Persistent volatility in the retail market is forcing businesses to re-evaluate how they address key challenges. Prebuilt, edge-to-cloud, retail-specific technology solutions can help retailers increase the value of their data, empower store associates, elevate customer shopping experiences, and enable real-time sustainable supply chains. Many retailers leverage Microsoft Cloud partners to get more insights out of their data using Microsoft Azure coupled with edge technologies, Internet of Things (IoT), and AI. Together these can not only help manage daily operations, but can also create more ..read more

Digital transformation across organizations has led to workloads shifting to multicloud and hybrid-cloud environments. Modern organizations are increasingly adopting cloud-native technologies including containers, microservices, serverless, and more. With the growing complexity of distributed applications deployed on a cloud-native landscape, can organizations survive without the right observability in place? It would be like flying an airplane blindfolded. Businesses are in acute need of observability capabilities like Application Performance Management (APM), infrastructure monitoring, logs ..read more

Azure AI is driving innovation and improving experiences for employees, users, and customers in a variety of ways, from increasing workday productivity to promoting inclusion and accessibility. The success of Azure AI—featuring Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure OpenAI Service—is built on a foundation of Microsoft Research, a wide range of Azure products that have been tested at scale within Microsoft apps, and Azure customers who use these services for the benefit of their end users. As 2023 begins, we are excited to highlight 10 use cases where Azure AI is utili ..read more

The new year brings opportunity for thoughtful reflection about the past year, both personally and professionally. 2022 was a year of firsts for me—first time having clam chowder at Pike Place Market as a local, first time going shopping for heels with my daughter, and first time delivering an Azure keynote at Inspire as a Microsoft employee when pre-COVID-19, I was a Partner listening in the audience. And here is another first; the start of a new blog series where I plan to share more about noteworthy and inspiring data and AI innovations we are releasing across Microsoft. Given the National ..read more

Large language models are quickly becoming an essential platform for people to innovate, apply AI to solve big problems, and imagine what’s possible. Today, we are excited to announce the general availability of Azure OpenAI Service as part of Microsoft’s continued commitment to democratizing AI, and ongoing partnership with OpenAI. With Azure OpenAI Service now generally available, more businesses can apply for access to the most advanced AI models in the world—including GPT-3.5, Codex, and DALL•E 2—backed by the trusted enterprise-grade capabilities and AI-optimized infrastructure of Microso ..read more

Microsoft continues to be the cloud leader in confidential computing, and the Azure team is excited to continue our leadership by partnering with Intel to offer confidential computing on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with Intel Trusted Domain Extensions (Intel TDX) later this year, enabling organizations in highly regulated industries to lift and shift their workloads that handle sensitive data to scale in the cloud. Intel TDX meets the Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC) standard for hardware-enforced memory protection not controlled by the cloud provider, all while delivering mi ..read more

Currently, Microsoft is working on RAN Analytics and Control technologies for virtualized RAN running on Microsoft Edge platforms. Our goal is to empower any virtualized RAN solution provider and operators to realize the full potential of disaggregated and programmable networks. We aim to develop platform technologies that virtualized RAN vendors can leverage to gain analytics insights in their RAN software operations, and to use these insights for operational automations, machine learning, and AI-driven optimizations. Microsoft has recently made important progress in RAN analytics and control ..read more

In some ways, 2022 is what we expected out of 2021. Perhaps it’s better late than never, but the world is beginning to get back to normal—albeit a new normal where hybrid work is a default rather than an exception for many of us. In this new world, demands on our time have increased exponentially, making it more critical than ever to focus on maximizing value, return on investment, and cloud efficiencies. And that’s exactly what you saw as we doubled down on savings opportunities in 2022. Streamlined management behind a single pane of glass The last few years have been focused on building a ne ..read more

As industrial Internet of Things (IoT) matures and transforms critical business functions, Microsoft continues to innovate and invest in this area and engage with a large ecosystem of solution partners. The Microsoft Azure IoT platform can help industries improve their operations to become more efficient, agile, and sustainable. Industrial-focused IoT technologies from Microsoft are especially important for enterprises looking to do more with less in the current macro-economic environment. We’re focused on enabling industrial IoT solution providers and customer operations to be successful, and ..read more

The war in Ukraine and the resultant shortage of natural gas has forced the European Union (EU) and European countries to proactively prepare for the possibility of more volatile energy supplies—both this winter and beyond. Microsoft is working with customers, governments, and other stakeholders throughout the region to bring clarity, continuity, and compliance in the face of possible energy-saving strategies at the local and national level. In solidarity with Europe, where even essential services are likely to be asked to find energy savings, we have validated plans and contingencies in place ..read more