Microsoft’s newest conference was this week. It is called Microsoft Ignite and was in Chicago. The initial Ignite is the compilation of many of Microsoft’s previous conferences. Microsoft Ignite is geared towards IT Decision Makers, IT Professionals, Enterprise Developers, and Press. Office and Windows 10 were some of the more important announcements from Microsoft Ignite.
Satya Nadella kicked off the conference by stressing the fact that Microsoft cares about both individuals and organizations. He believes that bringing them together is what causes the transformations. He talked about how, “Windows 10… is not just another release of Windows, it is a new generation of Windows.” Windows 10 is going to cause more personal computing and I believe it will only improve the technology we have today. Joe Belfiore set the stage for this by explaining Windows 10’s new features that help business users. Joe Belfiore started off with the idea that Windows 10 must be a familiar experience to those switching from Windows 7 and Windows 8. He then talked about the new browser, Microsoft Edge. He showed off Microsoft Edge’s reading mode capabilities such as translating an article into the language you know. Joe Belfiore also explained the note-taking capabilities of Microsoft Edge. He also talked about the fact that Windows 10 phones and PCs behave alike. To display this, he used Outlook on both devices and the similarity of how they work was pretty cool. He talked about the integration of Cortana and her ability to take information from the cloud and answer any questions you have. He presented this by asking her questions about the attendees at Ignite. Cortana worked perfectly.
Next, Gurdeep Singh Pall came up on stage to talk about productivity. He started talking about the fact that everyone is connected through technology. He then moved on to talking about the modern workplace. Gurdeep Singh Pall believes that there are 5 major areas for productivity; teams, working from anywhere, meetings, content co-creation, and intelligence. He explained each of these in detail but, his overall point was that the 5 major areas are what productivity revolves around. For him, without them no work can be done. Next on stage at Microsoft Ignite was Julia White. She came on stage to show how Microsoft’s products, specifically Office 365 and the Surface Hub, enable the modern workplace to get more work done. Julia White started off by using Office Delve a great application that allows you to see what is going on in your team/company. She then showed the Skype for Business application that allows people to communicate in a better way than before. After Skype, she displayed mobile applications of the Office 365 suite. Next up was the Surface Hub. Julia White presented the same desktop applications running on the Surface Hub but, taking advantage of a larger screen and other benefits. Finally, it was Brad Anderson and Terry Myerson’s turn. They talk about the future of IT and the capabilities of Windows 10.
Overall, Microsoft Ignite packed great new announcements as well as explanations and demonstrations of already publicly known features. Microsoft Ignite was a great follow-up conference to Microsoft Build.
DIARY OF A TECHIE KID 