Microsoft CEO Pushes Open Data Initiative, New Security at Ignite

Opening the Microsoft Ignite and Envision conferences in Orlando this morning time, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella focused on the need for greater "tech intensity," while pushing new AI and data, security, and IoT solutions. Well-nigh of import are a new Open Information Initiative with Adobe and SAP for sharing data across what were once silos, and a new "AI for Humanitarian Action" initiative.

As Microsoft has been wont to practise at its shows lately, Nadella began by talking about how we are now in the era of the "intelligent cloud and the intelligent edge." Computing is now being embedded in the real earth, he said, and every place, every industry, and every matter is being transformed by digital technology. To brand this piece of work, nosotros need what he chosen "tech intensity," meaning enterprises both adopting the latest technology and building their own technical chapters.

Nadella identified 2 big strategic mistakes companies make in deploying new engineering: creating services that are commodities rather than specific to their own businesses, or picking a partner who offers commodity services and so turns around and becomes a competitor. (That last office seemed similar a knock on Amazon Spider web Services, but he didn't mention the competitor by name.)

"We want to empower you with that tech intensity," he said, adding that "our success is fundamentally dependent on your success."

Nadella walked through seven examples of companies that are undergoing "digital transformation" and using various Microsoft services. These included Royal Dutch Shell, which is using AI for guiding drilling and preventive maintenance, and computer vision for safety; CBRE, which is creating a digital twin and an app for tenants and facility managers to better manage their facilities; Buhler, which is using computer vision to await for toxins in the food supply and partnering with a big miller to use blockchain to runway grain; and BMW, which is using Azure AI capabilities to build its own banana so its brand doesn't get disintermediated.

Open Information Initiative

Nadella said that for most businesses, the near of import thing is to continually improve your appointment with customers. To that end, he brought upwards SAP CEO Bill McDermott and Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen to discuss their new Open Data Initiative.

McDermott said he called the other two CEOs to propose the program, and said we are "in the midst of a customer driven growth revolution." He said every visitor is going through a digital transformation, or should be, because customers are mobile and social, and await the companies they deal with to exist mobile and social. Equally a result, information can't exist trapped in a silo, and "we now have to connect the finish-to-end consumer experience from the need concatenation to the supply chain in real-time." Instead, what we need is a single view of information.

The central tenets of this initiative, which both Nadella and McDermott emphasized, are that the client has ownership and control of his or her data, that it enables AI-driven concern outcomes, and that it is open and extensible.

Narayen talked about the demand "to reimage customer experiences," and said that past freeing all of the data which was previously trapped in silos, companies could create "compelling, personalized, [and] relevant experiences across all channels."

Nadella said this initiative followed a pretty straightforward compages, with the goal being to view data every bit a renewable resources, and "truly putting customers in control of their own customer information." The hope is to expand the programme to include other companies, he said.

Security and Trust

The next part of the keynote dealt with security and trust, with Nadella talking nearly how information technology's the combination of technology, operations, and partnerships which is critical for security. Microsoft currently has iii,500 security professionals handling six.v trillion events a day, and Nadella said this translates into products such as Accelerate Threat Protection and Secure Score, a new service that includes recommendations for controls in a variety of Microsoft products including European monetary system (enterprise, mobility and security), Microsoft Cloud App Security, Azure Security Center, and Azure Agile Directory.

Nadella as well talked near the need to work in partnerships and pointed to the Cybersecurity Tech Accordance, which now counts 61 organizations as members. In detail, he pointed to a new Defending Democracy Programme, including a new feature called AccountGuard designed to provide an extra level of protection for candidates and parties in U.s. elections. This, he said, started when the company detected a group attacking senators and organizations affiliated with political parties. This group captured a few domains and used them to transport phishing attacks.

Nadella said Microsoft worked with law enforcement to create a process for rapidly recapturing the domains. Equally with much of this, he said it requires a combination of products, an operational security posture, and partnerships with other organizations.

Nadella besides focused on small businesses, and noted that these organizations generally don't have internal security operations departments. As an case, he talked almost 58 modest businesses in Johnson Metropolis, Tennessee (population 60,000), which were attacked by malware from a trusted local business, which sought to steal banking data. Microsoft used the machine learning arrangement behind Windows Defender and Advanced Threat Protection to help notice the assault, and noted that this system must run very quickly because information technology has to return results in sub-milliseconds. This in turn requires sophisticated but fast inference algorithms and a fast core infrastructure that uses FPGAs.

IoT and Border Calculating

Nadella and then turned to edge computing, and said that there are ix billion microcontrollers which command such things as factory floors and HVAC systems.

Microsoft had earlier announced a system called Azure Sphere, now in public preview, that combines a hardware root of trust, a secure Bone, and a deject service. These work together "to provide end-to-end security," Nadella said, and added that the organisation is now ready for adoption.

He too talked about Microsoft's vision of a "no password future," and said that Coca-Cola has worked with the Microsoft Authenticator app and ATP to wait at threats targeting products from Azure to Microsoft 365.

Nadella airtight with tech intensity. Tech intensity isn't just about consumer appointment, digital transformation, and ensuring security and trust, just also about making the about of the opportunity "to brand sure access is equitably distributed across our gild." To that end, Microsoft has an AI for Good plan, which began with previously announced AI for Earth and AI for Accessibility programs. Today, Nadella announced AI for Humanitarian Action, which is designed to help organizations that work in disaster response, or address the needs of refugees, displaced persons, and the fight for human rights.