Microsoft Innovation Center Report 2008-2009 vol.12

The Sixth Microsoft IT Venture Support Program - Japan Venture Program 2009 in the U.S.A

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April 21 – 24, 2009, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond Campus, WA, U.S.A

Japan Venture Program 2009, a part of Microsoft IT Venture Support Program, a program designed for Japanese IT Venture companies to experience Microsoft technologies and mutual interaction among them, was recently held. Thirteen participants from the selected IT venture companies and local governments from various regions of Japan, including Asahikawa City in Hokkaido and Kochi Prefecture in the Shikoku area, visited Microsoft Corporation Redmond Campus in WA, U.S.A. This is the sixth year since the program started, and the participants attended a two-day seminar of Japan IT Venture Program in the Executive Briefing Center (EBC) building.

There is no gate at the Microsoft Corporation Headquarters. The entire campus, consisting of numerous small office buildings, covers an area of approximately 250 acres. The campus is full of green and has not only about 100 office buildings, where 45,000 employees work, but also many soccer fields and basketball courts. Located in environmentally conscious Washington State, Redmond Campus has a number of Toyota Prius company shuttles which provide employees with transportation between the office buildings on the Campus, and between the Campus and nearby towns.

The Microsoft Visitor Center was the first facility that the party visited in the Redmond Campus. Unlike other office buildings protected by advanced security, this Visitor Center houses the MS Museum, which is open to the public, where the history of Microsoft and the latest technology are exhibited. There are two Microsoft Surface machines Microsoft Surface which are not yet introduced in Japan and visitors can experience them. Without any external input devices such as a mouse or a keyboard, Microsoft Surface is a cutting-edge, desk top computer that allows users to work with the contents on the screen with their fingers in an intuitive manner. Experiencing Microsoft Surface, the party was very surprised at the latest technology.

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	EBC Seminars: Designed for VIPs from Around the World
	Various Sessions with a Lot of Content
	Participants’ Comments

EBC Seminars: Designed for VIPs from Around the World

After lunch at a cafeteria full of Campus employees from around the world, the party headed for an office building called the Executive Briefing Center (EBC), a conference facility used for briefings to VIPs from around the world who visit the Microsoft Corporation Redmond Campus. Over 50 seminar sessions are held each year for visitors from Japan. In that center, the participants attended a two-day special training program.

After an introductory session which overviewed the history of the Microsoft Corporation, from its foundation to the present, by Masataka Fujiwara (Director, Japan Business Maneuver), four other sessions and one tour demonstration were presented to the party on the first day. Almost all the sessions were held in English. Listening to the interpretation through their headsets, the participants took notes on the lecturers’ talks and presentations.

The information systems that are built on a new generation of technological innovations enable people to understand and respond to changing business conditions with greater insight and speed than ever before Erik Peterson (Senior Product Manager, Worldwide Executive Engagement Manager)

In the first session, Erik Peterson (Senior Product Manager, Worldwide Executive Engagement Manager) and Robbie Wright (World Wide Category Lead System Center, EPG, Microsoft Corporation) explained Microsoft’s relationship with enterprises. This session demonstrated how enterprises should use IT to address various external forces, including the global financial turbulence, globalization, security, evolving business models, emergent competitors, local issues, regulation, and environmental concerns. The internal forces, on the other hand, include the generational gap in work experience, increasing complexity, and technology transformation. In the Q&A session after the lecture, a number of good questions from the attendants surprised Erik Peterson.

After a 15-minute break, Alan Merrihew (Senior Director, Industry Technology Strategist, Worldwide Public Sector) presented the second session, illustrating Microsoft’s activity in the public sector with a variety of case studies including those involving government agencies around the world. As a responsible corporate citizen, Microsoft is actively engaged in many areas of the public sector, including education, government/municipal, medical care, and developing country assistance. For example, the Child Exploitation Tracking System, deployed by the City of Detroit, was developed after one policeman sent an email to Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO at the time, telling him about the issue of child exploitation in the city. The deployment of this system improved the arrest rate and suppressed crime. In the Q&A session, some concrete questions such as the IT literacy issue among senior citizens, were raised by the municipal staff. After this session about Microsoft's corporate citizenship programs in a variety of fields, many participants seemed to see a different side of Microsoft that they had never seen before.

The last session in the EBC seminar room was about the Microsoft software roadmap by Todd Middlebrook (Director, Customer Advocacy Technical Management, Infrastructure). Listening to the discussion about Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V, and Wave 14, or the next version of Microsoft Office system, all the participants were busy taking notes on the upcoming trend in the software industry.

We want to ensure that customers feel confident that we are protecting their data and feel that service is highly available. Marcia Green (Worldwide Customer Advocacy, Technology, Sales Director, Microsoft Online)

In the last session of the first day, Jackie Giuliano (Tour Host, The Microsoft Home of the Future) gave a tour of a specially designed facility in EBC, which demonstrates Microsoft’s vision of a residential home in the near future. Such a home will be fully controlled by software, providing transparent processes based on the resident users’ preferences and experiences. Input operation using a keyboard or mouse is not necessary, and everything can be controlled by voice or a cell phone. For example, in a room equipped with a Smart Light Bulb, something that is anticipated to be developed for practical use, when a user put some ingredients on the kitchen counter, the Smart Light Bulb would read the information on the IC tags attached to the ingredient packages and, based on the user’s voice instructions, the cooking instructions for these ingredients and other recipes would be directly displayed on the kitchen counter. The vision of the future house where the interior wallpaper and digital photo frames can be centrally controlled via network was beyond the party’s imagination.

After the MS Home tour, the party visited Safeco Stadium, the Seattle Mariners’ home ground, and enjoyed a game between the Seattle Mariners and Florida Rays in Microsoft’s private suite booth. Although the weather was rather chilly, the party enjoyed the plays of the major leaguers including Ichiro.

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Various Sessions with a Lot of Content

Morning in Seattle starts really early. Coffee shops such as Starbucks Coffee open at 6:00 in the morning, and many business workers head for their office with hot coffee in their hands. Microsoft is no exception. The first session on the second day started at 9:00 am sharp. In the first seminar, Marcia Green (Worldwide Customer Advocacy, Technology, Sales Director, Microsoft Online) from England explained about Software + Services. Every participant listened to the discussion of Microsoft’s vision around the cloud with high interest.

Following the Software + Services session, Hisashi Sato (Senior Product Manager, Visio) who is in charge of the Microsoft Office Visio development at Redmond Campus discussed new business enabled by the next version of Microsoft Office. As Hisashi Sato, now working on the front-line at Redmond Campus, has experience working at a Japanese venture company and Microsoft Co. Ltd., Japan, all the participants looked very impressed by his discussion. "Please become a Microsoft Certified Partner,” suggested Sato, “Microsoft is ready to make a mutual partnership and work with venture companies like you, regardless of the size.”

Although Microsoft has provided a wide range of software and platforms, we do not have expertise in every industry. From the view of expertise in different industries and operations, Microsoft needs to work with ventures like you who have expertise in different fields. Hisashi Sato (Senior Product Manager, Visio)

After Sato’s session, the party experienced a vision of information work in the near future in a demonstration tour by Sahila ChangeBringer (Tour Host, Microsoft Center for Information Work) in a special room called Microsoft Center for Information Work. Despite the fact that they had actually experienced and operated Microsoft Surface, the participants’ surprise grew far larger with this demonstration using a 30-foot large touch-screen on the wall. With this enormous touch-screen, like the MS Home demonstration tour on the previous day, physical input devices like keyboards and mouse would be eliminated in future information work, and the experience would be more intuitive than traditionally anticipated. The huge touch-screen works with three other Microsoft Surface-like table screens. A regular plastic plate with an IC tag attached would be recognized as a mouse on the table screen, which allows the user to work with the content items displayed on the table screen and the corresponding items on the touch-screen on the wall. When an input operation from a keyboard is required, the user can tap an option button next to the mouse (a plastic plate with an IC tag on it) to display a virtual keyboard on the table screen. Even though the participants actually experienced the future vision of information work, this demonstration was beyond their wildest imagination, leaving them speechless.

After a light lunch, Wayne Baines (Worldwide Customer Advocacy Technology, Sales Director, Unified Communications) discussed an overview of Unified Communications, giving some demonstrations of it with another Microsoft employee who was in a different building. Microsoft Unified Communications not only allows users to centrally manage various communication tools including mail, phone, conference, and instant messaging, but also improves the efficiency of communication and end-user productivity because the users can communicate with each other with appropriate timing based on their presence information, generating maximum business results. Cost reduction is another key point. Baines explained that he was successful in reducing the monthly cost of his cell phone from a few hundred dollars to a few dozen dollars.

In the last seminar, Lisa Woods (Senior Research Program Manager) explained the activities of Microsoft Research. Microsoft invests about 900 billion dollars in research and development. Over 850 researchers with PhDs in six Microsoft Research facilities on the West and East Coast of the U.S.A, in Washington State, Asia, India, and England are working on looking for the new possibility of software in more than 50 fields including software science and environment. Everyone was once again surprised by the scope and size of Microsoft’s vision.

After all the seminar sessions were completed, the participants enjoyed dinner at a seafood restaurant with a beautiful night view and had a very social exchange with Mr. Sato and other Japanese staff at the Redmond Campus. The seminar sessions and demonstration tours they had at Microsoft Corporation Redmond Campus gave the participants good inspiration, and they talked and exchanged opinions in a friendly atmosphere until the late evening.

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Participants’ Comments

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