Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Per communication from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft will be acquiring GitHub for $7.5B:

This morning we announced an agreement to acquire GitHub, a service that millions of developers around the world — including thousands of us at Microsoft — rely on to write code together. You can read my blog post on how we envision the opportunity ahead.

From our earliest days, Microsoft has been a developer-first company, and together with GitHub we will advance our mission to empower every developer in every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Once the acquisition closes later this year, GitHub will be led by CEO Nat Friedman, an open source veteran and founder of Xamarin, who will continue to report to Scott Guthrie.

Read the official details of this announcement at the links below:

• ANNOUNCEMENT: Microsoft to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion
  https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/
• BLOG: Satya Nadella on acquisition of GitHub
  https://blogs.microsoft.com/?p=52553832

Microsoft Future Decoded is a 2-day conference that we hold annually in London in which we discuss the future technology by way of our highest technology executives.

For those that missed it,   We went over, among other things:

• Reinvention of Business Processes through modularity, common data models, data graphs, and composite apps
• Workplace Transformation & the Surface Book 2 & Mixed Reality
• Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing & the Intelligent Cloud

Here’s a recap of last year’s event in 2017:

• Microsoft Future Decoded 2017 – what you may have missed
  https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mpn_uk/2017/11/03/microsoft-future-decoded-2017-what-you-may-have-missed/

The event’s keynotes will be live streamed on both days.

Here’s the announcement of the 2018 event:

• ANNOUNCEMENT: Microsoft Future Decoded 2018 – October 31, 2018 – November 1st, 2018
  https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mpn_uk/2018/05/30/microsoft-future-decoded-2018/

For the fifth consecutive year, Gartner has positioned Microsoft as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Worldwide, 2018.

Microsoft Azure IaaS has been designed to meet all your workload needs. Azure offers unique hybrid deployment models and industry-leading compliance and security. Azure supports open source technologies, so you can use the tools you prefer.

Gartner’s extensive evaluation of IaaS providers covers strengths, cautions, and recommended uses of the top cloud vendors. Download the full Gartner report to learn more.

• DOWNLOAD: Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Infrastructure as a Service – 2018 Research Report
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/gartner-iaas-magic-quadrant/en-us/

*Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Did you know that Microsoft recommends that you don’t set an expiration for end user passwords?

We have a Microsoft research paper that documents our guidelines/recommendations.

This paper provides Microsoft’s recommendations for password management based on current research and lessons from our own experience as one of the largest Identity Providers (IdPs) in the world. It covers recommendations for end users and identity administrators.

Microsoft sees over 10 million username/password pair attacks every day. This gives us a unique vantage point to understand the role of passwords in account takeover. The guidance in this paper is scoped to users of Microsoft’s identity platforms (Azure Active Directory, Active Directory, and Microsoft account) though it generalizes to other platforms.

Download the paper here:

• WHITEPAPER: Password Guidance
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/password-guidance/?from=http%3A%2F%2Fresearch.microsoft.com%2Fpubs%2F265143%2Fmicrosoft_password_guidance.pdf

Finding Mastery is a podcast that explores how the best in the world master their craft.

Host and high performance psychologist, Dr. Michael Gervais, interviews people excelling in the most hostile environments to discover the mental skills used to push the boundaries.

Each episode features inspiring stories from the world’s best athletes, brilliant business minds, and the musicians and artists changing our perspective of what’s possible. Thoughtful, spontaneous, and engaging, Dr. Michael Gervais provides insights to help listeners live connected to their potential and pursue their very best.

Dr. Gervais’ unique perspective and expertise are relevant to many different industries and audiences.

This past week’s episode was Episode 120, “Satya Nadella”:

Satya Nadella needs no introduction. He and his team are guiding one the world’s most significant high-tech companies. He’s the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, and one of only three in their history.

The first time I met him (in 2014, when he was just a handful of weeks in as CEO) I was struck by how deeply he listened, his authentic curiosity to learn, and the clarity of how he organized his thoughts.

It was apparent that he deeply valued, and was going to thoughtfully design, a culture at Microsoft for people to find and connect to their purpose — to experience their life efforts with deep meaning — while at the same time, holding true to their mission of empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

That is so rich. It’s what we all want. To live a life of purpose and meaning — and to really make a difference with what we do, and how we do it.

This conversation explores where that comes from for him.

As this conversation unfolds, it became amazingly apparent that at the center of his approach is: empathy — the ability to experience what another person is experiencing, from their perspective.

As most of you know, Pete Carroll and I formed the company Compete to Create to share the insights that he and I have come to understand about how to train the mind to amplify culture and performance — and it’s been a privilege to work inside the organization with the people at Microsoft who have in turn taught us so much about what it means to be great.

I’m excited to introduce Satya to this community; one of the brightest minds our world has to offer. I hope you soak it up…

• The importance of creating a shared purpose at Microsoft
• How he shaped his vision for what Microsoft should be
• The most critical relationship for Microsoft: from concept to capability to culture
• His biggest strength: acknowledging his weaknesses
• How he creates space for himself
• Why having a deep sense of empathy is critical to meet customer needs
• The impact having his child Zane had on him and the way he looks at life
• The meaning behind “hit refresh”
• Why he’s such a big believer in having a growth mindset
• Striving for balance between confidence and humility
• His thoughts on mastery

Download this episode of Dr. Gervais’ podcast here:

• PODCAST: Finding Mastery– Episode 120, “Satya Nadella”
  https://findingmastery.net/satya-nadella

At Microsoft, we have executive broadcasts regularly, including “Employee Q&A/Fireside chat” meetings led by our CEO Satya Nadella that are broadcast to all our employees worldwide.

VIDEO/AUDIO STREAMING
The video/audio broadcast is powered using our highly scalable Skype Meetings Broadcast technology – a service that Office 365 E3/E5 customers have access to. 

The service, by default, scales to 10,000 people simultaneously & works worldwide.  It also provides:

• CLOSED CAPTIONING: Provides automatic closed captioning for the broadcast directly within the video
• ATTENDANCE: Generates a report of attendees post broadcast
• RECORDING: Records the meeting & makes it available for post-broadcast viewing
• ANY CLIENT: Supported on IE 11, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Mac OS Safari, iOS, Android
• …and more.

ADDING VIEWER FEEDBACK: INTERACTIVITY
Your Skype Meeting Broadcasts can gather real time sentiment from your audience through “Microsoft Pulse”. 

• How do they feel about the topic being discussed? 
• Do they strongly agree?  Somewhat disagree?

Users can click their sentiment throughout the broadcast so that broadcasters can get a sense of the audience’s opinions.  And you can get correlation reports of this feedback.

To integrate sentiment capture into your Skype Meeting Broadcast, visit this page:

• Add Microsoft Pulse to a Skype Meeting Broadcast
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-Microsoft-Pulse-to-a-Skype-Meeting-Broadcast-db120d4e-49f4-4205-9d37-f2bf8c174da0

ADDING VIEWER FEEDBACK: COMMENTS / DISCUSSION
Skype Meeting Broadcasts can also have a running discussion displayed on the same page as the video.  This discussion can enable people to ask questions or have conversations about the topic being discussed in real time, driven by Yammer.

To integrate Yammer into your Skype Meeting Broadcast, visit this page:

• Add a Yammer feed to a Skype Meeting Broadcast
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/add-a-yammer-feed-to-a-skype-meeting-broadcast-0d92d1c4-4032-4b5b-bee4-cdeab1aea7c0

ADDING VIEWER FEEDBACK: Q&A
Per haps you’d like to empower viewers to ask questions during the broadcast privately.  Q&A capabilities can be added that allow users to submit their questions and wait for answers either via a meeting coordinator or answered during the broadcast.

To add a Q&A feature,

• Add a Q&A session to a Skype Meeting Broadcast
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/add-a-q-a-session-to-a-skype-meeting-broadcast-01abeff7-dce8-43d3-b31c-283e2220a6d9?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

For more information on using Skype Meetings Broadcast with all these capabilities, go to:

• Meetings with Skype for Business – Broadcast
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Meetings-with-Skype-for-Business-2eed8424-581a-4497-b505-c08c152e5851#ID0EAABAAA=Broadcast

Microsoft’s Azure Confidential Computing platform is uniquely designed to protect data while in use.

Azure Confidential Computing is aimed at protecting data while it’s processed in the cloud. It is the cornerstone of our ‘Confidential Cloud’ vision, which includes the following principles:

• Top data breach threats are mitigated
• Data is fully in the control of the customer regardless of whether in rest, transit, or use and even though the infrastructure is not
• Code running in the cloud is protected and verifiable by the customer
• Data and code are opaque to the cloud platform, or put another way the cloud platform is outside of the trusted computing base

While today this technology may be applied to a subset of data processing scenarios, we expect as it matures that it will become the new norm for all data processing, both in the cloud and on the edge.

…

Read more about what it entails & how to participate in the preview program for Azure Confidential Compute here:

• BLOG: Azure confidential computing
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-confidential-computing/

While migrating to the cloud offers your business greater scalability, cost-efficiency, and improved performance, it can require careful IT planning and strategy.

Fortunately, there are resources and tools that can make your cloud migration less daunting and help simplify your path to the cloud—while minimizing risk and impact to your business.

Download this Azure migration e-book for guidance throughout the entire process, from initial considerations to the tools required. You’ll learn how to:

• Approach your cloud migration.
• Discover and assess your servers, virtual machines, and applications.
• Confidently execute your migration.
• Optimize and adjust your cloud services and resources.

Grab the book here:

• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook, “Cloud Migration Essentials: A guide to migrating servers and virtual machines”
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-migration-essentials-e-book/en-us/

Keep cyberthreats at bay and ensure your technology stays ahead of any entity that would compromise the security of the Department of Defense (DoD). A cloud or hybrid-cloud security environment learns and adapts to evolving cybersecurity threats. Partner with a cloud service provider to get a cybersecurity framework, build a stronghold for your data, and meet the objectives of the new DoD Cloud computing policy.

Read this e-book to learn how Microsoft Azure Government brings you specialized security features, such as:

• Visibility into user behavior—monitor how users access your systems and behave while they’re logged in. 
• Advanced threat analytics—uncover suspicious activity and identify threats and security breaches with behavioral analytics powered by machine learning. 
• Data loss prevention—keep your critical information where it belongs with a cloud-based solution that isolates agency and individual data.

Grab the book here:

• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook, “Strengthening Cybersecurity for the Department of Defense: Keep data secure and mitigate cyberattacks with a cloud designed for US government agencies”
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/strengthening-cybersecurity-for-the-department-of-defense/

Intelligent services bring the power of the cloud to Office apps to help save you time and produce better results. These features help you improve your writing in Word and Outlook, analyze your data in Excel, and deliver dynamic presentations in PowerPoint.

Here’s a list of some of the features that are enabled through Office Intelligent Services:

• PowerPoint Designer: PowerPoint Designer.

• Word Editor: Editor – your writing assistant

• Smart Lookup: Get insights into what you’re working on with Smart Lookup

• Translator: Translate words and documents to another language within Word.

• Excel Insights: Insights in Excel

• PowerPoint QuickStarter: Research a topic with PowerPoint QuickStarter

• Office Tell Me: Do things quickly with Tell Me

• Office Dictate: Dictate with your voice in Office

To provide these services, Microsoft needs to be able to securely collect your written or visual content.  (This is only available if you have an Office 365 subscription)

ENABLING INTELLIGENT SERVICES
These services are disabled by default.

To enable or disable these features go to File > Options and look for Office intelligent services on the General tab.

(If you’re concerned about your privacy, read the following: Microsoft Privacy Statement)

Read more:

• What are Intelligent Services?
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-are-intelligent-services-e69ee5f5-d510-4c2c-aee3-d5410a353049?wt.mc_id=Client_InAppNotification_IntelServices_AboutIS&ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US