Microsoft has announced new updates to its suite of offerings including Azure, Teams, and Microsoft 365. The new features, which were announced on the first day of the company’s virtual Microsoft Inspire conference, are aimed at providing businesses with better remote working solutions in the age of social distancing.

The company announced a slew of new business applications which prioritise the health and safety of employees returning to offices post-lockdown and support independent software vendors (ISVs) in developing, publishing, and marketing their apps.

Microsoft Azure

As part of the Inspire commencement, Microsoft unveiled the second generation of Azure Stack HCI (hyper-converged infrastructure), which allows users to run virtualized workloads on-premise while connecting to Azure. In contrast to the original release, which was introduced in March 2019, the latest version of the Azure Stack HCI is not reliant on the Windows server. 

Azure Stack HCI can be used to modernise data centres with high-density virtualization and storage, as well as to view and manage multiple clusters and virtual machines (VMs) at the same time using Microsoft’s multi-cloud management solution Azure Arc.

Catering to a growing remote working environment, customers can run Azure Stack HCI on their own hardware, under the condition that it matches Microsoft’s validated node solution. Azure Stack HCI is currently delivered by Dell EMC, HPE and Lenovo.

As a part of the second-generation Azure Stack HCI, Microsoft also announced a new deployment wizard which aims to help IT administrators to quickly setup an Azure Stack HCI cluster and connect to Azure, as well as a Stretch Cluster for high availability (HA) and disaster recovery, allowing to easily extend a cluster from one site to multiple.

The new Azure Stack HCI is to include Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2008 virtual machines, at no additional cost.

Microsoft 365

One of the most interesting announcements to come out of Inspire 2020 are the changes to Microsoft 365’s UX, which sees an increased focus on simplicity. 

Head of Microsoft Office design John Friedman said that “the next wave of Microsoft 365 UX changes will go even further by fading brand colors from app headers and exploring adaptive commanding”, including “a flexible ribbon that progressively discloses contextually relevant commands at the right time just where you need them”. The standard ribbon UI had graced Office since 2007 and has not experienced many changes until now.

“We’ll further advance our seamless, cross-suite Search to bring relevant information to your fingertips, and myriad forthcoming experiences will leverage Fluid Frameworks. Microsoft 365 will bring the power of Office to wherever you are, ensuring you won’t need to interrupt your creative process to open a different tool,” Friedman explained in a blog post.

The UI updates are part of the Fluent Design system which has been changing Office over the past couple of years by adding new icons and introducing dark mode.

Microsoft also announced the public preview of Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention in Microsoft 365, which aims to help customers identify and protect information on endpoints. The tool is built into Windows 10, Office Apps, and Microsoft Edge, therefore facilitating deployment and eliminating the need for an additional agent. 

The company also unveiled Universal Print, a new service solution that provides a secure print experience for customers moving their workload to the cloud. The service eliminates the need for a complex hybrid print setup, thus expanding opportunities for reseller and hardware partners.

Microsoft Teams

The tech giant also introduced new features to its collaborative platform Microsoft Teams, which aim to ensure a secure and collaborative working environment while working from home.

The now generally-available Teams Room Premium provides customers with a cloud-based IT service that includes 24/7 proactive management and monitoring delivered by Microsoft experts. Teams Rooms Premium aims to provide users with the option to shift the operational burden of their rooms to Microsoft or a certified Microsoft partner.

As a part of its Teams updates, the company also announced the new RealWear head-mounted devices, which provide first-line workers with hands-free access to information and the ability to conduct calls with remote experts directly from their job sites. Users will be able to access chats, remote assist capabilities and other resources using only voice commands. 

Another newly-announced Teams feature is Walkie Talkie, which allows customers to turn employee- or company-owned Android smartphones and tablets into a walkie-talkie, enabling clear, instant and secure voice communication over the cloud. The app reduces the number of devices employees must carry, potentially lowering IT costs.

Microsoft also announced enhancements to its Power Platform within Microsoft Teams, aiming to facilitate the creation, deployment and management of apps without the need to leave Teams. Apps and chatbots built with Power Apps and Power Virtual Agent will now be able to access data residing in the Microsoft Dataflex, a relational database which has been built into Teams at no additional cost. Thanks to DataFlex, users will be allowed to build applications and workflows directly within Teams without having to consider back-end tech logistics. The new Power Apps features will be available for public preview starting next month.

Partnership priorities

Lastly, Microsoft outlined its partnership priorities for the fiscal year 2021, which are the following:

• Remote work
• Business continuity
• Security
• Cloud migration

As a part of the new “remote everything” environment, Microsoft announced that it would focus on empowering employees, engaging customers, optimising operations, and transforming products. According to the company, the combination of these factors would create an inclusive, trusted workplace which respects fundamental rights.

Microsoft-owned Minecraft will stop using Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud and will shift its workloads to Azure.

The tech giant has used AWS to run its popular Minecraft video game since 2014, when the game’s original developer, Mojang Studios, chose AWS to run its Realms – virtual places where small groups can collaborate in playing the open-world game together. In September 2014, Microsoft announced its acquisition of Mojang for $2.5 billion (£1.9bn).

Since then, Minecraft has become one of the most popular games of all time, being played by 126 million people each month and selling over 200 million copies as of May this year.

A Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC in an email that “Mojang Studios has used AWS in the past, but we’ve been migrating all cloud services to Azure over the last few years”, adding that Microsoft will be “fully transitioned to Azure by the end of the year”.

Microsoft’s decision to stop relying on AWS is fuelled by the growing rivalry between the two tech giants. Although AWS is considered the leading provider of public cloud infrastructure, Microsoft’s Azure has experienced growth huge growth, largely due to the skyrocketing demand for cloud services during the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent shift to remote working.

Last month, Microsoft acquired enterprise data modelling company ADRM Software, aiming to combine the firm’s “information blueprints” with Azure storage and compute to create sophisticated data lakes. The company also announced new features for its IoT platform, Azure Digital Twins.

Prior to that, in late May, Microsoft also launched 10 new Azure cloud services, including Bastion and Confidential Computing, for its UK customer base in order to improve security and allow users to take advantage of technologies such as IoT.

Microsoft’s independence from AWS could not only save the company money, but it also has the potential to communicate to its customers and rivals that Microsoft is confident in its own technology and does not have to rely on an industry-pioneer like Amazon in order to maintain its data storage.

​Salesforce has announced its plans to roll out three new Marketing Cloud product updates which aim to facilitate working from home for enterprise marketing teams.

The updates include three AI-focused innovations to its Interaction Studio, four new features in the enterprise addition of Pardot, as well as a new Datorama integration with Tableau.

Salesforce’s Interaction Studio, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to manage customer interactions, is to be improved with technology integrated from the company’s Evergage acquisition, which was finalised earlier this year.

Users will be able to to build, manage, test, and implement AI-powered recommendation strategies with the new Einstein Personalization Recipes, use an “advanced, continuous learning algorithm” to choose the best suitable offer or experience through Einstein Personalization Decisions, as well as improve personalisation campaigns and customer engagement efforts using A/B/n Testing.

Salesforce also announced that it would be integrating its Datorama analytics platform with Tableau, which was acquired by the company last year for $15.3 billion (£12 billion). The integration is to aid marketers in optimising their budget and data using Automated Marketing Data Integration.

Lastly, the software company will roll out four new features to its enterprise edition of Pardot, Salesforce’s marketing automation product. With B2B Marketing Analytics Plus, users will be able to use AI to sift through and understand data as well as determine best future marketing strategies.

Pardot will also be equipped with Einstein Attribution, which produces report and dashboards for optimised revenue credit assignment and Pardot Business Units, which facilitates campaign management across brands, geographies and segments. Admins and developers will also be able to test, audit and configure IT processes with the new Developer Sandboxes for Pardot.

While the Datorama Integration with Tableau is already available, Pardot Premium is to roll out later this month. Salesforce announced that the Interaction Studio will become generally available in the third quarter of 2020.

​New research into cloud security management has found that 83% of UK organisations believe threats to cloud systems are outpacing their ability to effectively deploy countermeasures.

This places the UK behind the global average, at 71%. By contrast, only 53% of German enterprises believe the same.

Cyber security company Palo Alto Networks has published its findings about the practices, tools, and technologies that companies around the world use to manage security for cloud-native architecture, interviewing 3,000 professionals in cloud architecture, information security, DevOps, and application development located across the UK, Germany, USA, Singapore, and Australia.

The State of Cloud Native Security report shows that UK organisations today host 42% of their workloads in the cloud and expect this to increase to 65% in the next two years.

A significant majority (93%) of UK businesses admitted to using more than one cloud platform, while one in two (57%) said they use between two and five. The trend was reflected on a global scale, with 94% and 60% of global organisations admitting to the same respectively.

However, the report has found that the growing reliance on cloud infrastructure has not translated into increased confidence in cloud security. In fact, 84% of UK respondents admitted that their organisation struggles to draw a clear line between their own responsibility for cloud security and their cloud service providers responsibility for security.

Low confidence in cloud security, and undefined responsibility for it, coincides with a surge in the number of attacks on cloud accounts, up by 630% between January and April of this year, according to McAfee. A majority of these external attacks were large-scale attempts to access cloud accounts with stolen credentials and usually targeted collaboration services like Microsoft 365.

The research also found that, while overall enterprise use of cloud services increased by 50%, access to the cloud using unmanaged, personal devices doubled, contributing to the risk of company data being stolen.

​Google has decided to abandon the development of a controversial cloud computing project named “Isolated Region”, which catered to various governments’ desires to control data within their borders.

The tech giant scrapped the initiative in May, partly due to the coronavirus pandemic but also due to the rising geopolitical tensions between the US and China, where Isolated Regions was being developed, according to two anonymous Google employees speaking to Bloomberg.

The project, which was launched in early 2018, sought to comply with Chinese regulations which require Western companies to form a joint venture with a Chinese partner company when they provide data or networking services. However, the development was paused in January 2019, reportedly due to Google choosing to focus on potential customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

However, according to one source, the geopolitical issues placed demands on Isolated Region that Google was not capable of delivering.

A Google spokeswoman refuted the claims made by the employees, telling Bloomberg that Isolated Region wasn’t shut down for either of the given reasons and that the company “does not offer and has not offered cloud platform services inside China”.

Google has said that the cloud initiative was cancelled because “other approaches we were actively pursuing offered better outcomes”, although it has yet to elaborate on the specifics of these approaches.

“We have a comprehensive approach to addressing these requirements that covers the governance of data, operational practices and survivability of software,” the spokeswoman said. “Isolated Region was just one of the paths we explored to address these requirements.”

“What we learned from customer conversations and input from government stakeholders in Europe and elsewhere is that other approaches we were actively pursuing offered better outcomes.”

The news comes just days after Google, alongside Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter, made the decision to suspend the processing of user data requests from the Hong Kong government, following the implementation of a new security law that criminalises protests. The Hong Kong government reportedly requested data from Google users 105 times in 2019 alone.

IBM has announced its acquisition of WDG Automation, a Brazillian software provider specialising in robotic process automation (RPA). 

Financial details of the acquisition weren’t disclosed to the public, but the companies said they expect the deal to close in the third quarter. 

IBM’s decision to acquire WDG Automation sees the tech giant continuing its expansion into the AI-infused automation market, as it looks to provide its customers with the ability to “quickly identify more granular opportunities for automation (…) as well as help ensure consistent and accurate data is being used across all tools and business functions, including customer service, IT, finance, HR, and supply chain”. 

RPA technologies have the ability to computerise repetitive tasks, removing them from the human employees’ workload and therefore boosting productivity, as well as general welfare and wellbeing.

WDG Automation, based in São José do Rio Preto, Brazil, is a provider of RPA, Intelligent Automation (IA), Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and chatbots. It markets its products at business users looking to create automations using a desktop recorder without the need for IT.

WDG’s software robots are able to run on-demand or by using an automated scheduler, depending on the customer’s needs.

The company’s founder and CEO Robson Felix called automation “crucial in the digital era, as businesses need to perform several repetitive or routine tasks so that employees are able to focus on innovation”.

“I’m incredibly proud of the role WDG Automation has played in the RPA market with a unified and integrated platform to help companies in Brazil increase their productivity,” he added.

WDG co-founder Kleber Rodrigues Junior said that |joining forces with IBM will scale our capabilities to a wider audience, helping companies around the world accelerate their growth on their business transformation journeys”.

Denis Kennelly, general manager of Cloud Integration at IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software, added: “IBM already automates how companies apply AI to business processes and IT operations so they can detect opportunities and problems and recommend next steps and solutions”. 

“With today’s announcement, IBM is taking that a step further and helping clients accelerate automation to more parts of the organization, not just to routine, but more complex tasks so employees can focus on higher-value work.”

The acquisition might signal a shift of priorities for IBM, which recently decided to “sunset” its general-purpose facial recognition and analysis software suite over ethical concerns following a fortnight of Black Lives Matter protests.

Last week, the company unveiled an AI-powered inventory control system to help businesses optimize their decision-making and build resilient supply chains more effectively.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced that it’s introducing a new business segment that will aim to accelerate innovation in the global aerospace and satellite industry.

The Aerospace and Satellite Solutions unit will see AWS expand its services and solutions to the space enterprise sector by providing cloud solutions to support government missions and companies advancing space around the world.

The segment is to be headed by the former director of Space Force Planning at the US Space Force, major general Clint Crosier.

In a blog post announcing the launch, AWS VP Teresa Carlson said that the company is “excited to welcome” Crosier, who “has spent the last 33 years driving transformation and mission success across the space enterprise, and led the Defense Department’s efforts to stand up the U.S.’s newest military service”.

Crosier said that he had “watched AWS transform the IT industry over the last 10 years and be instrumental in so many space milestones”. 

“I am honored to join AWS to continue to transform the industry and propel the space enterprise forward,” he added.

AWS also unveiled Ground Station, a managed service that allows customers to downlink data as well as provide satellite commands across multiple regions. The company said that it is already being used by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.

Rick Ambrose, executive VP of Lockheed Martin Space, an AWS partner, said “it’s exciting to see Amazon Web Services extend that experience to space, fostering collaborations with Lockheed Martin to help solve some of the world’s toughest problems”.

“Lockheed Martin’s innovation focus is driven by tomorrow’s space missions. We’ve supported missions to every planet, participated in every U.S. Mars mission and built hundreds of satellites, from GPS to weather. Together, we share a vision to help our customers access data faster, and gain new insights from sensors in space that make data even more accessible,” he said.

The announcement comes days after AWS took its machine learning-powered CodeGuru development tool out of preview and rendered it generally available.

Just 5% of IT managers consider employees as their top priority when making technology investments, which stifles productivity and causes staff to become overwhelmed.

That’s according to a new study from Lenovo, which surveyed 1,000 IT managers from the UK, Netherlands, France, and Germany. 

The research that employees are often overlooked in the process of digital transformation, with the majority (62%) of respondents reporting that their investment decisions are entirely business-centric.

This leads to new technology slowing down processes instead of improving them, according to a fifth of employees. Lenovo suggests that, in order to experience the full potential of the newly-implemented technology, businesses should ask people-centric questions during the adoption process.

The study also found that flexible working policies introduced during the coronavirus pandemic provided employees with a greater level of support, signalling the emergence of a more people-centric approach. In fact, 70% of respondents have observed more emphasis within their organisation on responsible business.

President of Lenovo’s Data Center Group for EMEA Giovanni Di Filippo said that, although “organisations place greater emphasis on the wellbeing of their employees, (…) the study shows that this is only the beginning”.

“If there is a change of heart and mind within the industry, taking a people-first approach to IT adoption, we will see positive change for both organisations and wider society. Happier employees, greater productivity and a faster pace of innovation – these are the benefits of placing people at the centre of IT decisions,” he said.

However, for the time being, many employees still feel overwhelmed by the complexity and pace of digital transformation– almost one in two (47%) IT managers reported that users struggle to embrace new software.

According to Di Filippo, “data and technology cannot be transformative without humans bringing it to life and giving it purpose”.

“We want businesses to think human by investing in ‘Smarter Technology for All’. As for vendors – it’s time to think beyond what they make and consider who they make it for. If people are put first, we know the benefits and desired company outcomes will be great.”

The challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdown can also be credited with accelerating transformation plans, with digital technology enabling the overwhelmed NHS to keep providing vital services to millions of patients.

Mozilla and the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) have published an open letter to Zoom that urges it to make end-to-end encryption available for all users.

The letter, addressed to Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, criticises the company’s decision to offer end-to-end encryption only to paying users. 

It has been signed by 19,000 internet users and backed by tech organisations and advocacy groups including Fight for the Future and MPower Change.

Earlier this month, the video conferencing platform announced plans to roll out stronger encryption for businesses and institutions that pay for its service. 

Zoom’s security consultant Alex Stamos suggested that stronger security measures may also be rolled out for non-profit organisations or users in need of an extra layer of protection, such as political dissidents, but added that “the current plan is paid customers plus enterprise accounts where the company knows who they are”. 

The decision has garnered criticism from many tech companies and organisations, including Mozilla and the EFF. In the open letter to Yuan, they argued that “best-in-class security should not be something that only the wealthy or businesses can afford”.

“Around the world, end-to-end encryption is already an important tool for journalists and activists that are living under repressive regimes and fighting censorship,” wrote Mozilla’s Advocacy and Engagement VP Ashley Boyd and EFF’s associate director of Research Gennie Gebhart.

Boyd and Gebhert also criticised Zoom’s recent decision to suspend three user accounts at the request of the Chinese government for hosting meetings to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

“Tools like Zoom can be critical to help protesters organize and communicate their message widely,” they wrote. “Activists should be able to plan and conduct protest-related activities without fear that these meetings, and the information they include, may be subject to interception. 

“Unfortunately, recent actions from law enforcement – and a long history of discriminatory policing – have legitimized such fears, making end-to-end encryption all the more critical.”

The letter acknowledged Stamos’s argument that full encryption for every meeting would leave Zoom’s trust and safety team unable to tackle child sexual abuse material (CSAM), but added that “restricting end-to-end encryption to paid accounts is not the right solution”.

Organisations such as Fight for the Future, MPower Change, Daily Kos, Kairos, Media Alliance and Jewish Voice for Peace have also launched a petition targeted at the video conferencing platform, arguing that “people who can’t afford Zoom’s services are left vulnerable to cyber-criminals, stalkers, and hackers”. It has been co-signed by 42,000 internet users.

Lau Barrios, campaign manager at MPower Change, said that “end-to-end encryption has always been a racial justice issue”.

“It most directly protects Black, brown, Muslim and poor communities from the disproportionate risk of surveillance, policing, and criminalization,” she said. 

“Zoom has already misled the public once on whether or not they use end-to-end encryption. Openly defending their refusal to provide it to those not wealthy enough to pay to protect themselves and their communities is unconscionable. And it’s a direct refusal to protect activists and organizers from surveillance in this moment.”

​IBM Cloud suffered a global outage last night, heavily impacting users who rely on the company’s cloud computing services such as Kubernetes and Red Hat.

Problems started to arise at around 10:30pm BST on Tuesday when users reported unresponsive websites to DownDetector. 

The company’s own status page was impacted by the outage due to it being hosted on the IBM Cloud. Its internal server error page read: “Sorry, we’ve encountered an error on our end, and our developers are working on clearing this up. Please try reloading the page or following these links back”. 

To the frustration of many users, IBM Cloud did not immediately address the outage. In the early hours of the morning, its Twitter account issued the following statement: “IBM Cloud services are being restored following a reported outage earlier today. We are focused on restoring full services as soon as possible.”

Jay Gilmore, customer success director at MODX Cloud, detailed his experience in reply to IBM Cloud’s tweet: “Communication in a customer crisis is a must. It was extra frustrating because the status page was unavailable, it took two hours for a single tweet about the issue and Notification Center wasn’t available because IAM was down.”

At 2:54am BST, IBM Cloud announced that the entirety of their services had “now been restored”. 

However, its users were not impressed. As one of them pointed out, IBM’s own IT Infrastructure page markets its IBM Z computer with the rhetorical question: “Can you afford even one hour of downtime?”

IBM Cloud’s outage lasted around four hours. At the time of writing, it is not known what caused the outage or how many people were affected by the downtime. 

The outage came only hours after IBM decided to “sunset” its general-purpose facial recognition and analysis software suite over ethical concerns following a fortnight of Black Lives Matter protests.

Despite putting a lot of efforts into developing its AI-powered tools, the cloud giant will no longer distribute these systems for fear that it could be used for purposes that go against the company’s principles of trust and transparency. ​