3 Major Announcements Microsoft Made at Inspire 2018

Each July, Microsoft holds its annual Inspire conference, a meeting at which the tech titan outlines its agenda for the coming year and announces product features and partner initiatives.Inspire 2018 was held in Las Vegas, Nevada—and contrary to the city’s tagline, what happened in Vegas has far-reaching implications! Here are three of the biggest announcements Microsoft made at Inspire this year.

1. Fans of Azure can look forward to more

Since Microsoft unveiled Azure way back in 2010, the Cloud-based platform has revolutionized the development, deployment, and management of websites and applications. Azure’s success has earned it a loyal following that Microsoft is rewarding with a slew of new and improved features and capabilities.

Introduced at Inspire 2018, Azure’s Data Box Disk promises to facilitate data migration. Businesses can use the SSD-based disk to move information from any location into Azure. Microsoft also announced Azure Firewall, a Cloud-native security service that boasts scalability and full integration with customers’ DevOps model to help them satisfy compliance requirements. Finally, Azure users can get excited about Azure Virtual WAN, a networking service that offers companies better branch-to-branch connectivity.

2. Office 365 will help users navigate office politics

Emotional intelligence is closely associated with success. Microsoft holds the increasingly popular opinion that artificial intelligence can help us achieve it.

At Inspire, Microsoft demonstrated a new feature of its Office 365 suite, called Workplace Analytics. As the name implies, Workplace Analytics leverages Office 365 data to pinpoint a team’s greatest challenges. Alerts offer pieces of advice to individual users (like: hold off on sending that email after hours, delegate that responsibility to a colleague with a clearer schedule, and so on) that benefit the team as a whole. No word yet if the updated Office 365 can stop the office sandwich thief from striking!

3. Microsoft will Impart More Wisdom on Partners

As Microsoft’s products grow more sophisticated, Microsoft’s partners grow more knowledgeable. Conference presentations affirmed the company’s commitment to “increasing [its] investment in partner success” by heightening incentives, clarifying goals, and expanding access to training materials.

Indeed, partners can now benefit from free, unrestricted access to thousands of self-service technical and sales resources, and can even enroll in Microsoft’s frequent, four-day bootcamp sessions. Options like these help experts learn the ins and outs of Microsoft products and clearly communicate their value to valued customers.

As a Microsoft Gold Partner, eMazzanti looks forward to Microsoft Inspire every year—and this year did not disappoint. To learn more about how these updates to Microsoft tools can benefit your business, contact us today.