Microsoft Cloud Show

This week Microsoft dropped the news of its biggest acquisition to date and AC and CJ dive in to dissect it from their points of view.

News

• Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone, across every device
• Microsoft deal to buy Activision Blizzard will likely go through, says MKM’s Handler
• Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion
• Sony reminds Microsoft of contractual obligations to make Activision games cross-platform
• Generally available: Azure Kubernetes support for upgrade events
• Generally available: Containerd support for Windows in AKS
• General availability: FIPS enabled node pool in Azure Kubernetes
• General availability: Ultra disks support on AKS
• Public preview: Kubernetes version alias support in AKS
• Public preview: Support for managed identity in Azure Cache for Redis
• Azure Machine Learning Announcements – January 2022 General Availability Announcement

Picks

AC’s Pick

• We Booped the Sun

CJ’s Pick

• Hark back to the late 1990s with this re-creation of the dialup Internet experience

In this episode, AC & CJ catch you up on the news, explore what’s new in Microsoft 365, and then explore the Azure App Configuration service that developers can use in maintaining centralized configuration in their distributed cloud apps.

What’s New in Microsoft 365

• MC286990 - Exchange Online and Basic Auth
• MC288054 - Configuration Change: Power BI app for Microsoft Teams automatic installation and availability for government customers

News

• The future of Skype: Fast, playful, delightful & buttery smooth​
• Microsoft 365 MFA outage locks users out of their accounts
• Trump pushing Microsoft to buy TikTok was ‘strangest thing I’ve ever worked on,’ says Satya Nadella
• Microsoft opens its Windows store up to third-party app stores
• Announcing Cloudflare R2 Storage: Rapid and Reliable Object Storage, minus the egress fees
• Cloudflare R2 Storage
• Azure App Configuration documentation
• Getting started with Azure App Configuration | Azure Friday
• How Azure App Configuration helps developers roll out new features | Azure Friday

Picks

AC’s Pick

• LuLaRich

CJ’s Pick

• A hamster has been trading cryptocurrencies in a cage rigged to automatically buy and sell tokens since June - and it’s currently outperforming the S&P 500

In this episode, AC & CJ restart their “What’s new in Microsoft Azure” bi-weekly segment, talk about the upcoming Windows announcement, and tackle more Azure and Microsoft 365 news!

What’s New In Microsoft Azure

• Azure announces general availability of scale-out NVIDIA A100 GPU Clusters: the fastest public cloud supercomputer
• Azure Cost Management and Billing updates – May 2021
• General availability: Azure API Management Premium tier price reduction for incremental purchased units
• Azure Storage Blob inventory public preview is now available in all public regions
• Event Hubs Premium now available in public preview
• General availability: Logic Apps with new hosting options

News

• Azure at Microsoft Build recap: build amazing things on your terms, anywhere
• New Azure capabilities to simplify deployment and management
• Azure is the home for your enterprise Java applications
• Public preview: Log Analytics workspace insights from Azure Monitor
• Public preview: Export Azure Monitor logs to multiple destinations
• Migrate content from Box, Dropbox, and Google Workspace into Microsoft 365 - release update
• Microsoft to reveal its next generation of Windows on June 24th
• Microsoft has turned the Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox
• Backbone
• Microsoft Teams Calls will soon include end-to-end encryption
• Kinda a big announcement

Picks

AC’s Pick

• Unsupervised 3D Neural Rendering of Minecraft Worlds

CJ’s Pick

• Building a PC, Part IX: Downsizing

This week AC and CJ discuss CJ leaving his current day job, the latest Teams, Azure, Facebook news and they dive into Microsoft's latest financial results.

News

• What’s New in Microsoft Teams | April 2021
• Nadella: Microsoft Teams Users Nearly Doubled Since Start of Pandemic
• Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams - Improve student reading fluency, save time and track progress
• Announcing Viva Learning public preview
• Microsoft releases Office 2021 for Mac preview
• Beyond Calibri: Finding Microsoft’s Next Default Font
• Microsoft 365 apps now available for Amazon Fire tablets
• Facebook Workplace reaches 7 million paid subscribers
• Microsoft acquires Kinvolk to accelerate container-optimized innovation
• Upgrade your infrastructure with the latest Dv5/Ev5 Azure VMs in preview
• Azure Cost Management and Billing updates – April 2021
• Microsoft’s Earnings Release FY21 Q3

Picks

AC’s Picks

• Launch Complex 39 Lego Instructions
• Perseverance Mars Rover Lego Model Instructions

CJ’s Picks

• I Now Own the Coinhive Domain. Here’s How I’m Fighting Cryptojacking and Doing Good Things with Content Security Policies.
• Shelly2.5

This past week saw what looks like one of the worst security compromises in decades. AC and CJ dive into how it happened and discuss some of the details on how it has impacted Microsoft 365 customers. Oh, and they discuss Google's recent massive outage too.

Banter

• ShareGate’s holiday message
• China recovers Chang’e-5 moon samples after complex 23-day mission

News

• Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, and other Google services hit by massive outage
• Securely manage and autofill passwords across all your mobile devices with Microsoft Authenticator
• Microsoft 365 Message Center Rollup
  • 229331: Prester View in Teams Presentation Sharing
  • 229143: Update to Microsoft 365 and Outlook for Windows connectivity
  • 229161: Yammer APIs: URL changes to user, communities, or network photos
• Powerful ways to connect SharePoint team sites, files, lists and pages as tabs in Microsoft Teams
• Important steps for customers to protect themselves from recent nation-state cyberattacks
• Customer Guidance on Recent Nation-State Cyber Attacks
• Microsoft unleashes ‘Death Star’ on SolarWinds hackers in extraordinary response to breach
• Malicious Domain in SolarWinds Hack Turned into ‘Killswitch’
• Advanced Persistent Threat Compromise of Government Agencies, Critical Infrastructure, and Private Sector Organizations

Picks

AC’s Picks

• Watch: BMW Made the World’s First Electrified Wingsuit. It Reached 186 MPH on Its First Flight.
• Rocket Bird

CJ’s Pick

• My hunt for the El Chapo McLaren F1