What's New from Microsoft Ignite

Just last week, the Microsoft Ignite Conference took place in Orlando. This conference was great for catching up on all things Microsoft, such as: learning about new technical releases, meeting with Microsoft engineers who invented the product, and general networking with clients and vendors. 

Before arriving, I definitely had some perceive notion that the entire state of Florida was impacted by Hurricane Irma. To my surprise, there was little evidence that the hurricane had any impact to the city. Uber drivers and some locals mentioned that the extent of the damage were trees falling down or scattered debris left on the road. Additionally, all of the service employees I met were quite excited about all of the business that Microsoft brought into town. Over 50,000 people attend this year's conference which was the largest conference I've ever attended. It literally took 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other in order to get to the sessions. 

After five long days eating and sleeping Microsoft, here's what's new from Microsoft: 

1) The push for Mixed Reality + AI 

Satya, Microsoft's CEO, unveiled a new way of working with teammates in virtual reality. He described how Ford, a major US car manufacturer, used Hololens for design meetings with teammates from all over the world in virtual reality. Similar to the Kingsman's glasses, only Ford employees with these glasses would be able to see model prototypes, actually build a car in VR, track changes and notes from the team, and also leverage AI to test structural enhancements or change aesthetics of the car with a click of a button. AI was a big proponent of speeding up a manufacture's design stage. 

2)  All the Data You Need: Dynamics + Office 365 + LinkedIn

Everyone was wondering why Microsoft bought LinedIn. Well, now I know why. Data is like the new gold. Microsoft is now leveraging Dynamics, their CRM database, along with a bunch of Office 365 data (mail data), and public data from LinedIn to support machine learning in areas like IT help desks or sales operations. Microsoft even has built in Chat Bots to leverage all that data to help become your first tier of IT support. When the Bot is unable to answer your question, then the IT specialist will at least have a bunch of information/details to help solve the issue if there is one. I was also surprised about the forecasting and analytics in the sales side. Sales people hate inputting data into CRM, so now data will be collected from their emails and texts to run predictive analytics which will help sales leaders show more accurate forecasts but also show what opportunities have a better chance of closing based on the data provided. LinkedIn offers a bunch of public information which is now being incorporated into the Microsoft suite of applications to help teams better integrate and help sales teams find connections/warm introductions.

3) Enterprise Corporate Talk: Windows 10 and Office 365

The big push for Microsoft is to have large companies move to their last OS, Windows 10. Companies will never have to upgrade a Windows OS again. We'll that's true, but you will have to update the software twice a year. Imagine needing to upgrade your phone OS twice a year. We'll now imaging you have 50,000 employees that need to do this twice every year without breaking any of your applications. Here's the kicker, Office 365, your mail and Office suite, will also have two main releases that have to be upgraded within 18 months of being released. Companies need to have a plan to test and release these patches so that it doesn't break business critical applications. 

Microsoft is smart. They are definitely moving in the right direction of trying to help IT organizations be more like cell phone carriers where you can turn on your device and provisioning happens automatically. They are building the right bridges to combine robust on-premise tools with the cloud to give users this experience. Not to forget, they also have brought in a bunch of great security features in Win10 and also their Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS). This should really help many companies meet their security initiatives pretty easily if they are willing to pay for it now and get it implemented.  

Also, if you've seen Book of Mormon, you know that Orlando is the best for Sea World, Disney and putt putt golfing.