Microsoft : FY22Q2 Product Release List

MICROSOFT QUARTERLY HIGHLIGHTS, PRODUCT RELEASES, AND ENHANCEMENTS FY22 Q2

Every quarter Microsoft delivers hundreds of products, either as new releases, services or as enhancements to current products and services. These releases are a result of significant research and development investments, made over multiple years, designed to help customers be more productive and secure and to deliver differentiated value across the cloud and the edge.

Following are the major product releases and other highlights for the quarter, organized by product categories, to help illustrate how we are accelerating innovation across our businesses while expanding our market opportunities.

Microsoft 365 Consumer/Commercial

Microsoft Viva Connections delivers a single, company-branded destination for the entire workforce to access company news, tasks, resources, shifts, and more in the flow of their work. It also includes third party integrations from industry leading partners such as Qualtrics, ServiceNow, and UKG.

Microsoft Viva Insights helps improve productivity and wellbeing through data-driven, privacy-protected insights and recommendations.

MicrosoftViva Learning connects content from a company's organization, learning management systems, third-party providers and Microsoft. New capabilities include search across all the learning sources connected to Viva Learning, ability to share and recommend learning content to teams and colleagues, and a curated set of learning resources as a tab in Teams channels.

Viva Learning third-party integrations connect learning providers and learning management systems to Viva Learning.

Microsoft Vivasuite brings together Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Topics and Viva Learning as a single solution to ensure every employee is connected to their organization's culture, personal productivity insights, expert knowledge and key learning resources.

The Frontline Worker onboarding wizard in the Microsoft 365 admin center simplifies onboarding frontline workers to your organization.

The November 2021 update (also known as version 21H2) of Windows 10 includes new features and functionality via a fast and reliable update experience. We are also transitioning to a new Windows 10 release cadence to align with the Windows 11 cadence, targeting annual feature update releases. This replaces the semi-annual cadence.

With the introduction of Windows 11, Endpoint analytics in Endpoint Manager demonstrate readiness from the work from anywhere report and Windows Upgrade enhancements that help customers schedule upgrades, provide safeguard hold alerts and simplify the licensing agreement with Window 11 upgrades for customers with cloud connected endpoints and on-premises.

Office Long Term Servicing Channel provides a locked-in-time version of familiar productivity tools that can't connect to the internet.

Office 2021 includes new co-authoring features, inking tools, data types, functions, translation and editing tools, motion graphics, ease-of-use features, and more.

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition and Project Server Subscription Edition, the next on-premises versions of the servers of SharePoint Server and Project Server, focus on the specific needs of on-premises customers and include new features to help simplify management, improve customers' security posture, and streamline their upgrade from earlier versions of SharePoint Server and Project Server.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams Essentials brings together features small businesses need to serve customers, including unlimited group video calls for up to 30 hours, group chat, file sharing and calendaring.

Microsoft Teams virtual visits on mobile browser gives customers and patients the ability to join their virtual visit from a mobile browser without needing to install an app.

Microsoft Whiteboard delivers 40+ new customizable templates, ability to insert images and shapes, and eight new reactions to bring people together in a rich visual collaboration workspace.

Presenter mode "Standout" enables customers to overlay video feeds on PowerPoint presentation slides during a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Microsoft Loop components enable customers to create live, collaborative components that can be edited in the flow of their work, whether in chat, meetings, email or documents.

End-to-end encryption (E2EE)for one-on-one Teams calls gives IT admins the option to enable and control features for their organizations.

New Microsoft Teams Phone capabilities,include:

· Operator Connect, bridges existing operator PSTN service and phone numbers.

· Expansions to the Microsoft Teams Calling Plans provides PSTN service to users without on-premises equipment.

· Teams Phone now supports dynamic E911 for U.S.-based users, allowing for auto-detection of their locations, or the ability to provide editable locations to alert personnel in the event of an emergency.

· SIP Gateway enables customers looking to leverage their existing telephone hardware as they move to Teams Phone, to use core Teams calling functionality on compatible SIP phone models from Cisco, Poly, Yealink and AudioCodes.

· Custom Music on Hold gives tenant administrators the ability to configure the audio being played to PSTN callers when they are placed on hold.

· Branch Office Survivability on Teams phones enables PSTN calls even when a network connection is unavailable.

Newly certified Teams devices for Medium and Large Rooms include :

· Yealink UVC86 4K Dual-Eye Tracking Camera, which has a built-in dual-eye 4K camera with a panoramic camera to detect participants in real time and a PTZ camera to capture the best picture of everyone in the room.

· Yealink MVC660 Microsoft Teams Rooms system includes a UVC86 4K dual-eye tracking camera to detect participants in real time and a PTZ camera, a smart MSpeech speakerphone, MCore mini-PC, and MTouch II touch panel.

Multiple features currently available to Microsoft's commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now available to customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD). These features include: Presenter Mode (Standout, Reporter and Side-by-Side);Up to 25K members per team in GCC- High; Present from PowerPoint to Teams, Together Mode, Guest Access between tenants inside the GCC-High Cloud, Guest access support on mobile for GCC- High and DOD; Teams device management in DOD and a number of other important capabilities.

Hot desking on Microsoft Teams display allows employees to quickly locate and reserve flexible workspaces to touch down, make calls, set up ad-hoc meetings or sign in to access their personalized Teams experience

Microsoft Teams users have now the ability to purchase third-party Teams app subscriptions from the Teams store.

Windows

Windows 11 launched with a new and simplified user experience, powerful new productivity tools, ways to connect, and easy access to important content.

Windows 11 SE, a new edition of Windows 11 purpose-built to support the K-8 classroom, brings performance enhancements that optimize resources on low-cost devices to deliver more comprehensive learning experiences.

Windows 365 securly streams Windows 10 or 11 via the cloud..

With Windows 11 Microsoft launched an all-new Microsoft Store , a single trusted location for apps and content to watch, create, play, work and learn. Additionally based on recent progressive Store policy changes the Microsoft Store welcomed other store front apps to our store like Epic's and Amazon's app store.

Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 expands to become the all-in-one digital contact center solution with the addition of the voice channel.

Tax Calculation service is a low-code globalization microservice that enhances the tax determination and calculation capabilities in Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights capabilities specifically focused on B2B scenarios provide the ability to easily track relationships between accounts and contacts and also easily build B2B-specific measure, such as calculating measures based on aggregated subaccount data (e.g., revenue).

Microsoft Power Platform

ThePower BI app for Teams seamlessly includes data in chats, meetings, calendar invites and Teams channels.

Azure Purview + Power BI allow users to discover and govern all their hybrid data. Capabilities include enumeration of Power BI assets, tracking end-to-end data lineage (such as sub-artifact lineage for datasets), data-source impact analysis, assigning glossary terms to Power BI content, finding trustworthy data with endorsed artifacts, and data protection.

Robotic process automation (RPA) is built into Microsoft Power Automate in Windows 11. The low-code automation experience in Power Automate provides a solution for developers and non-developers alike to automate routine tasks from their Windows desktop.

Power Virtual Agents supports voice chats when connected to Dynamics 365 Customer Service as part of the all-in-one digital contact center solution.

Microsoft Industry Cloud

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services provides capabilities to manage data to deliver differentiated experiences, empower employees, and combat financial crime by integrating existing and new capabilities.

LinkedIn

Launched new tools to help job seekers navigate The Great Reshuffle, including new remote/hybrid/on-site filters within the job search experience and Open to Work feature, and Service Marketplace.

Expanded access to LinkedIn Live and Newsletters in Creator Mode.

Group Identity for B2B leverages first-party data to group members together based on shared professional identity attributes, such as seniority and industry.

Launched new Pages features, including My Company tab updates and the introduction of workplace policies, as part of a larger announcement about career awakenings.

A newly redesigned Sales Navigator homepage experience, including a refreshed Alerts Feed, helps sellers prioritize the most meaningful actions and keep track of buyer job transitions during the Great Reshuffle.

Security, Compliance and Identity

Microsoft Priva helps customers safeguard personal data and build a privacy-resilient workplace.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud, formerly known as Azure Security Center and Azure Defender, extends Cloud Security Posture Management and Workload Protection capabilities to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Microsoft Endpoint Manger includes management of Linux desktops and enables organizations to deploy security configurations directly to devices with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

Microsoft's Unified Data Loss Prevention (DLP) offering includes macOS.

Microsoft Defender for IoT, formerly Azure Defender for IoT, adds agentless monitoring capabilities to secure enterprise IoT devices connected to IT networks (like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), printers, and smart TVs).

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, formerly Microsoft Cloud App Security, adds a new application governance capability.

Microsoft Sentinel, offers more than 100 solutions for data collection in a new content hub for easy discovery and deployment.

Compliance Manager extends to include Azure and Dynamics 365 assessment templates.

Communications Compliance adds new capabilities including day zero insights, deeper integration with Microsoft Teams, advanced reporting capabilities, additional language support, and richer onboarding to make it easier to get started.

Advanced eDiscovery's include new features and experiences to support legal, compliance and investigative teams to discover relevant data.

Insider Risk Management adds several features, previously in Public Preview, including analytics, policy customization, and AAD Leaver signals and triggers.

Microsoft Information Protection adds several key enhancements to intelligence and built-in capabilities across Microsoft 365 applications and services.

Microsoft Information Governance introduces four new ways to govern content in Microsoft Teams.

Azure Active Directory expands identity-security capabilities. Conditional Access includes filters for devices to enable more granular access policies and GPS-location based policies that can be enabled via Microsoft Authenticator. Identity Protection includes detections for anomalous tokens and unfamiliar sign-in properties, and risk analysis workbook to help visualize risk data and response effectiveness.

Azure Active Directory expands coverage of the backup authentication service that provides additional layer of resilience to applications access in case of a service interruption.

Azure

Following is a select list of generally available Azure products, services, and enhancements for the quarter. A full list can be found at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/

Azure Hybrid Infrastructure

Azure Stack HCI new feature updateprovides production-level technical support with enhanced capabilities.

Azure Data

SQL Server IaaS Agent extends to Linux platforms, giving users the ability to use the license management features of the SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines blade.

Flexible Server is fully compatible with community PostgreSQL, and provides maximum control through custom maintenance windows and additional configuration parameters for fine-grained tuning, giving users zone redundant high availability and the control for timing for patches and upgrades.

Flexible Server architecture provides low latency, predictable performance, IOPS scaling independent of storage, and zone resiliency. Flexible Server also provides the ability to stop/start your server, burstable compute, and Reserved Instance pricing. With Terraform support, users can now easily manage different configurations efficiently based on application needs. The Terraform template-based configuration files allows users to define, provision, and configure your Azure Database for MySQL.

Azure Cosmos DB updates give users the ability to specify data updates to reduce network payload sizes, as well as avoid an extra read operation if an update fails concurrency checks

Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra automates deployment, scaling, and management operations for open-source Apache Cassandra datacenters.

Now supported in Azure Cache for Redis, Redis 6.0 includes a new feature and a set of smaller performance enhancements, security boosts and developer productivity features.

Azure Analytics

Serverless SQL pools in Azure Synapse Analytics enable users to read data stored in Delta Lake format, commonly used by data engineers who are working with Apache Spark pools in Azure Synapse Analytics and Azure Databricks.

Apache Spark in Azure Synapse enables the ability to scale within a minimum and maximum number of executors required at the pool, Spark job or notebook session level.

Azure Serverless and App Dev Services

Azure App Service for .NET 6 gives application developers the capabilities offered by .NET 6.

Web PubSub supports both native and serverless WebSockets, so developers can leverage the publish-subscribe messaging pattern and let Web PubSub handle the real-time communication requirements between an application and web and mobile client.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) product updates Open Service Mesh add-on, clusters without local user accounts, and Secret Store CSI driver configureaccess control policies, and monitoring and debugging of application communications for your microservices.

Additionally, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) feature to allow for Azure Active Directory (AAD) integrated clusters to be created without any local admin user account.

Clients of App Service and Azure Functions using OpenID Connect can use a custom authentication provider that adheres to the OpenID Connect specification.

Developer Tools and Services

Visual Studio 2022 improves performance with 64-bit support and new enhancements to developer productivity including whole-line code completion in IntelliCode. Included is .NET 6 which provides a unified SDK, libraries, and toolchain and new framework capabilities for building web, native and hybrid apps for any device or operating system.

Azure AI

Azure Translator adds 12 new languages, now supporting more than 100 languages and dialects.

Azure IoT

Windows 10 IoT Enterprise is the latest operating system offering for embedded and IoT devices and includes Microsoft Edge Browser Support, Customizable Windows IoT Update UX, Soft Real-Time, Unified Write Filter Updates, Windows Subsystem for Linux, GPU Compute Support, and adding WPA3 H2E standards support for enhanced Wi-Fi security.

Azure Datacenter

Microsoft announced the launch of its sustainable datacenter region in Sweden, marking a major milestone for customers in Sweden and across Europe and enabling access to Azure and Microsoft 365, with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform coming in the near future.

Azure Space updates include SpaceEye, enhanced imagery with Project Turingand new partnerships with Airbus, Esri, Blackshark.ai, and Orbital Insight on Azure.

Azure Migration and Modernization Program (AMMP) / FastTrack for Azure

New product and program investments in Azure migration and modernization include expanded scenarios support within AMMP and the following AMMP enhancements:

· AMMP will help customers by deploying Azure Arc to workloads that aren't planned or ready to move yet.

· Extended focus on security in AMMP with guidance and deployment assistance for services like Azure Security Center and Azure Defender.

· App Modernization coverage in AMMP will include support for Azure Red Hat OpenShift and cloud-native app patterns, including serverless, containers and microservices architectures.

· FastTrack for Azure is the enablement engine for these investments and helps customers accelerate and de-risk their deployments.

Surface

Surface Laptop Studio includes 11th Gen Intel® Core™ H35 processors and NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ GPUs.

Surface Pro 8 is the first Surface Pro built on the Intel® Evo™ platform on select configurations and combines the power of a laptop with the flexibility of a tablet, with the iconic Kickstand and detachable Keyboard with built-in Slim Pen storage and charging.

Surface Go 3 includes an Intel® Core™ processor, all-day battery, tablet-to-laptop versatility, built-in Microsoft security, and optional LTE Advanced.

Surface Duo 2 capabilities include two distinct screens, lightning-fast 5G, optimized audio in every mode, and new triple-lens camera to capture, edit and share moments.

Surface Slim Pen 2 features a built-in haptic motor that activates micro-vibrations while notetaking and drawing, delivering the most natural, intuitive and accurate Surface inking experience ever - recreating the feeling of pen on paper while using Windows 11.

Ocean Plastics Mouse is made with 20% recycled ocean plastic from plastic waste recovered from oceans and waterways, and cleaned and processed into recyclable plastic resin pellets. Connects wirelessly to your Windows laptop via Bluetooth® 5.0 LE.

Surface Adaptive Kit is the result of designing in partnership with people with disabilities, making it easier to use and navigate. Keycap labels, three-dimensional stickers, port indicators, and openers let you make small adjustments to improve finding, opening, and using your compatible devices and accessories.

Surface Pro X is a Wi-Fi-only model running on Microsoft SQ2 ARM silicon and designed for Windows 11.

Surface Laptop SE is the first Surface specifically made for K-8 students, with an 11.6" screen, front-facing 720p HD camera and stereo speakers.

Gaming

Age of Empires IV launched on the Microsoft Store, Steam and with Xbox Game Pass as the franchise's first numbered title in 16 years and includes a variety of new challenges and features.

Forza Horizon 5 launched on Xbox consoles, PC on Windows and Steam, and with Xbox Game Pass including Cloud Gaming (Beta). In addition, Xbox launched the limited-edition Forza Horizon 5 Xbox Wireless Controller featuring racing-inspired custom grips and a first-ever transparent yellow finish.

To commemorate Xbox's 20th anniversary, Xbox launched the Xbox Wireless Controller - 20th Anniversary Special Edition and the Xbox Stereo Headset - 20th Anniversary Special Edition, available in select Xbox markets worldwide at various retailers including Microsoft Store.

Xbox teamed up with adidas to release three; console-inspired sneakers to celebrate 20 years of play from October through December: The Xbox 20th Forum Tech, Xbox 360 Forum Mid and Xbox Forum Tech Boost.

Xbox also partnered with Gucci to unveil 100 limited-edition bundles in honor of their anniversaries, including a custom Xbox Series X console, Xbox Wireless Controllers, Xbox Game Pass membership and a hard case inspired by Gucci's archival luggage..

To celebrate Halo's 20th anniversary, Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 - Halo Infinite Limited Edition and the Xbox Series X Halo Infinite Limited Edition Bundle launched.

with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

Microsoft Flight Simulator: Game of the Year Edition launched as a free update for existing players. Additionally, the Reno Air Races paid expansion released in the in-sim Marketplace.

Minecraft launched Part II of the Caves & Cliffs Update, which completed the latest content update for Minecraft.

Minecraft also became the first property on YouTube to pass one trillion views. YouTube partnered with Minecraft on a celebratory campaign and full Culture & Trends Report.

Halo Infinite's campaign launched on Xbox consoles, PC on Windows and Steam, and with Xbox Game Pass including console, PC and Cloud Gaming (beta).

Microsoft Search, Advertising, News and Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Advertising recently released products include:

Microsoft Customer Experience Platform gives marketers control of their customer data to personalize, automate and orchestrate along the customer decision journey.

Four new Marketing with Purpose Business Attributes give companies the ability to identify ads that are Asian-owned, Latin-owned, women-owned and diabetic-friendly.

Spanish ads in the U.S. market serves when the user self-identifies as Spanish-speaking or when the query is in Spanish.

Microsoft Audience Ads expand to 18 new markets.

Facebook badge gives companies the capability to add branding to Facebook presence in ads.

Microsoft Clarity for Microsoft Advertising empowers marketers to use data to make decisions on their websites and within advertising campaigns and free website analytics to understand user behavior and engagement on landing pages.

Shopify integration gives Shopify merchants in the United States and Canada the ability to reach more customers using the updated Microsoft Channel app in their Shopify store.

Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Bing recently released enhancements include:

Efficiency mode extends battery life when laptops enter battery saver mode and significantly reduces system resource usage like CPU and RAM.

Best browser for holiday shopping, plus making a difference when shopping online with Microsoft Edge & Bing.

· Microsoft Edge can now keep an eye on recently viewed products and alert users of price changes.

· Microsoft Bing has partnered with Good On You, a platform that rates fashion brands based on their performance on a host of sustainability and social responsibility metrics.

Stay safer online with Microsoft Edge with the option to update passwords and create online accounts with just one click.

Microsoft Edge gives users the ability to quickly view Office files in the browser, such as documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, without needing to download the file and then open it in a different application.

Microsoft Edge helps make PDFs made even easier by allowing users to pick up where they left off, add free form text boxes, and highlight sections in PDFs.

Cloud Site List Management lets enterprises manage their site lists for IE mode in the cloud without needing on-premises infrastructure to host their organization's site list.

The Detached Elements tool in Microsoft Edge DevTools helps customers and developers investigate and resolve DOM memory leaks.

WebQA, a multihop, multimodal and open domain reasoning challenge and benchmark tracks long term progress for large-scale QA models needs reasoning over linguistic notions of meanings and visually grounded ones.

IndexNow is a new protocol created by Microsoft Bing and Yandex, allowing websites to easily notify search engines whenever their website content is created, updated, or deleted.

Page insights on the Microsoft Bing search results page aims to solve for those challenges by providing summarized insights from a page in search results.

Travel from Microsoft Bing offers a simple one-stop shop with aggregated information on all facets of travel.

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