Microsoft Build 2020: From Azure to Microsoft 365, here's everything Microsoft announced last night

Microsoft Edge, Teams and Lists are getting a big boost this year.

Microsoft is hosting Build 2020 as an online event this year. (Microsoft)

Microsoft kicked its annual developers conference, Microsoft Build 2020, with an online event on Tuesday. The event saw the company announcing a whole bunch of updates to its products and services including Microsoft Teams, Windows 10, Microsoft 365 and its cloud computing service, Azure.

From Windows 10 to Azure, here is everything Microsoft announced last night:

Windows 10

Microsoft has introduced Project Reunion which unifies access to Win32 and UWP APIs, which would make it easier for Windows developers to build apps. The company also expanded WebView 2 with a new .NET Preview that would enable developers to embed web content within their apps using Microsoft Edge and Chromium.

Apart from this, the company announced that Windows Terminal 1.0 will now be available for enterprise use, which would help developers to run any command line executable inside multiple tabs and panes. “The Windows Terminal is available on the Microsoft Store or manually from the Terminal GitHub repo,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post.

Additionally, the company announced improvements to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Windows Package Manager Preview and Microsoft PowerToys (0.18).

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft announced a host of new features for Teams. The company has introduced new customisable templates such as a bank branch and event management. These templates would come with pre-defined channels, apps, and guidance. Admins will also be able to create new custom templates and templatise existing teams in their organization. Templates will be rolling out in Teams in the next few months.

Apart from this, Microsoft is making it easier for users to add chatbots and custom apps within the platform for automating the workflow.

“...new Teams-specific triggers and actions will enable you to create custom message extensions, automate @mentioning and message posting to channels, and customize bot names. These features are coming soon,” Microsoft added.

Another feature coming to Teams is the new Bookings app that will allow organisations to schedule, manage, and conduct business-to-consumer virtual appointments. The company has also introduced Network Device Interface (NDI) support and Skype TX interoperability for Teams. This would offer users a more advanced set of production options for both public and private, customized, high-scale broadcasts.

Fluid Framework

Microsoft had announced Fluid Framework back at Ignite 2019. Now, first Fluid Framework integrations are coming to Microsoft 365. In effect, it would allow tables, charts, and task lists to be easily inserted in Outlook for the web. “Within Office.com, Fluid workspaces can be created and managed, including within your document activity feed, Recommended list, and @mentions—or search for them across Office.com,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post.

The company also announced that it would be making the Fluid Framework open source, which in turn would allow developers and creators to use key infrastructure from Fluid Framework in their own applications.

Project Cortex

Microsoft introduced Project Cortex last year at Ignite 2019. It applies AI and the Microsoft Graph “create a knowledge network that connects your content in Microsoft 365, along with external sources, to organize content and expertise across systems and teams.” This year the company announced that Project Cortex will be available to all in early summer 2020.

Outlook

The company announced a new feature for Outlook that would allow users to compose email messages with text predictions on the web. “Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook mobile users can now view and reply to Yammer conversations, polls, questions, and praise without leaving their inbox. This feature will automatically become available for users who have email notifications from Yammer turned on,” the company announced.

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft also announced a big boost to its Edge web browser. The company in a blog post announced that Pinterest will now deliver suggestions at the bottom of users' collection. Clicking on a suggestion will open a board of similar, trending Pins so users can quickly find and add ideas relevant to them. Additionally, Collections will also soon support “Send to OneNote,” which would make it easy for users to export collections to OneNote pages.

The company is also introducing two new features to Edge. While the sidebar search will let users search for things without opening a new window or tab, Automatic Profile Switching will detect that the link users' are trying to open that needs work credentials, and then switch you to their authenticated work profile.

Microsoft Lists

Lists is getting a feature that would allow users to create, share, and track data and information directly within Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and the soon-to-be-released Lists mobile app.

Azure

Lastly, the company also made a host of announcements for Azure. First, it announced new integrations for GitHub Actions for Azure. “More than 30 GitHub Actions for Azure help your development teams easily create and automate workflows to build, test, package, release, and deploy to Azure,” the company wrote.

It also announced updates to Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Cognitive Services.