Consumer Reports is sort of like a purchaser’s Bible – if it says a product is good, you can generally trust that it is. According to the Seattle Times, four of Microsoft’s laptops and tablets have had their Consumer Reports recommendation withdrawn. Not an ideal situation for Microsoft – especially right before the back to school season.

Consumer Reports allegedly withdrew the recommendations after a survey showed that these devices caused problems for their owners after a mere two years of ownership. Two versions each of the Surface Laptop and Surface Book were officially blacklisted for “poor predicted reliability in comparison to most other brands.”

So what problems do the devices have? After two years, the survey found that many of devices had problems at startup, were prone to freezing or shutting down unexpectedly, and had issues with their touch screen responsiveness.

Microsoft denied that there are problems with it’s devices. “While we respect Consumer Reports, we disagree with their findings,” the company said in a statement. “Microsoft’s real-world return and support rates and customer satisfaction data show we are on par if not better than other devices in the category. We stand firmly behind the quality and reliability of the Surface family of devices and continue to make quality our primary focus.”

Microsoft will lay off thousands of employees across the globe as part of its plan to change the company’s sales organization. According to TechCrunch, Microsoft will merge parts of its enterprise customer business with its small-and-medium-enterprise business unit.

According to a comment Microsoft made to GeekWire, “Microsoft is implementing changes to better serve our customers and partners.”

The goal is to focus more on the growing cloud computing business side of things, including Microsoft’s rapidly expanding Azure business. As of the fiscal quarter that ended in March, Azure’s run rate reached $15.2 billion. In the same time period, its intelligent cloud group roped in $6.8 billion.

This is significant revenue for Microsoft, and there is no question on why it would choose to focus more of its attention on this aspect its business. However, it is undisclosed as to whether the layoffs in other departments will be followed by openings for cloud-related positions.

As of March 31, Microsoft employed 121,567 worldwide.

Slack has been making a splash as a workplace collaboration tool, taking advantage of a new and interesting business communications market. But according to the Seattle Times, software giant Microsoft has decided to give the new start-up a run for its money by unveiling its workplace-messaging software, Microsoft Teams.

Like Slack, Microsoft Teams allows users to set up chat rooms with individuals and groups, make expandable threads, and share files.

If your business or school uses Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity suite, you should already be able to access the new application with no extra charge. Microsoft Teams has been two years in the making, and is not only going to compete with Slack, but also with Google Hangouts and similar products being developed by Facebook and Amazon.

Research firm Gartner has estimated that businesses worldwide will spend $5.1 billion on conferencing in 2017. Business communication is an up-and-coming and potentially very profitable industry.

Microsoft’s Office 365 for consumers has been around for four years now and has sold 25 million subscriptions. However, according to ComputerWorld, the rate of new subscribers plunged down 62 percent from 2015.

In each of the final three quarters of 2016, Office 365 subscriptions grew by approximately 900,000 subscribers, which is its smallest period of growth since early 2014. Subscriptions reached an all time high in the first quarter of 2015, with 3.2 million additions.

Microsoft has never set public goals for its subscription numbers, but have spoken in the past about transferring its software business from a one-time licensing purchase to a recurring payment subscription system.

Right now, the best deal on Office 365 is a one-user subscription called “Home” for 70 dollars a year or seven dollars a month.

Windows 10’s free upgrade period ends July 29, and Microsoft really wants you to take advantage. From now until Friday, all American and Canadian Microsoft retail stores are offering to install Windows 10 on compatible devices for free. And if Microsoft can’t complete the upgrade by the end of that business day, they will give you a free 15-inch Dell Inspiron notebook.

Of course, some conditions apply. If your PC isn’t capable of running Windows 10, the offer isn’t valid. However, you may be eligible to receive $150 credit towards a new PC. Also, the offer specifies that your computer be checked in by noon of the given day.

Microsoft has made no secret that it wants you, desperately, to upgrade to Windows 10. If you’re a holdout, you may have noticed a frustrating stream of annoying pop-ups enticing you to update and install Windows 10.

Recently, Microsoft has admitted in won’t hit the desired goal of having one billion devices running Windows 10 by mid 2018. But it isn’t giving up on the effort anytime soon.

*Source: PC World