Dynamics 365 and Power Platform at Microsoft Ignite 2022: What the session schedule says about product priorities

Microsoft Ignite 2022 begins on October 12, and while the company will offer some in-person experiences once again, most attendees (and the media) will continue to experience the event in its digital form.

As one the company’s primary annual conferences, Ignite is designed for a global audience of power users, IT professionals, and others responsible for designing, deploying, and using technology. And as the event approaches, Microsoft has offered previews of what both Dynamics and Power Platform professionals can get from the event. Depending on their interests, attendees should prepare for some stark differences in the volume of targeted content. Dynamics pros looking for in-depth product guidance may feel underwhelmed by the options Microsoft has prepared. Those hoping for updates on Power Platform services will have more options, and that delta between the two primary solution areas of the Biz Apps world could be an indicator of how Microsoft executives plan to position and prioritize these assets more broadly.

Let’s review Microsoft’s own positioning and some details shared in the event agenda for more context.

In an automation and AI “core theme” session, attendees will “get a first-hand look at how products like Microsoft Viva Sales, Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform, and Microsoft Power Platform rapidly enable AI and automation with modern capabilities,” writes senior marketing communications manager for Dynamics 365 Keith Barnett. The session is led by two CVPs focused on Azure AI, data, and MR and lasts 25 minutes.

The Power Platform team recommends the same session, along with other high level sessions from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, one on Microsoft 365, and a cloud development keynote. Both the D365 and Power Platform teams also (unsurprisingly) recommend attending the Business Applications in Focus session, which promises to review features coming in 2022 Release Wave 2. Led by Business Applications CVP Charles Lamanna, this 40-minute session also includes other product managers.

Once we get beyond the suggestions above, the stories for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform begin to diverge. Barnett of the D365 team suggests a list of sessions only tangentially related to Dynamics products. But in his blog post, Ricardo Duncan, product marketing manager for Power Platform, has a  range of sessions from which to build a case for attending the event.

Judging by the session catalog, Barnett’s D365 suggestions seem uninspired because the options are quite limited. He highlights the Microsoft 365 session led by Microsoft CVP Jared Spataro and a thirty-minute industrial metaverse presentation led by industry marketing and consulting leaders that does not note any specific products in its title or description. The other three sessions recommended in the Dynamics 365 blog post seem to touch on Dynamics 365 or Power Platform, but only at a secondary level. For example, an update on Microsoft Viva will likely note Viva Sales, which integrates with D365 Sales. A session on Natural Language Processing will likely explain where the D365 (and perhaps Power Platform) solutions have found real use cases for the technology. And a session on the benefits of Microsoft Teams Phone and contact center capabilities might overlap with Dynamics 365 Sales and perhaps Service.