2019 was another year full of highlights, announcements, and innovation in cloud technology. As we close out the year let’s look at some of the most relevant. We have you covered!
The Public Cloud Market in 2019
Just as predicted the cloud services market continues to grow at incredible rates year over year. This trend will continue into 2020 and beyond with Gartner forecasting the industry to grow exponentially through 2022, according to a press release. “The worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow 17.5 percent in 2019 to total $214.3 billion, up from $182.4 billion in 2018.”
As businesses continue to adopt new and expand existing cloud footprints, the cloud race is just heating up, as described in a ZDNet article. AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are still the primary leaders. The interesting twist has been the move toward multi-cloud adoption. “In fact, it's quite possible that a large enterprise will consume cloud computing services from every vendor.” With a multi-cloud adoption strategy, companies will look at all public, private, hybrid combinations to find the right fit for them.
New Microsoft Innovations in 2019
Microsoft Inspire and Ignite both showcased several exciting announcements across a full spectrum of technologies. Here are a few of our favorites:
Azure Arc is still in Preview but was showcased at Ignite this year. Arc will help customers who are trying to manage resources across multiple infrastructure types.
Azure Lighthouse is a new service that will help partners of all sizes better package and deliver their services. This one is definitely worth looking into for any MSP.
Business Applications ISV Connect Program provides an opportunity for ISV partners to get even more value out of their Microsoft partnership. It also can help ISVs get their app to market faster.
Microsoft Teams was a significant focus during Microsoft Inspire this year. Not only showcasing the capabilities of Teams but sharing how everyone from companies to universities around the world have been able to use Teams to be more productive. As a company, we currently use Teams and have benefited from it, so we highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t made the switch yet.
Project Cortex, previously referred to as Knowledge Network, is a new commercial product launched by Microsoft to help fill the gap of knowledge retention in companies. With the help of AI, Project Cortex will help companies create a knowledge network. Project Cortex is in private preview and should be generally available in the first half of 2020.
New Microsoft Partnerships in 2019
Microsoft announced many new partnerships in 2019 that have not only helped expand Microsoft’s reach, but have helped move many industries forward. We look forward to seeing what these partnerships will bring in 2020 and what new partnerships will be on the horizon.
Microsoft started off 2019 by announcing it’s new partnership with Kroger to help redefine the customer experience and introduce digital solutions for the retail industry. “Our partnership brings together Kroger’s world-class expertise in the grocery industry with the power of Azure and Azure AI,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “Together, we will redefine the shopping experience for millions of customers at both Kroger and other retailers around the world, setting a new standard for innovation in the industry.” Kroger has been able to use Microsoft Azure to revolutionize their app and transform their customer’s experience. They have also been able to gain more insight into employee productivity.
Then in July, Microsoft announced a multi-year strategic partnership with AT&T to deliver innovation with cloud, AI, and 5G. “AT&T and Microsoft are among the most committed companies to fostering technology that serves people,” said John Donovan, CEO, AT&T Communications. “By working together on common efforts around 5G, the cloud, and AI, we will accelerate the speed of innovation and impact for our customers and our communities.” Together they hope to continue to push technology forward and continue to innovate.
A few months later, in October, Microsoft announced another multi-year strategic partnership with Humana to help reimagine health for aging populations and their care teams. This move will allow Humana to modernize their technology and be able to create better experiences and deliver better care. “With an estimated 10,000 people joining the Medicare system daily, we have a tremendous opportunity to address the growing demands on the health care system by improving health outcomes and lowering costs,” said Greg Moore, M.D., Ph.D., corporate vice president of Health Technology and Alliances at Microsoft. “We’re excited to combine Humana’s industry expertise with Microsoft’s Azure cloud, Azure AI and voice capabilities to remove barriers, promote health care data interoperability, and create solutions to ensure this growing population gets the right preventative, acute and long-term care for the best health outcomes.” It’ll be interesting to see where this partnership will take the health care industry in the next few years.
MyCloudIT in 2019
To wrap up, we wanted to share a few highlights for MyCloudIT over the past year.
- We shared a New Strategy for Creating Golden Images. Originally, we recommended creating a Golden Image before creating your RDS deployment, but that isn’t always the case. So, we created a new process for turning existing session hosts into Golden Images.
- Our team had the chance to connect with current and future customers and partners at Microsoft Inspire in Las Vegas, NV.
- Behind the scenes, we have been working on the next generation of the MyCloudIT platform. This month we entered into Private Preview and plan to continue through early Q1. Then we’ll open it up to Beta testers. We can’t wait to share it with you!
Check back in a few weeks to see what we have to look forward to in 2020! It’s going to be an exciting year for MyCloudIT!
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Tags: Recaps & Looking Forward
