Demand Grows for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform

Microsoft announces new features along with a growing demand for its Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, outlined on the Microsoft blog by James Phillips, Corporate Vice President, Applications Group. The 2019 release wave 2 plan includes AI Builder, AI capabilities, and a new look for Power BI, PowerApps Portals, and enhancements for Microsoft Flow, all coming this year. The company also shared some important news and new capabilities. For more on that, you can read the full article by Phillips here.

Demand Grows for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform

Analyst Take:  Last week Microsoft Business Applications had a significant week with a vast number of important announcements that continue to empower the organization to do more with their data; a critical capability for companies investing in digital transformation.  As a quick recap, here are the five major announcements:

1. Introduction of AI Builder

2. Enhanced intelligence in Microsoft Flow

3. Blockchain for Powerapps and Flow

4. Powerapps Portals

5. New Look and AI for Power BI

Note: At the bottom of the article, I share the individual announcements if you want to read more.

Microsoft’s Focus: Simplifying Business Applications, Big Data, and AI

Upon reading through the announcements, it is easy to conclude that Microsoft is putting tremendous weight on simplifying business applications, big data, and AI. With a focus on citizen developers, Microsoft is seeking to empower companies to be able to achieve more with data without building large data science teams. This isn’t to say that their tools won’t work well for data scientists, because it is clear that they will, but the flexibility certainly democratizes these critical technologies.

The Microsoft Advantage — Azure

Microsoft has an inherent advantage in their continued growth in business applications that makes them a force that will continue to gain marketshare from the likes of Salesforce, and that is Azure. Salesforce, regardless of their vast acquisitions, does not have the level of integration between a company’s complete data landscape and the company’s ERP, CRM and business applications. In fact, for Salesforce users, I can see many valuable uses of Microsoft Business Applications that will help them get more from their Salesforce deployments.

With powerful tools, like those announced over the last week, Microsoft is showing their commitment to empowering businesses, with and without significant data science resources to both build the centralized data repository and execute upon the potential of machine learning and AI by building applications that enhance customer experience.

I expect Microsoft Business Applications + Azure Cloud to continue to serve as the foundation for companies looking to expedite their ambitions of transformation with data and AI.

Image credit: Pixabay

For more on the individual announcements from Microsoft:

AI Builder: Introducing AI Builder for the Power Platform

Microsoft Flow Updates: May Updates for Microsoft Flow

PowerApps Portals: Announcing PowerApps Portals to create websites for external users

Power BI Updates: Announcing New AI and Enterprise features for Power BI

Check out some of my recent articles:

Microsoft Oracle Partership: Focused on Cloud Interoperability

Microsoft Build 2019: A Responsible Platform For Continued Growth

Microsoft Beats Earnings Estimates — Eclipsing $1 Trillion Market Cap

The original version of this article was first published on Futurum Research.