Microsoft will be hosting an event later today which is believed to be focused on education, evident from the tagline #MicrosoftEdu. While any upgrades in the Surface notebook series looks unlikely, Microsoft is expected to introduce both hardware and software products at the event and as the name suggests, the products are likely to be centred around education.
How to watch MicrosoftEdu event live?
The event kick starts at 9:30 AM ET in New York which is 7 PM (Indian Standard Time) here in India and can be watched live on the Microsoft’s official website.
What can we expect?
Windows 10 Cloud OS: Starting with the software, Microsoft expected to launch its own Cloud based OS at the event named – Windows 10 Cloud OS. Mainly to counter Google’s Chrome OS, the new Cloud OS will be a shrunk down version of Windows 10 with support for Microsoft App Store only. In other words, you will not be able to install any third party software onto the Cloud OS supported machine. This is similar to what Google has done with Chrome OS, but a number of apps on Chrome OS is much more than Windows App Store so there might be a little catching up to do. Nevertheless, the new Windows 10 Cloud OS is rumoured to deliver efficient performance and will not require high-end spec machines.
Microsoft Windows 10 Cloud OS supported Notebook: While Windows 10 Cloud OS will surely be a welcome addition to the education segment, Microsoft is also expected to launch a new notebook that will run on Windows 10 Cloud OS. This apparently will counter Google Chromebooks offering impressive functionalities at a really affordable price. A recently leaked presentation revealed that the minimum requirement for the upcoming Chromebook counterpart from Microsoft as 4GB of RAM, 32 or 64GB of storage, all day battery life and at least a Quad-Core Celeron processor. For the speed, the presentation hinted the bootup time to only 15 seconds and re-login from sleep will take only a couple of seconds.
Microsoft Office Web: Microsoft Office being an important limb to the Windows ecosystem might as well go online as the Redmond-based company might as well launch a cloud version of the service. Google has already done that with its Google Sheets, Docs etc services merged into Google Drive and Microsoft might well be in the queue.
Should India be excited?
We can’t say! India is yet to see a major enrollment of Chromebooks from Google so commenting on the possible launch of the Microsoft counterpart will be a wild guess at best. Further, Cloud OS like Chrome OS and Windows 10 Cloud OS requires good internet connectivity which India still lacks at scale.