At the Microsoft Developers Conference ( #MSBuild ), Microsoft today announced new technologies that help developers create smart, collaborative solutions. These include AI 365 in Microsoft 365 and cross-platform services for better collaboration and productivity. In addition, the company has announced new open source technologies and developer tools in Azure and Windows .
Announcements for Microsoft 365 at a Glance:
- Microsoft Graph data connect is available worldwide today. The service enables organizations to securely and accurately aggregate Microsoft Graph productivity data with their own business data with Azure Data Factory. Microsoft Graph data connect is now included as a feature in Workplace Analytics and is also available for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). Here you will find more information.
- With the Fluid Framework , Microsoft announces a new web-based platform and a component-based model for team collaboration. This resolves the limitations of traditional documents to simplify collaboration across applications. The Fluid Framework will be available this year through a Developer Software Developer Kit. The technology will also be integrated with Microsoft 365, including Word, Teams and Outlook. The functions of the Fluid Framework include:
- the ability to dissect content, such as from the Web or productivity apps, into modular, collaborative building blocks to make it easier to create new content,
- Co-authoring with several people in unprecedented speed and performance,
- Team collaboration with intelligent agents, who make image suggestions, identify experts and translate data.
- Microsoft Search is now available worldwide. The corresponding search box is included in Microsoft 365 applications such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Windows, and Bing. With Microsoft Search, business users can identify relevant people, content, and activities in their organization. Further information can be found here .
- Focused work: Microsoft Graph supports focus times in Microsoft 365 applications such as teams, where users can work undisturbed. Notifications are suppressed and stored during these times. With the new function MyAnalytics users can establish a routine for daily focus times: The tool determines appropriate time periods for concentrated work on KI basis and can block these automatically in the calendar for certain outstanding tasks. The feature will be available as a preview from summer.
- Ideas is a new AI-based editor in Word that makes smart suggestions to make text more precise, readable and inclusive. The tool also provides estimated reading times, the summary of the most important contents of a document, and the meaning of acronyms. The Ideas preview will be available for Word Online from June. More information is available here .
- Actionable messages in Outlook now allow users to instantly respond to specific emails without switching applications, such as confirming budgets, granting access to documents, or participating in surveys.
- @Mentions can now be used in Word documents to assign tasks, ask questions or respond directly to colleagues. In Word Online, the feature will be available from the summer.
Innovations for Microsoft Edge
- In December of last year Microsoft announced that it would use the open source project Chromium for the further development of Microsoft Edge for the desktop. As part of the Build 2019 Microsoft has now announced a variety of new features for the upcoming version of the browser under Windows 10:
- IE mode – targeted at more than 60 percent of businesses that use multiple browsers today. IE mode integrates Internet Explorer as a tab in Microsoft Edge. This allows companies to run Internet Explorer-based applications in a modern browser.
- Privacy Tools – additional control tools allow users to select three different privacy levels in Microsoft Edge: unrestricted, balanced, and rigorous. Depending on which option the users select, the traceability of the usage behavior for third-party providers will be limited accordingly. This provides users with more control and transparency when using the browser.
- Collections – aiming at the flood of information on the Web. With Office integration, the new feature allows users to more efficiently collect, organize, share, and export content.
- The new features will be introduced gradually. In addition to improved web compatibility for Edge users, Microsoft is also ensuring that even developers who have created Chromium-compatible Web pages will benefit from the same compatibility in Microsoft Edge without any additional effort.
- More details about the new features for Microsoft Edge are available on the Developer Blog . There is a video here . The latest preview builds of the browser can be downloaded from the Microsoft Edge Insider website.
- Microsoft baut seine Aktivitäten im Bereich Conversational Interfaces mit Hilfe des Teams von Semantic Machinesaus. Dieser neue Ansatz beinhaltet den Aufbau leistungsfähiger Conversational Interfaces aus Daten und maschinellem Lernen statt aus Regeln und Code. Die Technologie wird in Cortana integriert und steht Entwicklern künftig im Microsoft Bot Framework und Azure Bot Service zur Verfügung.
Mehr Informationen zu den heutigen Neuigkeiten rund um Microsoft 365 sowie Details zu den Entwicklertools aus Windows, Office und Microsoft Teams gibt es hier.
Entwicklertools für intelligente Apps in Cloud- und Edge-Szenarien
Neue Features und Funktionen in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) sollen die Kubernetes Workloads weiter beschleunigen und absichern:
- Kubernetes Event-Driven Autoscaling (KEDA) bietet eine neue Hosting-Option für Azure Functions, die als Container in Kubernetes-Cluster bereitgestellt werden kann und Komponenten wie das Programmiermodell oder den Skalierungscontroller für sämtliche Kubernetes-Implementierungen nutzbar macht. KEDA ist ab sofort als Public Preview verfügbar.
- Azure Policy für AKS sichert AKS-Cluster zentral und konsistent ab, blockiert auftretende Richtlinienverstöße während der Runtime und führt Compliance-Bewertungen für alle bestehenden Cluster durch.
In addition, Microsoft has announced that Q # compilers and simulators will be available as open source, Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) will be integrated with GitHub, and the new Hyperscale (Citus) option in Azure Database for PostgreSQL will be integrated with Azure SQL Database Hyperscale.
