‘Inspiration was in the Air’ when, yet again in Toronto, Microsoft kicked off their annual Worldwide Partner Conference with a winsome keynote featuring Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Discussing the multiple partner opportunities, the CEO extended the best of his company’s vision and mission about the partner ecosystem. Much larger than estimated, the conference this year was attended by 16,000 partners of different industries.
Surprisingly, Microsoft’s core subject for the conference was Cloud environment and not Windows 10 this time. The major highlights of the keynote were related to ideas of maximizing services, reaching new customers, automating IT using Azure, discussing the power of machine learning, and introducing HoloLens & augmented reality to transform training in the coming year.
Empowerment- The ‘BIG’ Microsoft Mission
Expressing his best regards for the customers and partners, Satya started the keynote with a ‘thank you’ speech where he went all praising about Microsoft’s partner ecosystem. “Microsoft has always been a partner-lead company, and it always will be. What makes it possible and what drives Microsoft is your passion, commitment, and drives to make us better”, affirmed Satya while addressing the partners during Day 1 of the conference.
The major mission of Microsoft, as extended by the CEO, is to make their products and partner programs powerful. The idea of power is driven by the desire to ‘empower customers and organizations’ that are using those solutions. Human beings, as said by the CEO, is the only race that cares deeply about both people and organizations that people built to outclass them. “Being a democratic force, we care and deeply think about organizations and people inside those organizations” added Satya. He firmly advocated that IT is all about celebrating the ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ of customers, so that they are able to transform their realities.
Digital Transformation- The Theme for World Partner Conference
Changing the business outcome, engaging customers, personalizing solutions, empowering employees for better decision-making, optimizing business operations, and building productivity are some of common desires shared by worldwide CEOs. Satya Nadella advocated the inherit care that every CEO has for the digital outcomes in today’s business scenario. He proudly asserted, “Not just the Silicon Valley startups, but every small business is every part of this world is going to be a digital company because of people in this room”.
“As a percentage of GDP, IT is a healthy 5 percent and it is growing at a rate of 6 percent. So by it, we are lucky to be in the Information Technology as the world is digitizing. Whether we are serving small businesses or a large one, the entire GDP will be shaped by the digital technology”, added Nadella.
Microsoft’s Three Ambitions
During introductory speech at the World Partner Conference, CEO Satya Nadella shared the three key visions of Microsoft:
- Reinventing productivity and business processes
- Building out the intelligent cloud platform
- Creating more personal computing
Keynote Demos:
Though there was no onstage demo of Windows 10 this time (maybe Microsoft is planning to roll it out during the final keynote sessions of the conference), yet Microsoft did present a few demo for Ecolab and HoloLens. Ecolab, a data tool and water management company, is a partner with Microsoft. On the other hand, HoloLens is a new tool that Japan Airlines have built on Microsoft’s virtual reality platform. It is used for training jet engine mechanics. Nadella also went for a sitting discussion with GE CEO Jeff Immelt and how a new partnership that has taken place between the companies. It is notable that Microsoft is helping GE with the Predix platform to Microsoft Azure as an initiative under Industrial Internet.
Augmented Reality and HoloLens
Overlaying the digital information and images on top of the real world that is around the user, Microsoft’s HoloLens is an untethered headset, which according to Nadella is a ‘mixed reality’. The on-stage demonstration was assisted by Lorraine Bardeen who presented the application of HoloLens to train engineers in Japan Airlines.
Cloud Automation:
During the first day of the conference, Nadella advised businesses to use Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure that connects various collaboration, line of business platform, social network sites (which are acquired by Microsoft) and communication apps. The linking of cloud data and services will help companies to build a highly automated business system.” The most salient point of cloud transformation is the transformation around data”, added Nadella.
Microsoft Dynamics 365
“I am so excited about Dynamics 365. You are going to have modern interfaces. It will introduce a different business model where you can have business model needed for a particular role. The most transformative thing is data- everything will be exposed and integrated in the cloud and this will make the difference. We are not only building SAAS applications, we are building the platform approach. We are creating a platform of opportunity” added Nadella, while discussing Microsoft Dynamics 365 during the meet.
Apart from this, the major highlight of the keynote was discussing Machine learning and chatbots communication.
With Microsoft’s visions, it seems like the future is a beautiful place to be! We just can’t wait to feel, live and experience it.
Watch full remarks by Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, in Toronto, Canada, July 11, 2016
Watch highlights of Day 1 at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference
