We attended Microsoft’s Connect event in New York, held on November 16th 2016.
So take a look at my musings on the event here: (if the video doesn’t show up, check here)
No time to watch – here is the 1-2 slide condensation (if the slide doesn’t show up, check here):
Want to read on?
Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top 3:
Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation – For a long-time Linux was the arch enemy of Windows, but realities with open source innovation and the new Microsoft make possible what was unthinkable a few years ago. One of the first Azure offerings running on Linux was another ‘surprising’ announcement at the time, in 2013, of Azure now running the Oracle database (read khttp://enswmu.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-cloud-can-make-unlikeliest-bed.html). Since then Microsoft has run more and more Azure loads on Linux and being part of the community at an influential and exposed level was an almost overdue move. For enterprises, it means that if there was any reservation towards Linux in the past, they are ready to revisited.
Google joins .Net Foundation – Google has been running .Net since some time. So similar to the previous takeaway, it makes sense to influence the community and be a prominent part of it. Again, a new frenemy relationship, as Microsoft and Google have tussled with each other mobile, social, browsers and. Microsoft gets a validation of .Net being an independent platform, Google can attract .Net load for Google Cloud and most importantly enterprises running .Net apps get more choice were to deploy these apps. So a win / win / win for all participants. Ironically both Microsoft and Google will be strong believers that their respective IaaS is the better one. Future will tell.
Coding gets (even) easier with Visual Studio 2017 - Microsoft keeps pushing the productivity limits of the developer experience further out. The IDE gets more productive, Rosslyn constantly monitors what the developer types, DevOps gets easier and so on. Good to see more team capabilities to Team Foundation Server 2017. Visual Studio Mobile gets all the good Xamarin capability for deployment and testing. And Visual Studio now runs – no surprise anymore – natively on a Mac.
On the concern side Microsoft still has steps ahead to become an enterprise level PaaS that starts with analysis, design capabilities, does requirement collection, end to end test automation etc. It will be interesting and potentially very powerful to see Visual Studio and Teams come together. I maybe wrong, but it always seems to me that Microsoft is about the developer (nothing wrong with it) and less about the enterprise that needs to build a next generation application. Those run in conjunction with existing standard application packages, so integrating, extending those matters. And a lot of emphasis on mobile, but nothing on social network integration, automation etc.
But for now, a lot of good progress on all levels – from the partnership level to product level. Good to see the progress on making developer lives more and more easy, one release of Visual Studio at a time.
Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).
More on Microsoft:
Here you go: Always tough to pick the takeaways – but here are my Top 3:
Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation – For a long-time Linux was the arch enemy of Windows, but realities with open source innovation and the new Microsoft make possible what was unthinkable a few years ago. One of the first Azure offerings running on Linux was another ‘surprising’ announcement at the time, in 2013, of Azure now running the Oracle database (read khttp://enswmu.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-cloud-can-make-unlikeliest-bed.html). Since then Microsoft has run more and more Azure loads on Linux and being part of the community at an influential and exposed level was an almost overdue move. For enterprises, it means that if there was any reservation towards Linux in the past, they are ready to revisited.
Google joins .Net Foundation – Google has been running .Net since some time. So similar to the previous takeaway, it makes sense to influence the community and be a prominent part of it. Again, a new frenemy relationship, as Microsoft and Google have tussled with each other mobile, social, browsers and. Microsoft gets a validation of .Net being an independent platform, Google can attract .Net load for Google Cloud and most importantly enterprises running .Net apps get more choice were to deploy these apps. So a win / win / win for all participants. Ironically both Microsoft and Google will be strong believers that their respective IaaS is the better one. Future will tell.
Coding gets (even) easier with Visual Studio 2017 - Microsoft keeps pushing the productivity limits of the developer experience further out. The IDE gets more productive, Rosslyn constantly monitors what the developer types, DevOps gets easier and so on. Good to see more team capabilities to Team Foundation Server 2017. Visual Studio Mobile gets all the good Xamarin capability for deployment and testing. And Visual Studio now runs – no surprise anymore – natively on a Mac.
Tidbits
- SQL Server 2016 SP1 – Important housekeeping for Microsoft – as it brings the programming model together across SQL Server editions.
- Azure Data Lake Store – A data lake on Azure, easy to access with e.g. on premise Active Directory and easy to expand to other data sources… it is HDFS compatible – but not native HDFS.
- Azure Data Lake Analytics and Store – Microsoft’s high transaction data volume and processing cloud analytics service is now GA. Support of U-SQL, R, Python and .Net is interesting, but an Azure / Microsoft specific platform. To be fair, so are all competitor products.
- Microsoft launched Teams recently (see here) – and of course developers can build on it, together with the just turned one Graph. Looks like the bot development framework is with Teams for now, too – which makes sense as Microsoft tries to make Teams its Chat platform.
- Azure Progress – Some interesting information from Scott Guthrie on Azure progress. E.g. that Microsoft has operationalized more datacenter capacity in the last 9 months than in its history before. And that capacity will double again in 12 months. Check the Storify for more interesting pieces of information.
MyPOV
A lot of progress with Microsoft, almost more than Build, but often product and event cycles don’t align. It is good to see that developer productivity remains top priority for Microsoft and with that the vendor helps enterprises to build next generation applications. It is good to see Microsoft also embraces the reality of Linux, becoming a Linux Foundation member. Will be curious what Microsoft may contribute in the future. Moreover, Microsoft makes good on the premise to protect code investments – both from an UWP and a .Net perspective. Good news for enterprises to get another IaaS to run .Net applications with Google Cloud.On the concern side Microsoft still has steps ahead to become an enterprise level PaaS that starts with analysis, design capabilities, does requirement collection, end to end test automation etc. It will be interesting and potentially very powerful to see Visual Studio and Teams come together. I maybe wrong, but it always seems to me that Microsoft is about the developer (nothing wrong with it) and less about the enterprise that needs to build a next generation application. Those run in conjunction with existing standard application packages, so integrating, extending those matters. And a lot of emphasis on mobile, but nothing on social network integration, automation etc.
But for now, a lot of good progress on all levels – from the partnership level to product level. Good to see the progress on making developer lives more and more easy, one release of Visual Studio at a time.
Want to learn more? Checkout the Storify collection below (if it doesn’t show up – check here).
More on Microsoft:
- First Take - Microsoft discovers teams - launches Microsoft Teams - read here
- News Analysis - Microsoft announces SAP's choice of Azure to help enterprises transform HR - The SaaS land grab is on - read here
- First Take - Microsoft Ignite - AI, Adobe and FPGA [From the Fences] - read here
- News Analysis - GE and Microsoft partner to bring Predix to Azure - Multi-Cloud becomes tangible for IoT - read here
- Market Move - Microsoft acquired Linked - Tons of synergies, start with Cortana, maybe too many - read here
- News Analysis - Microsoft opens Windows Holographic to partners for a new era of mixed reality - read here
- News Analysis - SAP and Microsoft usher in new era of partnership to accelerate digital transformation in the cloud - read here
- Musings - Will Microsoft's Hololens transform the Future of Work? Read here
- Event Report - Microsoft Build 2016 - A platform vision and plenty of tools for next generation applications - read here
- First Take - Microsoft Build 2016 - Day 1 Keynote Takeaways - read here
- Event Preview - Microsoft Build 2016 - Top 3 Things to watch for developers, managers and execs... read here
- News Analysis - Microsoft - New Hybrid Offerings Deliver Bottomless Capacity for Today's Data Explosion - read here
- News Analysis - Welcoming the Xamarin team to Microsoft - read here
- News Analysis - Microsoft announcements at Convergence Barcelona - Office365. Dynamics CRM and Power Apps
- News Analysis - Microsoft expands Azure Data Lake to unleash big data productivity - Good move - time to catch up - read here
- News Analysis - Microsoft and Salesforce Strengthen Strategic Partnership at Dreamforce 2015 - Good for joint customers - read here
- News Analyis - NetSuite announced Cloud Alliance with Microsoft - read here
- Event Report - Microsoft Build - Microsoft really wants to make developers' lives easier - read here
- First Hand with Microsoft Hololens - read here
- Event Report - Microsoft TechEd - Top 3 Enterprise takeaways - read here
- First Take - Microsoft discovers data ambience and delivers an organic approach to in memory database - read here
- Event Report - Microsoft Build - Azure grows and blossoms - enough for enterprises (yet)? Read here.
- Event Report - Microsoft Build Day 1 Keynote - Top Enterprise Takeaways - read here.
- Microsoft gets even more serious about devices - acquire Nokia - read here.
- Microsoft does not need one new CEO - but six - read here.
- Microsoft makes the cloud a platform play - Or: Azure and her 7 friends - read here.
- How the Cloud can make the unlikeliest bedfellows - read here.
- How hard is multi-channel CRM in 2013? - Read here.
- How hard is it to install Office 365? Or: The harsh reality of customer support - read here.