Microsoft Ignite was a landmark year for the developer conference, with Microsoft taking a markedly more aggressive stance in positioning the benefits of Azure relative to AWS and Google Cloud, highlighting performance gains in Azure Synapse relative to Google BigQuery and Amazon RedShift. Azure is undoubtedly where Microsoft’s priorities, and futures reside, with the bulk of news announced at Ignite either directly relating or at minimum tying in to Microsoft’s cloud services platform.

Despite that head-to-head competition, Microsoft’s key Azure announcements are on Azure Arc, a solution that allows for management of external resources inside Azure’s native management interface, in an attempt to position Azure at the center of hybrid cloud deployments.

Microsoft also touted their partnerships and focus on quantum computing, announcing partnerships with 1QBit, Honeywell, IonQ, and QC, and announcing Azure Quantum, their “full-stack, open cloud ecosystem.”

These are just a few of the dozens of announcements made by Microsoft and partners at Ignite 2019. Check out more of TechRepublic and ZDNet’s roundup of show coverage in this special TechRepublic Premium ebook.