Microsoft has revealed a series of new products and services that have been designed to enable people and organisations ‘to put data to work’.
Speaking at the Convergence 2015 event in Atlanta, US, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said: “Businesses are hungry to seize new opportunities using technologies like machine learning and predictive analytics. Only when businesses create a culture that empowers everyone to have access to data and insight that drive action will they be positioned to truly transform.”
Among the announcements was the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite, an integrated offering that capitalises on relevant Azure capabilities to help simplify billing and ease provisioning for businesses, enabling them to connect, manage and analyse their ‘things’.
The Azure IoT Suite will be available later this year and will provide businesses with finished applications that target common IoT scenarios, such as remote monitoring, asset management and predictive maintenance. This will help simplify deployment and provide the ability to scale solutions.
A further announcement was that of Azure Stream Analytics, which will be generally available next month and help customer process massive amounts of real-time data.
Microsoft also elaborated on how Windows 10 will provide versions of Windows for a diverse range of IoT devices under the moniker ‘Windows 10 IoT’. Windows 10 IoT will offer a single Windows platform for universal applications and driver models.
Also available in more than 140 markets worldwide is the new Power BI service, which helps customers keep on top of their business with live market operational dashboards. Users can also explore data through interactive visual reports and share insights with colleagues and customers.
More information was provided on the upcoming release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which is expected by the end of the second quarter in 2015. The new release will deliver superior performance, deepen interoperability with Office 365 and improve collaboration between workers and businesses thanks to new knowledge management enhancements. This release also includes Microsoft Social Engagement, which enables people to monitor and engage in the context of their Dynamics CRM and/or Office application.
Other releases aimed at individuals included Office Delve, which uses machine learning techniques to help people discover relevant information across Office 365, and the IT Professional and Developer Preview of Office 2016, which has been described by the company as ‘a key milestone for the next version of Office on the Windows desktop.’
The Skype for Business technical preview is also now available, and the new Skype for Business client, server and service within Office 365 will be available starting in April.
Share this story