Microsoft Innovation Center Report 2010-2011 vol.13
The Eighth Microsoft IT Venture Support Program – Japan Venture Program 2011 in the U.S.A.
Published: May 23, 2011
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April 19th – 21st, 2011, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond Campus, WA, U.S.A.
Japan Venture Program 2011, a part of Microsoft IT Venture Support Program designed for Japanese IT venture companies to experience Microsoft technologies firsthand and to promote mutual interaction, was recently held. Participants from selected IT venture companies and local governments from various regions of Japan, including Yamanashi, Okayama and Okinawa prefectures, as well as the Microsoft Innovation Award 2010 Best Commercial Business Award Winner company and the Campus Venture Grand Prix Special Microsoft Award Winner visited Microsoft Corporation Redmond Campus in WA, U.S.A. This is the eighth year since the program started, and the participants attended a two-day Japan IT Venture Program seminar in the Executive Briefing Center (EBC) building.
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Enjoying the Lush Greenery of Redmond Campus
 | We realize that we have to go beyond just selling a product in the marketplace. We are trying to build a framework for government agencies to utilize technologies as Microsoft businesses. One example is the Microsoft Partners in Learning program, in which Microsoft provided training to over 8 million educators from around the world in 2003. |  | | Alan Merrihew
(Senior Director, Industry Technical Strategist, E-Gvernment)
| | |
After participants arrived in Seattle, a welcome meeting was held in the conference room of the hotel providing accommodations, and Nobuaki Nagai (Senior Manager, Business Incubation (LSE), Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Co. Ltd., Japan) explained tour schedule details and the history of Microsoft from foundation to the present. Afterwards, participants boarded a charter bus to tour the lush green Microsoft Corporation Redmond Campus. Microsoft Corporation is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, accessible by freeway 520 which crosses Washington Lake from Seattle, home to the Seattle Mariners. In fact, the Redmond campus begins at the bottom of the freeway exit. While the campus has been described here before, participants seeing it firsthand could not disguise their surprise at over 100 office buildings erected on a site spanning one kilometer in every direction. The campus is full of greenery, and sports many soccer fields and basketball courts in addition to office buildings where 30,000 employees work. Located in environmentally conscious Washington State, Redmond Campus has a number of Toyota Prius company shuttle busses which provide employees with transportation between the office buildings on the Campus, and between the Campus and nearby towns.
Although participants were adjusting to a nine hour time difference after a full schedule, they returned to the hotel and departed again that evening to attend a reception at a Seattle steak house, where they talked into the wee hours.
Sessions Packed with Wealth of Latest Information
Sessions began in No. 33 building, called EBC (Executive Briefing Center), the next morning. EBC is a conference facility used solely for briefing VIPs from around the world who visit Microsoft Corporation Redmond Campus. Over 50 seminars a year aimed at Japanese attendees are held at EBC. During Japan Venture Program 2011, participants attended a two-day special training program at this conference facility. All of the sessions are presented in English by staff actually in charge of the specialty area or product in question at Microsoft Corporation. Listening to simultaneous interpretation through their headsets, session participants busily took notes on the lecturer’s explanations and presentations.
In the first session entitled “Microsoft in Government,” Alan Merrihew (Senior Director, Industry Technical Strategist, E-Government) who has worked for 12 years on Redmond Campus, explained Microsoft’s public sector strategies and activities. Merrihew introduced the five main trends of electronic government (seamless socialization, the commoditization of computer resources, information continuity, government employee as service provider, as well as the integration of information technology, enterprise technology and commercial technology) which will occur in the next 10 years, and form the axis of Microsoft’s Connected Government Framework. Aiming to create better-served, more engaged citizens, this Connected Government Framework is based on Connected Citizens, Connected Workers and Connected Information to efficiently provide various kinds of government agency information to citizens of all ages. Microsoft also provides support through numerous programs to improve citizen engagement.
“We realize that we have to go beyond just selling products in the marketplace. We are trying to build a framework for government agencies to utilize technologies as Microsoft businesses,” explained Merrihew, “One example is the program Microsoft Partners in Learning through which Microsoft has provided training to over 8 million educators around the world since 2003. The Bizpark program also provides free access to Microsoft development environments for a limited period of three years in order to support newly-formed IT venture businesses.”
Microsoft’s encompassing vision is also put to use to respond when disaster strikes. A team called Microsoft DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) is a response team on standby 24 hours per day, ready to handle a disaster occurring anywhere on the globe. When the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami struck in March, Microsoft DART provided access to survivor information, as well as support on a number of other fronts. Participants’ feelings towards Microsoft changed as they heard the broad range of Microsoft’s vision explained.
At the second session, Sandra Roswell (Tour Host, The Microsoft Home of the Future) demonstrated MS Home, a special near future home installation within EBC. Microsoft envisions software handling advanced controls of the home of the near future, transparently performing a number of processes based on the resident user’s taste and experience. Of course, there will be no need for input by keyboard or mouse: a resident can use voice, cell phone or other desired device to control everything. For example, if put to practical use, a Smart Light Bulb (to be provided at the same price as a standard light bulb) used to light a room would read the IC tag information on any package of cooking ingredients lain on the kitchen counter. Based on a user’s vocal direction, the cooking method for a dish using that ingredient or another recipe could then be directly displayed on the counter. Participants were very surprised at the idea of walls or photo frames that could be one-dimensionally controlled in homes of the near future. While the installation used in this demonstration continually undergoes small renovations, a complete overhaul is scheduled next year to implement the latest technologies.
Alan Merrihew, who explained Microsoft's activities in the public sector in the first session, took the podium for a second time in the afternoon to explain Microsoft’s Cloud strategy in a session of the same title. Explaining that IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Structure) and SaaS (Software as a Service) are the three core axes of the Cloud strategy, Merrihew described the public Cloud, private Cloud and hybrid Cloud in detail. Participants discovered a new angle to the Cloud strategy, in which Microsoft’s strategy of “IT as a Service” is rental of computer resources similar to what takes place in a rent-a-car business model.
The Microsoft Headquarters staff's EBC sessions were scheduled so tightly down to the minute, that when participants got into animated discussion about Clouds with Nobuaki Nagai (Senior Manager, Business Incubation (LSE), Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Co., Ltd., Japan) and Youjirou Fukuchi (Business Development Manager, Business Incubation, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Co., Ltd., Japan) after the Cloud session, the next session was delayed ten minutes.
Robert Duffner (Director, Product Management) led the next Windows Azure Platform session, explaining Windows Azure as a platform in the context of Cloud computing. “Microsoft has learned a lot in the actual operation of Web services such as Bing, MSN and Hotmail,” added Duffner, “Hotmail is still the largest Cloud-based email system on the planet.” Hearing how Microsoft has drawn a line between Azure and Cloud computing platforms provided by other competitors such as Amazon and salesforce, as well as how Microsoft’s Windows Azure strategy keeps continually changing market trends in the center of its scope, each participant drew a different vision of the future Cloud computing scenario in his and her mind.
The last session of the first day at EBC concluded with a demonstration of near future information work by Karla Clark (Microsoft Envisioning Lab, Microsoft Envisioning Lab) in the special room called Microsoft Center for Information Work. As with MS Home of the previous session, recording of this demonstration which used the latest Microsoft technologies was strictly prohibited. Participants who viewed Microsoft’s Microsoft's vision of the near future before the actual demonstration were surprised again when they actually touched parts of the near future devices and interfaces demonstrated in the video. In information work of the near future, traditional input devices such as the keyboard and mouse are eliminated as much as possible in favor of direct manipulation to a degree exceeding traditional expectations. For example, gesture recognition functionality which utilizes a camera and system designed for Xbox Kinect enables a user to move his body to manipulate the screen without even touching a device. The latest I/O device prototype just delivered from Microsoft Reserch was also introduced. New mouse prototypes in which a user’s tongue manipulates an input device in his mouth were both optical and wireless types. While contact lenses with an imbedded IC chip that provide output images to a user wearing them require further development, participants who saw firsthand the various devices that will comprise the future computing environment were already trying to figure out how to tell people after returning to Japan what they experienced at Redmond Campus.
After a stimulating first day, participants enjoyed dinner with four Japanese staff working at Redmond Campus at a famous Seattle seafood restaurant. Listening intently to stories told by the Japanese staff working on the front lines at Microsoft Corporation Headquarters, some participants eagerly asked questions about the latest technologies. Participants heard that since many Japanese staff first retired from Microsoft Co. Ltd., Japan before transferring to Microsoft Corporation, there is no guarantee of returning to Microsoft Co. Ltd., Japan, and realized the challenges inherent in working at Redmond Campus.
Partners Freely Provided with Abundance of Latest Information in Sessions
| | Windows Phone 7 Series is scheduled to support HTML 5, audio and video canvas, and offline data storage this year. These will all be accelerated with hardware, which makes even more advanced processing possible, as it is with desktop IE 9. | | | Rob Tiffany
(Mobility Architect, Enterprise Services)
| | |
The curtain opened to Microsoft Lync sessions on the second day of training. Microsoft Lync is the new product into which Bill Gates is said to have put most of his development energy. Dave Kong (Product Manager), who is in charge of the product, used an actual demonstration to introduce Microsoft Lync’s exceptional features. Positioned as a successor to Office Communicator Server, Microsoft Lync is the keystone of the Microsoft Unified Communications Strategy. While the product can function alone, Microsoft Lync can provide even more advanced communication functionality if used in combination with Microsoft’s other Unified Communications Server products. Kong became so excited when explaining the numerous features of Microsoft Lync that at one point, Japanese interpretation could not keep up with the pace of his English explanation.
At the final session at EBC, the much-anticipated Windows Phone 7 Series was explained. Participants from IT venture companies took careful notes on Microsoft smart phone strategy, long-awaited in the Japanese market, as described by presenter Rob Tiffany (Mobility Architect, Enterprise Services):
“In the former Windows Mobile, Microsoft provided a platform for OEM. As a result, hardware manufacturers and mobile operators customized a lot, and products of varying quality were put on the market. The biggest change we made with Windows Phone 7 was to completely discard that kind of policy,” explained Tiffany, “All of the hardware meets the standard of the ’chassis specification’ Microsoft set, and Microsoft software will not be modified by hardware manufacturers. Windows Phone 7 Series is equipped with more advanced specifications than iPhone, and is a device even more integral to daily life.”
Applications running on Windows Phone 7 Series are based on Microsoft Silverlight so that developers can easily create applications for Cloud computing. Tiffany explained even greater possibilities of the future of Windows Phone 7 Series.
“Windows Phone 7 Series is scheduled to support HTML 5, audio and video canvas, and offline data storage this year. Hardware will accelerate all of these, making even more advanced processing possible, as it is with desktop IE 9.”
After hearing at EBC how the partner ecosystem of the smart phone strategy for enterprise differs from the consumer-oriented iPhone/iPad strategy Apple is developing, more than a few IT venture company participants are rethinking future strategies for their companies.
With minds full after all the sessions were over, participants boarded a special bus headed to Safeco Field, home to the Seattle Mariners, to watch a night game between the Mariners and the Oakland Athletics. Although a widely anticipated batting duel between the Mariners’ Ichiro and Hideki Matsui of the Athletics did not take place, participants cheered wildly and enjoyed the atmosphere of Major Leaguers playing in an American stadium.
| April 19th | • | Welcome and Introductions
Nobuaki Nagai (Senior Manager, Business Incubation (LSE), Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Co., Ltd) | April 20th | • | Microsoft in the Government
Alan Merrihew (SEN. Industry Technical Strategist, E-Government) | | • | MS Home (Tour)
Sandra Roswell (Tour Host, The Microsoft Home of the Future) | | • | Cloud Strategy
Alan Merrihew (SEN. Industry Technical Strategist, E-Government) | | • | Windows Azure Platform
Robert Duffner (Director, Product Management) | | • | Productivity Future Vision (Microsoft Envisioning Lab)
Karla Clark (Microsoft Envisioning Lab, Microsoft Envisioning Lab) | | • | Reception
Talk and fellowship with Japanese staff working at Microsoft Corporation Redmond Campus | April 21st | • | Microsoft Lync
Dave Kong (Product Manager) | | • | Windows Phone
Rob Tiffany (Mobility Architect, Enterprise Services) | |
Japan IT Venture Tour Yields Large Harvest
| | While parts of the Windows Phone are thought to be rehashed from Apple, the fact that it can be used not only for business by enterprises, but is also designed for consumer use (the same as the Windows operating system) tells me that the Microsoft business foundation is solidly laid. | | | Yuji Chaya
(Deputy Director-General, Information Industry Association of Okinawa)
| | |
While participants included people with the varying perspectives of venture company CEOs, leading edge developers and local government officers, everyone concluded that the short, two day tour yielded much more for them than initially expected.
“The biggest thing that I learned from this tour was a vision of Microsoft’s global strategy. If you live in a regional city like Okinawa, you need to make a conscious effort to get information in Tokyo, but this tour gave me a chance to get the latest information at U.S. headquarters, explained Yuji Chaya (Deputy Director-General, Information Industry Association of Okinawa), “In particular, Microsoft had not clearly expressed the positioning of Windows Phone 7 Series until now, but I understand from this tour that Microsoft is trying to move the information device from the computer to the smart phone.” While parts of the Windows Phone may be thought of as rehashed Apple, the fact that it can be used by enterprises for business, and is also designed for consumer use in the same way as the Windows operating system tells me that the Microsoft business foundation is solidly laid.”
“My company is developing local government-oriented business, so the information in the first “Microsoft in Government” session was helpful to me on a number of fronts,” recalls Tomohiro Mizuhara (Leader, Department of Network System, JINS Corp.), “There are many different opinions on potential problems and precautions regarding Clouds in Japan, but hearing the opinions of the people at Microsoft Corporation’s Redmond Campus gave me a greater understanding than I had before."
“Providing information efficiently is a very difficult problem (from the vantage point of local government),” noted Hideki Yamamoto (Senior Manager, Information Policy Division, Okayama Prefectural Government), “Most of the infrastructure is in place, and we have the data. But when it comes to the question of how to provide that information to citizens in cities or other areas, the problem is that some citizens can access that information and some cannot. In my district in particular, we are tackling the issue of how to promote IT among senior citizens. I learned a lot from Microsoft’s stance on the public sector.”
HeartBird Co., Ltd. president Kiyomi Inoue added, “Many of the participants on this Japan IT Venture Program are from small-scale businesses. While I had the impression that Microsoft only worked with major companies, we were very happy to feel the serious stance Microsoft actually takes with small companies like ours.”
Participants are carefully considering how to utilize the precious experiences they received on this tour in future business and activities.
| Three participants visited Microsoft Corporation’s Redmond Campus in conjunction with Microsoft IT Venture Support Program – Japan Venture Program 2011: from Microsoft Innovation Award 2010 winning company inotech, president Kenji Ito and contributor to the development of inotech’s award-winning product Dr. Hiroyuki Oka (Project Research Associate, Department of Joint Disease Research, 22nd Century Medical and Research Center, The University of Tokyo Hospital), as well as Makoto Hasegawa, CEO of Microsoft Innovation Award 2010 Outstanding Performance Award winning company STEPWISE INC. On April 19th, a meeting was held at Redmond Campus Microsoft Technology Center, which functions as a disaster response operation center in the event of a global disaster. Microsoft Corporation headquarters staff who support venture companies around the world such as Cliff Reeves (Emerging Business Team, General Manager), Ludovic Ulrich (Global Program Manager – BizSpark Emerging Business Team), Midori Lawler (BizSpark Marketing Manager, Strategic & Emerging Business Team), and Sam Rosenbalm (Director, Emerging Business Team) participated. After Cliff Reeves explained the activities of the team he leads at Microsoft Corporation headquarters, inotech president Kenji Ito and STEPWISE INC. CEO Makoto Hasegawa answered detailed questions posed by headquarters staff. Ludovic Ulrich, who meets with hundreds of venture companies located around the world throughout the year, commented to a thrilled Ito and Hasegawa, “I can feel the passion of the people at Japan’s venture companies who are utilizing events such as Microsoft Innovation Award and all of Microsoft’s events to emerge onto the world stage.”   After receiving such a positive response during their interview, Ito and Hasegawa began a meeting with the head of Windows Phone 7 Series development, Ben Lower (Senior Product Manager, Development Experience). Leaning forward with keen interest to hear what Lower had to say about sale of a product long-awaited in Japan, the two posed multi-faceted questions one after another. Ito and Dr. Oka of Microsoft Innovation Award 2010 winning company inotech visited Microsoft Corporation Redmond Campus by invitation, but STEPWISE INC. president Hasegawa paid his own way to attend. This passion must have showed, because Lower explained Microsoft's future strategy for smart phones in detail, including some information that is not yet available to the public.   At the final session of the second day, time was allotted for inotech president Ito and STEPWISE INC. CEO Hasegawa to present their companys’ products to Redmond Campus staff. Attending this presentation were Cliff Reeves, Ludovic Ulrich and Sam Rosenbalm (Director, Emerging Business Team) who participated in the first session, as well as two Business Development Managers of the Strategic & Emerging Business Team: Sheh Fatemie, who provides information leaders in various countries, and Tom Halabi, who provides BizSpark information to European countries. Ito, who began studying English in earnest last year, explained inotech’s strategy for the medical field (for which his company was awarded Microsoft Innovation Award 2010 Best Commercial Business Award) in detail using his own words, only partially relying on an interpreter. Next, Hasegawa described not only STEPWISE INC.’s current business, but also the concept for a car-sharing business which uses Windows Azure that his company plans to develop for Sendai, a city stricken by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Both inotech's strategy, which includes medical knowledge and experience of doctors at the scene of the disaster, and STEPWISE INC.’s business concept, which leads to job creation at the disaster site, received high marks from staff at Microsoft Corporation headquarters. Great things are expected from these two companies sharply focused on the global marketplace. |