By Frank Shaw, Corporate Vice President, Communications

Today we live in a world where every company is a software company, and technology is deeply woven throughout company workflow and individual productivity. In this world, the role of IT and developers is becoming increasingly important, and that is why we are so excited to welcome more than 26,000 IT implementers and decision makers, developers, data professionals and other people across industries to experience the latest Microsoft technology at Microsoft Ignite in Orlando, Florida.

In the next week, we’ll unveil a broad range of new tools and services to help companies and individuals put their data to work for them, help their employees build expertise quickly, and take advantage of key Azure tools no matter what cloud provider they’re using.

It’s also a time when intelligent insights and security are paramount. AI is infused into updates and powerful new features in many of the tools you already use every day, and so is our firm commitment to security and privacy. You’ll see how our approach of investing in built-in capabilities, cloud-powered intelligence and integration is helping customers address some of the biggest security and compliance challenges they face. Here are a few highlights from today:

We’re announcing Azure Synapse Analytics, a new service that merges the capabilities of Azure SQL Data Warehouse with new enhancements that will help customers put their data to work much more quickly and securely by pulling together insights from all data sources, data warehouses and big data analytics systems.

We’re launching a preview of Azure Arc, which offers Azure services and management to customers on other clouds or infrastructure, including those offered by Amazon and Google.

We are sharing a public preview of a new robotic process automation capability in Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow) called UI flows, which lets users turn manual tasks into automated workflows by recording and playing back human-driven actions across software that does not support API automation, with point-and-click experience. With this update, Power Automate is a comprehensive, end-to-end automation platform.

We’re announcing the new knowledge network in Microsoft 365, the first new Microsoft 365 service since the launch of Microsoft Teams, and a cornerstone of Microsoft’s vision to transform knowledge and learning for customers. This new tool is a cross between a powerful organizer of enterprise content and a digital concierge that brings people the information they need in the context of their workflow.

We’re delivering new experiences across Microsoft 365 that put people at the center so they can do their best work. A few of my favorite new experiences that will make my life easier are:

• Play My Emails in Outlook for iOS Cortana uses natural voice and language recognition to intelligently read new emails aloud and share scheduling changes, making it possible to catch up and act on emails even when your hands are busy with other things.
• New voice enhance in Stream uses machine learning algorithms to detect and eliminate unwanted background noise in any video with just one click.
• With the new Teams Chat button in Outlook it’s easy to move back-and-forth email conversations out of email into a Teams chat.

We’re introducing the new Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Bing, enhanced with unique solutions including one that brings together the internet with your intranet via Microsoft Search in Bing, as well as powerful default privacy protection and the ability to move from web research directly into Microsoft Office applications.

Microsoft Ignite is the place to get a comprehensive look at the future of enterprise technology, as well as inspiration, training and connections that help attendees drive their businesses forward.