TechEd 2012: Microsoft Touts Windows Server 2012, InTune, and Azure Improvements

Delivering the keynote address at the sold-out Microsoft TechEd conference here in Orlando, Florida, Microsoft's President of the Server and Tools Business unit, Satya Nadella, told attendees that the IT industry is entering a "new era of connected devices and continuous services." Nadella's remarks kicked off the first keynote of the 20th installment of Microsoft TechEd, which has been held every year since 1993.

The first TechEd keynote address of the week highlighted the vastly improved virtualization capabilities of Windows Server 2012, new features in the Windows Azure platform, and the latest version of Windows Intune. The Windows Server 2012 release candidate (RC) has been available for download since May 30th. Microsoft Technical Fellow (and Zero Day author) Mark Russinovich demonstrated some of the new features of Windows Azure, including enhanced support for virtual networks and virtual machines, Linux virtual images, and support for additional programming languages like Python and Java. Windows IT Pro has already written about some of the new mobile device management capabilities in the latest release of Windows Intune, but Microsoft released a statement during the keynote indicating that the third release of Intune is now available for download.

While TechEd has been a bit thin on news and products announcement (so far) from the Microsoft side, one noteworthy omission has been the absence of much discussion -- at least in the keynote -- about Windows 8. Microsoft is already fighting an uphill battle in convincing IT departments to consider deploying Windows 8, and the lack of Windows 8 mentions from Microsoft so far at TechEd indicates that perhaps Microsoft is focusing more on the Windows 8 consumer story than the relevance of the OS to enterprise IT departments.

We're covering Microsoft TechEd 2012 from multiple perspectives this week, so keep checking Windows IT Pro for the latest news and announcements from the show.

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