Microsoft Ignite 2018 Takeaways

So, for the second year I got to go to Microsoft Ignite in Orlando and greatly enjoyed myself. There never feels like there are enough hours in a day to go to all the sessions and meetups that I want to so this year I really focused the topics that interested me the most such as Microsoft Virtual Desktop, Office365, OneDrive/SharePoint, Teams adoption, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Todo, and other client-focused experiences. I work for a college that does a lot of granular support for our end-users, more so than other colleges at the university from what I could tell. We actually have IT support specialist for each of the three colleges who specialize in hardware and application support for their individual colleges of architecture, design, and construction. In my role, I’m essentially a junior system administrator for the whole college who also floats between the three units to assist the other IT support specialists, support my own staff in administrative officers of CADC, and really whatever they need me to so on any given day I can be working on a server, assisting an assistant dean with Microsoft Office, helping a class with AV support, editing class videos in Final Cut Pro, or training staff. I wear a bunch of hats in my current role so I see it as my job to assist people with technology and get the most out of it to enhance their lives at work and outside of the job. That’s why I don’t shy away from helping people with their personal devices and am always trying to introduce coworkers to better ways of working. Everything I went to at Ignite focused around that theme of collaboration and application delivery.

Microsoft pushed the idea of Microsoft 365 really heavily this year with a heavy focus on meeting people were they were in their technology life and getting them onboard with modern IT management techniques. I like this idea a lot because it focuses on getting IT away from the boring stuff of patching machines, security, and implementation and frees us up to really focus on providing value to our coworkers. Instead of having to worry about buying physical hardware, patching it, getting power to it, etc, I can focus on what our servers are doing for my coworkers and help focus my energies on providing a better experience for them. I do not see us going with the Microsoft Managed Desktop solution and I could see why some IT folk are worried about their jobs, but I think it could be a real opportunity many system administrators in smaller organizations who are understaffed already. It could free them up to do the work they really enjoy and is more valuable to the company rather than doing Helpdesk-level support when they would be more useful to the company serving as their system administrator role. What I’m really looking forward to is Windows Virtual Desktop, which will allow us to host VDI and application delivery environments for our end-users in Azure. Currently, we are using VmWare Horizon to accomplish this, but a lot of time is spent every semester maintaining, patching, building VMs, etc for these very expensive servers. Right now Microsoft promised me that Virtual PC has GPU support, which piqued my interest in the service. If we could move over to Microsoft Virtual PC, it would free up our staff to focus on what we really want to do: application delivery to replace our labs. We will have to test it of course and we’re not going to turn everything over on a dime, but I am definitely ready to kick the tires on it during the Preview. I just love the idea that we can allow students to use the technology they prefer, whether its Windows 10, ChromeOS, or MacOS while delivering them the full Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, the AutoDesk suite, and other industry 3D applications. Instead of focusing on managing and upgrading these expensive servers over time, we will be able to focus on providing a more granular level of support to our end users and even introducing new features to them like Encryption, OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Team Collaboration, Workflows powered by Flow/SharePoint, and much more. Technology changes and the technology exists for the benefit of the end-user, not the technologist. I enjoy technology for technology’s sake, but most do not and that’s okay. That’s why I went to so many sessions on end-user technologies like Office 2019, Office for Mac, Teams, Yammer, OneDrive, To-Do, etc. Yeah, I could always read the release notes or follow the Microsoft blog, but I found it invaluable to be able to see the direction of the company and pick people’s brains at the end of a session. As much as I love my Apple gear and Google services, I do still believe that Microsoft with Office365 provides the most full-featured and complete productivity solution for enterprises and higher education. I feel like Office365 is a great value for businesses of all sizes now and services like Microsoft 365 with its Advanced Threat detection, Azure Active Directory, Intune device management, etc is also shaping up to be a great solution as well, especially with all the third party integrations they seem to be announcing for stuff like Azure and Microsoft Teams. Just ten years ago the idea of running Linux in a Microsoft data center or Microsoft Office mobile having Dropbox or Box support would have gotten you laughed away from a table. Hell, me bringing my iPad Pro with me to Ignite and taking notes in OneNote and nobody batting an eye was probably one of the biggest signs of change I’ve seen in the Microsoft world. Everybody uses what works for them whether its Windows, Mac, PC, iOS, or Android. While I don’t know if we’ll ever see a Microsoft that controlled the world like it did in the mid-90s and early 2000s, I think we are starting to see a Microsoft that others respect and appreciate for being a team player instead of that obnoxious know-it-all who insists that everything they do is better than the way you do it. Yeah, a lot of us would love a Surface phone and would buy one a heartbeat, but the Microsoft I see today is more comfortable and mature than I’ve ever seen the company. It feels like the company has finally grown up and is comfortable with its place in the world. I would personally welcome a return of a consumer-focused Microsoft with a bigger focus on Windows Phone, Xbox, Music, Photography, etc, I’m okay with waiting until they feel comfortable getting back into those markets. I feel like its only a matter of time before it happens again, but I’m sure whenever it does happen and they introduce a solution for consumers it will be thoughtfully considered like they do with their enterprise and cloud offers today. Overall, I was happy I got to go to Microsoft Ignite. I feel like I got a lot out of it this year like I did last year. It was a really great experience that I’m thankful I got to attend.