Subscribe

MS focuses on everything enterprise at Ignite 2018

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins
Johannesburg, 25 Sept 2018
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at Microsoft Ignite 2018.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at Microsoft Ignite 2018.

Microsoft this week made numerous announcements relating to its products in the enterprise and cloud space, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of things (IOT) and customer experience management (CXM).

The annual Microsoft Ignite event is taking place in Orlando, Florida, in the US. It is aimed at IT professionals and enterprise developers, and this year there are more than 26 000 attendees from 100 different countries.

The tech giant made over 80 announcements at the conference, and provided a PDF summary, called the 'book of news', detailing the new features and products in its security, AI, data, IOT and edge computing offerings.

Frank Shaw, Microsoft CVP communications, says the company believes security, AI and data, and IOT and edge computing, are three areas critical to the future of IT. Most of the announcements revolved around these key themes.

Some of the main announcements were:

Password-less future

In the security sector, Microsoft announced it will put an end to passwords for apps.

"Nearly all data loss starts with compromised passwords, and so today we are declaring an end to the era of passwords. We are delivering new support for password-less login via the Microsoft Authenticator app for the hundreds of thousands of Azure Active Directory connected apps that businesses use every day," said Shaw.

The app eliminates the need for passwords by combining the user's phone and biometrics, or PIN for a multifactor sign-in.

AI for good

Microsoft is growing its AI offerings but wants to make sure the algorithms are used for good and not just business. This is why it has launched "AI for Humanitarian Action", a $40 million, five-year programme that will harness the power of AI for disaster recovery, helping children, protecting refugees and displaced people, and promoting respect for human rights.

The company will partner with non-governmental organisations through grants and investments of technology and expertise.

Real-life IOT

With regards to the IOT industry, Microsoft unveiled Azure Digital Twins, a new IOT platform to build digital models of any physical environment.

Shaw said it will be available for public preview from 15 October, and "will provide a way to virtually represent the physical world and enable Microsoft partners to build custom solutions that address the needs of people who occupy and manage these spaces by bringing together the full picture: people, places and devices."

Integrating LinkedIn with Office

Microsoft bought professional social media site LinkedIn for $26 billion in 2016 and is slowly starting to integrate features from the platform across its products.

The company says within the next few months, LinkedIn users will be able to link their account to Office 365, and co-author documents with people in their LinkedIn network and send e-mails to them directly from Outlook.

When invited to a meeting using Outlook, users will see LinkedIn highlights about the people in the meeting invites. Microsoft says this will provide users with insights about attendees so they can prep for important meetings quickly and easily.

Getting customer data out of silos

The company also introduced the Open Data Initiative in partnership with Adobe and SAP, which will make it easier for companies to move their customer data systems, as well as understand the data better.

The initiative in CXM allows companies to get a complete view of their customer data by enabling them to connect information trapped in internal silos with important customer information that resides in external silos, such as third-party providers.

"Adobe, Microsoft and SAP are partnering to reimagine the customer experience management category," said Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe.

"Together we will give enterprises the ability to harness and action massive volumes of customer data to deliver personalised, real-time customer experiences at scale."

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said the Open Data Initiative will help companies: "Achieve a level of customer and business understanding that has never before been possible.

"Organisations everywhere have a massive opportunity to build AI-powered digital feedback loops for predictive power, automated workflows and, ultimately, improved business outcomes."