Monday, March 23, 2026

FabCon 2026 & APOS PowerBurst Publisher

Well, it seems the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference (FabCon 2026) in Atlanta was a great success, with over 6,000 attendees, 200+ breakout sessions, 20 workshops, and 70+ sponsors.

APOS was there promoting our PowerBurst Publisher solution.

Magician Danny Orleans drew a receptive crowd to PowerBurst Publisher at the APOS booth.

Vision and Roadmap Keynote Address

Arun Ulag, Corporate Vice President, Azure Data, at Microsoft delivered the keynote on the Microsoft Fabric Vision and Roadmap.

AI is tranforming the world,
but AI is only as good as the data that powers it.
Garbage in, gargage out.

Arun pointed out that Microsoft has a leadership position in all four Gartner Magic Quadrants that comprise the data and AI space, and is the only vendor that has that distinction. For Microsoft customers, this means they have all the data and AI capabilities they need, and those capabilities are best in class.

How can Microsoft improve on this position? Arun: "When I talk to my customers, we often hear that building data and AI projects is still too complex, too fragmented, and takes too long and cost too much. The message that we consistently get here from our customers is please unify. I want to be the Chief Information Officer and don't want to be the chief integration officer. Help me translate AI to my competitive advantage."

This is the role of Fabric: to be a single, unified, end-to-end platform to accelerate data and AI business transformation.

PowerBurst Publisher & Power BI - Accelerating Analytics

Within Fabric, Arun tells us that Power BI has democratized data at scale and is now used by 95% of Fortune 500 organizations.

The one word that seemed to occur most often throughout the keynote address was "accelerate." Accelerate AI adoption. Accelerate your work. Accelerate development. Accelerate analytics.

PowerBurst Publisher is an AI-ready, enterprise broadcasting solution that generates and delivers data-driven, personalized and timely analytics where and how they are needed. This solution allows you to:

• Extend insights beyond Power BI users
• Simplify access for busy stakeholders
• Bring impactful reports to more employees
• Deliver trusted reports ty your external network
• Provide precision through automation
• Unlock ROI with automation

AI Acceleration is the New Business Transformation

It seems only yesterday we were talking about how the various technology platforms were driving business transformation in enterprises around the world. No more. Now we are accelerating business transformation with AI-enabled technology stacks:

• I lost count of the number of times some variation of "acceleration" was used in the FabCon 2026 keynote address. According to Microsoft's Arun Ulag, the role of Microsoft Fabric is to be a single, unified, end-to-end platform to accelerate data and AI business transformation.
• A Futurum article on LinkedIn tells us that "Enterprise AI adoption has split into leaders and laggards." No more early and late majorities on the bell curve on the other side of Geoffrey Moore's technology adoption chasm. It's all or nothing, now or never.
• And yet, the ROI of AI, according to Deloitte, is "slow to materialize and hard to measure." (AI ROI: The paradox of rising investment and elusive returns)

Needless to say, organizations must be cognizant of what they are accelerating toward.

Showmanship vs. Substance

Excitement and enthusiasm have always been key ingredients in technology promotion and are to be expected in keynote addresses, but when you've returned home from FacCon 2026 and are reviewing your experience for key takeaways, it is essential to put aside the showmanship and focus on the substance.

P.T. Barnum once staged a show in New York City full of marvels, but he didn't make money by having people contemplate those marvels. He made money by moving people through the various exhibits as quickly as possible to let others in. To facilitate rapid turnover, he had employees running through the exhibition encouraging people to come see the next marvel, and the next, and the next. Finally, there was an employee telling people to "come and see the egress." As people followed the employee through a door, they found themselves out on the street, egress, of course, being a synonym for exit.

I've noticed that people have very different ideas about what exactly we are accelerating toward, but the P.T. Barnum parable is a useful reminder that we should keep our eyes on the ROI rather than the hype, and that ROI for the platform developer is quite different from ROI for the customer.

Publishing ROI is Concrete

One place you can be sure your investment will generate returns is with APOS broadcasting technology. PowerBurst Publisher and Publisher for Cloud both bring clarity and transparency to report broadcasting, ensuring timely and accurate reports complement your workflows, whether those workflows include agentic AI or not.