Microsoft news – Page 207

Posted on March 29, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Enter for a chance to win a pair of custom Xbox One X consoles inspired by new DC movie ‘Shazam!’

When you were a kid, did you ever wish you could be a super hero – or at least be best friends with one? With the upcoming release of New Line Cinema’s new DC movie “Shazam!,” from Warner Bros. Pictures, we’ll get to see this wish come true for Freddy Freeman, whose best friend Billy Batson can turn into an adult super hero by shouting out one word: Shazam!

To celebrate the release of the film, in theaters worldwide starting on April 3, we’ll be giving fans a chance to bring out their inner gaming super hero with custom Xbox One X consoles inspired by “Shazam!.” Starting today, you’ll be able to enter for a chance to win a pair of these custom consoles for you and your best friend! We’re also giving out other prizes like a 12-month membership to Xbox Game Pass that gives you unlimited access to a library of over 100 great games on Xbox One, with new games added all the time. To enter, let us know what super power you think your best friend would have on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. This is a great way to celebrate your friendship and all the gaming challenges you’ve conquered together!

The “Be a Gaming Super Hero” contest is open until April 9, when winners will be selected. See here for full contest terms, conditions and participating markets.

Speaking of challenges, we know “Shazam!” star Zachary Levi will kill it in his role as the titular DC Super Hero, but how will he do at competing in the Xbox Game Pass Super Hero Challenge? Inspired by Shazam’s powers – the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the speed of Mercury – Zac will put his gaming skills to the test by attempting to complete challenges in Forza Horizon 4, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Rocket League and Sea of Thieves, all available right now with Xbox Game Pass! Will he be able to complete all four challenges? Visit Xbox on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to find out!

We are thrilled to be celebrating “Shazam!” and championing the best of friendships, in and out of gaming, from around the world. Enter now for a chance to win a custom Xbox One X console inspired by “Shazam!.” Additionally, Shazam avatars are available now until July 31 on Xbox Live – don’t miss your chance to game in a costume inspired by the titular DC Super Hero himself!

We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s case, by shouting out one word – Shazam! – this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam, courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart – inside a ripped, godlike body – Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! With the help of superhero enthusiast friend Freddy, Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of the child he is inside. But he’ll need to master them quickly to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, who’s got his eye on Shazam’s powers and wants them for himself.

A New Line Cinema presentation, “Shazam!” hits theaters worldwide starting on April 3, 2019, and will be distributed worldwide in 2D, 3D and IMAX by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Transforming manufacturing with intelligent business applications

Manufacturing has been a driving force for industrial and societal transformation for centuries. Next week, at Hannover Messe—the world’s leading trade show for industrial technology—decades of industrial technology innovation at Microsoft is intersecting with Industry 4.0. As Industry 4.0 ushers in new technological advances to improve operations, competition and customer demands are keeping pace. Customers expect exceptional products and services, without exception, driving a need for greater innovation.

We are joined at the event by dozens of global manufacturers representing industries from automotive to consumer electronics and construction equipment, all using Microsoft Business Applications as a competitive differentiator; intelligent technologies that help transform the entire connected manufacturing ecosystem.

Optimize manufacturing operations and deliver new services

At Hannover Messe, we are showcasing how we empower manufacturers to connect Internet of Things (IoT) sensors on key business-critical assets to business transactions in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. It’s a transformative solution to manage production and stock in real-time and proactively resolve issues, optimize manufacturing operations, maximize the value of assets, and take business performance and customer satisfaction to new heights. Read more about the solution here.

Annata, a leading Microsoft Partner for automotive, heavy equipment, and industrial machinery industries, helped Iceland’s largest vehicle importer and distributor, Brimborg, rapidly expand into the commercial fleet rental market in response to the 2008-11 Icelandic financial crisis. Booth visitors will learn how Annata first unified Brimborg’s business of importing, distributing, selling and servicing cars and construction equipment, with a solution that could cover their entire business with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations along with the Annata 365 solution.

When the crises hit, Brimborg deployed the extensive Rental module that enabled them to manage this new part of their business. Brimborg is using IoT data flowing from its rental cars with the service scheduling capabilities of the Annata solution to optimize and ensure timely servicing of the fleet. All rental cars are automatically called in for service and inspections, which is highly important for keeping the fleet healthy. Brimborg is continuing to automate and innovate using IoT, Dynamics 365, and the Annata solution to run its business more efficiently, but also to open new business models and opportunities with customers in other areas of its business. Targeting four-minute car deliveries and 30-second customer returns—and planning new innovative business models based on Microsoft and Annata solutions.

Make the leap to intelligent, connected field service

Attendees at Hannover Messe are getting a glimpse into the future of field service for manufacturers, powered by Microsoft IoT Central, Dynamics 365 for Field Service, and Dynamics 365 Mixed Reality for HoloLens and mobile devices.

Dynamics 365 Connected Field Service transforms field service organizations with solutions to detect and resolve issues remotely before the customer knows of an issue, and drive efficiency and cut costs in the business cost center. The solution leverages connected devices and machine learning capabilities to combine remote monitoring, digital services, and predictive maintenance.

As recently announced, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist for mobile devices brings the HoloLens experience to mobile devices, allowing floor operators and field technicians to collaborate with remote experts and troubleshoot issues in context, without leaving the job site. Dynamics 365 Guides is a new mixed reality tool that allows employees to learn by doing, with interactive, step-by-step guidance presented on heads-up, hands-free displays in real work situations.

Toyota’s North America Production Engineering team uses Dynamics 365 Layout and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on Microsoft HoloLens in their North America manufacturing centers. Dynamics 365 Layout can improve business processes in valuable ways, such as the layout of digital twins of equipment on the manufacturing floor for safety and process verification, and creating innovative AR training practices through the use of holographic equipment instead of physical equipment in space. Dynamics 365 Remote Assist is in the early phases of being used to improve safety and reduce costs through the use of remote experts for equipment verification and incident response.

At Hannover Messe, Microsoft Partner Hitachi Solutions will showcase how they are helping global organizations create outcome-driven, connected field services with IoT and mixed reality to support maintenance work by field workers to increase uptime and service continuity.

Empower Your Changing Workforce

Start a conversation about Industry 4.0, and inevitably the topic lands on the workforce problem.

As a generation of highly-skilled, specialized workers eye retirement, manufacturers are in a bind to recruit young engineers and operators with the right skillset while adjusting to a new workforce, challenging traditional work culture.

Dynamics 365 for Talent helps HR teams at manufacturing organizations to solve the skills gap, offering intelligent tools to find, attract, and onboard skilled candidates. By automating many manual, time-consuming HR processes, Dynamics 365 for Talent lets HR professionals spend less time on the mundane, and more time on strategic initiatives that grow the business.

New this month, Dynamics 365 Guides allows employees to learn by doing with step-by-step instructions that guide employees to the tools and parts they need and how to use them in real work situations. Guides represents a new way to improve workflow efficiency. Now employees can learn while staying hands-on with their work. With the accompanying PC app, it’s possible for managers and frontline workers to create interactive training content by attaching photos, videos, and 3D models to information cards that stay with them while they work. When employees use Guides, information is collected to help managers understand how they’re doing and where they need help, further allowing people to improve the process.

Check out the video below to learn how PACCAR is exploring Guides and HoloLens to improve productivity and employee onboarding.

Get the full story at Hannover Messe

These solutions and customer stories are just a peek at how Microsoft Business Applications are helping transform manufacturing. If you are attending Hannover Messe, visit our booth to experience Dynamics 365 and Mixed Reality solutions firsthand, as well as chat with customers and partners.

Find more information about our location and sessions in this schedule, and be sure to check out the resources below.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy creates a more sustainable future with AI and the cloud

With towers as high as 120 meters (390 feet) and rotor blades that span the height of a 22-story building, industrial wind turbines are challenges to inspect and maintain.

Traditionally, a wind turbine blade inspection required technicians to rappel down a stopped turbine in remote areas – sometimes at sea – to take pictures of cracks and faults in a turbine’s blades. Or it involved someone on land taking pictures with a telescope and camera. The work was often time-consuming and challenging.

But a year and a half ago, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, a global leader in the wind power industry, transformed the process with autonomous drones and a digital solution called Hermes. The aircraft capture high-resolution images quickly, while the solution analyzes images for potential blade damage, all resulting in safer, faster and more accurate inspections.

Based in Spain, the company is now further improving the solution by migrating it to Microsoft Azure and infusing it with Azure AI to process image recognition. The digital enhancements will enable Siemens Gamesa to streamline blade inspections even more, in its mission to make renewable energy more affordable and the future more sustainable.

Wind turbines in a landscape of snow and blue sky — Siemens Gamesa wind turbines in Norway.

“Hermes is taking a huge leap forward with the collaboration with Microsoft,” says Christian Sonderstrup, service chief digital officer at Siemens Gamesa, which has installed wind power technologies in 90 countries. “AI, cloud and big data enable us to move to the next level of performance, in terms of innovation and in lowering the levelized cost of renewable energy.”*

The drones, which will inspect 1,700 turbines this year, are fast, precise photographers, capturing about 400 images of a turbine’s three blades in 20 minutes. The images form an overview of blade condition and needed repairs, but the need to manually sort and stitch them has been a challenge. The laborious task was recently evident in a large inspection project involving 100,000 photos.

“We had someone looking into every one of these photos, and then every finding of a severe fault needed to be evaluated again by an engineer,” says Anne Katrine Karner-Gotfredsen, Siemens Gamesa manager of product integrity and warranty management in the company’s blade program.

Integrating Azure AI services will greatly speed up the process, with image recognition that can stitch images into an accurate model of an entire rotor in 34 seconds. The same job with manual stitching takes four to six hours and could lead to errors. AI tools can differentiate blades from water, sky and other irrelevant elements; distinguish cracks and faults from, say, bird droppings; integrate drone location and camera zoom data for precise stitching; and classify faults by type and severity.

“To review all the photos is a huge task,” says Karner-Gotfredsen. “Before Hermes, it was quite tedious to categorize and store all the data in a place that everyone can access. The more we can make it an automated process, the easier it is for us to work with the data.” Faster, accurate inspections mean less downtime of turbines, earlier detection of faults, better predictive maintenance and fewer costly repairs – all contributing to more affordable wind power.

Offshore wind turbines pictured with a beautiful sunset — Siemens Gamesa offshore wind turbines in the United Kingdom.

For Karner-Gotfredsen, the cloud will also help optimize projects like one she managed last year, involving a customer’s inspection of several wind parks. The data was difficult to share among Siemens Gamesa, the customer and a third-party reviewer, requiring Karner-Gotfredsen to send and receive it on a hard drive several times, along with cumbersome spreadsheets in email.

“The fact that we now can have the data going directly into Hermes with the cloud, without us having to carry hard drives, and having the data automatically sorted and stitched, saves us many people hours,” she says. “AI is augmenting the work our employees are doing, allowing them to focus on their core competencies.”

AI-powered blade analyses are also part of Siemens Gamesa’s goal to provide complete, 360-degree digital coverage of customers’ turbines. And they’re part of a digital strategy that focuses on productivity, digital extensions of current business offerings and new digital businesses. As Siemens Gamesa advances the strategy, it’s using Microsoft 365 and Azure as its IT foundation for developing new innovations that are scalable, robust and insightful.

“We aspire to be the digital leader in renewable energy,” says Sonderstrup. “AI, the cloud and big data are enablers of that journey.”

*Levelized cost of energy is the lifetime cost of an asset divided by the amount of electricity produced.

Top photo: Siemens Gamesa wind turbines in Morocco. (All photos courtesy of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy)

Learn how Microsoft partners are building a sustainable future at Hannover Messe 2019.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Manufacturing a better future with intelligent industry innovations

It’s a time of great disruption but great opportunity in the manufacturing industry, as businesses seek to find novel ways to create new business value, empower and upskill their workforce, optimize their operations and innovate for a sustainable future. Advanced technologies like AI, mixed reality and automation are helping drive Industry 4.0, creating a future where “intelligent manufacturing” is a reality. Today, we are introducing updates that help bring this reality even closer for our customers and partners, to deliver increased security, productivity and efficiency, which will help them achieve new business outcomes.

As we head to Hanover, Germany, next week to join global leaders at the world’s biggest trade show for industrial technology, we are announcing several improvements to our trusted, innovative manufacturing solutions, including:

Azure is now the first major public cloud with end-to-end security for IoT for your devices, hubs and cloud resources. We are adding advanced threat protection for IoT to three key services: Azure Security Center for IoT can now be used to implement security best practices and mitigate threats across entire IoT projects including hubs, compute and data. Azure Sentinel, the first cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) offering, can now protect the entire enterprise from threats including those affecting IoT devices. Azure IOT Hub now integrates with Azure Security Center for IoT to provide IoT security information directly inside the hub portal experience.

The introduction of OPC Twin and OPC Vault in our Azure Industrial IoT Cloud Platform solution, which respectively provide manufacturers a digital twin of their OPC UA-enabled machines and significantly enhance security and certification management. We’re also announcing important enhancements to the Connected Factory solution accelerator, which now integrates with OPC Twin to greatly simplify the process of installing IoT Edge.

An expansion of Azure IP Advantage to IoT, which extends Azure IP Advantage benefits to Azure customers with IoT devices connected to Azure, and devices that are powered by Azure Sphere and Windows IoT. Additionally, qualified startups who join the LOT Network have the ability to acquire Microsoft patents through LOT for free.

You’ll find more details on the Azure IoT Platform updates in this blog from Sam George, and more information on Azure IP Advantage below. We will also share additional business updates including:

Intelligent innovations for industry: Onsite at Hannover Messe we will showcase our wide range of offerings for manufacturers including breakthroughs in AI experiences, mixed reality with HoloLens 2, business-ready solutions with Dynamics 365 and tools to close the skills gap with Microsoft 365.
Customers achieving business outcomes: We’re supporting leading manufacturers including Bühler, Electrolux, Siemens Gamesa and ZEISS as they accelerate their own innovations, as outlined below.

New partner solutions: We continue to grow the ecosystem of partners collaborating with Microsoft to help manufacturers succeed, with several announcing news this week.
The latest in our Future Computed book series: The Future Computed: AI and Manufacturing explores the way manufacturers from across the world are embracing AI. It shares insights from our customers on the importance of creating the right company culture and talent pipeline to realize AI’s potential, and explores the role of public policy in addressing labor market disruption and fostering the ethical use of AI. We’ll preview the book’s key themes at Hannover Messe ahead of its release in May.
More than 25 innovative companies will join us in our Hannover Messe booth to showcase how we are working together to harness IoT, mixed reality, AI and other key technologies that revolutionize manufacturing.

Protecting and connecting the factory of the future

Today we are sharing details about a series of new product and program advancements for the manufacturing industry prior to Hannover Messe:

Azure IoT Security: The complexity and scale of the IoT and Industrial IoT (IIot) challenge is reinforced by leading market research firms estimating there will be over 20 billion installed end-point devices worldwide by 2020 — each of which pose a potential security risk. While some cloud providers address pieces of this puzzle, Azure is the world’s first cloud offering to deliver an end to end, unified approach to IoT security.

Garth Beaumount, CISO for Volpara Solutions and an early adopter of Azure Security Center for IoT said, “The Microsoft Azure IoT Security solution provides us with management and threat protection for the full stack, including IoT devices, IoT hubs as well as the computing and data resources utilized by our solutions. Effectively saving us from ‘rolling our own’ and aligning our IoT security neatly with our other Azure based solutions and line of business application usage.”

With Azure Security Center for IoT, customers can find missing security configurations across IOT devices, the edge and cloud. For example, they can check which ports are open on their IOT devices, confirm their SQL database is encrypted and act to remediate any issues. Azure Security Center for IoT protects from ever-evolving threats, drawing upon the vast threat intelligence information in the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph, which analyzes six trillion signals per day. This means manufacturers can take advantage of a single view of security across all their Azure solutions — including Azure IoT solutions, from edge devices to applications — using hundreds of built-in security assessments in a central dashboard.

With Azure Sentinel, users can hunt for or respond to active threats spanning the entire enterprise from IOT devices to Azure to Office 365 and on-premise systems.

SecOps teams now have the right tools to reduce the surface attack of IoT solutions, remediate issues before they become serious, prevent attacks with machine learning and gain significant value from simplifying threat detection and security posture management for entire IoT deployments. Combining these new offerings with previously announced device security offerings such as Azure Sphere, customers will have access to IoT innovation with the confidence of end-to-end security that only Microsoft provides – spanning devices, the edge and cloud. You’ll find more information here.

Connected Factory and Industrial IoT: In a connected factory, all machines communicate with each other, leveraging data, IoT and automation to monitor and control all aspects of production. We’ve enhanced our offering for these Industrial IoT scenarios by developing components that simplify and secure our customers’ digital operations. At our booth at Hannover Messe, we’ll be showcasing OPC Twin, which creates a digital twin for your OPC UA-enabled machines and makes the information model of that specific machine available in the cloud. Customers can control and manage their OPC Twins directly from the cloud by using microservices running on Azure. In addition, we’ll showcase our progress in security with OPC Vault. OPC Vault automates security management by creating, managing and revoking certificates for your OPC UA servers on a global scale. Both components provide simplicity and security for your industrial IoT solutions and are fully open source and available on GitHub.

We also understand the importance of simplicity and speed in getting started with a proof-of-concept for Industrial IoT scenarios. For that purpose, we continue to enhance the Connected Factory solution accelerator, which is designed to accelerate proof-of-concepts in Industrial IoT and additionally offers OEE data across customers’ factories via a centralized dashboard. Today, Connected Factory integrates with an OPC Twin dashboard and empowers manufacturers to streamline the process of getting started with Industrial IoT and generating insights from their digital operations.

Supporting business innovation

As businesses become more connected, security remains paramount to success. Microsoft is taking end-to-end security one step further for our customers to protect their data and intellectual property:

Azure IP Advantage: The Microsoft Azure IP Advantage program now includes new benefits for Azure IoT innovators and startups. We first announced Azure IP Advantage in February, 2017, to provide comprehensive protection against intellectual property (IP) risks for our cloud customers. We are now expanding the program to customers who are innovating in IoT and at the edge to do predictive maintenance, manage digital and physical assets, and improve overall efficiency, safety and quality of products—all of which create massive volumes of data and unique business innovations. We’re responding to input from our manufacturing customers and delivering greater value to the Azure IP Advantage program, with new benefits focused on the Azure-powered IoT ecosystem and startups, including:

Uncapped indemnification coverage for Microsoft’s Azure Sphere and Windows IoT.
Access to 10,000 patents for customers using Azure to power IoT devices to defend themselves against IP lawsuits.
The ability for startups on Azure to acquire Microsoft patents for free.

In addition to the expanded program, we also joined the Open Invention Network and the LOT (license on transfer) Network last year to help address patent assertion risk for our customers and partners. Taken together, we believe Microsoft offers the most comprehensive, end-to-end framework for addressing IP risks in the cloud. More detail can be found in this Microsoft on the Issues blog.

Manufacturers building on Microsoft technologies

Customers are leveraging Microsoft technology in their manufacturing operations and seeing real business results. Recent examples include:

Bühler, one of the world’s largest providers of food processing solutions, is leveraging Microsoft blockchain technology to improve global food safety standards and reduce food poisoning rates, while increasing production efficiencies.
Electrolux, the Swedish home appliance manufacturer, launched a new Azure IoT smart connected air purifier and app in a matter of weeks with minimal R&D time. The Pure A9 removes ultra-fine dust particles, pollutants, bacteria, allergens and bad odors from indoor rooms.
Siemens Gamesa, the leader in renewable energy, is streamlining and automating how technicians inspect and maintain industrial wind turbines by migrating its autonomous drone-digital process to Microsoft Azure and infusing it with Azure AI. Integrating Azure AI services will greatly expedite the process, with image recognition reduced to 34 seconds, as opposed to 4 to 6 hours using the manual method, which also was prone to errors.
ZEISS teamed up with Microsoft to present a spectroscopy measurement and data sharing solution that connects the compact all-round spectrometer ZEISS Corona process with Microsoft Azure. By uploading production data from spectroscopic analysis to the cloud, clients get invaluable insights about their products and production – whenever and wherever they need it. The solution can be implemented in food production processes to monitor important quality indicators (e.g. fat, moisture, salt content) directly in the production line. This enables production managers to react immediately to process variations and helps to increase quality and productivity, while using raw materials and energy in a more efficient way at the same time.

Partners highlight new offerings

Several of our partners showcasing their solutions at the Microsoft Hannover Messe booth will make news about their latest innovations, including:

Intel is working with Microsoft on a new modern industrial PC reference design for factories and industrial applications. Using the reference design, which will be available later this year, device partners can build fully provisioned and customized industrial PCs that can be connected to a range of devices to discover, manage and analyze data in real time, using AI on the machine or in the Azure cloud.
JDA, a leading global supply chain company, will be showcasing its new Azure-based Luminate solution, which serves as an end-to-end crisis control center allowing companies to see, interpret, and act on real-time information from the entire supply chain and extended third-party digital ecosystem.

Empowering an intelligent manufacturing firstline

From the front office to supply chain to the factory floor, Microsoft solutions can help improve manufacturing operations by streamlining daily work, driving greater efficiency, safety and productivity as well as helping enhance employee performance. For example:

Microsoft 365 is equipping organizations, including Firstline Workers on the factory floor with the skills and tools they need to keep up with digital manufacturing in a secure environment. Microsoft Teams is transforming how today’s manufacturing workforce collaborates and communicates securely. Learn more how Microsoft 365 is being used in manufacturing here.
Customers have a growing need to move cloud computing closer to the edge. Azure Data Box Edge helps meet this need as a powerful, AI-enabled edge appliance that sits within a customer’s own environment – in their data center or on a factory floor – right alongside their existing hardware. It brings Azure computing power to where data originates, eliminating any network latency.
With mixed reality applications Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and Layout, companies are using Microsoft HoloLens and HoloLens 2 to dramatically boost productivity, compliance and safety. You’ll find more information about a broad range of Dynamics 365 innovations in manufacturing here.
Available later this year, the new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides for HoloLens and HoloLens 2 will empower employees to learn by doing, with step-by-step instructions guiding them to the tools, parts and institutional knowledge they need in real work scenarios.
Delivering a unified approach to financial and business operations across manufacturing, supply chain, distribution and retail is made easier by Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.
Intelligent, connected field service through Dynamics 365 Connected Field Service can help manufacturers quickly detect and resolve issues, leveraging connected devices and machine learning and in the process, driving efficiency and reducing costs.

The future of manufacturing is all about applying new levels of intelligence across all aspects of operations, with disruption triggered by AI, mixed reality and IoT, redefining the value chain from engineering design to customer engagements to supply chains. We look forward to meeting with you next week to discuss how we’re empowering intelligent manufacturing around the world. Until then, please visit Microsoft at Hannover Messe 2019 for additional details about what’s planned, how to engage our team and where to find our booth in Hall 7, Stand C40.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Closing the skills gap in manufacturing with Microsoft 365

The manufacturing industry is being transformed by the rise in new digital industrial technology, known as Industry 4.0. New technologies are changing every stage of production, increasing productivity, optimizing operations, and unlocking new areas of growth. In order for manufacturers to capture the value this technology unlocks, they’ll need to ensure their workforce has the right skills and the right tools.

This is especially true as it relates to an organization’s Firstline Workforce. In manufacturing, Firstline Workers are the employees who deliver products and materials, drive product quality, and keep critical equipment running. To help manufacturers with their digital transformation, we’re enabling new ways to work with Microsoft 365 for Firstline Workers to learn, communicate, and collaborate more effectively.

Upskilling and equipping the Firstline Workforce

With the rise of Industry 4.0, manufacturers must reimagine the roles, skills, and tools to transform work throughout their organization. This means providing digital and soft skills, empowering workers with modern tools, and blurring the boundaries of technology with new immersive experiences. In an increasingly digital and complex landscape, the types of skills that employees need are rapidly evolving, and it is increasingly difficult for the workforce to keep pace.

Solutions in Microsoft 365 that enable Firstline Workers to learn, communicate, and collaborate include:

Using Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online, manufacturers can securely centralize training efforts, easily distribute onboarding and training materials, and connect all levels of the organization to find and share best practices.

Using Microsoft Stream, organizations can deliver dynamic, role-based content and video to increase engagement and retention of training programs and support peer-to-peer information sharing.

To help equip workers to operate in a digitally-enabled manufacturing environment, Teams provides a single hub for teamwork to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate production from the engineering rooms to the factory floor.

Earlier this year, we announced new capabilities—including urgent messaging, location sharing, and image annotations—which organizations can use to create a safer and more efficient workplace. For example, these features can help workers identify, communicate, and share the location of hazardous spills to help reduce operational disruptions.

Additionally, Microsoft Teams is extensible and allows companies to transform business processes using Microsoft Flow and PowerApps. These services help to digitize everyday activities—such as documentation during quality assurance, data capture, and inventory management—helping reduce costs and free up time for Firstline Workers to focus on higher value activities.

As Industry 4.0 reshapes the manufacturing industry, finding new innovations to help workers learn, communicate, and collaborate remains a top priority. Microsoft is addressing these challenges through breakthroughs in hardware design, artificial intelligence (AI) experiences, mixed reality with HoloLens 2, and through business-ready solutions with Dynamics 365 and industry partners.

Using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, technicians can solve problems faster by calling in remote experts via Microsoft Teams to help walk through repairs using mixed reality annotations, sharing diagrams and schematics. And with Dynamics 365 Guides, employees can learn new skills with step-by-step instructions that guide employees to the tools they need and how to use them in real work situations.

Helping our customers succeed

Leading manufacturers choose Microsoft 365 to prepare, equip, and empower their employees at all levels:

To accelerate productivity and information flow, Cummins replaced its existing productivity and collaboration tools with Microsoft 365, introducing a modern knowledge management and collaboration framework to reduce skills gaps and anchor a new culture of work.

“Our modern, tech-driven workplaces give employees the tools they need to innovate, so we can introduce new energy products and technology solutions to the market. It’s also a key strategy in attracting top talent.”
—Sherry Aaholm, VP and CIO for Cummins

Goodyear is using the integrated and adaptive tools in Microsoft 365 to help accelerate innovation and enable new capabilities inside the company. For example, Goodyear is connecting its workforce via tools like Teams, which is driving productivity and generating efficiencies to deliver the right products to the right place at the right time.

“Enhancing collaboration is crucial to us for improved decision making and to drive innovation, both in tires and beyond tires… Our multigenerational and multicultural global workforce is now sharing perspectives and ideas more quickly and easily than ever.”
—Sherry Neubert, CIO for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

We’re incredibly excited about our opportunity to help manufacturers transform and we are just getting started!

Join us at Hannover Messe and learn more

Next week, members of the Microsoft team will be at Hannover Messe, the annual manufacturing conference. Visit us at Microsoft stand C40 and learn how Microsoft is enabling Intelligent Manufacturing.

Posted on March 27, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Adobe, Microsoft and SAP announce new Open Data Initiative details

Global industry partners join effort to connect data and gather powerful insights fueled by AI and intelligent services

LAS VEGAS — March 27, 2019 — Wednesday at Adobe Summit, the industry’s leading customer experience conference, Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) CEO Shantanu Narayen and Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) CEO Satya Nadella revealed additional details about the Open Data Initiative (ODI). As originally announced last September, Adobe, Microsoft and SAP (NYSE: SAP) have embarked on a new approach to business data that will help companies transform their customer experiences through real-time insights delivered from the cloud.

The three partners outlined a common approach and set of resources for customers in an initial announcement last September, with the ambition of helping customers create new connections across previously siloed data, more seamlessly garner intelligence, and ultimately better serve brands with an improved view of their customer interactions.

From the beginning, the ODI has been focused on enhancing interoperability between the applications and platforms of the three partners through a common data model with data stored in a customer-chosen data lake. This unified data lake is intended to allow customers their choice of development tools and applications to build and deploy services.

To improve that process, the three companies plan to deliver in the coming months a new approach for publishing, enriching and ingesting initial data feeds from Adobe Experience Platform, activated through Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Office 365 and SAP C/4HANA, into a customer’s data lake. This will enable a new level of AI and machine learning enrichment to garner new insights and better serve customers.

Unilever, a mutual customer and one of the early global brands to express support and excitement about the ODI, today announced its intention to simplify a previously complex business outcome based on these data connections. At Adobe Summit, Unilever is demonstrating how it plans to bring together disparate customer, product and resource data and use AI-driven insights to help reduce its plastic packaging and encourage consumer recycling. By eliminating the silos of data, Unilever will be able to tie inventory and plastics data into Adobe data to enhance customer experiences and encourage participation.

To accelerate development of the initiative, Adobe, Microsoft and SAP also announced today plans to convene a Partner Advisory Council consisting of over a dozen companies including Accenture, Amadeus, Capgemini, Change Healthcare, Cognizant, EY, Finastra, Genesys, Hootsuite, Inmobi, Sprinklr, and WPP. These organizations span myriad industries and customer segments and believe there is significant opportunity in the ODI for them to drive net- new value to their customers.

“Our customers are all trying to integrate behavioral, CRM, ERP and other internal data sets to have a comprehensive understanding of each consumer, and they’re struggling with the challenges of integrating this data,” said Stephan Pretorius, CTO of WPP. “We’re excited about the initiative Adobe, Microsoft and SAP have taken in this area, and we see a lot of opportunity to contribute to the development of ODI.”

About Adobe
Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 404,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications for Microsoft, (425) 638-7777, rrt@we-worldwide.com

Stefan Offermann, Adobe, (408) 536-4023, sofferma@adobe.com

Stacey Hoskin, SAP, (816) 337-7476, stacey.hoskin@sap.com

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.

Posted on March 27, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

New steps to protect customers from hacking

Today, court documents were unsealed detailing work Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has executed to disrupt cyberattacks from a threat group we call Phosphorus – also known as APT 35, Charming Kitten, and Ajax Security Team – which is widely associated with Iranian hackers. Our court case against Phosphorus, filed in the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C., resulted in a court order enabling us last week to take control of 99 websites the group uses to conduct its hacking operations so the sites can no longer be used to execute attacks.

Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) and the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) have been tracking Phosphorus since 2013. Its activity is usually designed to gain access to the computer systems of businesses and government agencies and steal sensitive information. Its targets also include activists and journalists – especially those involved in advocacy and reporting on issues related to the Middle East.

Phosphorus typically attempts to compromise the personal accounts of individuals through a technique known as spear-phishing, using social engineering to entice someone to click on a link, sometimes sent through fake social media accounts that appear to belong to friendly contacts. The link contains malicious software that enables Phosphorus to access computer systems.

Phosphorus also uses a technique whereby it sends people an email that makes it seem as if there’s a security risk to their accounts, prompting them to enter their credentials into a web form that enables the group to capture their passwords and gain access to their systems.

Both attack methods employ the use of websites that incorporate the names of well-known brands, like Microsoft, to appear authentic. Websites registered and used by Phosphorus include, for example, outlook-verify.net, yahoo-verify.net, verification-live.com, and myaccount-services.net.

While we’ve used daily security analytics tracking to stop individual Phosphorus attacks and notify impacted customers, the action we executed last week enabled us to take control of websites that are core to its operations. Our work to track Phosphorus over multiple years and observe its activity enabled us to build a decisive legal case and execute last week’s action with confidence we could have significant impact on the group’s infrastructure.

The action we executed last week enabled us to take control of 99 websites and redirect traffic from infected devices to our Digital Crime Unit’s sinkhole. The intelligence we collect from this sinkhole will be added to MSTIC’s existing knowledge of Phosphorus and shared with Microsoft security products and services to improve detections and protections for our customers.

Throughout the course of tracking Phosphorus, we’ve worked closely with a number of other technology companies, including Yahoo, to share threat information and jointly stop attacks. We are grateful for their partnership. We also worked with each domain listing company listed in our suit prior to filing it and are grateful for their support and help in transferring the website domains registered by Phosphorus to us once a court order was granted. Our case against Phosphorus is similar to cases we’ve filed against another threat group called Strontium. We have used this approach 15 times to take control of 91 fake websites associated with Strontium. The legal filings in our case against Phosphorus can be found here.

Posted on March 26, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Check out the first-ever episode of ID@Xbox Game Pass

Today, during the first-ever episode of ID@Xbox Game Pass, we gave fans a closer look at upcoming ID@Xbox program titles set to arrive with Xbox Game Pass the same day as their global launch, as well as shared new details of ID@Xbox and Xbox Game Pass activities at PAX East this weekend. If you missed the show, don’t worry! We’ve put together a recap outlining the top news from today’s episode. Check out what was announced below:

We’re excited to announce three new ID@Xbox titles coming to Xbox Game Pass the same day they release on Xbox One: Killer Queen Black, Outer Wilds and Blazing Chrome. Xbox Game Pass is not only a great way for gamers to find new and unique games, but the service is also an incredible vehicle for independent developers to reach new audiences. We are stoked to see these titles enter Xbox Game Pass at launch! See below to learn more about each title:

Killer Queen Black: From Liquid Bit, Killer Queen Black is an intense multiplayer action/strategy platformer designed for up to eight players. Hop on the snail, hoard berries or wipe out the enemy’s queen to claim victory! Killer Queen Black will be available on Xbox One and with Xbox Game Pass in 2019.
Outer Wilds: Outer Wilds, from Mobius and Annapurna Interactive, is an exploration game about curiosity, roasting marshmallows and unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos. It’s coming in 2019 and we’re thrilled to announce that it will be in Xbox Game Pass the same day as its global launch.
Blazing Chrome: From JoyMasher and The Arcade Crew, Blazing Chrome lets you kick some serious metal ass! The world is dominated by machines, that threaten the few humans remaining with total extermination. You get to kick some metal butts and free humankind in this classic run’n’gun, made by and for fans of serious arcade action.

In addition to announcing three upcoming titles to the ID@Xbox program, we also got an early look at both Afterparty and Outer Wilds as well as interviews and insights with the development teams behind those games (Night School Studio and Mobius, respectively).

Finally, we shared new details pertaining to ID@Xbox at PAX East! This year, we will be bringing Void Bastards, Operencia: The Stolen Sun, Supermarket Shriek, The Good Life and Afterparty to PAX East. All five titles will launch with Xbox Game Pass timed to their global release and are playable this weekend, so be sure to stop by the Xbox booth for your chance to experience these games first-hand! At the booth, you’ll also have the opportunity to collect custom pins for each of our ID@Xbox titles and even enter to win a custom-designed Xbox console specifically made for ID@Xbox. You won’t want to miss this!

Thank you for watching today – we hope you enjoyed the show! To stay up to date with the latest news and announcements, be sure to stay tuned to Xbox Wire and follow us on Instagram and Twitter. With our Xbox Game Pass mobile app, you can also get notifications as new games are added and remote install games to your home console as they are available!

Posted on March 26, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update comes to ‘State of Decay 2’

Starting today, the ever-growing State of Decay 2 community can take the ultimate zombie survival game to its deadliest level with the launch of the Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update. This update introduces the Dread Zones and Nightmare Zones as two new difficulty modes that challenge players with deadlier zombies, more aggressive and resilient humans, a faster-acting blood plague and fewer resources to scavenge. Along with these two new modes are 16 new Achievements for 275 additional Gamerscore.

Available at no cost for all owners of State of Decay 2 and Xbox Game Pass members, the Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update presents more options for players to define what it means to survive. New players can start their community in Standard Zones (the game’s base difficulty level), and Dread Zones are great place for players who want a challenge with additions like armored zombies, more hordes and a faster acting blood plague infection (from about 3 hours to just about 30 minutes). Nightmare Zones are intended for hardcore players who are ready to test themselves against freak packs like screamer choirs and bloater pods along with NPCs who can headshot you right back.

Earlier this month we gave a sneak peek at what to expect with the Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update, and we’re excited to additionally share that based on community feedback, you can now choose your map when establishing a new community. The team has also continued to make other improvements to the core game based on feedback, which includes an all-new Character Manager, larger loot drops at plague hearts and more. The full list of patch notes is available at stateofdecay.com.

To celebrate the launch of the Choose Your Own Apocalypse Update, we’re also running a MixPot giveaway at mixer.com/undeadlabs from March 26 at 9:00 a.m. PDT until April 2 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Viewers who are logged into Mixer and watching the official Undead Labs Mixer channel will be automatically entered to win all five of the pre-order content packs.

With today’s update, now is the perfect time for new and existing fans to jump into the apocalypse. For those new to State of Decay 2, get started with Xbox Game Pass (whether as a current member or by joining today and get your first month for $1), or by purchasing either the Standard Edition or the Ultimate Edition. We’re excited for players to enjoy today’s release and look forward to continuing supporting the State of Decay 2 community with content like the upcoming return to Trumbull Valley later this year.

Until then, you can Choose Your Own Apocalypse and answer the question: how will you survive?

Posted on March 26, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Julia White: Enabling customers’ hybrid strategy with new Microsoft innovation

Customers who are taking a hybrid cloud approach are seeing real business value – I see this in organizations across the globe. The ability for customers to embrace both public cloud and local datacenter, plus edge capability, is enabling customers to improve their IT agility and maximize efficiency. The benefit of a hybrid approach is also what continues to bring customers to Azure, the one cloud that has been uniquely built for hybrid. We haven’t slowed our investment in enabling a hybrid strategy, particularly as this evolves into the new application pattern of using intelligent cloud and intelligent edge.

Before I dive into what’s new, I want to take a moment to share why Microsoft is so passionate about enabling a hybrid approach. It stems from a deep understanding of our customers and their businesses over the past several decades. We want every organization on the planet to benefit from cloud innovation. Fundamentally, hybrid enables every organization to participate in this technology transformation. Beyond this, we see the leading experiences enabled by tapping into both the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge, creating optimized experiences for literally every use case.

Today, I’m pleased to share some new products and updates to our Azure hybrid portfolio that ultimately help address a wider range of customer needs.

Expanding the Azure Stack family

Since Azure Stack become globally available in 2017, it has captivated customers as a unique offering to build and run cloud-native applications with consistent Azure services on premises including disconnected locations. Today, Azure Stack is available in 92 countries with 8 announced hardware partners and customers like Airbus Defense & Space, KPMG Norway, and iMOKO are using it to enable hybrid and edge scenarios. We continue to expand Azure Stack offerings to meet a broader set of customer needs, so they can run virtualized applications in their own datacenter.

Introducing Azure Stack HCI Solutions. When considering their full application portfolio, customers want to upgrade a set of existing applications to run on modern hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) for efficiency and performance gains. And, while this is often an approach for “legacy” applications, in moving to HCI, customers can now also benefit from a hybrid cloud HCI solution. We are bringing our existing HCI technology into the Azure Stack family for customers to run virtualized applications on-premises with direct access to Azure management services such as backup and disaster recovery. Azure Stack HCI solutions feature the same software-defined compute, storage, and networking technology as the existing Azure Stack, and include simplified cloud access via the Azure hybrid services in Windows Admin Center. Azure Stack HCI is the newest solution to join the broad set of hybrid capabilities from Azure. You can learn more about Azure Stack HCI in Arpan Shah’s blog.

More customer options for Azure Stack. The Azure Stack ecosystem is growing in more ways than one today. Dell EMC Tactical Microsoft Azure Stack is now generally available, bringing Azure-consistent cloud to operating environments where network connectivity is limited and/or mobility and high portability are required – in remote and rugged circumstances. This new offering enables Azure Stack to support an even wider range of use-cases, while still delivering a consistent hybrid cloud approach.

Delivering more innovation at the edge

Hybrid cloud is evolving from being only the integration of a datacenter with the public cloud, to becoming units of computing available at the edge, including even the world’s most remote destinations, working in concert with public cloud. You can read more about this new era we call intelligent cloud and intelligent edge in an earlier blog. What’s compelling about the intelligent edge is many of the same patterns and principles for hybrid applications apply to edge applications. That means investments our customers make today in a hybrid cloud, and the skillsets developed from running these hybrid applications, position them to take advantage of edge computing and tools that can yield even bigger benefits in the future. Toward the goal of helping customers tap into this potential, I am very excited to announce some new edge capabilities.

Azure Data Box Edge is now available. Today is the general availability of Azure Data Box Edge. We previewed the Data Box Edge appliance with edge compute and network data transfer capabilities last September. Data Box Edge provides a cloud managed compute platform for containers at the edge, enabling customers to process data at the edge and accelerate machine learning workloads, powered by Azure Machine Learning and Intel Arria 10 FPGA. Data Box Edge also enables customers to transfer data over the internet to Azure in real-time for deeper analytics or model retraining at cloud scale or for long term storage, as does the Azure Data Box Gateway virtual appliance that is also available today. You can read more about both and how customers like Cree and Esri are already using Data Box Edge via Dean Paron’s blog.

This week: Join me for a Hybrid Cloud Virtual Event

You can learn more about Azure hybrid cloud, and in the meantime, I hope you’ll join me later this week as I host a virtual event focused on hybrid cloud for enterprises. I’m looking forward to talking with customers, analysts and technical leaders about how they’re approaching hybrid cloud – including what’s working and what they’ve learned. We’ll cover topics like application innovation, security and governance, migration, edge computing – and more. The event is Thursday, March 28, 2019 at 8:00 AM Pacific Time, and you can register here.