Microsoft releases preview of its Azure cloud bot-as-a-Service

Microsoft is making available a preview of a new Azure service meant to hasten the development of bots using the Microsoft Bot Framework. Microsoft announced the Azure Bot Service preview on November 15. The service is built on Azure Functions, its serverless compute service, which allows bots to scale on demand. Microsoft's alternative to Amazon's Lambda, Azure Functions, is generally available as of today, November 15. The Azure Bot Service will enable developers to "build, connect, deploy and manage intelligent bots that interact naturally wherever your users are talking - from your app or website to text/sms, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Teams, Kik, Office 365 mail and other popular services," said officials in a blog post.