine’s government and critical infrastructure.”

Microsoft’s domain seizures come only days after the FBI announced that it had taken down a huge GRU-run botnet.

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According to reports, Microsoft and Google ended a six-year truce in legal proceedings to avoid an open war between the two technology giants.

The two companies reached an unusual agreement in 2015 to end the ongoing legal battle, the lawsuit was when Sundar Pichai became the CEO of Google and Satya Nadella became the chief of Microsoft It was reached shortly after the executive officer.

The end of the six-year truce will “pave the way for direct conflict, as regulators target barriers to competition between major US technology groups.”

The report quoted a source as saying that in mid-April, the two parties decided not to renew the contract. It seems that Microsoft and Google have taken off their gloves again.

Earlier this year, Google criticized Microsoft for trying to “break the way the open network operates.” Microsoft publicly supported an Australian law requiring Google to pay for news publishers’ content.

Microsoft also criticized Google for its control of the advertising market. The report said: “The world is trying to challenge the major technology companies that may have been entrenched and prevent more open competition.”

In its dirtiest trick, Microsoft allegedly launched a series of attacking advertisements called “Scroogled”, accusing it of Google’s privacy policy. The agreement between Microsoft and Google was supposed to improve cooperation between the two companies, but it turned out not to be the case.

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On Thursday, Microsoft announced that it is developing software that allows users to play Xbox video games on smart TVs. The news was released before the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which started almost on Saturday, as Microsoft and other video game industry heavyweights will participate in the pandemic.

“As a company, Microsoft is betting on games”, CEO Satya Nadella said when introducing the plan. He said that Microsoft’s goal is to let consumers “no matter where they play”.

Microsoft emphasized the strength of its Xbox division because it competes with Luna and Stadia in the cloud and gaming services managed by Amazon and Google, respectively. This headquarters is located in The US technology giant also announced that it is manufacturing devices that can be connected to any TV or computer screen.

You can monitor and stream Xbox games without a console. In the next few weeks, you will be able to access the Internet via Chrome, Edge, and Safari. The browser uses the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription for cloud gaming.

 Xbox Director Phil Spencer said: “Game consoles and PCs still have a place. Frankly speaking, there will always be there, but through the cloud, we will be able to connect to the Internet for anyone Of people provide a reliable gaming experience. With the help of the cloud, gamers can fully participate in the Xbox experience like people using local hardware,” he added.

At the end of last year, Xbox Game Pass had about 18 million users worldwide. According to industry tracking agency NPD Group, this year’s in the first quarter, American consumers spent nearly 15 billion U.S. dollars on video games.

Compared to last year, this is 30%. Microsoft will air the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase on Sunday, showcasing games from studios around the world.

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Forbes releases list of world’s most valuable technology brands

Forbes Magazine has always been collecting facts and bringing to us one of the best work. The leading magazine recently published the list of the most valuable technology brands of 2017.

Apple has kept the legacy of remaining on top. For this, the Senior Editor of Forbes, Kurt Badenhausen, said,

“Apple’s premium brand produces an average selling price of nearly $700 for its iPhones and helps the company generate more than 80% of industry smartphone profits.”

This is the seventh time Apple has become the top leading brand and it id the first ever company to cross the $800 billion mark.

The list of 100 brands was published and the total value of the brands collectively is $1.95 trillion. The list includes the famous firms and the grossing tech companies managing the top rank.

Badenhausen added,

“Technology brands continue to rank as the most valuable in the world with nine of the top 15.”

The top most list of the brands is mentioned below:

1. Apple:

The company gained a raise of 10% as compared to last year and managed to remain on the top with the brand value of $170 billion.

2. Google:

Google landed on the second position and has the brand value of $101.8 billion.

With the huge increase of of 23% value as compared to last year.

3. Microsoft:

Microsoft bagged the third position and managed a good raise of 10% and came in the list with total brand value of $87 billion.

4. Facebook:

Over the last year, Facebook had moved to an increase of 40% and reached the brand value of $73.5 billion. It was ranked fourth.

5. Amazon:

Amazon landed on the fifth number. The website gained the mouth widening raise in value of 54%. The brand has the value of $54.1 billion.

6. Samsung:

Samsung bagged the sixth position  and has gained an increase of 6% this year. It has the reached the brand value of $38.2 billion.

7. General Electric:

With the brand value of $37.9 billion and an increase in the value of 3% it has landed on seventh rank.

8. AT&T:

It has the brand value of $36.7 billion. It reached the 8th position with an increase of 12% over the year.

9. IBM:

IBM made it to the 9th position with the brand value of $33.3 billion. This year it experienced a loss of 20%.

10. Intel:

Intel made it to tenth rank with a brand value of $31.4 billion and the increase in value if 13%.

Hopefully these most valuable technology brands list will help you to figure out which one is being next big giant in technology.

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Richie Rich! This man is getting rich day by day. Yes! I am talking about Bill Gates. And the hot news for today is that he is going to be World’s first trillionaire by 2042.

Oxfam announced that the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is most likely to become trillionaire by 2042.

Oxfam is an international organization that is working to alleviate global poverty. According to a report by the organization, in coming 25 years we our most likely to get the world’s first trillionaire.

And Gates is the one, who is the lucky person. He is on the top of the richest people since years now and his wealth seems to grow.

If the investments of Bill Gates continued to get 11% of profit, as nowadays, than in next 25 years we will need to introduce him a a trillionaire.

Forbes is of the view, “the tech-genius can certainly become the world’s first trillionaire. ”

Bill Gates has left Microsoft since 2006. At that time his worth was $50 billion. To the date, the worth has increased by $25 billion and has become $75 billion.  He is also a great charity worker . He is part of successful setups like Giving Pledge. Giving Pledge is a group of rich individuals that have taken oath to give half of their worth to poor. Still he has managed to remain on top for years now.

According to the report by  Oxfam,

“In such an environment, if you are already rich, you have to try hard not to keep getting a lot richer. The super-rich can achieve returns that are not available to the ordinary saver, helping the gap to grow between the wealthy and everyone else. The bigger the initial investment, the higher returns one can make as the initial costs of sophisticated advice and high-risk investments can be justified with the potential for super-lucrative returns.”

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Always wanted a TWIN? Here is your chance to find one.

TwinsOrNot is powered by Microsoft Project Oxford, a beta version of a set of APIs, SDKS and services freely available to developers to make their applications more intelligent and engaging

Now you can also find your doppelganger by using this website. The Twin Detector Tool is recently launched by Tech giant recently. It is all about matching your picture with your twin. It allows one to compare the face from billions of people around the world the website is going to provide you with the picture and name of your twin. This sounds interesting to me.

The statement was published on company’s blog,

“TwinsOrNot is a website that lets you select any two photos, compare the faces and provides you with a degree of likeness’’

Its format is set up on system that carries out facial recognition. For sure it is fun but it is easy to use to. All you need to do is upload your photo. The website itself will browse and find you, your twin.

All credits and praise for developing this site go to Mr. Mat Velloso. This guy created whole thing in just few hours.

Microsoft’s earlier project How-Old.net proved to be an internet sensation. Coupled with the new facial recognition service, the two websites perfectly showcase advanced analysis capabilities of machine learning API’s.

TwinsOrNot.net now features a visual refresh and new capabilities including using Bing integration to better compare to your favorite celebrity.

Don’t wait just experience this new website and enjoy.

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