2016 may have been a difficult year for some companies but Microsoft is definitely not on that list. Microsoft had an exceedingly great year with the proper and official release of HoloLens and Microsoft Windows 10. The company also revealed its own desktop computer with an awesome mega touchscreen in the digital market.

There are a few other announcements and news by Microsoft which probably did not receive the same PR popularity as the others did. However, that does not change the fact that these developments and announcements have the power to change the world for the better in the upcoming years. Here is a ready list to know the not so popular Microsoft news and updates:

1. Microsoft bot that helps in letting people talk to computer

Sometimes, some user interfaces are difficult for the customer to completely understand. So why not allow them to have conversations with the computer in order to get better knowledge? Microsoft is trying to develop a virtual assistant that will build conversation partners with several different chat apps. Bots may not be the "it" thing currently but Microsoft certainly has assessed the best of this potential and is gearing up to deliver the best it can.

2. Focused hardware to accelerate networking and machine learning

The beta testing versions of Microsoft programs are allowing users transfer speeds of up to 25 Gbps. Even better, some machine learning based cloud services are in the pipeline for Microsoft.

3. Artificial Intelligence as an independent division under Satya Nadella

Only recently did Microsoft announce that it is making a new and separate AI division with 5000+ engineers. The research division has previously helped in a lot more important innovations and will continue delivering better results over time.

4. Windows got a Visual Studio for Mac

Windows now has a Mac counterpart, after it rebranded Xamarin Studio as Visual Studio. Even better, PowerShell was launched for Linus which expanded the horizons of Windows command lines. 

5. Bash came to Windows in the strive towards open source

Only recently was it revealed that Microsoft had more open source contributors to its applicable projects than any other company. This is a starkly different stance than Microsoft took before. Bourne Again Shell command line was brought to Windows after bringing Linux subsystem for the OS. Is that not a huge leap than ever before, considering Microsoft always criticized Linux before?