8 Major Products Unveiled At Microsoft Ignite 2016

Igniting Innovation

Microsoft is seeking to do more than just solve problems for the IT professionals it serves, the company said Monday in connection with its Ignite 2016 conference. The company is seeking to provide opportunities for IT professionals to drive the "digital transformation" of the businesses they work with -- making IT much more of a value-add than it once was. Central to that is the cloud, artificial intelligence and other new technologies. Following are eight key products Microsoft unveiled at Ignite 2016 Monday.

Intelligence Sharing

Microsoft said that Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection and Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection will now share intelligence with each other. The company said that will enable IT professionals to more quickly respond to security threats in both Windows 10 and Office 365.

Threat Intelligence

Microsoft said it’s launching Office 365 Threat Intelligence, an enhancement to Office 365 security that provides alerts and data on where attacks are coming from. The feature will also integrate with a user’s existing system for security incident event management, and let customers deploy policies that are specific to the threat.

A More Secure Office Suite

Microsoft said Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection is being extended to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. The company also said that two new features for email will allow for better security -- "dynamic delivery" will let users receive a placeholder attachment while the actual attachment is scanned, while "URL detonation" will identify malicious URLs in real time.

AI For Office 365

Microsoft said that a new AI-powered feature in Word and Outlook, Tap, will let users more easily incorporate content from their organization’s documents into their emails and documents. Meanwhile, Quickstarter -- for PowerPoint and Sway -- will offer up curated outlines that users can leverage for their presentations. And lastly, a new type of Excel chart called Maps will let users create visualizations from geographic data.

New Features (And Name) For Delve Analytics

Microsoft said that MyAnalytics is the new name for the Delve Analytics service in Office 365. The service, which aims to help users better understand what they’re really focusing on at work, now has new features that provide insight into better ways for users to work together.

Windows Server 2016 Release

Microsoft said that Windows Server 2016 will be launching in mid-October. The new version of Windows Server will include new security features, simpler virtualization upgrades and better capabilities for software-defined storage and software-defined networking, among other improvements, according to Microsoft.

Containers

Microsoft said that Windows Server 2016 will also include Commercially Supported Docker Engine at no extra cost to users. "This makes it incredibly easy for developers and IT administrators to leverage container-based deployments using Windows Server 2016," said Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's executive vice president for cloud and enterprise, during his Ignite 2016 keynote Monday.

Education For IT Pros

Microsoft said it’s launching a new online community for IT professionals, Microsoft Technical Community, which is aimed at allowing participants "to exchange ideas, build connections and share best practices about Microsoft products and solutions." Meanwhile, Microsoft also disclosed an expansion of the Microsoft IT Pro Career Center and Microsoft IT Pro Cloud Essentials. "The announcements around education and learning are pivotal," said Ric Opal, senior director at Oak Brook, Ill.-based SWC Technology Partners. "If you make the products to secure our customers, you still have to educate the partners on what to do with them."