Software & Cloud

Redmond, Wash. – September 19, 2026 -- Microsoft Corp.'s board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.98 per share, an 8% increase of 7 cents over the prior quarter's payout.

Dividend rises to $0.98 per share with December payment date

The dividend is payable Dec. 10, 2026, to shareholders of record as of Nov. 19, 2026. The company also set the ex-dividend date as Nov. 19, 2026.

Annual shareholders meeting scheduled for Dec. 8, 2026

Microsoft confirmed its 2026 Annual Shareholders Meeting will take place virtually on Dec. 8, 2026. Shareholders of record as of the close of business on Sept. 30, 2026 will be entitled to vote their shares at the meeting.

San Francisco – September 18, 2026 -- Knak, the AI production layer for enterprise marketing, has launched Mobile Message Builder, bringing SMS and Rich Communication Services (RCS) production into the same environment enterprises already use for email and landing pages.

Enterprise campaigns keep missing deadlines over production bottlenecks

Knak's study of 333 enterprise marketers found that 85% missed at least one planned campaign launch last year due to production constraints, citing approvals, creative production and cross-team coordination as the leading causes. The company argues that while AI has made drafting content nearly free, the operational work of finishing, approving and shipping an on-brand asset has not kept pace.

Toronto and Tel Aviv – September 18, 2026 -- Qedma Quantum Computing has integrated its QESEM error mitigation software with NVIDIA's CUDA-Q platform, giving users the ability to run larger and more complex quantum workloads on Quantinuum hardware without altering existing programming workflows.

Qedma's QESEM software enters NVIDIA's hybrid computing ecosystem for the first time

The integration marks the first availability of Qedma's error reduction software within CUDA-Q, NVIDIA's hybrid quantum-classical computing platform. The capability is currently live for Quantinuum hardware, with Qedma stating other quantum platforms will follow.

Santa Barbara, Calif. – September 17, 2026 -- Sidero Labs has added native hypervisor capabilities to Talos Linux, allowing enterprises to run containers and virtual machines under one operating system and a single API instead of maintaining separate platforms for each workload type. The company also disclosed it has been acquired by real estate software giant Yardi Systems, which will fund continued development of the open-source project.

Talos Linux now runs VMs without requiring Kubernetes or KubeVirt

The update builds hypervisor functionality directly into Talos Linux, extending the platform's immutability, minimal attack surface and declarative management to virtual machine workloads. Sidero Labs president Steve Francis said the design removes the need for VM infrastructure teams to learn Kubernetes and KubeVirt just to operate virtual machines, while still offering a path toward container-based architectures on their own timeline.

San Francisco – September 17, 2026 -- The Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) has launched the Model Context Protocol Associate (MCPA), the first official certification validating engineers' understanding of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), as monthly downloads of MCP's Tier 1 SDKs approach half a billion.

MCP usage has surged to nearly half a billion monthly downloads

Both the TypeScript and Python SDKs for MCP have each surpassed 1 billion total downloads. MCP tool calls from ChatGPT users reached 98 times their January level by August 2026, while email API provider Resend passed one million MCP calls in a single month.

Austin, Texas – September 17, 2026 -- Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) confirmed that Executive Chair and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison has cancelled his 10b5-1 trading plan to sell company stock, halting a scheduled divestment before any shares changed hands.

Ellison cancels stock sale plan with zero shares sold

Oracle stated no stock was sold under the now-terminated 10b5-1 plan. The company added that Ellison currently has no other arrangements in place to sell any of his Oracle shares.

Atlanta – September 17, 2026 -- March Networks and VIVOTEK will make their first joint appearance at Global Security Exchange (GSX) 2026, five months after their April merger, showcasing new product integrations and a customer deployment with a North American apparel chain operating more than 500 stores.

Combined booth at GSX 2026 highlights new C•CURE and VORTEX integrations

At booth 1823, running September 14-16 at the Georgia World Congress Center, the merged company will demonstrate broader VIVOTEK camera support within March Networks environments, a new C•CURE integration with March Networks' Command Enterprise Software, and a link between VIVOTEK's VORTEX platform and Searchlight Cloud. Searchlight AI, offering natural-language video search, is now included for Searchlight Cloud customers at no additional license cost.

Los Angeles – September 17, 2026 -- The Sonic Intelligence Academy Inc. (SIQA) has launched the SIQA Verified Registry, a system that lets artists verify the provenance of AI-generated tracks before release rather than face flagging after distribution.

Registry classifies tracks under three categories to fight platform confusion

The SIQA Verified Registry sorts music under the SIQA Classification Framework into three tiers: Fully AI-Generated, AI-Assisted, or Human + AI Hybrid, the latter covering techniques such as vocal cloning. The system moves beyond the generic 'AI-Generated' label now used across streaming platforms including Spotify and Deezer, where AI-made tracks have proliferated faster than the industry can track, according to reporting from Billboard and Music Business Worldwide. SIQA's stated approach is 'Verified, Not Flagged,' positioning verification as a credential artists can carry rather than a dispute they must fight.

Arlington, Va. – September 17, 2026 -- Azure DevOps leads the 2026 Application Lifecycle & Release Management Data Quadrant with a Composite Score of 8.9, based on verified end-user feedback compiled by Info-Tech Research Group through its SoftwareReviews platform.

Four vendors earn Champion status in Info-Tech's 2026 rankings

Info-Tech named Azure DevOps, Jira, Inflectra SpiraTeam, and Rally Software as Champions in the report, which evaluates platforms supporting software planning, development, testing, and release management. Jira scored 8.8 CS and was recognized for bug tracking and issue management. Inflectra SpiraTeam scored 8.7 CS, noted for ease of implementation, while Rally Software posted 8.6 CS on the strength of its managed artifact repository capabilities.

Pleasanton, Calif. – September 16, 2026 -- Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY) has appointed Sarah Kennedy Ellis as chief marketing officer, effective September 16, 2026, tasking her with driving the enterprise software vendor's brand strategy for the AI era.

Kennedy Ellis arrives from Google Cloud with two decades of enterprise marketing experience

Kennedy Ellis will report directly to co-founder, CEO, and chair Aneel Bhusri and take charge of Workday's global marketing and communications organization. She joins from Google, where she led global marketing for Google Cloud and Google Workspace, contributing to what the company describes as one of enterprise technology's fastest-growing businesses.