From March 2 through March 4, 2021, there was Microsoft Ignite, The annual Microsoft conference for IT professionals, developers, partners, and end users worldwide. Due to the coronavirus, this conference was once again held virtually. A number of interesting new features were announced across the entire Microsoft product portfolio.
Below, you'll find the latest features and trends that you should definitely keep in mind for the future.
1. Keynote by Satya Nadella
As is customary, Microsoft Ignite kicked off with a keynote address by Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO. In his keynote, Nadella discussed five key characteristics that are driving the next generation of innovation in the cloud:
“As the world recovers, the cloud will need to do much more to address our most pressing challenges and ensure that no one is left behind,” says
S. Nadella. Following his keynote at Ignite, he published a blog post on LinkedIn, where he describes these five characteristics in detail.
2. Updates for Microsoft Dynamics 365
At Ignite, Microsoft introduced several new features for Microsoft Dynamics 365.
- Real-Time Customer Journeys in Dynamics 365 Marketing
This new feature allows you to track customer interactions across your entire organization (marketing, sales, commerce, or service) in real time, enabling you to create personalized customer journeys across all possible touchpoints. This is a promising solution for reaching customers with the right message at the right time and turning them into true fans of your company or organization.
- Real-time survey capabilities in Dynamics 365 Customer Voice which allows you to customize customer journeys or trigger relevant communications. For example, if a customer is dissatisfied with a specific product or service, marketing campaigns targeting that customer can be quickly paused, and at the same time, an account manager can be notified to provide personalized follow-up.
- A new application Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management to better organize order and delivery processes in the logistics industry.
3. Updates for Microsoft Teams
Currently, there are Microsoft Teams It already has more than 115 million daily active users, and that number is only growing. It’s therefore no surprise that Microsoft continues to expand and optimize the Teams platform.
- Further integrations of Microsoft Teams with the various Dynamics 365 applications, such as Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing, and Service. Users can now use Teams from within their Dynamics 365 workspace to make calls, chat, hold meetings, and collaborate. All of this without having to switch to Microsoft Teams. Conversely, users can access and share data from Dynamics 365 directly within Teams, without having to switch to their Dynamics 365 environment. In addition, there is further integration with Dynamics 365 Marketing to organize, promote, and follow up on Teams events directly from Dynamics 365 Marketing. >> Read more
- Support for interactive webinars in Teams for up to 1,000 participants, including extensive presentation options, live comments, and moderation controls for chat, audio, and video.
- With the new “Microsoft Teams Connect” feature” Users can share Teams channels both within and outside their organization, enabling them to collaborate more effectively with external parties.
- The new Presentation Mode places the presenter in front of or next to the shared screen so that participants can see not only the screen but also the presenter—just like a news reporter. And PowerPoint Live This, in turn, makes it easier for both the presenter and the participants to present and view slides.
4. Updates for Microsoft Power Platform
At Ignite, Microsoft announced its brand-new programming language Power Fx . This was a first, as it is the world's first programming language aimed at a broad audience through low-code. Power Fx is based on Excel's logic. Anyone who knows how to use Excel spreadsheets can build their own business applications using Power Fx.
Power Fx also offers professional developers new ways to build simple apps more quickly.
Other important updates for the Power Platform that were announced:
- Power Automate Desktop It can now be downloaded for free by any Windows 10 user. Initially, the software program was available only through a subscription plan for business customers. Eventually, the software will become a standard feature of the official versions of Windows 10, including Windows 10 Home.
- Microsoft also announced the general availability of Power BI Premium, an upgrade to the basic Power BI offering. Power BI Premium helps companies analyze and visualize data using AI (just like the classic Power BI), but adds the ability to create end-to-end data platforms with simple drag-and-drop functionality.
5. Updates for Microsoft Azure
The biggest announcement regarding Azure was the unveiling of Azure Percept. This is a brand-new edge AI platform designed to simplify the development and deployment of AI solutions at the edge; and to take full advantage of the Azure cloud, such as device management, AI model development, and analytics. Thanks to this new offering, it will be easier for developers to apply machine learning to edge applications. Azure Percept will be offered to customers as a development kit.
If you'd like to watch or rewatch a few things, you'll find all the videos on demand on this website.
In the Microsoft Ignite 2021 Book of News Here you will find all the information and details about the announcements made during this 2021 conference.
