Currently, I’m sitting at the Microsoft Build Conference in Seattle, enjoying the Conference Life, and gaining clarity on what Microsoft’s goals for their products look to be in the future.  If you’re not aware, Build is the Microsoft Conference that really focuses on Development with Microsoft products, so this conference can really help highlight Microsoft Priorities for their platforms in the future.

Cloud is still King

Let’s face it, while Microsoft continues to make On-prem server software, their real driving force is everything Cloud.  Azure becomes more and more of a profit center for Microsoft, and from a development perspective, it’s the center of the universe for Microsoft. Microsoft is making great strides on promoting the infrastructure side of Azure (Kubernetes support, Virtual Machine support, etc), leveraging the Services that Azure provides (Machine Learning, Cognitive Services), and proving Development tools and processes to run your code in Azure (Visual Studio, DevOps).

The Microsoft Power Platform

If you’re familiar with this blog, you’re probably very familiar with Microsoft PowerApps and Flow.  This year at Build, the Power Platform (The trinity of PowerApps, Flow, and PowerBI) has been given a LOT of attention, not just in the Keynote, but also in the amount of sessions around it.  When I first started this blog, I saw the potential around the products in the platform, and over time, Microsoft has only increased their value.  With Satya Nadella really bringing the platform to the forefront in his Keynote, this really sets the stage for the products to become more robust and fully featured in the near to long future.

 

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft 365 (nee Office 365), continues to make strides in it’s functionality, and for Microsoft, their focus has started to sharpen to Microsoft Teams.  With the addition of recent support for customization using the SharePoint Framework (SPFx), Teams becomes a top tier jewel in the Microsoft 365 crown, and over time I can really see this product begin tot take the place of tools like Outlook (and to a great extent, SharePoint).  While Teams isn’t ready to replace this today, the ability to create custom applications that can live across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem with help drive Teams faster than ever before.

Finally……

Make no mistake, this by far not an exhaustive list of everything that was presented at Microsoft Build.  Areas like Dynamics 365 and Xbox also got plenty of love here.  But from my perspective, the areas I spoke about really seem to be where Microsoft is going to focus their attention over the course of the next year and beyond.

Please check out some of my other articles to learn more about some of the Power Platform Products, SharePoint, and other hopefully useful musings on Microsoft. And, as always, please feel free to reach out to me at jo.karnes@centricconsulting.com!