Ignite is the new enterprise IT conference Microsoft has created to absorb all the other program specific conferences. Now IT professionals have one big event which covers all the topics they will need to know about. Microsoft wants IT to have exposure to all the different products and services Microsoft has to offer. Ignite also eases the conference tour for IT staff and their expense reports. In a recent post Microsoft uses every fire related pun to clarify exactly what to expect at Ignite.
May 4th-8th 2015 is the date for Microsoft Ignite in Chicago. At the event there will be all the big speakers from Microsoft, Satya Nadella, Brad Anderson, Joe Belfiore, Dave Campbell, Peggy Johnson, Chris Jones, Julie Larson Green, and Gurdeep Singh Pall to name a few. These speakers represent Microsoft from Windows Phone, to user experience, to server because IT professionals need the tools to manage all of these products and understand how to best serve their companies.
Microsoft has also given a renewed clarity to what conferences Ignite will be replacing. Stating explicitly, “[s]o there’s no confusion: Microsoft Management Summit + Microsoft Exchange + SharePoint + Lync + Project + TechEd conferences = Microsoft Ignite.” Does Microsoft unifying their conference mean they look to unify their products, yes and no. Microsoft has a range of products and some overlapping between consumer and business. So Microsoft has been merging some and defining others more clearly. With the shift to one Windows platform with Windows 10 and more business getting on the cloud, Microsoft clearly wants to be a one stop shop for every enterprise need.
