What to expect from Microsoft Build 2022

Microsoft’s annual Build developer conference is back as a virtual event this year. The three-day Microsoft Build event, to be held from May 24 to 26, will hold over 500 sessions aimed at helping developers create and improve applications and experiences. Thousands of developers, engineers, IT professionals, students, and start-ups participate in the conference every year to learn the latest about Microsoft technologies, Windows, Office, and more.

Just like the past two Builds in 2020 and 2021, this year’s event will be hosted online. The difference this year is that Microsoft will include “market-specific content” for France, Germany, Japan, Latin America, and the UK. This way, it can cater to multiple time zones.    

At Build 2021, Microsoft teased its Windows 11 announcement, unveiled Microsoft Teams to apps, and built an AI-powered auto-complete for code using GPT-3, to name a few. This year, Microsoft Build will kick off with the annual keynote on May 24 and we can expect plenty of tech-focused announcements. Here are some of the key ones we can look forward to.

‘One Outlook’ to give a new Outlook experience     

Microsoft has been working on a new Outlook experience for Windows for more than a year, but at Build 2022, it may officially announce the new email client. It is part of the highly-anticipated ‘Project Monarch’ and it’s also known as ‘One Outlook’, according to sources. This would be a big news for Windows 11 and Windows 10 users, as the new Outlook app is expected to replace all the existing Outlook clients on the desktop operating system and become the default mail app.

One Outlook is fully hosted online, moving users away from the built-in email client in Windows. A purported leak of the new all-in-one app showed that it looks very similar to the Outlook web app — much lighter and simpler than previous versions of Outlook for Windows, but more powerful. 

Microsoft One Outlook may be expected in beta at the event, and we may see the full Outlook replacement later, as The Verge quoted Scott Stiles, the vice president of product management for Outlook, saying, “The version available for download is an early unsupported test version of Outlook for Windows and is missing some of the features and enhancements that will be available for our beta testers.” 

Teams Plus Metaverse for greater collaboration    

In November 2022, Microsoft announced Mesh, an equivalent of the metaverse to bring collaborative tools in virtual reality for Teams users. Mesh uses Microsoft’s mixed reality technology with HoloLens headsets for virtual meetings, conferences, and video calls. Teams’ users will be able to join in avatars, which, at the moment, look a little less fun than Meta’s version for the metaverse. 

According to various reports, better integration of this technology would be in all of the Microsoft 365 apps and services — much like the Meta Horizon Workrooms. So, a case scenario would be when you want to collaborate on a document virtually, you can just wear your headsets and do that in your VR avatars.   

According to Paul Thurrott who runs SuperSite for Windows, a world-renowned Windows-oriented website, “Microsoft will have a session about the Metaverse featuring Nicole Herskowitz, the person responsible for Microsoft Teams product marketing, as well as Sam George, CVP of Azure IoT.”  

Along with NFTs and Web3, the Metaverse has been one of the big buzzwords of 2022, though Microsoft actually started talking about it since its Ignite conference last fall, the Thurrott blog said. So, there is a chance that Microsoft may announce on integrating Teams with the metaverse.   

Other Exciting updates  

Microsoft news watcher WalkingCat tweeted that will also have a session focusing on how Windows allows developers to create apps for many platforms including Linux, Android, and the cloud. In the session description, the company teases that it will “unveil some exciting news … you don’t want to miss this session! The session titled “Develop Windows apps on and for a rich ecosystem of platforms and devices” is set for Wednesday, May 25, from 4:00 PM to 4:45 PM EDT. Another description reads: “Satya Nadella will share how Microsoft is creating new opportunities for developers across our platforms.”    

Tech enthusiasts can also browse through the descriptions of each session from the upcoming event on Microsoft’s website (via WalkingCat on Twitter).