Continuing last year’s pivot to online-only events for public health reasons, Microsoft will keep at least part of its marquee tech conference virtual in 2021. Microsoft made the decision last fall to split its Ignite IT pro conference into two parts. Part 1 was in September and Part 2, Microsoft Ignite 2021, will be delivered next month from March 2-4, 2021. As the official Twitter account for Microsoft Ignite posted, “#MSIgnite? In March?? That's right. There's a second Microsoft Ignite this year. Except the second is coming first.”
Registration for Microsoft Ignite 2021 is now open. ITPro Today has five reasons why IT pros should take advantage of this virtual event.
- No Cost: Registration is free and open to anyone around the world. The only cost incurred by an enterprise is the time given to employees to attend the virtual event.
- Repeat Sessions: To accommodate the global audience, sessions delivered live during the day from Redmond, Washington where Microsoft headquarters is located, are re-broadcast in the evening and overnight to allow individuals in other time zones to easily view the content.
- Learning Zone/Connection Zone: These virtual gathering areas allow attendees to connect with peers and other IT professionals to share ideas and insight into the news and other sessions announced by Microsoft during Ignite.
- Interactive Digital Breakout Sessions: Collaboration is key during any in-person event and the technology used to delivers sessions during this part of Microsoft Ignite 2021, enables full interaction with presenters and other attendees during the sessions.
- All Skill Levels: There will be content that the entire range of employee experience will benefit from when attending Microsoft Ignite 2021. As the event website notes, “Microsoft Ignite is for anyone who is motivated to be on the frontier of innovation and tech. We recognize that the role of IT has shifted considerably, as has the way IT decisions are made. Therefore, our keynotes and sessions are meant for all roles, from developers and IT implementers to those who make large-scale purchasing decisions for enterprise tech and security solutions.”
In addition to these points, once the conference is over, all the content remains available online and accessible for initial or repeat viewing including full slide decks that were used during the initial session broadcast.
Finally, as Microsoft showed last year during both the Microsoft Build and Microsoft Ignite virtual events, these type of conferences really demonstrate the performance capabilities of Azure and Teams.
