ATLANTA, Sept. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- At its annual
Microsoft Ignite conference on Monday, Microsoft Corp. announced
new products and services spanning security, productivity,
intelligence and the cloud that will make it easier for IT
professionals to drive digital transformation throughout their
organizations. In addition, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announced that Adobe is
bringing its Marketing Cloud to Microsoft Azure and making it the
preferred digital marketing solution for Dynamics 365
Enterprise.
"Core to our mission to empower every person and organization on
the planet is democratizing AI for every person and organization to
help solve society's most pressing challenges," said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. "To do this,
we're infusing intelligence into everything we deliver — from the
agent to applications, services and infrastructure."
Today's announcements address some of the most pressing
challenges and opportunities facing technology professionals, such
as security amid an increasingly complex and dynamic threat
landscape, and the need to balance end-user preferences with
technology investments that scale and deliver value.
Security
Security enhancements across Microsoft's products, including
Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security, offer
powerful protection against security threats.
- Windows Defender Application Guard, coming next year to
Windows 10 Enterprise customers and soon to Windows Insiders, makes
Microsoft Edge the most secure browser for the enterprise. It is
powered by virtualization-based security technology and uses
isolated containers built directly into the hardware to prevent
malicious code from moving across employee devices and the
corporate network.
- Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (WDATP) and
Office 365 ATP now share intelligence mutually across both
services, helping IT pros to investigate and respond to
security threats across Windows 10 and Office 365 more quickly and
efficiently.
- Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection will be extended
to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for
Business. Other enhancements include dynamic delivery, which
enables users to receive email immediately with a placeholder
attachment while the actual attachment undergoes scanning, and
URL detonation, which analyzes links in real time to
identify unknown malicious URLs.
- Office 365 Threat Intelligence provides alerts and
information on the origination of specific attacks, integrates with
existing security incident event management (SIEM) systems, and
enables customers to deploy dynamic policies based on the nature of
the threat.
- Outlook for iOS and Android is now fully powered by the
Microsoft Cloud for Office 365 commercial users, supporting
Exchange Online mailboxes natively so that no mailbox data is
cached outside Office 365.
- Enterprise Mobility + Security E5, a new offer that
expands security to help the transition to mobility and cloud, will
be available starting Oct. 1, 2016.
The suite includes the new Microsoft Azure Information
Protection service to help organizations classify, label and
protect sensitive data.
- Also available Oct. 1, 2016, is
the Secure Productive Enterprise, which offers the latest
and most advanced security and productivity capabilities across
Office 365, Windows 10 Enterprise and Enterprise Mobility +
Security.
Intelligence
New AI capabilities that span agents, applications, services and
infrastructure transform what's possible for people and
organizations.
- Microsoft will preview new skills for its personal
assistant and AI agent Cortana, including health insights and
reminders.
- Office 365 is getting new cloud-powered intelligent
capabilities, including the following:
- Tap in Word and Outlook, which uses the Microsoft
Graph to make it easier to incorporate content from existing
documents within your organization into your own documents and
emails.
- Quickstarter for PowerPoint and Sway provides curated
outlines for any topic, including text and images, that can be used
as a starting point to build presentations.
- Maps, a new chart type in Excel powered by Bing Maps,
transforms geographic data into high-fidelity visualizations.
- Microsoft MyAnalytics (formerly Delve Analytics) is a
personal analytics service in Office 365 that helps people
understand how they spend time at work. New capabilities provide
team members and leaders with insights to help find better ways of
working together.
- Relationship Assistant, included in the
soon-to-be-released Dynamics 365 for Sales, makes customer
engagement more intelligent than ever before on any device.
- Microsoft customers will be showcased for how they are using
Cortana Intelligence to innovate in their industries —
Lowe's to deliver a digitally enhanced kitchen remodel
experience; and Dymaxia Inc. to make healthcare more
efficient and accessible. Uber announced it is using
Microsoft Cognitive Services for its real-time ID check security
feature to improve rider and driver security.
- Microsoft has deployed a new AI-enabled virtual
agent across all of its U.S. support centers to improve
customer experience.
- The company also announced that it has signed a global,
multiyear agreement with Renault-Nissan Alliance to
advance connected driving experiences worldwide. The companies will
work together to develop next-generation mobility services for cars
powered by Microsoft Azure that will improve customer experiences
including personalization, advanced navigation, predictive
services, remote monitoring of car features, external mobile
experiences and over-the-air updates. Renault-Nissan selected Azure
because of its enterprise-grade security and Microsoft's commitment
to compliance.
Cloud platform
Building on the industry's richest hybrid cloud portfolio, the
release of Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 helps
transform customers' infrastructure to support future-ready cloud
applications, while advances in the Microsoft cloud infrastructure
provide a path toward an AI supercomputer in the cloud.
- Windows Server 2016 will be generally available in
October, giving IT professionals new layers of security and
Azure-inspired innovation for infrastructure and cloud
applications. Microsoft and Docker Inc. are extending their
partnership to make the Commercially Supported Docker Engine
available to Windows Server 2016 customers at no additional cost.
System Center 2016 will also be generally available in
October, offering a simplified management solution across the
datacenter and the cloud for Windows Server 2016 software-defined
datacenter features.
- New Azure monitoring abilities, combined with Operations
Management Suite updates, help IT manage cloud and
on-premises assets from one place.
- The next technical preview of Azure Stack brings Azure
technology to customers' datacenters, furthering Microsoft's unique
hybrid differentiation.
- Microsoft is also advancing a vision of what's possible with
intelligence and machine learning using the world's largest
deployment of custom developed field-programmable gate arrays
(FPGAs), spanning 15 countries and five continents. These FPGAs
could be used to accelerate AI to near real time, making Azure the
foundation for the world's first AI supercomputer.
Empowering IT pros
New free training and educational resources will help ensure
that IT professionals have the know-how and expertise to help
companies complete their digital transformation.
- The Microsoft Technical Community is a new online
community that brings together IT professionals, MVPs and Microsoft
subject-matter experts to exchange ideas, build connections and
share best practices about Microsoft products and
solutions.
- The Microsoft IT Pro Career Center and Microsoft IT Pro
Cloud Essentials are now available in 25 languages and 40 markets
globally. The Career Center provides free expert advice
on cloud career paths, skills and curriculum by cloud role, while
IT Pro Cloud Essentials provides a free annual subscription to
cloud services, priority support and certification.
More information and news from Microsoft Ignite can be found at
the Microsoft News Center. Readers can also follow and engage with
the Microsoft Twitter community at @MSFTNews and @MS_Ignite using
#MSIgnite.
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) is the leading platform and
productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and
its mission is to empower every person and every organization on
the planet to achieve more.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.