Tip of the Day: Windows Server Virtual Summit

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Today's tip...

The last week in June was a big one for Microsoft Cloud and Windows Server with us delivering our first ever Windows Server Summit. The event was a great opportunity to engage the Windows Server community, provide HOURS of updates since the last Microsoft Ignite conference and get them excited for the upcoming Microsoft Inspire and Ignite conferences in July and September respectively.

We had top subject matter experts delivering a comprehensive agenda detailing what’s new in Windows Server and where we’re going in Windows Server 2019 with regard to:

  • Hybrid Cloud. Perfect for our valued customers who want to consume Azure resources in Azure AND on-premises.
  • Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. HCI is the fastest growing segment for on-premises. FULL STOP. After a couple of years where our valued customers paused their on-premises purchases to determine their long term strategy, they have solidified their strategy: HYBRID CLOUD. The average selling price per server is up, our partners are reporting strong solutions sales with hyper-converged infrastructure. In fact, the industry is reporting 76% YoY growth for HCI.
    • According to IDC's latest Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, sales went up 19.6 per cent year-on-year to $3.2bn during the calendar first quarter of 2018.
    • However, certified reference architectures (CRA) - Cisco and NetApp's FlexPod and Dell EMC's VxBlock - crossed the quarter's finishing line with sales of $1.4bn as the hyperconverged gear jumped by more than 76 per cent.
  • Security. This is top of mind for customers. We specifically created a security pillar in Windows Server 2016 and our customers have responded by prioritizing new server deployments on Windows Server 2016 because of our comprehensive new innovation in defense-in-depth.
  • Application Platform. Digital transformation is happening everywhere and key to this is modernizing existing apps and building new apps to embrace intelligent edge scenarios and integrated with machine learning, AI and more.

The Windows Server Virtual Summit is available online for streaming and people are watching now. Please retweet the streaming link below and keep amplifying via social. The link for streaming is here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-server-summit

The Virtual Summit was so well received that we have seen press pickup with great articles like the one below.

Finally, the Virtual Summit agenda is here: