How has the cloud transformed the way we work with data? While at Build in Seattle, Richard sat down with Arun Ulag, Microsoft CVP of Azure Data, to discuss how the cloud has transformed how we work with data. The pre-cloud practice of extract-transform-and-load into OLAP cubes has given way to the data lake - you don't need to pre-process data if …

What hardware runs Azure today and into the future? While at Build in Seattle, Richard sat down with Rani Borkar to discuss the hardware that makes up Azure Compute, including examples of the new Cobalt and Maia processors! Rani talks about Cobalt first, Microsoft's ARM processor designed for workloads in the cloud. Then, a look at the Maia process…

More application platform pieces make your life better! While at Build in Seattle, Richard sat down with Buu Lam of F5 to discuss F5's latest offering, NGINX as a Service in Azure. Buu discussed how F5's products have evolved to run in the cloud, not just on their hardware. While you could run them as virtual machines or containers, providing them …

What are the hard parts of machine learning? Richard chats with Lynn Langit about her work helping the Mayo Clinic improve patient outcomes using machine learning to understand patient data better. Lynn talks about the challenges of multi-modal data analytics - taking all the different data collected from a patient, like an X-ray or video, along wi…

Have you rolled out Microsoft Defender for Cloud? Richard chats with Yuri Diogenes about the bundle of tools under the Defender for Cloud moniker. Yuri describes Defender for Cloud as a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP). This Gartner term covers the various elements that go into a cloud-native application, including APIs, servers…

How can Microsoft Copilot make your intranet better? Richard chats with Susan Hanley about her experiences adding Copilot into the intranet via the Copilot Studio and Viva Engage. Susan talks about the challenges of getting your intranet data in order - most notably, archiving old information so that it doesn't clutter up a Copilot with out-of-date…

How are your company's Apple devices connected to the enterprise? Richard talks to Michael Epping about the recent additions in Entra that support the authentication of Apple MacOS and iPadOS devices. Michael discusses Apple's Secure Enclave as the equivalent of Trusted Platform Management in Windows. With Entra Platform SSO, you can now use that a…

How can you use PowerApps to extend the functionality of other apps? Richard talks to Christina Wheeler about her efforts to teach folks to use PowerApps to add the functionality they need to Dynamics 365 and elsewhere! Christina talks about her move to Microsoft, shifting from SharePoint to PowerApps, but still essentially doing the same thing - f…

Two old guys talk about Windows AGAIN? Richard brings back Paul Thurrott for the tenth time to discuss Windows more. This time, the discussion focuses on the end of life for Windows 10 - currently October 2025. Paul discusses how it used to be April 2025, but that's not enough time. Is it enough time now? The conversation spans other Windows-relate…

Machine learning models need updating - what's the reliable way to do it? While in Romania, Richard sat down with Annie Talvasto to talk about her work helping to build DevOps practices around machine learning: Building repeatable processes for data ingestions, cleaning, organization, model building, and deployment. The challenges are the arrays of…

How's your identity governance? Richard talks to Jef Kazimer from Microsoft about Entra's capabilities to help you have robust governance around identity. Jef talks about the lifecycle of identity - when someone joins the organization and a new identity gets created, privileges changing as roles evolve, to the eventual offboarding when that person …

How does artificial intelligence fit in with SQL Server? At the Microsoft Fabric Conference in Las Vegas, Richard sat down with Muazma Fahid and Bob Ward to discuss the AI developments in SQL Server. Muazma talks about SQL Server as a crucial source of data for building machine learning models and the new features added to make SQL Server a key sto…

Have you downloaded the latest version of PowerShell? While at the MVP Summit in Redmond, Washington, Richard sat down with Sydney Smith to discuss some of the features in PowerShell 7.4. Sydney talks about the successful delivery of PSResourceGet and PSReadline, two long-in-development features that have reached their so-called "1.0" state. The co…