For this blog, I decided it would be good to recap some of the recent news from Microsoft Build, while also touching on some Architecture insights from a “Future of IT” perspective which will hopefully help anyone reading this article prepare for future innovation.
Before I go any further it’s important to note that technology is rapidly evolving and any insights’ I’m providing are predictions based on industry trends from my time in the industry. If you want to read a great summary of Microsoft Build 2022 I’d recommend reading the Build Book of News. I’ll be focusing on some of the announcements, but also some of the nuances that didn’t make headlines or get a call out during the conference.
Digital Twins:
Microsoft started talk about digital twins a few years ago, and were part of Satya’s 2021 Ignite Keynote. They didn’t get a call out during the Build keynote, but were in multiple presentations. It’s expected that as the metaverse grows these digital twins will start having a MAJOR use case. There are already numerous business applications, such as lowering inspection costs of structures such as skyscrapers or monuments that were previously time intensive and risky to inspect, as well as revolutionizing supply chain management and tracking.
Azure & The Power Platform
Finding skilled and talented personnel in IT has always been a challenge. Traditional approaches in the industry have been to gain entry level employees and attempt to “train and retain” that talent or provide benefits and salary that attract higher level candidates. Today even these approaches aren’t enough, and companies are now investing in top level recruiters and recruitment campaigns to go find or attract employees as the potential candidate resource pool seems to continue to shrink.
Microsoft, while taking all of the approaches above, is also working to find alternative solutions to these issues using its large assortment of software, technology and services.
Azure:
Microsoft continues to expand its natural language coding capabilities with the Power FX language, which makes coding easier for those users that already have a deep Excel background.
This in addition to CoPilot, which will write code for users with Artificial Intelligence will also reduce the amount of effort current Devs need to put into their code, which should allow them to expand the amount of work they can output. Adding CoPilot and PowerFX with advancements and integration to Github and other future AI, shows that Microsoft is working to significantly increase output of current Devs to compensate for the lack of resources in the talent pool.
Power Platform:
One of the biggest announcements/releases at Build was a new application in the Microsoft Power Platform with the introduction of Power Pages. This now allows users to use a simple GUI interface and the Power FX language to create a web page that can be connected into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. This will increase the army of “Citizen Developers” while only requiring minimal interaction with professional developers.
(We’re already in talks here at Microsoftblogs.com to move the site to Power Pages to provide a better interface to our users.)
While not specifically mentioned during any of the Build sessions I attended, Microsoft has also enhanced and simplified that adaptive card creation process in the past year, that technology without a doubt is associated with the new Microsoft Loop offering and will continue to simplify interactive collaboration capabilities through the Microsoft 365 platform regardless of a user’s preferred application.
Power Virtual Agents are also getting more AI and collaboration capabilities, as the interface gets new features and a simplified navigation interface, which should improve interaction between professional Devs and Citizen Developers.
Continuing to bridge the gap between Citizen Developers and professional Devs, users will soon be able to use a sketch to create a Power Apps interface with the new Express Design feature. This will allow users to create a conceptual design, upload that design to Power Apps, and then hand off the new App to professional Devs to connect the proper back-end resources and insert required logic. This workflow should reduce the time needed to go from concept to production for a new App making it easier for organizations to digitize their workflows.
Conclusion:
With the new integrations, AI, and collaboration capabilities we’ll continue to see lines blur between the individual offerings of the Microsoft cloud ecosystem; Azure and professional development capabilities continue to integrate and get easier to facilitate with Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform which is making it easier for organizations to bring apps to users in SaaS form. Power Platform’s new capabilities will no doubt also have a positive impact on Dynamics 365 capabilities, integration and offerings as Microsoft continues to build Integrations between Dynamics, Microsoft 365, and Azure.
Not mentioned above, but honorable mention goes to the Azure Stack HCI single nodes announcement. With the news of VMWare’s acquisition by Broadcom this past week I’d expect many organizations will want to start testing the waters of other cloud integrated hypervisors, and a single Azure Stack HCI node is a good entry point for organizations already invested in Microsoft Azure and Windows Operating systems.
