Yesterday, Microsoft kicked-off #MSBuild, one of its premier developer conferences for developers at the Washington State Conference Center in Seattle. Microsoft Build a 3-day developer conference followed by an extra day of several other activities.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft started the keynote.
Here are the key takeaways from Satya’s keynote. Let's start with some data.
- 500 million Windows 10 users
- 25 billion intelligent devices by 2025
- An autonomous car will generate 100GB of data every second
- Cortana is getting used by 140 million people
- Over 90% of fortune 500 companies are using Microsoft cloud today
Day 1 keynote was mostly focused around artificial intelligence and cloud.
“AI is everywhere”, said Satya. The focus of Microsoft is now building intelligent applications for intelligent devices using Azure, the most intelligent cloud on the planet.
Other key topics covered in the keynote includes conversation-as-a-platform, Bots, IoT, and smart systems. The message was loud and clear. Microsoft is betting on AI and intelligent cloud.
Scott Guthrie’s keynote was focused around Azure and intelligent cloud. Scott Hanselman shows cool demos around Azure and mobile.
- Microsoft announced Azure Stack
- Azure Cloud Shell was announced
- A new Azure mobile app is now available for Android and iOS users that allows users to manage their Azure account from an app
- Visual Studio 2017 for Mac now generally available
- Azure IoT Edge was announced.
- Azure Cosmos DB was announced
- MySQL and PostgreSQL as a service now available in Azure.
- Azure Batch AI training is now available in private preview.
AI and Cognitive Services
Harry Shum’s keynote was focused on AI development. Harry’s message was clear, i.e. Microsoft is brining AI to every developer.
Microsoft added more APIs to its Cognitive Services APIs list. Now Microsoft Cognitive Services has 29 APIs. The new APIs include Custom Vision Services, Bing Custom Search, Custom Decision Service and Video Indexer.
- Cognitive Services Lab was announced.
- Bot Framework and Adaptive Cards were other technologies included in the keynote.
- Skype for business language translator with a chat bot and Bing integration was demoed. Demo of Microsoft Teams and how to build and deploy and chat based meetings workspace for real-time communication was demoed.
- Microsoft demoed a new Cortana powered Harman Kardon Invoke speaker. Intel and HP have partnered with Microsoft to build Cortana enabled devices. Developers now can download Cortana Skills Kit and start building Cortana powered skills.
Microsoft also announced a new MVP category for AI developers. Now developers working on Cognitive Services, Bot Framework, and Azure ML will be considered for this award.
Get started with Microsoft Cognitive Services here >