By Naresh Koka, Senior Manager at Reply
As I was winding down over the weekend, relaxing, recollecting and reflecting on two productive days spent last week at Microsoft Ignite, I wanted to capture few important updates from what I learnt during Ignite that aligns with Reply's partnership with Microsoft.
Visit the MS Ignite Reply Showcase Page.
Artificial Intelligence
Heard loud and clear across all announcements is AI being incorporated across all products/workloads, especially for automation, which only makes sense as cost of hardware, running models faster and at scale have become cheaper in the past few years as conveyed by Jessica Hawk Corporate Vice President, Data, AI, and Mixed Reality.
Have a look at the Azure blog post on how to Drive efficiency through automation and AI with the Microsoft Cloud | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure.
The Industrial Metaverse
Convergence of physical and digital worlds is not just for social or gaming. Microsoft’s Industrial Metaverse technology can help unify the digital and physical worlds through AI, mixed reality and machine learning for commercial industries too. Reply is invested in Metaverse building social and commercial solutions and we see Industrial Metaverse as a natural progression.
Find more about the metaverse here: Metaverse - A new world of experiences | Reply.
Low-Code/No-Code
Low-Code developers building industrial solutions can benefit from Project Bonsai, an industrial AI development platform, where engineers will be able to create AI-powered automation without the need for an extensive background in data science. This is based on GitHub Copilot described as an "AI pair programmer" that lets developers type in natural language commands to do many programming tasks, including generating whole projects. I felt like there was a lot more synergy between Azure and Dynamics. As confirmed by Microsoft Executive Vice Presidents Scott Guthrie and Alysa Taylor - "from an engineering standpoint, the fact that they seem increasingly integrated and leveraged across each other is by design".
Learn more in this Fireside Chat with Scott Guthrie and Alysa Taylor: How Customers Build Agility and Drive Innovation with the Microsoft Cloud.
Modern Workplace
There was a plethora of updates on the collaboration and modern work front as conveyed by Jeff Teper - President, Collaborative Apps and Platforms. I have a hybrid work setup with my home office, official office location and a work location when I travel. Outlook, where I seem to spend a lot of time, is adding new features to help people like me stay connected and organized in hybrid work settings. The new working hours and location feature will allow me to organize my week to let my teammates know what hours I’ll be available and where, so we can plan better meetings. A feature I've been longing for is a Schedule Send Suggestion in Teams similar to the feature in Outlook. It is finally here. Another feature that will be of great use is the Teams meeting intelligent recap.
See also: Microsoft Ignite Into Focus: Microsoft 365 and next-gen collaboration.
Voice
Also, enjoyed Chief Product Officer Panos Panay's demo on Voice Focus, enabled by AI-powered Neural Processing Unit on the new Surface Pro 9, that captures your voice clearly and suppresses background noise in your environment, like that leaf blower outside your window while you take a conference call or someone strumming a guitar standing next to you.
More information here: Windows: Building what matters most for your business (microsoft.com).
Cybersecurity
The key to any successful digital transformation is a secure platform. It was good to see the evolution of Security products from Microsoft and how they all work together seamlessly across other Microsoft products.
For more details, download Valorem Reply’s Zero Trust Security eBook.
More
There is a ton more amazing update. For a complete recap with details visit the following link.
Microsoft Ignite 2022 Book of News.