Microsoft's new tool to help businesses go digital: Satya Nadella

Washington: Technology giant Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella on Monday introduced a new 'transformative' tool for businesses to go digital and make fullest use of the latest advancement in the IT and digital world.

Describing Microsoft 365 as the fusion of intelligent cloud with already existing proven cloud solutions, the Indian-American CEO said the new digital offer from the top global IT company is coming together of its other popular products Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise mobility and security.

"We want to bring these products together for a complete solution that has AI (artificial intelligence) infused in it," Nadella said, asserting that this is part of his mission to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more in this increased digital world.

Microsoft 365 is a fundamental departure from the past and aimed at having a greater say in the fast-paced global digitisation, he said.

"As we create more data across multiple devices, computing power is going to be key to interpret it all," he said in his keynote address to the annual Inspire 2017 summit of Microsoft's partners which is being attended by 17,000 people from over 140 countries, including those from India.

Microsoft partners employ 17 million people all over the world.

"We celebrate not our technology but we celebrate the success of the technology that our customers have. This mission is always going to remain constant," Nadella said.

According to Judson Althoff, executive vice president, worldwide commercial business of Microsoft, the new product provides customers with the latest and most advanced technology for empowering employees.

Microsoft 365 Business, available in public preview starting August 2, is designed to give small-to-medium sized businesses a complete productivity and security solution, while streamlining IT management, he said.

Noting that Microsoft 365 represents a new and more cohesive approach to how Microsoft goes to market with its commercial offerings, Althoff said it reflects the shift its partners and mutual customers are making from viewing productivity, security and device management as individual workloads, to seeking a comprehensive approach to secure productivity.

According to Forrester Consulting, Microsoft 365 Enterprise increases partner revenue opportunity by more than 50 percent versus selling and deploying Office 365 alone.

Nadella said intelligent cloud and the intelligent edge is going to be defined by tree key characteristics.

"First every experience that you build is going to be multi device and multi sense. User experience itself is going to be multi devise and multi sense," he said.

"The second transformation is going to be the infusion of artificial intelligence. The last characteristics of this paradigm is... We need a new efficient frontier serverless. These three shifts are going to define the era of intelligent cloud and intelligent edge," he said.

Nadella said the new Microsoft 365 is going to be "transformative" for businesses.

The increasing digitisation, he said, creates an exciting opportunity.

"The opportunity is greater than ever before, with increasing digitisation. Every product and services is going to have digital. That's why being in this industry, eco system, the opportunity is tremendous," Nadella added.