Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) News: Bing for Schools, Blackbaud, Inc. (BLKB)’s Cloud Services & More

Editor’s Note: Related tickers: Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)

Microsoft offers ad-free Bing for the classroom to battle Google (Reuters)
The long-running rivalry between Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is turning into a schoolyard brawl. Microsoft on Wednesday opened a new front against the world’s No 1 search provider by piloting an ad-free offering for educational users of Bing, its search engine that for years has trailed Google. Under the free program called “Bing for Schools,” students in participating school districts will no longer see ads or adult content when they do Internet searches.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Microsoft Windows Azure Powers Blackbaud Mobile App (DailyFinance)
Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB) today announced the use of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Windows Azure cloud services to connect The Raiser’s Edge mobile app to on-premises instances of the company’s flagship Raiser’s Edge donor management software. One of the first companies to adopt the Windows Azure Service Bus, Blackbaud, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLKB) now makes it easy for nonprofit professionals that want easy access to data from their mobile devices. “I’m very excited about the doors the mobile application opens in terms of mobility with our constituent data,” said Chris Kennedy, International Mission Board development officer.

One device to rule them all? Microsoft and Apple face off (MacWorld)
I have observed that there are two kinds of people in this world. No, stick with me. There are people who dream of having one device that they can use in every instance, and there are, well, the rest of us. That’s a fundamental philosophical difference currently being presented by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and its competitors: Apple makes devices that it believes are better suited to particular use cases, while others—such as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)—say that one device alone can do it all.

Gaming Industry Heads In The Cloud (CloudtWeaks)
Streaming movies has become the bread and butter of online entertainment and it seems that many others companies are meaning to jump on this trend of instant access. Now Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) has created their own television series that are strictly online, music can be streamed like a radio giving you the option to pick the songs you want to with Spotify, and now Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Sony are trying to do the same with video games.

Sony PS4 in ideal position right now: pro (CNBC)