July is always a special time of year in the Microsoft calendar. It is the beginning of Microsoft’s new financial year and is the time when many of Microsoft’s partners from around the world (us included!) gather in Las Vegas and attend Inspire, a conference we can understand what the coming year holds, where Microsoft is placing their big bets and to network with like-minded partners to learn best practices. The global pandemic has put a stop to the face-to-face element of this conference and for the second year in a row, the event has been completely virtual.
Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella kicked off the conference with his keynote, framing the next 2 days of virtual sessions and delivering some clear messages about the past year and where Microsoft is focusing for the future.
PARTNERS ARE STILL THE CORE TO MICROSOFT’S SUCCESS
The very first thing Satya addressed with his keynote was the importance of the partner ecosystem. He took time to thank the partners for their efforts across a very difficult and unprecedented year and was very deliberate in calling out how Microsoft’s success is intrinsically linked to the success of their partners and, in turn, the success those partners drive for customers everywhere. Key to the strategy for the coming year; creating more opportunities for partners to help their clients be successful, by providing platforms for partners to build and support innovative solutions which help businesses transform the way they service their clients. With this, Microsoft are doubling down on their message that Customer success drives Partner success, ultimately leading to Microsoft’s success.
MICROSOFT CLOUD – MOST COMPREHENSIVE AND TRUSTED CLOUD
Satya’s keynote focused heavily on Microsoft Cloud and how it differentiates itself from its competitors. Repeatedly making the point of the comprehensive nature of their offering (all the services you consume, such as Office365, Dynamics and Azure Infrastructure, are all part of Microsoft’s Cloud) and how security, independence and data sovereignty are foundational aspects of their offering. Microsoft are making it clear to their partners that although there are others in the market operating in similar spaces, no-one is covering it as fully as Microsoft.
DIGITAL ADOPTION SEES A STEP CHANGE
One thing the global pandemic has driven is a change in the adoption of digital and remote working practices. Satya discussed how it is unlikely business will revert to pre-pandemic levels of adoption and how they are now attempting to push forward and build on the investments they have made. He highlighted how data is growing nearly as fast on the “Edge” as it is in the cloud and explained Gartner are forecasting nearly 2 billion new connected devices will ship in 2023. It is clear to see in a year of forced transformation for many businesses, how cloud and digital adoption has been key to this transformation and is likely to continue to grow.
CLOUD IS THE FUTURE – WITH ON-PREMISES COMING TOO WITH AZURE ARC
Microsoft’s messaging over the past few years has been very cloud heavy and rightly so, cloud presents the biggest opportunity for change and growth for Microsoft as well as its customers and partners. Hybrid, the mixing of cloud and on-premises infrastructure, has always been part of the message, just not front and centre. Microsoft are still driving hard towards cloud and making it clear Hybrid is still part of the strategy. Satya stated “We have always lead with Hybrid and we are expanding on this capability, allowing our customers and partners to build, manage and deploy apps anywhere using Azure Arc.” Azure Arc allows for Azure’s control plane to be used to manage infrastructure across Multi-cloud, On-premises and the Edge, meaning Azure App Services can now be run anywhere.
ENTER THE (ENTERPRISE) METAVERSE
Announcing the “new layer of the infrastructure stack”, Satya described the Enterprise Metaverse as the place where the “digital and physical worlds converge”. These solutions will bring together IOT, digital twins and mixed reality and allow customers to build rich digital models which incorporate, people, processes, data and infrastructure and can run complex simulations and interact with the models in innovative ways in real time. These solutions play at the Enterprise end of the customer base (it is in the name after all!), but with Satya giving examples like Mars running supply chain simulations, you start to see the scale and intricacy the products address.
DATA DATA DATA
Data has truly taken its place as one of the most important and strategic assets a company has. Microsoft want organisations to have digital sovereignty over their data, owning the asset which will help them engage with their customers better and helping them gain insights into every element of their business. Data creation has exploded, in the coming years more data will be created than has been in the past 30 years and it is becoming harder to understand this data. Data is traditionally siloed within businesses and makes it even harder for businesses to know what data they have, understand what the data is and then apply and use it in a way which will benefit them. Microsoft are addressing these issues with two data focused solutions, Azure Synapse and Azure Purview. Azure Synapse as a core data solution which brings together data warehouses, big data and data analytics, allowing for the connexion of all the data silos in a holistic data view. Azure Purview provides comprehensive data management and data governance across on-premises, SaaS applications and multi-cloud. Although Azure Purview has only been in market for a month, customers have already assessed 44B data assets. Gaining control of your data and being able to analyse it is crucial for customers, Microsoft are positioning themselves to support businesses with a comprehensive and supportive set of tools.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In a year which has been tough on every industry globally, Microsoft are positioning themselves to provide the most comprehensive collection of solutions to drive customer success. Partners are, as always, front and centre of their strategy. Clearly being key to the solution design, deployment and management of impactful solutions built on Microsoft’s cloud and hybrid services, the focus on and opportunity for partners continues to grow. Data is and will continue to be a valuable resource to customers who can unlock and utilise it and digital adoption, kicked into overdrive by the global pandemic does not appear to be slowing and will continue to grow now so many businesses have taken the leap. The next 12 months will be exciting, new and the opportunities Microsoft are presenting to their customers and partners are vast, comprehensive and compelling. I hope this time next year we will be back in Las Vegas listening to Satya speak in person about the continuing development and the next new opportunities.
