Both Windows Phone and Windows 10 Mobile are inconsequential in the mobile market. In other words, Microsoft has largely failed with its mobile platforms.

With that said, Microsoft is not a failure in mobile overall. Its applications and services work brilliantly on the mobile platforms that matter -- Android and iOS. Today, the Windows-maker announces that Xiaomi will be pre-installing both Office and Skype on its Android devices.

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A lot has been said about Windows 10, Microsoft's latest operating system. That's both good and bad because, while it's an improvement over the previous 8.x offering, the company is trying hard to foist the new OS upon users. Really hard. To the point that it has led to embarrassing high-profile situations.

Undaunted, the company continues with its strategy, but now one hardware maker is telling its users to say no to the nagging messages.

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Microsoft is like an annoying salesman who pitches a product you don’t want then refuses to leave you alone after getting a loud and clear "No". So, it keeps trying, again, and again, and again, hoping that you will finally make the "right" decision. It does not care why, when or how you do it, just as long as it gets you on the Windows 10 bandwagon.

This is the Microsoft of today, a company that risks being in the position of having what I consider to be the best Windows release yet and a user base alienated by its overly aggressive tactics. Desperate people do desperate things, I know, but this feels like a step too far in the wrong direction.

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Citrix and Microsoft announced recently that they will be expanding their partnership. More precisely, Citrix will use Microsoft’s Azure as its cloud.

Besides Azure, they will also integrate Citrix XenMobile and NetScaler into Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility Suite.

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There is no shortage of Surface competitors these days, as more and more manufacturers realize that there is huge potential for growth in the hybrid device market. Even Apple has entered this space, launching the iPad Pro last year to quickly establish itself as the sales leader. Can ASUS, with its new Transformer 3 devices which it just unveiled at Computex, have something to say in this market?

ASUS seems to understand what makes hybrid devices -- or ultraportables -- so appealing. The Transformer 3 Pro -- the top of the line model in the line -- features powerful hardware in a shell similar to a large tablet. It also has a keyboard, that is included in the box, and a screen big enough for every day use. On paper, it might be a better laptop replacement than Microsoft's Surface Pro 4.

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If a discovery by a reddit user is anything to go by, Xbox One game streaming could be making its way to Windows 10 Mobile. The Xbox Beta app from the latest Fast Ring Insider Preview build appears to include references to streaming games from an Xbox One to a mobile device.

Reddit user, eric5949, noticed that a new 'Play from console' option has appeared on his handset. Microsoft has not said anything about this feature yet, but it's possible that it's something we could see later in the year in Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

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In days of yore, filenames in Windows were limited to the 8.3 format -- just eight characters for the filename, and three for the extension. With the arrival of Windows 95, Microsoft stripped away this limit and allowed for much longer names.

That said, the Windows file system still imposes some restrictions such as which characters can be used in filenames, and the overall length of paths. For some time the maximum path length has been 260 characters, but in the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview, it is possible to use Group Policy or a registry hack to remove this limit.

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It feels like we complain about Microsoft a lot here. We do; in recent months there has been a lot to get upset about. There has been a lot of negativity surrounding Windows 10, so let's have a change of subject. Now Microsoft is spamming the Android notification tray with ads for Office.

The notification tray in Android serves a very specific purpose. There's a clue in the name -- and it's nothing to do with advertising. Android user Thom Holwerda was upset this week when Microsoft Office for Android starting to spam him with ads for apps he already had installed. There are many questions here, one of which is why is Microsoft ignoring Google's guidelines and using the notification tray to display ads?

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To say that Windows 10 has been controversial for Microsoft would be something of an understatement. The most recent cause for complaint has been a deceptive upgrade popup, described by many as a "nasty trick", which fooled users into installing the upgrade.

The company has since said that it will change the behavior of the upgrade notification, but this is not enough to silence hundreds of thousands of users in China. Microsoft stands accused of abusing its market position to force unwanted upgrades on people.

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When Windows 10 was first offered to users of Windows 7 and 8.1 it was via a pleasant upgrade tool that allowed users to 'reserve' their copy of the new OS. However, as time has gone by, Microsoft has employed more and more insidious methods to get people to upgrade, including tricking them into doing so.

The sneaky behavior has gotten so bad, that growing numbers of users of the older operating systems have taken to disabling critical updates in order to completely avoid Windows 10.

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While there’s a lot of negativity surrounding Windows 10 at the moment, thanks mostly to Microsoft’s shady upgrade tactics, it is actually a very good operating system.

The upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update, out at the end of July, improves the OS significantly, introducing a wealth of new features, and one of the latest inclusions to be made available for Windows Insiders to try is Limited Periodic Scanning. This sets Windows Defender to scan your PC at intervals, even if you have another anti-virus program installed.

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Microsoft has pushed Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14352 to the Fast Ring. The latest build introduced a number of updates and bug fixes. One of the biggest changes is to Cortana which can now be used to control a Groove Music Catalog and set a timer.

The recently-introduced Windows Ink gains improved Sticky Notes, and the ruler now benefits from the inclusion of a compass. Gamers can now enjoy the Windows Game bar at full-screen in more games, including World of Warcraft, Counterstrike: Global Offensive, and Diablo III. Important changes have also been made to the Feedback Hub.

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As the world's need for high-speed internet grows, there will be an increasing strain on existing infrastructure. While both the internet and the web can create a border-free exchange of data, something still needs to connect continents so that it can be shared. While you will likely never see it with your own eyes, there are actually data cables under the sea which connect large masses of land.

Today, Microsoft and Facebook announce a partnership to build a transatlantic subsea data cable. Called 'MAREA', it will connect the United States to Europe. More specifically, it will connect the State of Virginia to the country of Spain. The project will begin this August, with a targeted completion date of October 2017.

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Despite negative sentiment towards Windows 10 because of Microsoft's shady upgrade tactics, it is actually a wonderful operating system. It is fast, secure, and compatible with many hardware configurations. Its Windows Store, which first debuted in Windows 8, allows users to easily download content -- both paid and free.

When it comes to apps and games, there is a lot of garbage in the Windows Store -- more crap than not. With that said, there are quite a few gems too. Today, Microsoft announces a special summer sale, delivering big discounts for shoppers in the store. Even the super-popular Minecraft gets a whopping 50 percent discount! However, not everything seems to be getting a reduction in price.

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Having a good password can make the difference between your account being hacked and receiving a notification informing you of a failed login attempt. Even though this should be common knowledge, it seems that many folks are in the dark about this. You do not need to look hard to find evidence of this, as there are many reports that reveal passwords like "1234567890" to be very popular still.

Since it is clear that it cannot rely on its users to make the right decisions about their account security, Microsoft is taking a proactive approach by "dynamically banning commonly used passwords". So, if you think that "qwerty123" is good enough to keep all your emails private, luckily you will not have to find out whether you are right or not.

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