July 20, 2011. Dallas, TX. Cogent Company’s team attended Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles, CA, last week. The conference was the kick off for Microsoft’s fiscal year and the key training and announcement venue for Microsoft partners around the world. Cogent team members attended multiple sessions on the new technology that Microsoft is rolling out in the next year, including two key technologies that Cogent’s clients are clamoring for information on: mobility, the cloud, and data.
Mobility
There’s a lot of buzz around the upcoming Mango update, which will add hundreds of new features and capabilities that build upon the unique design and integrated experiences of Windows Phone. For companies building solutions with Exchange and SharePoint, Mango adds a number of new Outlook and Office Mobile productivity features, bringing even more value to your solutions on Windows Phone. Mango will also add built-in support for Office 365 and a free Lync Mobile app, making communication and collaboration a snap for companies whose infrastructure is on premises or in the cloud. Mango will also offer added functionality for organizations to make the most efficient use of resources, allowing IT departments to use existing infrastructure to manage phones or distribute their own applications using Targeted App Distribution in Marketplace.
For developers, Mango adds a range of new capabilities for delivering richer more compelling apps. In addition to support for SQL Linq, sockets, and background processing, Mango brings new ways for app developers to make the user experience more engaging and seamless through Live Tiles and integration with Bing search services.
Cloud
Senior leaders from Microsoft also discussed the transition to cloud computing. Satya Nadella, head of Microsoft’s Server & Tools business, said “Our mission, simply put, is to cloud-optimize every business,” he said, “and bring the benefits of this transformation to all of our customers.” Nadella walked through Microsoft’s strategy of spanning private and public clouds with a common set of tools for management, identity, virtualization, and development. This freedom of movement across public and private clouds is unique to Microsoft, and reflects “the realities of hybrid IT, which is the reality customers will demand from us as an ecosystem.” Nadella also emphasized the continued opportunity in the traditional server market, as private and public cloud computing drives increased appetite for servers. “Cloud computing is as big a transformation as we have ever seen and, together with our partners, Microsoft will help customers through the shift,” said Nadella.
Data
Noting the ever-increasing importance of data in both public and private cloud computing, Nadella announced the availability of a community technology preview of the new Microsoft SQL Server, currently SQL Server codename “Denali.” For the first time, customers can begin testing the much-anticipated features of “Denali,” including Project “Crescent” for visual data exploration and SQL Server Developer Tools codename “Juneau,” for a modern development experience across server, business intelligence and cloud development projects.
Finally, Microsoft Corp. today unveiled updates to the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN), to better help partners grow their businesses and meet evolving technology needs of customers around the globe through tools, training and incentives totaling $5.8 billion for fiscal year 2012.
Cogent is pleased to continue to deepen its relationship with Microsoft in an effort to provide guidance and solutions to its clients on Microsoft technologies. Ty Anderson, Cogent Co-Founder, Vice President and leader of Cogent’s Application Development/Systems Integration Practice, said, “Marc and I started our firm based on the opportunities that we saw in the Microsoft technology around .NET, SQL, and the Office SharePoint products. While we’ve expanded our technology partnerships and delivery capabilities beyond Microsoft, we still value the work that Microsoft is doing to stay ahead of corporate IT needs.”