Some recent news on Microsoft, Office, Surface, and Lync:

1. Microsoft reported a strong fiscal year third quarter. Office 365 subscriptions, Surface purchases, and enterprises going beyond XP were key drivers of the performance.

2. Microsoft is expected to announce new Surface models in a couple of weeks, including a new “mini” variant. Faster processors are coming.

3. Microsoft changes its licensing definition of a Surface and Surface Pro when used against Office 365. Consumers can elect whether their Surface is a “PC” or “tablet,” allowing more flexibility.

4. SoftWatch reported findings from a three month study of the Office usage patterns of 150,000 employees. “ … seven in ten employees were barely using Office, and those who did just used it to view documents or for very light editing …. On average, employees spent about 48 minutes per day using Microsoft Office. About two thirds of that time was spent on Microsoft Outlook, checking and responding to email. Excel was next, with just eight minutes of usage per day. The study divided users into heavy users, light users, viewers, and inactive users. A full 29% of employees never used Excel or Word or used it only to view documents sent to them.” Note that commenters to the article query the methodology and question the validity of the study.

5. Qumu integrated its Video Control Center with Microsoft Lync, enabling users to “automatically publish and share the valuable information from a recorded Lync session and, through Qumu’s Video Control Center, manage, organize and distribute that information throughout the enterprise.” Qumu also has an integration with SharePoint, so recorded Lync sessions can also be pushed through to SharePoint.