Have a Quick Microsoft Learning Snack

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 10 Jul 2009

Microsoft invests $50 million in higher education, a new site called Microsoft SnackBox has been launched in Beta, Steven Sinofsky no longer occupies the position of Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group Lead, the Laptop Hunters ad campaign rolled out a new commercial, Microsoft’s Open source Repository is host to more than 10,000 projects, 2010 calendar templates for MS Office have been rolled out – these are all topics that you should be made aware of. As you can see, they are directly related to the learning theme the title announced; or at least they are informative, which is good as well.

Microsoft invests $50 million in higher education

Microsoft has announced that it is prepared to invest up to $50 million in higher education resources, training and certifications in an effort to help higher education institutions support economic stimulus efforts and work-force development strategies. This money will be invested via the Microsoft Education Alliance Program agreement which states that the Redmond-based company must provide resources and tools for tools for short-term work-force training and higher education enhancements.

The $50 million investment comes in the form of free software and certifications (detailed list of offerings here)

The announcement follows another which stated that Microsoft and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) paired up to form a joint task with the goal of helping higher education institutions all over the world meet the increasing challenge of supporting economic stimulus efforts and work-force development strategies.

A new site called Microsoft SnackBox has been launched in Beta

The Microsoft Learning team has announced the release of a new site called SnackBox (beta) that provides short, interactive learning presentations related to Microsoft technologies (a.k.a. learning snacks). You can have a quick learning snack, or you can create one and share it with the world.

According to Product Manager Mile Mulcare, SnackBox comes with the following features:
Provides an easy way to browse and find Microsoft Learning and community- created snacks.
Enables the Microsoft Learning Community to easily create snacks using the LCDS and Snack Converter tool.
Distinguishes between community produced and Microsoft produced Snacks
Allows users to rate snacks
Allows us to highlight top community contributors


Steven Sinofsky no longer occupies the position of Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group Lead

Steven Sinofsky joined the Microsoft team 20 years ago approximately and during this time he climbed to the position of Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group Lead. He no longer occupies that position because he has been promoted; Steven Sinofsky’s new title is President of the Windows Division – meaning he is now responsible for the engineering and marketing functions for Windows, Windows Live and Internet Explorer.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer comments: “Steven Sinofsky has demonstrated the ability to lead large teams that deliver great products. The work he and the team have done in getting ready to ship Windows 7 really defines how to develop and ship world-class software. He is a perfect fit to lead the Windows group.”

If you want to know what other positions Steven Sinofsky occupied ever since he joined Microsoft in 1989, a full bio is available here.

The Laptop Hunters ad campaign rolled out a new commercial

This one is self-explanatory: a new Laptop Hunters add has been released, featuring Mat, Olivia and baby Jayden – and the reason they don’t get a Mac in this commercial is because “Macs are too small”. See ad here.

Microsoft’s Open Source Repository is host to more than 10,000 projects

According to Microsoft Open Source Community Manager Peter Galli, there are more than 10,000 projects currently being hosted in Microsoft’s Open Source project hosting site CodePlex.

“The number of projects hosted on CodePlex, Microsoft's Open Source project hosting site, breached the 10,000 mark on Saturday, July 4, 2009, which represents 160-million lines of code hosted across 10 Team Foundation Servers. Congratulations go to SharpFitter, a Visual Studio 2008 C# add-in that dynamically loads plug-ins, for being the 10,000th project, and to the entire CodePlex team for this great achievement. As of close-of-business, Monday July 6, the total number of projects stood at 10,037,” Galli explained.

2010 calendar templates for MS Office have been rolled out

This one is self-explanatory as well: Microsoft has rolled out 2010 calendar templates for MS Office 2007 and MS Office 2010 users. You can get these calendar templates here.


Latest News


Sony's 'Attack of the Blockbusters Sale' Slashes Prices in Half for a Ton of PS4 Games

17 Aug 2017

How Samsung's New T5 Compares to the Old T3 Portable SSD (Infographic)

17 Aug 2017

See all