This year, Microsoft has treated its big Ignite event more like a marketing presentation than a full conference, offering a variety of announcements that affect Windows users as well as large companies and their networks. (The show was a hybrid affair, with a small in-person option and online access for those unable to travel. I "attended" online.)
At these types of events, I'm always looking for products I might need at home or in the office, as well as any license changes that affect my annual budget. I have a mix of licenses, ranging from one-time purchases to three-year volume licenses to 365-year licenses; therefore, it can be daunting to follow each of them.
Among the changes announced by Microsoft: All of the company's endpoint management products will be implemented in Intune. With Endpoint Management, cloud-based management will be known as Microsoft Intune and on-premises management as Microsoft Configuration Manager. (Unsurprisingly, the company is already hinting at other licensing changes.) The Microsoft 365 E5 license was the best ever and included security products like Advanced Threat Projection and various threat insights.
Now, the company is talking about additional premium features that users will need to purchase on top of the base license. For example, Microsoft announced a cloud-based Microsoft Intune Premium suite that will include Endpoint Privilege Management, Remote Help, and Microsoft Tunnel for Mobile App Management in 2023. Endpoint Privilege Management is designed to help businesses provide temporary administrative rights to users when they need them. it's. to install software. The administrator can approve the request, allowing the user to perform the activity safely.
The company has also highlighted remote assistance, which will be a professional version of QuickAssist; allows an administrator to remotely log in to any joined domain or Microsoft account office to view and manage what a user is doing.
Both are expected to be previewed in the coming months and then officially released for additional subscription thereafter.
If you're a Microsoft Teams user, take note: Microsoft has introduced a premium version of the collaboration platform. Advanced security features, as well as options for larger meetings like live caption translation, Teams will also use AI to power summaries and to-do lists. Additionally, it will enable branding for backgrounds and landing pages. The public preview will launch later this year and is expected to cost €10 per user per month.
Microsoft Office is also getting a fresh coat of paint and rebranding as Microsoft 365. Anyone used to checking out https://outlook.office.com/mail/ will have to get used to going to www.microsoft365.com from November .
It will be interesting to see if Microsoft moves more of its features to online or cloud-only offerings or continues to offer desktop versions of its business-critical software. As someone who uses various Outlook and Word add-ins to provide additional functionality, I'm still curious if other companies can migrate to online-only apps. (Microsoft is beginning to hint that it might move to online versions.)
Microsoft's security offerings were also highlighted at Ignite, with the company offering a full set of tools to choose from:
Beginning November 1, Microsoft plans to offer organizations a carrot to move away from traditional antivirus platforms; will offer new and existing customers 50% off the price of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P1 and P2 licenses. If you are an existing Microsoft Defender Endpoint P1 customer and are upgrading to P2, this discount will be available on June 30, 2023. Note: You can also try the offer before you buy.
Because Ignite was designed as a hybrid event, many sessions were recorded and are now live. I found many sessions focused on ransomware and prevention interesting. Some, like "DART Stories: Ransomware Software Removal," showed how attackers gain access to systems and provided action items to protect against ransomware (such as stopping remote office exposure to the public). Other sessions focused on moving from on-premises Active Directory to Azure AD, showing that we still have a long way to go to protect logins and identity.
I hope Microsoft continues to make sure these big tech events aren't limited to in-person presentations, but can be delivered externally online. Virtual attendees may miss out on "corridor" discussions that are often as valuable as the conference itself, but moving the program online exposes the information to a broader audience. Take the time to review the recorded sessions and see for yourself.
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