April 17, 2020, Hong Kong — The Microsoft Online Tech Forum livestreamed to IT professionals, developers and business leaders in the Greater China Region (GCR), attracting around 58,000 participants from the region, and more than 4,500 participants from Hong Kong. Themed “Accelerating your digital transformation journey”, the two-day virtual event is Microsoft’s annual technical summit in GCR, offering more than 60 essential sessions around eight topics including Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (AIoT), Cloud, Modern Workplace, Low-Code Development and more.
During the opening dialogue with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella over Microsoft Teams, Alain Crozier, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft GCR, announced that several AI services including Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Search and Azure Speech are now generally available in Hong Kong; and that Power Apps and Power Automate are also available today in in Hong Kong. Power Apps and Power Automate will help further empower millions of citizen developers to develop their own low-code/no-code apps that will connect directly to Microsoft products like Azure, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 or their own line-of-business applications. Microsoft is also enriching the enterprise level security and compliance capabilities as more security features like Microsoft Intune are available in Hong Kong.
During the conversation, Satya Nadella spoke about the importance of coming together as a global community and how he has been inspired by the creativity, work and innovation happening across the Greater China Region. He emphasized that “each of us, wherever we are, have the opportunity to take action driven by hope, a small step that makes things a bit better. And if everyone does something that makes the world a bit better, our collective work will, in fact, make the world a lot better, and for the people we love, for our communities and for our society.”
[Photo caption: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (left) and Alain Crozier, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft GCR (right) delivering the opening keynote over Microsoft Teams]
Build technical intensity with machine learning and AI
Nadella said that, in order to succeed in this changing world, every organization will need to build its own tech intensity and that this is foundational to economic growth. According to a study[1]of 700 executives and decision-makers, technical intensity is considered critical for current and future success — 75% of respondents believe that harnessing tech intensity is the most effective way to build competitive advantage today and in the future. The top five technologies organizations are using to achieve tech intensity are machine learning (39%), IoT (37%), AI (32%), blockchain (29%) and mixed reality (21%).
Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Search and Azure speech general availability in Hong Kong ushers in a new paradigm that empowers businesses and developers to discover and unleash the full potential of their datasets with comprehensive AI capabilities:
- Azure Machine Learning, a cloud-based environment that can be used to train, deploy, automate, manage, and track ML models, provides enterprise-grade capabilities to accelerate the machine learning lifecycle and empowers developers and data scientists of all skill levels to build, train, deploy, and manage models responsibly and at scale.
- Azure Cognitive Search is the only cloud search service with built-in AI capabilities that enrich all types of information to easily identify and explore relevant content at scale. Formerly known as Azure Search, it uses the same integrated Microsoft natural language stack that Bing and Office have used for more than a decade, and AI services across vision, language, and speech.
- Azure Speech is a collection of AI services that enable machines to listen and speak natural languages. It can also translate speech to other languages, removing communication boundaries between people, and between people and machines. Microsoft speech technology has a long history on the leading edge in both scientific research and applications. With the new speech release now available in Hong Kong, more customers and partner will be empowered to connect their users with speech AI technology.
Easy-to-develop business apps for every company
According to a Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) study[2] commissioned by Microsoft, businesses using Power Apps and Power Automate can reduce development costs by 70% with an ROI of 362% in three years. The study said that average improvement in business process efficiencies in year-three would be 15%.
The recent upgrade of Office 365 to Microsoft 365 is part of Microsoft’s dedication to empowering businesses to discover their full potential in productivity. Next step, Microsoft is bringing Power Platform to Hong Kong, including Power Apps and Power Automate.
- Power Apps democratizes the app building experience by enabling users to build feature-rich, custom business apps without writing code. Apps built using Power Apps can connect to business data from various resources, they have a responsive design and can run seamlessly in browser or on mobile devices, all while providing rich business logic and workflow capabilities to transform manual business processes to digital, automated processes.
- Power Automate provides a low-code platform for workflow and process automation. It is a service that helps users create automated workflows between their favorite apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data and more.
The Power Platform is comprised of Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents. It enables users and organizations to better analyze data, build solutions, automate processes, and create virtual agents to digitally transform and accelerate their businesses. Power BI was the first product of the Power Platform to become available in China back in 2016.
Build secure and compliance business with Microsoft 365
As businesses are embracing remote collaboration and adopting more innovative modern workplace technologies, security and compliance has become a focus concern. That’s why we are landing Microsoft Intune in Hong Kong.
Microsoft Intune provides the capability to secure your data and business while working remotely from any mobile devices. It enables organizations to securely manage iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS devices with a single endpoint management solution. The one-stop solution could help organization to streamline and automate deployment, provisioning, policy management, app delivery and updates, and safeguard data when employees accessing work files from anywhere.
More to learn from Microsoft Online Tech Forum
During the two-day-event, Microsoft demonstrated technology innovations, best practices and opportunities around Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge through online livestreaming. The key topics included Intelligent Cloud, AI+ Modern Workplace, Low-Code Development and Automation for Business Apps, AI & IoT, K8S Cloud Native Open-Source and DevOps, Cloud DevOps Security & Compliance, Cloud and Big Data, and Digital Transformation.
To livestream or watch on demand the Microsoft Online Tech Forum, please visit: https://aka.ms/msotf-yt
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[1] https://news.microsoft.com/2019/12/18/new-research-reveals-that-across-industries-organizations-are-embracing-tech-intensity-as-a-key-driver-of-competitive-advantage/
[2] https://download.microsoft.com/download/f/d/d/fdd28db7-d4b1-497f-89a3-7463a7b4c35a/TEI%20of%20MSFT%20Power%20Apps%20and%20Automate%202019.pdf
