Microsoft Ignite 2021 Recap- Microsoft Loop, Context IQ & Viva

Microsoft's biggest customer and user conference concluded last week. For the 2nd year in a row Microsoft's biggest customer and user conference went completely digital with free access to all attendees. Some of our experts who attended the sessions have put together their interesting take on the sessions that they found most impactful and memorable.

Andres Caldera, Client Partner

Steven Farrow, Sales Associate

Andrea Schrader, Client Partner

Scott Stranczek, Client Partner

Megan Lane, Account Executive

Transcript

Andres Caldera, Client Partner
So far I’ve spent time watching the keynotes. I have a bunch of sessions that I have put in the backpack, that I’m planning to view later. But the keynotes have given me a great overview of what’s coming, innovations, investments, I think that’s a great investment of time so far. There are two keynotes that I thought were pretty memorable to me. Satya’s keynote, it’s always great opening act with 30,000 ft altitude of everything that’s going on. But the one that was more memorable and impactful for me has been the one with Jared Spataro. He called his session ‘Empower everyone for a new world of hybrid work’. And there were two announcements in that session that were pretty interesting for me to see. One is called Microsoft Loop and the other one is called Context IQ. Microsoft Loop seems to be a new application into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, canvas application sort of thing. Context IQ seems to be an AI powered capability, but the real impact of these things for me came up when they show these things working in the context of a collaboration application that a lot of people are using these days like Microsoft teams. So essentially, there are great examples of that session where you can see line of business application say CRM, integrated into teams and dynamically interacting with the backend line of business application. So, its this notion of bringing all your applications into teams and making the conversation context specific. I think that is really powerful, so it definitely seems like a game changer. So, I’m looking forward to see how that gets released. And those were the sessions that I would recommend everybody, at least everybody those who are using teams these days I would for them to take a look at it. Ya, so that’s my summary. Looking forward to watching more sessions that’s my top of mind. Thank you!

Steven Farrow, Sales Associate- Customer Success Team
Hello, my name is Steven Farrow. I’m with Valorem Reply, Sales Associate on the Customer Success team. This year for Microsoft Ignite I attended several different sessions. Some of the ones that kind of stuck out for me, that I found most impactful, innovate anywhere from multi-cloud to edge, build a hyper connected business, and empower everyone for a new world of hybrid work. For me, kind of, as I went through those, one that kind of stuck out for me that I would recommend would be, that ‘empower everyone for a new world of hybrid work’. For someone who is deeply committed to hybrid work themselves, working from home for several years now, that’s my future, I think. Looking at that and some of the advancements they are coming out with Teams and the apps that you will be able to add into that and how seamless it would be able to make you work. Its just really exciting, especially for me, as someone who uses Teams and Outlook nonstop throughout the day. For me, kind of, the most impactful advancement was hearing about of Context IQ and Editor. Being able to have that access both in Teams and Outlook, giving you the ability to have that AI working in tandem with you, as you are writing your emails and writing things out in teams, having the ability for that predictive AI to put in the name or the file you need and not having to go back and forth on different monitors to put that together. I think its huge for someone who works with three monitors and so I hope to get down to one now with these advancements and having just one place you are going to do all your work. I think it’s going to be really neat. Something I’m really excited is connection and work from this hybrid workspace, it’s really important for me. Can’t wait to see how these all help us in 2022 and beyond.

Andrea Schrader, Client Partner
Hi, I’m Andrea Schrader, a Client Partner at Valorem Reply and I’m so excited to share my thoughts on Microsoft Ignite. I was able to attend several Ignite sessions on hybrid work and connected business, as well as the sessions on the latest Azure Data and App innovation offerings. I really enjoyed learning about how Microsoft is meeting its users with a better app by rethinking how people want and need to work in a hybrid environment. New tools like Teams Connect enable our clients to more effectively collaborate across the organization and for Valorem to better collaborate with our clients, a win-win all around. I was pretty impressed with the potential of Mesh for Microsoft Teams. The avatars were surprisingly detailed and interactive. I’m not sure how many of our clients will be enabling that at scale in the near term but it’s a pretty cool feature nonetheless. And probably I’m most excited to learn more about Microsoft Loop and how it’s bringing together the best of the Microsoft 365 suite into a single tool. I love how Microsoft is rethinking and improving upon the tools that we have come to know and love and depend so heavily upon as part of our daily lives. Lastly, I really enjoyed the customer tech talks, especially those where my customers were participating as key speakers. Overall kudos to Microsoft for a great conference. It was informative and interactive and I’m excited to take these new offerings to Valorem Reply’s customers.

Scott Stranczek, Client Partner
My name is Scott Stranczek, Client Partner at Valorem Reply, Microsoft Partner headquartered at Kansas City. We are coming off a very exciting week attending Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference which showcases Microsoft’s key technologies, enterprise services as well as strategies in addition to product roadmaps and enterprise products. The two most relevant session areas for me at this year’s Microsoft Ignite involved I think, one on the modern workplace side, an area Microsoft coined as the new world of hybrid work where they leverage existing technologies around Teams as well as evolving new technologies around Microsoft Viva and Microsoft Loop to focus on that very important area. The second area is on the Azure side and the sessions involving Microsoft’s open AI platform. Again, Microsoft’s ever evolving AI platform that I think will have increasingly relevant area in all aspects of their technology. Two underlying themes at this year’s Microsoft Ignite conference that stood out to me were, one, I think the concept they call Tech intensity, whereby you know technology is really becoming the biggest thing in business today and is becoming increasingly difficult for companies that can’t integrate technology into their business to do well in the marketplace and compete. And I think the second one is the sort of reality of these centralized edge computing and I think the ever-increasing number of connected devices, sometimes known as internet of things, that will be available for businesses to leverage. I think in both cases, Microsoft partners are positioned very well to work with Microsoft account teams to bring both of those concepts to reality for our mutual clients.

Megan Lane, Account Executive
Hi! Megan Lane, Account Executive at Valorem Reply. I wanted to talk a little bit about Microsoft Ignite, the event that was held last week. Probably like everyone here my calendar was very busy, so I was not sure which session I wanted to watch and fit in to the gaps that I had in my meetings schedule. So, what was most impactful for me, was the Microsoft Ignite Book of News. It’s a guide that Microsoft released that gives you an idea of all the announcements Microsoft made, all the details that you need, and I’ve used that as a guide. Some sessions that I want to recommend and that I found impactful- Anything about Viva, I absorbed and watched. Viva connections was one, what’s next for the employee experiences is hot topic right now. Viva and the latest innovations and roadmap for the digital employees, Viva topics, Viva insights. I really like how we can have more effective team meetings. Insights app for Microsoft teams to give you better meeting experience. What was impactful for Microsoft users and for my Valorem customers - Microsoft cloud for manufacturing. Lot of conversations we are having around frontline worker solutions, which we have some great offerings. And also with retail and CPG clients, we are having the same type of conversations. That also bleeds into Azure Data and AI. Really, when you think about hybrid working environment, it’s really interlinked, and a lot of my conversation are like how can new integrations like with power platform for example, that was announced last week, enhance Power platforms and teams experience which in turn gives you a more effective meetings experience for your clients and your employees. And of course, Security, compliance, and identity management, multi cloud environment, it’s all very interesting. Use the Microsoft Ignite Book of news to give you the guide on what sessions to search for when you are going to the Ignite web page. I also saw conversations around return to work, reserve space and vaccination tracker app. They talked about it in Ignite but we also developed our own version. That’s equivalent to E3 and E5 licensing. So, use the Book of News, get a guide, have a look, see what interest you, what you want to learn about and then I would suggest watching the on-demand sessions. It was worth the time, and I’ll continue to do it over the next few weeks. Thank you.