TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY, MAY 13, 2017

Satya Nadella Scott Guthrie announces new tools, services to help developers modernize existing apps and build more intelligent ones

KUWAIT: , Scott Guthrie and welcomed bility on a service platform that delivers high availability and scala- business even further, Microsoft is also providing additional incen- thousands of developers to Seattle for Build 2017 - Microsoft’s bility, with minimal downtime, and data retention and recovery. tives to its sales force when they jointly co-sell eligible SaaS apps annual developer conference. During his opening keynote, Nadella l An early preview of Microsoft’s new database migration serv- and services to enterprise customers. announced that Windows had reached 500 million Windows 10 ices, which will allow Oracle and SQL Server customers to more eas- monthly active devices and noted how - together - Windows, ily move their data and quickly modernize their apps. AI technology and offer developers more than a l Azure SQL Database improvements: Microsoft also highlighted its vision to amplify human ingenuity billion opportunities to connect their innovations with Microsoft * A new Managed Instance private preview, which offers cus- with intelligent technology, bringing AI to every developer through customers. Microsoft also announced new Azure data and cloud tomers SQL Server instance-level compatibility and makes it even the unique combination of the Microsoft cloud and AI. New cogni- services to help developers quickly modernize their existing apps, easier for organizations to migrate existing SQL Server apps to tive services, platform innovations in the Microsoft Bot Framework, new AI and Azure services that allow any developer to more easily Azure SQL Database. advances in deep learning tools, continued infusion of AI into the build intelligent apps, with understanding and natural user interac- * General availability of Threat Detection and preview of Graph company’s products and services, and intelligent insights offered tion capabilities, and showcased new data, IoT edge and AI services support. through the unlock this opportunity for develop- built for a future with an intelligent cloud and intelligent edge. l General availability of Visual Studio 2017 for Mac, which ers and new growth scenarios for businesses. New announcements “In a world of near infinite compute power and an exponential enables developers to work seamlessly across Windows and Mac included the following: growth in data, we are focused on empowering every developer to environments with full support for mobile, web and cloud work- l The company added new services to the industry’s broadest build applications for this new era of intelligent cloud and intelli- loads, and previews of Docker tools, Azure Functions and offering of cognitive services and now 29 services for developers, gent edge,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. IoT support. with unique customization options. That enables developers to l Support for containers of nearly every type, on every platform, infuse off-the-shelf or custom intelligence capabilities such as More intelligence with the general availability of Containers support vision, speech, language, knowledge and search into their app and Our world is overloaded with information, every minute, and yet in Azure Service Fabric, with Visual Studio tooling, and a preview of bot experiences in any scenario. New services include Bing Custom it is in this very information - data - that opportunities and insights the ability to use Docker Compose support for Service Fabric to Search, Custom Vision Service, Custom Decision Service and Video abound. To help customers realize these opportunities, Microsoft deploy containerized apps to Service Fabric - enabling developers Indexer. A new PowerPoint add-in called Presentation Translator, shared an early peek into innovations it is bringing to bear to help to deliver mission-critical, scalable apps and services. which leverages Microsoft’s Translation APIs, was featured, allow- every person and organization achieve more. In support of this l DocuSign supports a rapidly growing customer base of ing real-time translation to multiple languages during any presen- vision Microsoft announced the following: 300,000 companies and more than 200 million users across 188 tation. The new Cognitive Services Labs were also launched, A preview of Azure IoT Edge, technology that extends the intel- countries. The company today announced Microsoft Azure is its enabling developers to experiment with new services, such as a ligence - and other benefits - of cloud computing to edge devices. preferred cloud for global expansion, starting in Canada. DocuSign Gesture API, still in the early stages of development. Extensions to the Microsoft Graph to combine insights from the uses Azure SQL Database to process enormous volumes of digital l Using the new adaptive cards supported by the Microsoft Bot world of work with device insights and contextual awareness of the transactions. Framework, developers can write cards once that look great across physical world. multiple apps and platforms. Using the Bot Framework, developers Technology that will allow you to search the real world in the On-ramps can also now publish to new channels including Bing, Cortana and same way you search the digital world, helping to keep your data With more than 100 million monthly commercial active users, for Business, and implement Microsoft’s payment request safe and secure while making you more productive. Office 365 is where the world works. Today Microsoft announced API for fast and easy checkout in their bots. plans [Office Blog] to better connect developers with Office 365 l Azure Batch AI Training is a new Azure offering, available in Cloud and tooling customers around the globe: private preview only, that will allow developers and data scientists Microsoft showcased how it is meeting developers where they l Any developer can now publish for Microsoft Teams, the new to configure an environment with parameters and run their models are, and helping them be more successful, with new Microsoft chat-based workspace in Office 365. Coming soon, apps in Teams against multiple CPUs, multiple GPUs and eventually field-pro- Azure and Visual Studio services and tools to help modernize will be more discoverable for end users through a new app experi- grammable gate arrays. existing applications and quickly build intelligent apps for all ence. Developers can also add new capabilities to Teams apps, l In addition to Harman Kardon’s Invoke intelligent speaker with major platforms: including third-party notifications in the activity feed, Compose Cortana, partnerships were also signed with HP on devices and Intel l Introducing Azure Cosmos DB, built from the ground up to Extensions and Actionable Messages. on reference platforms to deliver Cortana-enabled devices. power planet-scale cloud services and data-intensive applications - l Microsoft also made new Microsoft Graph APIs available to l The Cortana Skills Kit is now in public preview. Developers can from IoT to AI to mobile - with incredible performance, fault toler- developers, including APIs from SharePoint and Planner. The build skills for Cortana by creating a bot and publishing it to the ance and support for every type of data, including graph. It is the Microsoft Graph gives developers access to Office 365 data and new Cortana channel of the Bot Framework. This is available across industry’s first globally distributed, multi-model database service to intelligence and helps connect the dots between people, conver- Windows 10, Android, iOS and the new Cortana-powered Harman deliver horizontal scale with guaranteed uptime, throughput, con- sations, projects, schedules, processes and content. These Kardon Invoke speaker. The Cortana Skills kit is currently available in sistency and single-digit millisecond latency at the 99th percentile. insights help developers build smarter apps, enabling smarter the U.S. only. Developers get incredible flexibility with the only schema-free ways to work. l A demonstration was provided on how multiple Microsoft database service, with support for popular NoSQL APIs, that also l Developers and ISVs who host their production SaaS applica- products and services, including Dynamics 365, Office 365, offers five well-defined consistency choices while auto-indexing all tions on Microsoft Azure and sign up through the Azure website Microsoft Teams, Cortana Skills, Microsoft Graph and Sentiment your data. can now have their apps’ data and workflow automatically extend- Analysis, will be integrated into Tact, the sales experience platform l New MySQL- and PostgreSQL-managed services that join ed to authorized Office 365 customers through standard connec- that turns any connected device into a AI-powered virtual sales Azure SQL Database to give developers expanded choice and flexi- tors for PowerApps and Microsoft Flow. To help ISVs expand their assistant, later this year.