In just a few days the Microsoft Ignite conference #MSIgnite will kick-off in Orlando. I have the privilege to attend and just reflected the last years and my expectations on next week. Interested? Then read on…
Years ago, these ‘big-bang’ events unleashed roughly two years of hidden development work. Since ~3 years, surely driven by cloud capabilities and always shorter innovation cycles, I‘ve noticed shift to minor increments of these announcements. And all based on the same ‘Empowering Vision‘ and productivity story. Definitely two thumbs up for this sustainability.
And what to expect for 2019? For sure there will be tons of announcements in dozens of areas. I will focus on productivity topics and how these can leverage the future of operations in enterprises – #FutureOperations. This said, here’s what I hope to see:
- General Availability: Many success stories and customer cases around topics that have been showcased last year that should be under general availability (GA) today.
- Microsoft Azure: My focus will be on Azure’s PaaS part. I am sure that this ‚LEGO-like‘ platform for business solutions will grow even more. I expect to see announcements on IoT-Hub, Azure Sphere, Edge Computing, Cognitive Services, Logic Apps and much more. All of them important building blocks for our customer projects…
- More AI: In 2017 Satya Nadella stated to ‘Democratize AI’. Last year I’ve noticed that AI is in many places. Maybe this year, we’ll witness that ‘AI is everywhere’?! For sure, no ‘General AI’ but many AI-powered apps and stories.
- Power Platform: Microsoft fast-code (low-code) platform for citizen developer consists of Power BI, PowerApps and Flow. Reflecting the vast variety of business apps at our customers, this can be very interesting to eliminate the chaos on platforms, apps, hidden applications, etc. Excited about the workshop and interactive sessions to learn about technical limitations and adoption challenges.
- Microsoft Teams: It is the fastest growing baby and has the chance to be the new Outlook in a few years. And a great platform to quickly deploy business apps, esp. build on the Power Platform. Maybe we’ll see the elimination of shortcomings like multiple windows, an easy way to follow-up to-do’s with a deeper integration into e.g. ToDo, private channels, under-the-hood changes (e.g. battery drain on mobile phones, memory optimization on PCs).
- Mixed Reality with HoloLens 2: This spring HoloLens 2 was announced. Since then, the market got stuck. HoloLens 1 is no more available, the new version is not available yet. Microsoft urgently needs to state something on the availability.
I am very excited to join this event and learn from experts, business partners and customer presenting their stories. This will fuel up my batteries with inspiration and – hopefully – lots of Florida’s sun 😉
