Microsoft has announced in recent weeks that the upcoming events scheduled on its calendar will all be kept in digital form only. And the COVID-19 pandemic to oblige this choice, with the online format that at least allows you not to miss events completely.
However, Microsoft has chosen to move forward by anticipating that the 2020 edition of the Ignite conference, scheduled for September in New Orleans, will be held only in digital form not knowing from now what the global situation will be immediately after the summer with reference to the pandemic.
Not only that: Microsoft has already chosen that all public events scheduled for 2020 will be held in digital form: in fact a "cut the bull's head" that of the American company, which in this way is protected by confirming that regardless of the global context it will hold its own events.
According to what ZDnet anticipated with this piece, this approach by Microsoft will also be followed during 2021. In particular it is MIcrosoft fiscal year 2021 that will be affected by this approach, to cover the period between the beginning of July 2020 and the end of June 2021.
It is presumable that the company will be able to communicate its strategy for public events later in the year, deciding whether to carry them out only digitally in light of the state of the pandemic. For now, the 2020 editions of Build (May), Inspire (June) and Ignite (September) will be held only in digital form.
We will see that this is the way of the future for large fairs and conventions in the coming months. Certainly the current pandemic leads to a profound review of events of this type, not only with considerations related to the health of people but also to the opportunity to invest so much in physical presences that can in some measure be replaced by remote life presences.