Technology giant Microsoft is betting big on areas such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and augmented reality to woo customers and take on rivals like Google and Amazon. Meetul Patel, the chief operating officer of Microsoft India, says the company’s history combined with its new innovations provide unique propositions to customers. Edited excerpts of an interview:
What are the technology bets that Microsoft is making?
The biggest one is the cloud services that we have created. We believe... the current technology landscape will be characterised by a highly intelligent cloud infrastructure that supports, integrates [and] orchestrates a highly intelligent edge of devices of all sorts of forms and factors. And our technologies have been created to support and accelerate that world. In terms of the edge, we see a whole range of devices, small IoT (Internet of Things) sensors to large screens that someone is going to have in their homes and those need to be powered by operating systems and mechanisms that allow them all to integrate and work seamlessly with each other. We also know that the world is not going to be based on just keyboard, it is going to be multi-sensory, touch and voice and human gesture. It is going to be using biometrics like your irises, your face to engage and form security. It is going to be a very different form of (interaction, for example), augmented reality. We have got everything from HoloLens, to Surface Hub to Cortana, [which] are all the bets that we have made. All of that is integrated with business applications. We have cloud-based business solutions that allow us to help companies sell and provide services and support across all of these types of devices and sectors.
How is India adopting these technologies?
We are creating one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world. We have invested in India on that front, [with] immense amount of engineering, capacity and scalability, built into that, [and it is] supporting all sorts of platforms. India is a highly exciting market with a massive base [for] uses of technology, [these are] very early days of its adoption and [India is] an innovation hub now where people are finding [ways] to applying these technologies to solving problems that are uniquely ours and relevant to the emerging markets and more now [as we] are exporting for the rest of the world. So, we have always invested in India and believe in its potential and we see this continuing.
What are the important lessons Microsoft has learnt after observing these shifts?
Look, we have been around for a long time. We have been part of and shaped tremendous evolutions in technology from the world when we moved from mainframe to PC to networking to the Internet to mobility. We have constantly been participants and [shaping] that market. We keep transforming and adapt to what the technological context is, but more importantly, what the market context is and right now we start off with the fundamental understanding of what the world looks like. And, it’s a world of intelligent edge and intelligent cloud that I talked about and through that understanding what implication it has for the businesses and individuals to transform the organisations and their lives digitally, we know that solutions become really important.
So, we take that orientation to help show what can be done with the technology. You always have to change from a technological capability perspective, from a customer relevance perspective, that’s what happens constantly.
Microsoft is also helping automakers transform cars?
We have Connected Vehicle Platform that provides the base capabilities to allow OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), vehicle manufacturers and people that are building sensors and tools that surround the vehicle to tap into. This Connected Vehicle Platform is built and based on our Azure Cloud. It leverages services that sit on top of it like IoT and AI and machine learning services [and the] security capabilities and the data management capabilities.[There are] services that support telemetry or in-car digital life experiences or customer relationship management within the car. So, we have created... a platform on which people can build and innovate their own unique solutions. We had many partners around the world.. that are using this.
In India, we had Tata Motors [and we] have announced the relationship with Ola Play and how they do in-vehicle experiences. As India market begins to see a greater role of digital in their customers experience and in the economics of their own business... we believe that our platform will allow them to take advantage of the trend and monetise on it.
Players like Google and Amazon are also betting big on these areas.
[In]our sector, innovation feeds on innovation. As a result, the market benefits tremendously. We believe that our history, combined with our new innovations, can provide unique propositions to customers.
Our vision is to make every organisation and every person on the planet to achieve more. When you take on a vision like that, you have an understanding of not just one customer segment but all, not one market but all [and] not just one need but multiple. [In] our many years [of being in the market] we appreciate the diversity of what the world looks like and what is needed, that is embedded in what we build. We also understand that technology and its adoption is not just flip of a switch. It requires ecosystems of partners to help show you what technology can do, to help and guide you through it. And that partner ecosystem is incredibly important...and we have the largest one that exists. We understand how corporations work and what is important to them. So, all of that combined with our modern technologies that I talked about can really provide unique proposition.
