In about two weeks, Microsoft was scheduled to host its annual MVP summit at its offices in Seattle, Washington. The company has started notifying attendees today that the company is canceling the in-person event and will move to a virtual event instead.
The company is making this change because of the COVID-19 virus, also known as the Coronavirus, that has been spreading rapidly throughout the world. Last month, Microsoft warned that its earnings for the current quarter would be impacted due to manufacturing restrictions in China for its Surface hardware and its OEMs not building new devices too.
The next question is if Microsoft will cancel its developer conference that is taking place in May. At this time, the company has not made any decisions but if the virus continues to spread, it would not be unheard of for the event to move to a digital-only event.
This year, large conferences are under pressure from the virus as vendors are pulling out of major events; Microsoft is no longer attending GDC, Mobile World Congress was canceled, and many other events have been impacted as well.