the Power Platform: Why Free is not Cheaper.” Get a behind-the-scenes update on the current and upcoming “Learn” courses, and hear from the authors about the insights behind the first verticalized view of Ecosystem-Oriented Architecture in the Public Sector, as well as the exciting release of the new AI Strategy Framework.

Is the business value toolkit simply “another tool” attempting to explain away a leader’s decision-making in some quantifiable fashion; freeing them from the responsibility of taking action in the absence of data?

Or, does it provide a true measurement of impact, helping IT tell a compelling story of ROI? Aligning with the organization’s concepts of what “true value” means to them?

“So, here’s this company that has gone to the legal trouble to rename itself with ‘AI’ in the name, but doesn’t actually know what the thing it’s now named after is.”

There’s such extraordinary noise around AI right now, but this comes with a big dose of snake oil where every company is suddenly claiming to be an AI expert. How do organizations navigate the maze and separate the real from the hype?

Every organization on the planet ought to be thinking through its game plan for AI. But is AI on the radar of people and organizations outside the tech industry? Many have tried a proof of concept, but many have not progressed beyond that. How do we uncover scenarios where AI can really help an organization?

It’s very difficult to build a data platform today that reaches its full potential without also building Power Platform into that data platform. Power Platform’s greatest value lies not in the app, but in the data the app collects or serves back to its users. Power Platform isn’t an app phenomenon. It’s a data phenomenon. Apps are only so useful if you’re not able to use them with your organization’s data. Andrew’s new Microsoft white paper articulates so clearly—from simple to advanced—the five patterns of data integration between Power Platform and a modern data platform backed by Azure data services and Microsoft Fabric.

Ana’s and Andrew’s two-year-old prefers Ms. Rachel to the Ecosystems Show, but we’re pressing on this week answering questions that we didn’t have time to get to during our recent live panel show at the DynamicsMinds conference. How important is Copilot in the cloud ecosystem? How do you define the boundaries of an ecosystem? Is it vendor-specific? What do we need to do to be ready for AI? Where’s the best place to start with tooling and techniques needed to build an ecosystem? More!

The Ecosystem Show comes out swinging against Ryanair, and then talks tech for this special in-person recording at DynamicsMinds 2024 in Portoroz, Slovenia 🇸🇮! Join us as we survey the Microsoft cloud technology landscape with reflections from this great conference, talking ecosystem architecture, the modern data platform, AI agents, and other announcements from Microsoft Build.

Is the age of IT partners implementing software via the venerable “IT project” over? As our tech moves faster, is the tyranny of the deliverable making traditional IT projects more and more obsolete? Many consultancies are out there trying to deliver technology using a 30-year-old “project-based” model, just as many customers are still accepting (or even seeking!) this fundamentally outdated way of doing business.

Is cloud technology generally and the Microsoft Cloud specifically evolving differently in economies with different populations? The world is much bigger (or smaller?) than the United States and Europe, so what does that mean for technology? How does geographic and population variation—and different dynamics in business culture—impact cloud ecosystems around the world?

Join Mark Smith, Andrew Welch, and Will Dorrington as they take on “anchor apps”, the essential large-scale applications crucial for organizational operations, known in ecosystem-oriented architecture as “core business systems”. These apps or “workloads” are significant, particularly compared to the many, smaller apps that are bought off the shelf or developed using tools like Microsoft Power Platform. The hosts share several of their favorite examples encountered over their time working with Power Platform across sectors and geographies, including anchor apps responsible for transportation logistics, evidence collection in law enforcement, and in military operations. Despite their importance, there’s a noted lack of recognition for anchor apps developed on platforms like Power Platform or Azure, often amidst a fragmented tech landscape that leads to underutilized premium licenses. The conversation underscores the need to better recognize and leverage anchor apps to showcase the strengths and return the big value of low-code platforms.