Microsoft’s Ignite was a huge event- 23,000+ attendees -and a lot of news came out of it on day one. I’ll share with you here my take on the big items of the day, flavoured through my lens of SharePoint/Office 365.

Since there was so much going on, i’m going to break it out into day-by-day posts- easier to digest and gives me time to collect my thoughts after being hit on the head with a Chicago-sized Microsoft frying pan. 🙂

The core concepts: Microsoft is taking a mobile-first, cloud-first approach with three top priorities: to usher in an era of more personal computing, to reshape work and productivity with enhanced products and processes, and to build trust in a reliable, extensible cloud service offering.

Let’s get started. First, check out the official Microsoft news homepage for the event at http://news.microsoft.com/ignite2015/

Here’s a selection of  some of the hot sessions now available from Day 1:

• Overview of Skype for Business
• Office Development Matters, and Here’s Why…
• Office Sway: Reimagine How Your Ideas Come to Life
• Introducing Windows 10 Development and App Model
• Microsoft Edge (formerly “Project Spartan”) Overview
• Information Management Strategy with Office 365 in Mind
• The Evolution of SharePoint: Overview and Roadmap
• Overview of Windows 10 for Enterprises
• How to Embrace the Cloud and Stop Worrying about Security
• Desktop Outlook: Evolved and Redefined
• Overview of Windows 10 for Education
• Bring on the Thunder: A Lightning Tour of the Microsoft Azure Cloud for IT Pros

Also available in the on-demand recordings is the Monday morning keynote, which was delivered effectively by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and the evening keynote hosted by Harry Shum titled The Next Era of Computing: Seeing the Future Before It Happens.

First, a little recap on the sheer scale of the event. 23,000 of some of the world’s best IT Professionals in one spot, yet the Borg-scale capacity of the McCormick + Lakeside Conference Centers seemed hardly enough:

The keynote began on the upswing, with a DJ pumping out music to many, many IT peeps who are perhaps used to a little more mellow entrance in Monday Morning: 🙂

A pretty unexpected kick off to the keynote: The rapper/Artist know as Common takes the stage and delivers some inspiring words:

Soon thereafter, the big boss Mr. Satya Nadella took the stage.

Satya Nadella

Announcements:
Office 2016 Public Preview
Skype for Business broadcasting
Office Delve Org Analytics

SQL Server 2016 on-premise Azure (if you want the deep-dive version, check here: http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2015/05/reading-the-sql-server-2016-data-sheet/)
Windows users can try Office 2016 and its new desktop co-editing feature
Microsoft launches Operations Management Suite to deal with infrastructure across clouds

Quotes:
“Move IT from delivering services in our org, to delivering transformation and innovation.”
“Mobile first, cloud first – but it’s not about the mobility of a single device. It’s about the mobility of the experience. It’s about the cloud back end, and adding intelligence to your experiences.”
“MobileFirst is not about a device, it’s about sharing computing across all the experiences in our life.”
“Social collaboration and co-creation are at the core of what we do.”
“There are going to be more devices than people on the planet.”
“Exchange, Skype for Business and OneDrive span both your personal and work life”
“The next version of SQL Server is considered a breakthrough.”
“It is important to us to build trust into the core of the operating system…that’s not a bolt-on, you have to build that in.”

There was a brief unscripted comedy moment when Mr. Nadella was describing a scenario where Delphi software would allow one to know exactly when their partner was coming home:

Joe Belifiore

– Joe says about 5-8% of users use Alt-Tab to switch between apps. Adding multiple desktop support. Hold down control/Windows/right-arrow and switch between desktops, or left-arrow to go back. Dragging an app from one desktop to another got the first spontaneous audience applause.
– Demos Cortana, and Cortana driving PowerBI
– Demos Continuum, a new way of changing the Windows user interface to change between tablet mode and laptop mode depending on how you hold the device
– Demos Windows Hello, a new facial recognition authentication mechanism that works through the webcam. Takes a cloth off a webcam, and it unlocks his laptop in a matter of seconds without the user doing anything.

.. at this point I had to move on to the rest of the Conference –

The Evolution of SharePoint

– OneDrive integration improvements are a big priority for the SP team
– Experiences, Extensibility & Management are the core principles
– On track in development efforts for delivering SharePoint Server 2016 next year
– Cloud-inspired features eventually will make their way back into the server product. Functionality that doesn’t make it into the server will be offered as Office 365 services that can be leveraged by premises-based systems
– Microsoft is continuing to focus on SharePoint’s Files, Content Management, Sites and Portals components going forward. It plans to make it easier to use hybrid architectures (SharePoint Server plus Office 365 services) and make it easier for organizations to perform migrations when they are ready, according to Seth Patton, global senior director for SharePoint and OneDrive product marketing
– A new About Me next-generation portal coming to SharePoint Server 2016. It uses Microsoft’s Delve content discovery tool, based on Office Graph enterprise search technology, to surface content and organizational information. Microsoft is also planning to ship an upgrade to SharePoint Server 2013 that will enable the Delve portal for those organizations that can’t wait for the release of SharePoint Server 2016.

Information Management with Office 365 in Mind

The Next Era of Computing: Seeing the Future Before It Happens

All in all, a heavy duty day full of news, connections and learnings. Day two recap coming tomorrow, subscribe to my blog to stay looped in!