Microsoft’s annual developer-focused conference, Microsoft Build 2022, has just concluded. The conference was marked by many exciting announcements around Microsoft’s powerful products and workloads. Below we have tried to distill and bring before you the 12 most impactful announcements made during the recent Microsoft Build conference. Here it goes.
Teams
1: Live Share on Teams for interactive app experiences
During the event, Microsoft announced the public preview of new extensions for Microsoft Teams SDK that allows users to create Live Share experiences for apps while they are in a Teams meeting. Leveraging this capability, users can transform their existing single-user app into a multi-player app. Live Share enables the meeting participants to interact in new ways with shared apps allowing them to annotate, edit, zoom in and out and interact with shared content in various other ways. This dev capability utilizes the Fluid Framework and Azure Fluid Relay.
2: Enhanced Link Unfurling and Rich Actionable Previews
Whenever users share a link on Teams all the related content will now appear next to it as a preview in Teams. Link unfurling functionality allows users to preview rich content and act on it quickly. Leveraging the enhanced link furling capabilities, developers can enable unfurling link previews – even when the app isn’t installed or when the link shared through Teams chat is an external link.
3: Teams JavaScript 2.0 SDK and Manifest
General availability of JavaScript 2.0 SDK and manifest tools will empower developers to create Teams apps to extend the Personal Tabs and Message Extension functionality to other Microsoft 365 apps, including Outlook and Office.com.
Power Platform
4: Express Design in Power Apps
New Express Design capability in Power Apps leverages Azure Cognitive Services object detection models. It allows business users to build Low code apps with minimum clicks. All they have to do is upload the professionally developed Figma design of the app, PDF, PowerPoint, sketch drawn on paper, a screenshot of a legacy UI, or a picture of a hand-drawn app, and it’s done. The Power Apps will convert all the information gathered into a working Power Apps app with a UI and data schema within a few seconds.
5: Power Apps Portals are now Power Pages
Power Platform users are already aware of the importance of Power Apps Portals. The platform allowed users to develop external portals, design the pages and layouts, and publish the content in a well-structured way quickly, making the end-to-end experience seamless. But now, Power Pages will enable users do even more. Power Pages is an effective Low code platform that empowers non-technical users to create modern, data-powered, secure websites. It brings new aesthetic features and advanced capabilities for customization with pro-developer extensibility.
6: Datamart in Power BI
Datamart is a new self-service capability in Power BI that enables users to uncover insights from their own independent and dependent data sets. Datamarts are centrally governed, which means anyone can get the insights required in a few minutes without needing any help from IT. This new feature provides every organization with agility, speed, and flexibility that can help drive digital transformation.
Azure
7: Azure OpenAI Service
Leveraging the OpenAI Service, approved customers can build leading-edge applications rapidly. This new facility provides users with new reasoning and comprehension capabilities for use cases such as writing assistance, code generation, and making sense of unstructured data. With features like fine-tuning and built-in responsible AI, users can customize the apps according to their needs and detect harmful use.
8: Microsoft Azure Dev Box
The newly introduced Microsoft Azure Dev Box empowers developers with the flexibility they need to remain agile. This service gives developers self-service access to high-performance, secure, cloud-based workstations that are preconfigured and ready for hybrid teams of any size. Dev Box allows employees to get on board and start working quickly. This service enables the developers to focus on coding while maximizing security, compliance, and cost-efficiency.
9: Azure Container Apps
Azure Container Apps is an app-centric service that gives developers the freedom to focus on differentiating the functionality of their apps and promoting uniqueness instead of focusing on managing the cloud infrastructure. This service enables customers to run their microservices and containerized apps on a serverless platform, enabling app modernization in a Kubernetes-based environment.
SQL Server
10: SQL Server 2022
SQL Server 2022 is the most Azure-enabled release of SQL Server yet, with continued innovation across performance, security, and availability. SQL Server 2022 integrates with Azure Synapse Link and Microsoft Purview to enable customers to drive deeper insights, predictions, and governance from their data at scale. Microsoft also launched the MySQL Flexible Server ‘Business Critical’. This new service tier will reduce complexities and costs for organizations that run their mission-critical workloads on Azure Database.
Windows 11
11: Widgets will be opened to third-party developers
Microsoft has announced that the developers will be able to make widgets as a companion to their win32 or PWA apps. Microsoft’s Adaptive Cards platform will enable third-party widgets to use flexible canvas and developers to create interactive widgets with texts, graphics, and buttons. However, Microsoft hasn’t shared all details about the new feature but says that developers will be able to build new experiences “later this year.”
12: App Restore
The Redmond-giants will soon allow users to restore apps from the Microsoft Store on Windows 11. Microsoft didn’t have a feature that would enable the users to restore apps they had prior (on previous Windows device) to their new device.
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