Microsoft Product Teardown

History:

• Microsoft Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows NOVEMBER 10, 1983
• The Unusual History of Microsoft Windows
  • On December 9, 1987, Microsoft released a much-improved Windows version 2.0 that made Windows based computers look more like a Mac
  • On August 24, 1995, Windows 95 was released in a buying fever so great that even consumers without home computers bought copies of the program
  • On June 25, 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98. It was the last version of Windows based on the MS-DOS kernel
• Windows XP Is Here OCTOBER 25, 2001
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Released to Manufacturing MARCH 28, 2003
• Microsoft launches Windows Vista JANUARY 29, 2007
• Announcing Windows 10 SEPTEMBER 30, 2014
• Timeline of releases

Adoption:

• “We now measure ourselves in the total device space. And in the total device space we have a 14% share of devices, total worldwide devices.”
• Market share overview According to Net Applications and StatCounter data from August 2017
• Operating System Market Share Worldwide – December 2017
• Usage of operating systems for websites
• Windows 10 is active on more than 500 million devices around the world.

Future Plans:

• Our ambition for Windows 10 is to broaden our economic opportunity through three key levers: an original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) ecosystem that creates exciting new hardware designs for Windows 10; our own commitment to the health and profitability of our first-party premium device portfolio; and monetization opportunities such as services, subscriptions, gaming, and search advertising. Our OEM partners are investing in an extensive portfolio of hardware designs and configurations for Windows 10
• We are working to create a broad developer opportunity by unifying the Windows installed base on Windows 10, and by enabling universal Windows applications to run across all device targets.
• We are developing new input and output methods within Windows 10, including speech, pen, gesture, and mixed reality capabilities to power more personal computing experiences. The experiences and tools we build will unlock the creator in everyone and enable seamless teamwork not just in the workplace, but also at school and at home across all the devices people use.
• Using Windows to develop new categories of devices – both our own and third-party – as a person’s experience with technology becomes more natural, personal, and predictive with multi-sensory breakthroughs in voice, ink, gaze interactions, and augmented reality holograms.
• Our focus as a company on VR is far more on Windows than it is on Xbox One. We have some headsets launching that we’re very proud of, coming later this year for Windows. It’s called Windows Mixed Reality. We have all the Studios teams working on several titles for those headsets. We’re working with third parties on content for those headsets. But our primary focus is on Windows and PC for mixed reality, for lots of reasons
• We see the opportunity as far larger on PC, as a company. The customer experience will be better. If this thing was in our family room and you’re trying to move around and hitting your shins on things, it wouldn’t be so good. If there are cords, getting caught up on that wouldn’t be so good. The experience on PC is potentially better.
• Microsoft is continuing to tweak its Windows 10 patching and updating strategy, and plans to hold off until 2019 before releasing another version of Windows 10 designated as its Long Term Servicing Branch.
• Windows 10 Roadmap

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

Pando Networks, Peer-to-peer protocol, <$11MM

• Microsoft to deliver Windows 10 updates using peer-to-peer technology
  • The software maker acquired Pando Networks in 2013, the maker of a peer-to-peer file sharing technology that’s similar to BitTorrent. It’s not clear what technology Microsoft is using for its Windows 10 testing, but it’s reasonable to expect it has evolved from the Pando Networks acquisition.

History:

• Microsoft Unveils Windows Mobile 2003 Software for Pocket PCs JUNE 23, 2003
• Microsoft launches Windows Mobile 6 FEBRUARY 13, 2007
• Microsoft launches Windows Phone 7 OCTOBER 11, 2010
• Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 8 OCTOBER 29, 2012
• It’s Official: The Next Version Of Windows Phone OS Will Be Called Windows 10 Mobile MAY 13, 2015
• Microsoft is finally killing off the Windows Phone OCTOBER 9, 2017

Adoption:

• Market share overview According to Net Applications and StatCounter data from August 2017
• Mobile & Tablet Operating System Market Share Worldwide 2012-2018

History:

• Upcoming third-party Windows VR headsets will use HoloLens tech OCTOBER 26, 2016
• Microsoft’s first tethered Windows 10 VR headsets to ship in March JANUARY 17, 2017
• The era of Windows Mixed Reality begins October 17 2017

Adoption:

• In its first month, Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) managed to claim 4.4 percent market share on SteamVR, competing against headsets that have been available for many years more.
• Another product, Windows Mixed Reality headset jointly launched by Microsoft and its partners Acer, Dell, Lenovo, etc., recorded a shipment of around 300 000 units in 2017.

Future Plans:

• We believe we will have to evolve today’s devices and experiences to deliver on the promise of mixed reality. Since we introduced the world to mixed reality we have been committed to approaching this revolution in a patient, meaningful and holistic way. To achieve that we continue to:
  • Embrace the entire continuum from augmented reality to virtual reality and everywhere in between
  • Build cutting-edge devices and the technologies that power them, such as HoloLens
  • Create a unified platform for applications and the services to target

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

AltspaceVR, Undisclosed Terms

• AltspaceVR is now part of Microsoft
• The virtual reality social networking app allows users across headset and web platforms to join 3D chat rooms to play games, watch videos and attend events.
• “Microsoft is excited to incorporate communications technology into our mixed reality ecosystem. Today’s social experiences can be one sided: text, photos, and videos are posted by a single person, to be consumed by others later,” a Microsoft spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement. “But AltspaceVR takes social networks, combines them with real-time experiences, and leverages immersive presence to transcend beyond sharing posts to sharing situations. Situations of people, places, and things have deeper meaning and in turn, are more memorable.” https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/03/microsoft-acquires-social-virtual-reality-app-altspacevr/

• Microsoft Launches Office XP MAY 30, 2001
• Microsoft launches Office 2010 MAY 12, 2010
• Microsoft Launches Office 365 Globally JUNE 28, 2011
• Microsoft launches Office 2013 suite JANUARY 29, 2013
• Microsoft launches Office for iPad MARCH 27, 2014
• Microsoft launches Office 2016 for Windows SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Adoption:

• More than 1.2 billion people use Microsoft Office in 140 countries and 107 languages around the world
• It has also seen 340 million downloads of its Office Mobile apps, compared to 100 million downloads six months ago
• Microsoft’s Office 365 commercial monthly active users number is now at 120 million, up from 100 million in April 2017, said officials during the company’s earnings report on October 26.
• As of last quarter, Microsoft officials said that Microsoft is generating more revenue from Office 365 Commercial subscriptionsthan Office sold via non-subscription licensing.

Future Plans:

• Cloud-powered innovation is a major theme at Ignite this week. But we recognize that moving to the cloud is a journey with many considerations along the way. Office 2019 will be a valuable upgrade for customers who feel that they need to keep some or all of their apps and servers on-premises, and we look forward to sharing more details about the release in the coming months.
• Microsoft is planning to release preview copies of Office 2019 in the middle of 2018, and the software is primarily designed for organizations that aren’t using the cloud Office 365 versions.
• That’s why Microsoft is working to shove customers into its future. “Microsoft is making a very heavy push, trying to make sure [people are] using more and more of Office 365’s components, and using them more often,” said Roth.
• “Coming in early 2018, Excel will understand new data types, beyond text and numbers, and augment that data based on public and enterprise information,” wrote Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office, in a blog post. “For example, Excel will know that ‘India’ is a country and ‘MSFT’ is a stock. Insights—a new service coming to Office Insiders this year—also uses AI to find and recommend patterns, helping you derive additional insights from complex data.”
• It involves breaking down Office down into its component parts, letting users and third-party developers mix and match capabilities in new ways, and layering on conversational interfaces which are far, far afield from the suite’s keyboard-and-mouse origins.
• “We’re moving from having people think about the tool to thinking about the task,” says Larson-Green. “Instead of saying ‘I need to make a PowerPoint,’ we think about ‘I have ideas to communicate.’
• In the future, using the intelligence of the machine that knows all these things and all these connections between things, you can just say ‘Send the notes and the PowerPoints from my last meeting.’ Without having to give it more information than that.”
• Larson-Green speculates that Office could someday be available in purely voice-enabled form on some type of device that doesn’t have a screen at all.
• Office 365 Roadmap

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments

• Swiftkey, Mobile Productivity, $250M
  • The deal will see Microsoft make further inroads into mobile productivity services — an area where it’s already made other acquisitions to gain ground, such as Wunderlist and Acompli. https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/03/microsoft-confirms-swiftkey-acquisition-for-250m-in-cash/
• Mobile Data Labs, mobile productivity, undisclosed
  • Microsoft acquires Mobile Data Labs to advance intelligent productivity solutions for the mobile workforce
    • I’m pleased to announce that Microsoft has acquired Mobile Data Labs, creator of the popular MileIQ app and an innovator in intelligent productivity solutions for mobile professionals. This acquisition is the latest example of Microsoft’s ambition to reinvent productivity and business process in a mobile-first, cloud-first world.
• VoloMetrix, organizational productivity,
  • Microsoft to acquire VoloMetrix to empower individuals and drive organizational productivity
    • Even small improvements in a person’s day-to-day effectiveness can add up to significant value for an organization and greater employee happiness. Today, most of us don’t have the tools and information to help us make better decisions about our scarcest resource at work: our time. But, similar to how fitness trackers help us understand our health in our personal lives, innovative new solutions are emerging to objectively measure and prioritize our time at work. Giving people access to real data and objective, personalized feedback can lead to a virtuous cycle of improvement for both individuals and their company.
    • The hardest part about this is accessing and making sense of the real behavioral data that would give people these insights. Office 365 and the Office Graph offer a wealth of data and a powerful machine learning platform. By harnessing this data – while maintaining strict privacy controls – customers can create these personalized feedback loops that help people answer questions like: How can I improve my emails to ensure my communications are impactful? Am I spending my time focused on my priorities? Do I have the right people and expertise in my network to accomplish my project?
• 6Wunderkinder, mobile productivity, rumored $100-200MM
  • Welcome 6Wunderkinder! Microsoft acquires Wunderlist
    • The addition of Wunderlist to the Microsoft product portfolio fits squarely with our ambition to reinvent productivity for a mobile-first, cloud-first world. Building on momentum for Microsoft Office, OneNote and Skype for Business, as well as the recent Sunrise and Acompli acquisitions, it further demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to delivering market leading mobile apps across the platforms and devices our customers use – for mail, calendaring, messaging, notes and now tasks.
  • Microsoft to shut down Wunderlist in favor of its new app, To-Do
• Datazen, mobile business intelligence, undisclosed
  • Microsoft Acquires Mobile Business Intelligence Service Datazen
    • Datazen, which launched about three years ago, allows businesses to create mobile dashboards from data in Microsoft Excel, but also from other cloud and enterprise database sources.
  • Microsoft acquires mobile business intelligence leader Datazen
    • Datazen technology and solutions will complement Power BI, our cloud-based business analytics service, rounding out our mobile capabilities for customers who need a mobile BI solution implemented on-premises and optimized for SQL Server. Over time, we plan to integrate Datazen technology with Power BI to give our customers another hybrid bridge for their on-premises investment to the cloud.
• Sunrise, mobile calendar,
  • Microsoft acquires Sunrise, creator of an innovative calendar app for mobile devices
    • I’m pleased to announce that Microsoft has acquired Sunrise, provider of a next-generation calendar app for iOS and Android. We are making this acquisition because we believe a reinvention in the way people use calendars on mobile devices is long overdue. Our goal is to better help people manage and make the most of their time in a mobile-first, cloud-first world.
• Acompli, mobile productivity, undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft acquires Acompli, provider of innovative mobile email apps
    • This acquisition is part of our company-wide effort to help people accomplish more with their mobile devices. This year we brought Office to the iPad and the iPhone, and we recently announced that we’re bringing Office to Android devices. These are significant steps in our work to deliver the best productivity experiences across mobile platforms, and we’re continuing to push forward.

History:

• The first version of Internet Explorer was released on August 16, 1995. Back then, the browser was based on software called Mosaic that Microsoft licensed from Spyglass Inc., as other companies eager to enter the nascent field of browser development had done. However, none of those companies had the necessary infrastructure to make their software the household name that Internet Explorer would soon become.
• Released in August 2001, Internet Explorer 6 played a big part in damaging the browser’s reputation. Its security issues are still legendary. One piece of malware, for example, took advantage of a breach to install a keylogger and a backdoor automatically when a user visited a particular page.
• Microsoft Launches Internet Explorer 11 Release Preview For Windows 7 SEPTEMBER 18, 2013
• Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand MARCH 17, 2015
• “We recognize some enterprises have legacy web sites that use older technologies designed only for Internet Explorer, such as custom ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects,” says Jason Weber, program manager of Internet Explorer. “For these users, Internet Explorer will also be available on Windows 10.”

Adoption:

• [May 2010] Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) web browser, now accounts for less than 60% of the market, down from 95% at its peak in 2003, according to new figures.
• Public perception of the browser had changed — it was no longer a portal into the exciting new world of the Internet, but an outdated tool better suited to the Web’s pioneer days than the time of its acceptance into the mainstream.
• Historical market share of Internet Explorer

History:

• Windows 10’s new browser will have the most advanced features ever JANUARY 10, 2015
• ‘Microsoft Edge’ will replace Internet Explorer APRIL 29, 2015
• Microsoft Launches Preview of Microsoft Edge Browser for iOS OCTOBER 5, 2017

Adoption:

• Desktop Browser Market Share Worldwide – December 2017
• “Microsoft Edge users are active on 330 million monthly devices!” proclaims the Microsoft Edge Dev team on Twitter
• According to analytics vendor NetApplications, Microsoft ended 2017 a bit worse than it came into the year, with a combined IE + Edge market of 16.97%, down from 18% it came into the year with.

Future Plans:

• Microsoft is bringing new Edge browser apps to iOS and Android. By bringing the Edge experience to these operating systems, Microsoft can help ensure Windows PC remains relevant in an increasingly mobile-dominated world.

• Dynamics business solutions, including Dynamics ERP on-premises, Dynamics CRM on-premises, and Dynamics 365, a set of cloud-based applications across ERP and CRM.
• Dynamics provides on-premises and cloud-based business solutions for financial management, enterprise resource planning (“ERP”), customer relationship management (“CRM”), supply chain management, and analytics applications for small and medium businesses, large organizations, and divisions of global enterprises. Dynamics revenue is largely driven by the number of information workers licensed and the continued shift to Dynamics 365, a unified set of cloud-based intelligent business applications for enterprises.

History:

• Microsoft Announces New Customer Relationship Management Solution FEBRUARY 26, 2002
• Microsoft Introduces Microsoft Dynamics Brand SEPTEMBER 6, 2005
• Dynamics CRM 2013 Finally Revealed JULY 31, 2013
• Microsoft delivers enterprise-class ERP to the cloud MARCH 9, 2016
• Microsoft Introduces Dynamics 365 JULY 6, 2016
• Introducing Dynamics 365 AI Solutions SEPTEMBER 25, 2017
• Announcing the General Availability of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2018 DECEMBER 1, 2017

Adoption:

• Dynamics 365 is helping more organizations than ever before – in fact, more than 60 percent of the Fortune 500 industrial companies. In the past year we’ve welcomed to that growing family of customers organizations from a range of industries including HP, Inc., AccuWeather, Ecolab, Helsana, the Renault Sports Formula One Team and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
• Dynamics 365 customers grew more than 40 percent year-over-year.
• Microsoft Dynamics revenue grew 9%, driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth of 78%.

Future Plans:

• Soon LinkedIn InMails and messages will be able to be sent directly from within Dynamics 365 for Sales and these activities will be added to the Relationship Insights capabilities of Dynamics 365 for Sales.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Roadmap. The Dynamics 365 Roadmap provides a snapshot of what we’re working on. Use this roadmap to find out what is being made generally available and what is in development.
• Microsoft will offer a single collection of Dynamics 365 applications for customers of all sizes and complexity to digitally transform their organizations across all lines of business – Marketing, Sales, Service, Finance, Operations, and Talent – at their own pace. Instead of offering separate editions (e.g. “Business edition” and “Enterprise edition”), we will focus on enabling any organization to choose from different price points for each line of business application, based on the level of capabilities and capacity they need to meet their specific needs.  For example, in Spring 2018, Dynamics 365 for Sales will offer additional price point(s) with different level(s) of functionality.
• Although we think the strategy mentioned above is well-suited for organizations of all sizes and complexity, we also realize that smaller businesses sometimes prefer an end-to-end business management solution, instead of an application for each individual line of business within their organization. To meet this need, Microsoft will offer a new end-to-end business management cloud solution – an expansion of Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Business Edition adding the full capabilities of Dynamics NAV
• For small businesses who prefer to install their business management solution on-premises, we will continue to offer Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP, and Dynamics SL

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

Linkedin

• Our approach with Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn is to build modular business applications that are part of a connected data graph, enabling AI and extensibility that span a customer’s business process needs
• Dynamics 365 for Talent: Onboard integration with Office 365 and LinkedIn helps set new employees up for success. With it, you can create personalized onboarding experiences that get new hires engaged before they even join the team
• We’ve also put the world’s largest professional network at the fingertips of your sales organization, with the Microsoft Relationship Sales solution
• Today at Microsoft Ignite, we announced a new set of Sales Navigator integrations with Microsoft products. These integrations will let business and IT professionals harness the power of Sales Navigator’s data and features within multiple Microsoft applications, including Dynamics 365 for Sales, PowerApps and Power BI.

Adxstudio Inc, CRM solutions, undisclosed

• Microsoft acquires Adxstudio Inc., Web portal and application lifecycle management solutions provider
  • Packed with compelling features that extend Dynamics CRM to the Web, Adxstudio Web portals are built natively on Dynamics CRM, allowing our customers to easily connect and extend their key sales and customer services business processes online. These portals work with the CRM application easily and naturally for both online and on-premises customers, who can take advantage of this offering right away. Adxstudio portals can also be used along with our Parature Service thanks to native integration with Parature’s rich knowledge management solutions.

FantasySalesTeam, sales, productivity,

• Microsoft acquires FantasySalesTeam, an innovative sales gamification platform, to help organizations increase productivity
  • They’ve disrupted the old sales incentive model with an original twist that combines gamification with fantasy sports and expertly applies it to a sales setting. Their platform is highly effective at increasing team collaboration, productivity and consequently driving greater results and business growth. Through team-based competition and involvement of non-sales employees (such as managers, service, operations, marketing and finance) employees “draft” teams and become truly invested in each other’s success. Individual and team results become highly visible, driving both competition as well as collaboration and creating positive, impactful cultural change.

FieldOne, CRM,

• Microsoft acquires FieldOne, global provider of field service management solutions for the enterprise
  • FieldOne is a great fit for Dynamics CRM adding to our extensive customer service capabilities – which includes chat, knowledge management and self-service functionality from Parature which we acquired in January of 2014.  Like Parature, FieldOne is offered to customers as a cloud service. It’s built on Microsoft technology for fast integration, it already works great with other Microsoft productivity offerings like Office 365 and SharePoint, and has cross-platform capabilities meaning it can work on different devices enhancing the mobile experience which is so critically important in field service management. FieldOne was built from the ground up to leverage Dynamics CRM, and this means that our customers can take advantage of its capabilities right away.

Parature, CRM, knowledge base, $100MM

• Microsoft acquires Parature to add leading customer self-service suite to Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • As a provider of cloud-based customer service software to midsize and enterprise organizations, Parature has a well-earned reputation for outstanding customer service with 70 million users worldwide and more than 500 well-known brands, including Ask.com, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, IBM, Saba Software Inc., Tagged Inc. and Threadless. The company also received the 2013 Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Enhancement Award for using social media to help organizations deliver outstanding customer service.
  • Parature’s approach to its solutions enables organizations to take advantage of an extendable knowledge base available through self-service portals on the Web and Facebook, support ticketing, mobile customer care on virtually any device the customer chooses to use, social customer support, and chat for both traditional customer service scenarios and proactive sales engagement to create new, revenue-generating opportunities for the business. These capabilities complement the existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM customer-care solution with core strengths in workflow, extensibility and process-driven user experiences that allow contact center agents to do their best work.
• Microsoft to drop support for Parature customer-service offering by May 2018

Netbreeze, native language analytics and data mining for CRM, social monitoring

• Microsoft Dynamics Reimagines and Unites the Worlds of Business and IT
  • Microsoft’s vision is to deliver social monitoring and analytics features as an integral part of the user experience and provide these capabilities to all roles and functions in an organization. To help businesses analyze and act on market intelligence from social conversations, including measuring sentiment across a wide array of social channels, Microsoft today announced an initiative to seamlessly embed social monitoring capabilities across Microsoft Dynamics CRM offerings. This effort has been accelerated with the acquisition of Netbreeze GmbH, which delivers cutting-edge native language analytics combined with data mining, transactional and text analysis capabilities.

MarketingPilot, marketing automation, CRM,

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM Steps Forward in the Marketing Automation Space
  • As part of these industry trends and emerging business opportunities, I am excited to announce that Dynamics CRM has closed on the acquisition of MarketingPilot. MarketingPilot provides Integrated Marketing Management solutions that allow organizations to better understand their customers, manage and streamline marketing operations and create automated and measurable multi-channel marketing campaigns.  This acquisition is a very exciting step forward for us, and will accelerate our ability to better meet the needs of CMO’s through rich business intelligence, and better enable marketers to successfully plan, execute, monitor, and optimize customer interactions across digital, social and traditional channels, and measure ROI.

History:

• Xbox Live launched, NOVEMBER 2002 Xbox Live went online in November 2002; it was different from the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 services in that it required a subscription fee and broadband connection (this was before broadband had fully taken off). The service ended up being quite successful because Microsoft had better servers, easy to work online menus, and great multiplayer games such as the Halo series.
• We’ve had this service for 15 years and it’s something we’ve always tried to prioritize. The service quality has gotten a lot better.
• The Xbox Live service comes in two subscription tiers: Silver, which is free, and Gold, which is $60 per year. Silver subscribers can buy games, movies, and TV shows from the Xbox’s digital store. But subscribing at the Gold level gets you some crucial perks, including the ability to play multiplayer games online and a handful of “free” games every month.

Adoption:

• [May 2006] Xbox Live, surpassing 3 million connected members, continues its commanding leadership position in the online unified gaming and entertainment space. Since launch, nearly 60 percent of Xbox 360 owners have joined the Xbox Live community. In addition, over 90 percent of connected members are downloading content from Xbox Live Marketplace, driving more than 18 million downloads in the first six months.
• [February 2016] There are 48 million monthly active users of its Xbox Live gaming service, across both the last-generation (but still popular) Xbox 360 console and the newer Xbox One

Future Plans:

• In the same way that Microsoft Office is shifting away from a boxed product you buy once, Microsoft is maneuvering Xbox Live to be the center of your gaming world, whether you’re gaming on the Xbox One console or on a Windows 10 PC.
• The company now tracks monthly active users and revenue from software and services, and is looking at opportunities such as further expansion of Xbox Live online usage, eSports and game streaming. “This means fundamentally rethinking how we measure progress in gaming,” Nadella said on a conference call with analysts last month.
• More fleshed-out game streaming services like the Xbox Game Pass and Sony’s PlayStation Now (and, previously, OnLive) allow gamers to play games simply by streaming them off of their internet connection, without the need for an actual CD, in a similar way to how users listen to music on Spotify or watch TV content and movies on Netflix.

History:

• [August 11, 2016] Microsoft jumps into the interactive streaming arena with purchase of Beam
• [May, 2017] Microsoft Beam is now Mixer, a game-streaming service with support from Telltale
  • “Launching today on Windows 10 and Xbox One, Mixer offers game streaming without the delays found on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. With almost zero latency, players and viewers can engage more effectively, with comments and reactions synced more closely with the on-screen action.”
• [December 12, 2017] Microsoft’s Mixer app relaunches with more streaming features
  • “Thanks to community feedback during the beta period, the new version also comes with a host of other features, including push notifications, tap-and-hold video previews and enhanced stream page and player settings. The refresh may not bring it entirely up to speed with its main rival, Twitch, which has a new focus on the lucrative pro-streaming market, but it does help position it as a serious contender in the field, and certainly provides greater flexibility for new features in the near future.”

Adoption:

Streamlabs Live Streaming Report Q2’17 — 53% Growth, $100M+, Twitch & YouTube Crushing It

Future Plans:

• Mixer aims to differentiate itself by using Faster Than Light (FTL) technology to make the streaming experience nearly instantaneous rather than a usual 10-20 seconds.
• This technology is meant to bring more cooperative feel to game streaming.
  • Also evident in the ability to “co-stream” with up to 4 players.
• Further integration with Window’s 10 and Xbox.

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• Beam, Live Streaming, undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft acquires Beam interactive livestreaming service
    • Bringing Beam, their award-winning team and their inventive technology into the Xbox family supports our ongoing commitment to make Xbox Live more social and fun. Using “Minecraft” as one example, with Beam you don’t just watch your favorite streamer play, you play along with them. You can give them new challenges and make real-time choices that affect their gameplay, from tool selection to quests to movement; all through simple visual controls. In the highly anticipated “Sea of Thieves,” which is all about emergent adventures in a shared world, you can watch the drama play out between different crews from multiple player perspectives.

• Microsoft to open mobile games studio, develop and incubate Windows Phone 7 titles AUGUST 11, 2010
• Microsoft announces Lift London, a new developer focused on cloud games for tablets, mobiles and TVs JANUARY 10, 2013
• We decided to make all the Microsoft Studios games available on Windows 10 and Xbox One, just so that you have the choice as a gamer. We talked about that a lot last year, this vision of trying to re-orient everything. We wanted to go from, “We exist to sell you this box” more toward, “Hey, listen, 50 percent of gamers play on multiple devices. It’s goofy that we don’t make some of this content available on other devices, especially when we’re a PC company too.” It just wasn’t the right orientation. We decided to do that last year, and the results over the last year in terms of sales have been positive. We intend to continue on that path
• [November 2017] A year ago, Microsoft shut down two studios, Lionhead in the U.K. and Press Play in Denmark
• Current List of Studios:
  • 343 Industries – Halo series
  • The Coalition – Gears of War series
  • Mojang – Minecraft
  • Turn 10 Studios – Forza franchise
  • ID@XBOX
  • Lift London
  • Microsoft Casual Games  – Solitaire, Mahjong, Minesweeper, Bingo, Jigsaw, Ultimate Word Games
  • Rare – Banjo-Kazooie series
  • Xbox Fitness

Adoption:

• Historically some of Microsoft’s biggest sellers for Xbox have been games the company published itself, including the “Halo” and “Gears of War” franchises, but in recent years it has scaled back some in-house development, said Spencer, a 30-year Microsoft veteran who has spent the morning sipping tea from a “Gears of War” pint glass.
• [July 2015] The sci-fi shooter series, which debuted in 2001 on Xbox with Halo: Combat Evolved, has now sold more than 65 million units, Microsoft announced.
• [November 2015] Halo has always been the Xbox’s star franchise, and here’s why: after the launch of Halo 5: Guardians last week, the franchise has now soared to over $5 billion in lifetime games and hardware sales. That includes over $400 million made in first week sales of Guardians, which has become the fastest-selling Xbox One exclusive
• Over twenty-two million units have been sold across all “Gears of War” titles worldwide, grossing over $1B dollars (US).
• Not much about Age of Empires isn’t epic. Over the last 20 years, these epoch-spanning games have starred more than 50 historical civilizations, sales have surpassed more than 20 million units, and a core fanbase of hundreds of thousands has put hours upon hours into playing one series entry or another on a weekly basis.
• The acing game from publisher Microsoft Studios and developer Turn 10 Studios – Forza Motorsport 7 – sold 176,150 units first week at retail on the Xbox One, according to our estimates
• Today, we’re excited to share a major milestone – as of December 2016, the Forza franchise has exceeded $1 billion in retail sales
• As of December, more than 14 million unique players were involved in the Forza community on Xbox One and Windows 10, the award-winning Forza Horizon 3 sold through 2.5 million units, and Forza continued its run as the best-selling racing franchise of this console generation

Future Plans:

• The company plans to increase investment in developing in-house video games, including starting or acquiring studios to do so, Xbox chief Phil Spencer said in an interview last week.
• “We need to grow, and I look forward to doing that,” Spencer said. “Our ability to go create content has to be one of our strengths. We haven’t always invested at the same level. We’ve gone through ups and downs in the investment.”
• But now, as we enter 2018, Microsoft seems to be throwing its weight behind the Age franchise again. A new mainline Age of Empires game is in development at Relic, the studio behind the critically acclaimed Company of Heroes and Dawn of War series

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• Minecraft
  • Restoring gaming to the forefront at Microsoft required winning over Nadella and the board – initially to get them to agree to acquire cult favorite Minecraft in September 2014 , and more recently to change directors’ mindset about gaming overall, Spencer said. In July 2014, Nadella declared gaming an important market, but one that was not core to Microsoft’s mission.
• Minecraftedu, Gaming, Education, undisclosed sum
  • Microsoft To Launch “Minecraft Education Edition” For Classrooms This Summer, Following Acquisition Of Learning Game
    • Already, notes Microsoft when detailing the acquisition, over 7,000 classrooms in more than 40 countries worldwide use Minecraft as part of their curriculum today. The launch of its own supported Education Edition could easily increase those numbers.
    • As MinecraftEdu, the company charged for server subscriptions at $25 per month per server instance. (A single classroom server supports already 30 simultaneous users.) In addition, teachers had to buy a one-time Server Software license at a cost of $41. The BBC reports that Microsoft will charge an annual fee of $5 (£3.50) for each teacher and child, though pricing wasn’t mentioned directly in Microsoft’s announcement.
• Press Play
  • Microsoft has picked up Press Play, maker of Max and the Magic Marker and Tentacles, it was announced amidst all the E3 hubub on Monday. It’s probably mostly for the Danish studio’s mobile mastery, as neither game came to Xbox 360 but both hit Windows Phone.
  • Additionally, we will close Press Play Studios in Denmark, and sunset development on Project Knoxville.
• Havok, gaming, physics engine, developer tools,
  • Havok to join Microsoft
    • Microsoft’s acquisition of Havok continues our tradition of empowering developers by providing them with the tools to unleash their creativity to the world.   We will continue to innovate for the benefit of development partners. Part of this innovation will include building the most complete cloud service, which we’ve just started to show through games like “Crackdown 3.”

History:

• Microsoft to take on iTunes with Zune music and video store SEPTEMBER 21, 2010
• However, last November Microsoft launched a film-streaming service under the Zune brand for the Xbox 360 in 18 countries, including the UK and 14 European and Scandinavian countries
• Microsoft Launches $10 Zune Music Pass OCTOBER 3, 2011
• Microsoft pulls plug on Zune music service NOVEMBER 16, 2015 “Microsoft has pulled the plug on its failed music service, Zune. The company’s Zune players and digital music service were launched in 2006 to rival Apple’s iPod and iTunes.”
  • Microsoft said the last remaining Zune subscribers would be switched over to its Groove music platform.
• E3 2012: Xbox Music announced by Microsoft JUNE 4, 2012
• Microsoft rebrands Xbox Music to Groove JULY 6, 2015
• Microsoft will soon shutter its music store and streaming service, move users to Spotify OCTOBER 2, 2017

Adoption:

• Groove Music Pass was never a tremendous hit — while Microsoft has never released specific user numbers or revenue for the service, it’s generally understood that Groove Music lags well behind the market-leading Spotify’s 60 million subscribers, or Apple Music’s 30 million.

History:

• Xbox Live gets 1080p Zune video store, Netflix browsing, Twitter and Facebook integration JUNE 1, 2009
• Windows 10’s new Music and Video apps finally drop the Xbox naming MARCH 31, 2015
• Disney Movies Anywhere drops Microsoft as a partner SEPTEMBER 9, 2017

Adoption:

• Tough to find adoption on any of the generic movie/TV rental/purchase services.

Future Plans:

• Microsoft recently abandoned an Xbox One streaming stick, but could it live on?

History:

• The story of Cortana, Microsoft’s Siri killer
• Microsoft launches ‘Cortana’ smartphone assistant  APRIL 2, 2014
• Xbox One dashboard update includes a huge new design and Cortana JUNE 15, 2015
• Cortana on Windows 10: Your PC gets a personal assistant JULY 28, 2015
• Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant launches on iPhone and Android DECEMBER 9, 2015
• Cortana to open up to new devices and developers with Cortana Skills Kit and Cortana Devices SDK DECEMBER 13, 2016
• Harman Kardon’s Cortana Speaker Revealed MAY 7, 2017
• Microsoft launches Cortana Skills Kit in public preview MAY 10, 2017

Adoption:

• 37% use Siri, 23% use Microsoft’s Cortana AI, and 19% use Amazon’s Alexa AI at least monthly. (HubSpot, 2015) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics )
• [July 2016] “The Cortana search box [in the Windows 10 task bar] has over 100 million monthly active users, with 8 billion questions asked to date,” Nadella stated plainly on the call.
• “25% of searches on Windows 10 taskbar are voice. On desktop!” according to Purna Virji
• Awareness of Microsoft’s Cortana digital voice assistant among residents of the United States, as of April 2017
  At that time, 21 percent of respondents indicated that they were regular users of Microsoft’s Cortana assistant

Future Plans:

• “What we are aiming for with Cortana is native skills that will continue to grow, but the third parties are going to be integrating skills into it,” said Singh Pall. “When it comes to work productivity, Microsoft has the context that a lot of others don’t have. We will bring more into the fold to enhance that and grow the life aspect of it.”
• Microsoft also announced today that it will work with HP and Intel on ways to put Cortana into more devices.
• The overall vision behind Cortana is simple, says Gavin: “Everyone deserves their own personal assistant.” And it means that Microsoft is going to take on Amazon, Google, and every other contender in the emerging voice market and this “battle for the future” by focusing on helping people be productive, which is already the company’s main focus.
• And, sooner rather than later, LinkedIn will start feeding Cortana more contextual information on the people you’re meeting with. Plus, Microsoft is providing the tools for developers to not only hook their apps into Cortana, but also to use the Microsoft Azure cognitive services to give them similar levels of artificial intelligence.
• It’ll be a while before you’ll want to take your hands off the wheel fully. But Microsoft sees Cortana as the most natural interface for getting stuff done in the car, given that she’s hooked into most of the business software you’d be using at your desk anyway. “Your car becomes an extension of your office,” Gavin says.
• Despite not having a smartphone to serve as a proper vector for Cortana Microsoft is repositioning the smart assistant for the PC. Looking towards Windows 10 Redstone 5 in fall 2018, and Redstone 6 in 2019 Microsoft is beginning to weave Cortana and artificial intelligence (A.I.) through the shell of Windows 10.
• The goal is simple: make a “globally intelligent” OS. The idea makes sense. Combine machine learning with A.I. and dig it deep into the operating system Cortana can be a very proactive assistant. Forget asking Cortana to play a song, but rather “Hey Cortana, can you read me the last email Zac Bowden sent me” actions and much more.
• The future of Cortana will become evident later in 2018, but for now, Microsoft’s plans involve building Windows 10 – and Windows Core OS specifically – around Cortana, not without it.
• Amazon and Microsoft have yet to roll out their smart assistant partnership
  • Microsoft and Amazon were supposed to play nice this past year and make their respective digital assistants available on each other’s platforms, allowing users to access Microsoft’s Cortana assistant on an Amazon Echo, or Alexa on any Windows 10 PC. The company said the cross-platform features would roll out by the end of 2017, but they have yet to make good on that deadline. (Thanks, Thurrott, for first spotting the missed timeline.)”
• Amazon Alexa is coming to Windows 10 PCs

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• Tellme Networks
  • The natural language processing capabilities of Cortana are derived from Tellme Networks (bought by Microsoft in 2007
• Swiftkey, Mobile Productivity, $250MM
  • But from what we understand, SwiftKey may also become part of another Microsoft ambition. Microsoft wants to grow use of its Cortana digital assistant on Android, and by integrating Cortana into SwiftKey, some believe that it could be the gateway ramping up Cortana use without having to install a standalone app. https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/03/microsoft-confirms-swiftkey-acquisition-for-250m-in-cash/

History:

• The history of Microsoft Outlook software stretches back to 1992, and the release of Outlook for MS-DOS. This original release was a far cry from the multi-functional communications and time-management tool that is now a fixture in offices around the world, which really goes to show just how far this application has developed.
• As a result, and as an attempt to popularise the latest internet standard HTML mail, Microsoft released Outlook 98, a free version of the application that could be used simply by buying a copy of various popular PC magazines
• Microsoft releases Outlook 2007 standalone FEBRUARY 11, 2008
• Microsoft Officially Launches Outlook.com FEBRUARY 18, 2013
• New Outlook for Mac available to Office 365 customers OCTOBER 31, 2014
• Microsoft Launches Outlook For iOS And Android JANUARY 29, 2015
• Microsoft launches Outlook Beta AUGUST 10, 2017

Adoption:

• Outlook.com has more than 400 million active users
• We have found 46,469 companies that use Microsoft Outlook. The companies using Microsoft Outlook are most often found in United States and in the Computer Software industry. Microsoft Outlook is most often used by companies with 50-200 employees and 1M-10M dollars in revenue.
• 2016 e-mail clients share
• Outlook 2010 remains the most popular of the Outlook versions at 30% of all Outlook opens, while Outlook 2013 takes 24% of all opens. Outlook 2016 for Windows, released in September 2015, makes up 21% of all Outlook opens.

Future Plans:

• Microsoft is working on a big redesign for its Outlook for Mac and Windows apps. The software giant revealed teasers for the new design during an Ignite conference session last month, and the goal is to simplify the user interface on both Mac and Windows versions.
• Microsoft is also focusing a lot of the design changes on Outlook for Mac. The software maker admits “MacBooks are popular amongst key influencers and decision makers,” and that the company “needs to win these users by delivering the best Outlook has to offer.”
• Building Starbucks commerce into Outlook, though an entertaining and unexpected idea, is an example of Office’s long-standing ability to be a container for third-party functionality.

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• ACOMPLI
  • Acompli was acquired by Microsoft in December 2014
• Sunrise Calendar
  • On February 4, 2015, Microsoft acquired Sunrise Calendar; on September 13, 2016, Sunrise ceased to operate, and an update was released to Outlook Mobile that contained enhancements to its calendar functions

• Acompli was acquired by Microsoft in December 2014
• Sunrise Calendar
  • On February 4, 2015, Microsoft acquired Sunrise Calendar; on September 13, 2016, Sunrise ceased to operate, and an update was released to Outlook Mobile that contained enhancements to its calendar functions

History:

• July 4, 1996: Microsoft Hotmail Independence Day Launch
• Microsoft Launches Windows Live Hotmail Worldwide MAY 6, 2007
• New Hotmail begins rolling out, coming to all customers in “next few weeks” NOVEMBER 9, 2011
• Starting today, Microsoft will begin to upgrade every Hotmail user to Outlook.com FEBRUARY 18, 2013

Adoption:

• MSN Hotmail: From Zero to 30 Million Members in 30 Months FEBRUARY 8, 1999
• In July, 2011 Hotmail announced on its 15-year anniversary that it had 360 million unique users per month
• Hotmail addresses may live on, but the service we once knew as Hotmail is no more, now that Microsoft has transferred all 300 million active Hotmail accounts to its new, modernized Outlook.com webmail offering.

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• Hotmail, ~$400M
  • Microsoft buys Hotmail
  • Microsoft acquired Hotmail in 1997 for an estimated $400 million and launched it as MSN Hotmail, later rebranded to Windows Live Hotmail as part of the Windows Live suite of products

History:

• Microsoft Launches MSN Messenger Service JULY 21, 1999
• Launch of Windows Live Messenger Marks Significant Progress for Microsoft’s Windows Live Era JUNE 19, 20013
• MSN Web Messenger dies on June 30, 2009
• Microsoft to retire Windows Live Messenger in favor of Skype NOVEMBER 5, 2012
• MSN Messenger is shutting down after 15 years of memories AUGUST 29, 2016

Adoption:

• Today Microsoft announced that its Messenger service will be discontinued in the first quarter of 2013. Part of that move is the integration of Messenger’s 100 million+ users – that figure confirmed to TNW by Microsoft this morning – into Skype’s network.

History:

• Microsoft finalizes acquisition of Skype, Tony Bates shares his thoughts OCTOBER 14, 2011
• Introducing Skype for Business NOVEMBER 11, 2014
• Microsoft is abandoning its Skype Qik video messaging app FEBRUARY, 2016
  • “In 2014, we launched Skype Qik, a mobile video messaging app to help share moments with groups of friends. Since then, we have learned that many of you are already doing these things in Skype, and as a result, we migrated some of Qik’s most used features into the Skype app you already know and love.” As a lightweight app with a focus on quick video messages, Skype Qik was often seen as an alternative to Snapchat. Like that app, Skype Qik had an array of filters for video messages, a feature now ported over to Skype proper.
• Microsoft is almost done moving its Skype consumer service to Azure JULY 20, 2016
• Skype Can Now Translate Your Voice Calls Into 10 Different Languages in Real-Time APRIL 10, 2017
• Introducing the next generation of Skype JUNE 1, 2017
• Skype and PayPal team up with new Send Money feature AUGUST 2, 2017
• Announcing the Skype Professional Account Preview—doing business online made easy NOVEMBER 13, 2017
• Skype Interviews Scheduler—helping recruiters simplify the interview process DECEMBER 14, 2017

Adoption:

• From 2015 to 2016, the market [workplace collaboration] grew by 13.6%, and it is expected to be worth more than $22 billion by 2021, according to IDC, the market research firm. Microsoft remains the leader with 36.8% market share, but since 2014, Slack has shown fast growth and claims 5.3% of the market, according to IDC. http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-replaces-skype-for-business-with-its-new-chat-app-2017-9
• [November 2012] Skype reported to TNW that it has around 280 million monthly active users, up roughly 100 million since it was purchased by Microsoft
• TeleGeography estimates that Skype’s on-net (Skype to Skype) international traffic grew 36 percent in 2013, to 214 billion minutes
• Skype users make up to 3 billion minutes of calls each day
• Speaking at BUILD Satya Nadella has announced that Skype has more than 300 million monthly active users.
• [April 2016] And today, we’re proud to announce we’ve reached ONE BILLION Skype mobile downloads!
• [October 2017] Today, Skype reached one billion downloads on the Google Play Store

Future Plans:

• Microsoft is going all in on Teams and plans to phase out Skype for Business SEPTEMBER 25, 2017
  • “Microsoft Teams will evolve as the core communications client,” said Ron Markezich, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Office 365, in a press briefing. “We will make Microsoft Teams the hero and primary experience for all voice, video and meetings.” http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-replaces-skype-for-business-with-its-new-chat-app-2017-9
• Focus Skype on social – Microsoft Overhauls Skype to Compete With Snapchat and iMessage

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• Skype
  • On 10 May 2011, Microsoft Corporation acquired Skype Communications, S.à r.l for US$8.5 billion
  • http://www.businessinsider.com/why-microsoft-bought-skype-an-insider-explains-2011-5
• Event Zero, productivity/communication, undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft acquires management, reporting and analytics technology from Event Zero to enhance Skype for Business Online
    • This acquisition will allow us to expand and improve the built-in management tools for Skype for Business, and is the latest example of Microsoft’s commitment to deliver a complete, enterprise-grade communications solution at global scale with Office 365. Event Zero will continue to service its customers and partners.
• Talko, Mobile Business Communications, undisclosed
  • Microsoft Buys Ray Ozzie’s Communications Startup Talko, Team Will Join Skype
    • Talko launched in September 2014 after years of development, offering a service that aimed to replace your usual conference line with VoIP, cloud-based calls. The app recorded the live conversations, and also offered additional features, like being about to create bookmarks within the conversation, tag users, and even add asynchronously shared voice-based follow ups to the conversation in question.
    • According to Microsoft’s announcement about the acquisition, the Talko technology and the talent joining Skype will be used to help “deliver great new features and capabilities” in both Skype and Skype for Business. Meanwhile, a post on Talko’s website notes that the Talko app and its service will be sunsetted over the next several months, and will be entirely shut down by March 2016. As a part of this process, Talko will allow its current customers to export their past conversations, including voice, text and photos.

History:

• Introducing Microsoft Teams—the chat-based workspace in Office 365 NOVEMBER 2, 2016
• Microsoft Teams is replacing Skype for Business to put more pressure on Slack SEPTEMBER 25, 2017
• Overview of Microsoft Teams SEPTEMBER 25, 2017

Adoption:

• Teams is now being used by over 125,000 organizations across the world in just six months since its launch

Future Plans:

• Microsoft introduced a new vision for intelligent communications, including plans to bring Skype for Business Online capabilities into Microsoft Teams, along with cognitive and data services, making Teams the true hub for teamwork in Office 365, including persistent chat, voice and video.
• Our next generation, cloud-born architecture is already powering communication experiences in Teams, and is evolving rapidly. We are excited about this new infrastructure because it will provide both speed of innovation as well as higher quality communication experiences.
• As we build out these capabilities, Teams will evolve as the primary client for intelligent communications in Office 365, replacing the current Skype for Business client over time.

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• Intentional Software, Team productivity, undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft to acquire Intentional Software to expand future productivity capabilities
  • Microsoft acquires Intentional Software and brings old friend back into fold
    • “Imagine then, the power of an ontology consisting of thousands of terms covering most of the common activities that comprise our personal and professional lives ranging from life transitions, education, entertainment, buying and selling. Curating and exploiting such an ontology will be as important as the hardware and software surfaces that activate it,” Simonyi wrote.
• Yammer, enterprise social networks, $1.2 billion
  • Microsoft to Acquire Yammer
    • “The acquisition of Yammer underscores our commitment to deliver technology that businesses need and people love,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft. “Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsoft’s growing portfolio of complementary cloud services.”
    • Launched in 2008, Yammer now has more than 5 million corporate users, including employees at 85 percent of the Fortune 500. The service allows employees to join a secure, private social network for free and then makes it easy for companies to convert a grassroots movement into companywide strategic initiative.
    • Yammer will continue to develop its standalone service and maintain its commitment to simplicity, innovation and cross-platform experiences. Moving forward, Microsoft plans to accelerate Yammer’s adoption alongside complementary offerings from Microsoft SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics and Skype.

History:

• Microsoft’s New Search at Bing.com Helps People Make Better Decisions MAY 28, 2009
• Microsoft and Yahoo seal web deal JULY 29, 2009
• Bing Unleashing Tiger to Speed Search Results SEPTEMBER 30, 2011
• Microsoft Launches Bing Desktop Beta, Brings Search To Your Windows 7 Desktop APRIL 4, 2012

Adoption:

• In April 2017, Microsoft Sites handled 22.8 percent of all search queries in the United States.
• Share of search queries handled by leading U.S. search engine providers as of April 2017
• Search Engine Market Share Worldwide – December 2017
• Stats released by the company this week claim Bing enjoys an astonishing 33 percent market share in the US, which is far higher than the frankly more believable 9 percent it reports worldwide. According to Microsoft, the 33 percent market share amounts to some 5 billion searches.
• The Bing Network audience

Future Plans:

• Intelligent search experiences use AI and machine learning to deliver more relevant search results everywhere you search across Microsoft 365. New experiences include Bing for business private preview, which provides a unified view of personalized, contextual search results from inside and outside your organization.
• “When we think about the future, search is going to change pretty dramatically,” said van der Kooi, adding, “We are going to collectively define with our customers what the new business models are when people talk to their devices and we go beyond 10 blue links on a page.”
• “The future of Bing is going beyond the search box to a personal, pervasive and predictive experience in which it might not be obvious users are even interacting with the search engine. Consider product search on the Hololens in which users test couches from a product catalog looks in their living rooms, for example.”
• We also realize mobile experiences are going to dramatically evolve over the next three to five years to the extent that consumer intent won’t be typed in — it may be location-based, it may be understanding what’s on your schedule. The notion of search could move to a more passive approach. We don’t know, so our strategy is we have to try it all … We believe that this multi-pronged approach will be a way to aggregate sufficient mobile supply that is interesting and will provide great sticky experiences for consumers and great experiences for advertisers

History:

• Microsoft Announces Windows Azure and Azure Services Platform OCTOBER 27, 2008
• Windows Azure Platform Now Generally Available in 21 Countries FEBRUARY 1, 2010
• Upcoming Name Change for Windows Azure MARCH 24, 2014
• Microsoft Azure Machine Learning combines power of comprehensive machine learning with benefits of cloud JUNE 16, 2014
• Microsoft Azure gets a new Logo and a Manifesto SEPTEMBER 25, 2017
• Announcing the General Availability of Azure Bot Service and Language Understanding, enabling developers to build better conversational bots DECEMBER 13, 2017
• Azure products

Adoption:

• In fact, 96 percent of Fortune 500 companies have at least one of our cloud offerings, and 90 percent have at least two.
• According to Synergy Research Group, AWS controls 34 percent of the market while Azure has 12 percent.
• Forty percent of Azure revenue comes from startups and independent software vendors
• Today, more than 760,000 developers from 60 countries are using Cognitive Services to add intelligent capabilities to their applications. Additionally, over 240,000 developers have signed up to use the Azure Bot Service which provides developers with everything they need to build and connect intelligent bots. And thousands of customers are already developing intelligent applications with Azure Bot Service and/or LUIS, such as Dixons Carphone, Equadex, Human Interact, Molson Coors, Sabre, UPS, and many more.
• Azure compute usage more than doubled year-over-year
• Server products and cloud services revenue grew $2.5 billion or 13%, driven by Azure revenue growth of 99% and server products licensed on-premises revenue growth of 4%
• During the same period, Bank of America selected Azure for its tech infrastructure modernization and business transformation, including a goal to deliver 80 percent of its workloads in the cloud in the next few years. Also in financial services, TD Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation are using Azure and its data services to improve customer experiences. And the largest security technology company, Symantec, runs Norton security on Azure to help protect 50 million people, a key part of its hybrid cloud strategy.
• BP chose Azure to power its proprietary data lake to make better business decisions. Schlumberger’s new DrillPlan digital well construction solution relies on Azure and the Azure Stack, as well as Office 365 and Microsoft Teams. And, Halliburton’s DecisionSpace 365 digitizes the oil field with IoT on Azure. This week, we announced an alliance with PAREXEL, a leading biopharmaceutical services organization, to drive transformation in the life sciences industry powered by Azure technology

Future Plans:

• Microsoft has announced a milestone moment for its cloud aspirations with the news that it’s launching its very first data centers in Africa. Beginning in 2018, Microsoft will operate its range of cloud services — including Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics 365 — from data centers located in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
• Microsoft has partnered with Cray to bring that company’s supercomputers and its storage system to the Azure platform.
  • More importantly, we’re moving customers into a new era by empowering them to use HPC and AI to drive breakthrough advances in science, engineering and health
• The bottom line is, we’re going to push as much as we can towards the serverless paradigm.
• Cloud platform roadmap
• Azure roadmap

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• Avere Systems
  • Microsoft to acquire Avere Systems, accelerating high-performance computing innovation for media and entertainment industry and beyond
  • In a world shifting to the cloud, Microsoft has carved out a place trying to help companies caught between two worlds — on-prem legacy solutions and the public and private cloud. To help further that hybrid mission, the company announced it was acquiring Avere Systems today for an undisclosed amount. https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/03/microsoft-acquires-avere-systems-to-further-hybrid-computing-mission/
• Cycle Computing, Undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft acquires Cycle Computing to accelerate Big Computing in the cloud
    • “As a further step in this direction, I’m pleased to share that we’ve acquired Cycle Computing, a leader in cloud computing orchestration, to help make it easier than ever for customers to use High-Performance Computing (HPC) and other Big Computing capabilities in the cloud. The cloud is quickly changing the world of Big Compute, giving customers the on-demand power and infrastructure necessary to run massive workloads at scale without the overhead. Your compute power is no longer measured or limited by the square footage of your data center.”
• Cloudyn, undisclosed, Rumored $50-70mm
  • Microsoft’s acquisition of Cloudyn will help Azure customers manage and optimize their cloud usage
  • Cloudyn has developed a multi-platform system that enables enterprises to monitor and analyze their cloud computing resources and expenditures. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4084861-microsoft-acquire-cloudyn-cloud-cost-management
• Hexadite, Cybersecurity, $100MM
  • Report: Microsoft to buy security firm Hexadite for $100M as Cloudyn still in progress
    • “If you look at what Hexadite does, there is a connect between it and what Cloudyn is doing on the cloud management and optimisation front.
    • In both cases, the idea is to bring more automation to some of the more regular and recurring tasks of running a connected, cloud-based business. As Microsoft continues to hone its focus in the enterprise market, and on cloud services specifically, it is looking for more products and services to help differentiate itself from others in the field.
    • As more businesses are looking for ways to reduce mundane tasks and grapple with the sheer weight of network traffic and data that they face today, they’ll be looking for more solutions like these.”
• Deis, Container technologies, undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft to acquire Deis to help companies innovate with containers
    • In addition to their container expertise, the Deis team brings a depth of open source technology experience – furthering Microsoft’s commitments to improve developer productivity and to provide choice and flexibility for our customers everywhere. Members of the Deis team are strong supporters of the open source community – developing tools, contributing code and organizing developer meetups. We expect Deis’ technology to make it even easier for customers to work with our existing container portfolio including Linux and Windows Server Containers, Hyper-V Containers and Azure Container Service, no matter what tools they choose to use.
• Solair, IoT cloud, Undisclosed Terms
  • Microsoft acquires Italian IoT platform Solair
    • Solair already used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to offer its services, so it’s no surprise that Microsoft plans to integrate its technology into the Azure IoT Suite. For now, though, it’s unclear what exactly Microsoft’s plans for Solair are beyond the company saying that it is “excited about their technology and talent – and delighted to welcome them to the Microsoft team.”
• Metanautix, big data, cloud, undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft acquires Metanautix to help customers connect data for business insights
    • With Metanautix technology, IT teams can connect a diversity of their company’s information across private and public clouds, without having to go through the costly and complex process of moving data into a centralized system. The solution can integrate data across traditional data warehouses like SQL Server, Oracle and Teradata; open source NoSQL databases such as MongoDB and Cassandra; as well as business systems like Salesforce.com and wide array of other cloud and on-premises data stores. Key to Metanautix’ approach is making a wide variety of data query-able by SQL, the most widely used data query language – at speed and high scale.
• Secure Islands, cybersecurity, cloud, office, $77.5MM
  • Microsoft to acquire Secure Islands, a leader in data protection technology
    • Secure Islands’ technology enhances the data protection capabilities available today with Azure Rights Management Service, Microsoft’s cloud-based information protection solution. The company has long been a close Microsoft partner and built its solutions using our rights management technology. Secure Islands will continue to sell its existing solutions and support its customers.
    • After completing this acquisition, we will integrate Secure Islands’ technology into Azure Rights Management Service to provide a flexible architecture able to meet the most rigorous protection and compliance requirements. These new capabilities, combined with the data classification in Windows and Office 365, will provide our customers with the industry’s most comprehensive data protection solution.
• Adallom, cybersecurity, cloud,
  • Microsoft acquires Adallom to advance identity and security in the cloud
    • I’m pleased to announce today that Microsoft has acquired Adallom, an innovator in cloud security and a leader in helping customers protect their critical assets across cloud applications. This acquisition is the latest example of Microsoft’s commitment to delivering innovative identity and security capabilities to our customers, across both on-premises and multiple clouds.
• Bluestripe, cloud application mgmt,
  • Microsoft acquires BlueStripe to help customers improve application visibility and management across the datacenter and cloud
    • I’m pleased to announce that Microsoft has completed the acquisition of BlueStripe Software, a leading provider of application management technology. BlueStripe’s solution helps map, monitor and troubleshoot distributed applications across heterogeneous operating systems and multiple datacenter and cloud environments. BlueStripe is commonly used today by customers to extend the value of Microsoft System Center by adding application-aware infrastructure performance monitoring.
• Revolution Analytics, big data, cloud,
  • Microsoft to acquire Revolution Analytics to help customers find big data value with advanced statistical analysis
    • This acquisition will help customers use advanced analytics within Microsoft data platforms on-premises, in hybrid cloud environments and on Microsoft Azure. By leveraging Revolution Analytics technology and services, we will empower enterprises, R developers and data scientists to more easily and cost effectively build applications and analytics solutions at scale.
• Aorato, cybersecurity, cloud, undisclosed
  • Microsoft acquires Aorato to give enterprise customers better defense against digital intruders in a hybrid cloud world
    • Aorato’s sophisticated technology uses machine learning to detect suspicious activity on a company’s network. It understands what normal behavior is and then identifies anomalies, so a company can quickly see suspicious behavior and take appropriate measures to help protect itself. Key to Aorato’s approach is the Organizational Security Graph, a living, continuously-updated view of all of the people and machines accessing an organization’s Windows Server Active Directory (AD). AD is used by most enterprises to store user identities and administer access to critical business applications and systems. Therefore, most of our enterprise customers should be able to easily take advantage of Aorato’s technology. This will complement similar capabilities that we have developed for Azure Active Directory, our cloud-based identity and access management solution.
• InMage, cloud backup and recovery, undisclosed
  • Microsoft acquires InMage: Better business continuity with Azure
    • Our customers tell us that business continuity – the ability to backup, replicate and quickly recover data and applications in case of a system failure – is incredibly important. After all, revenue, supply chains, customer loyalty, employee productivity and more are on the line. It’s also very complicated and expensive to do. CIOs consistently rank business continuity as a top priority, but often don’t have the budgets or time to do it right.
• Capptain, app management, undisclosed
  • Microsoft Buys Mobile App Management Platform Capptain To Beef Up Azure
    • Yesterday, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella noted that Azure, the company’s cloud platform, had more work to do get better traction with startups and developers — an area where one of its biggest cloud rivals, Amazon, has done well
    • Today, the company is taking a step to improve that: it has bought Capptain, a startup based out of Paris that provides app developers with analytics and the ability to send push notifications based on customer usage patterns. Capptain will be integrated into Azure, the company says.
• GreenButton, big data, compute, cloud
  • Big Compute for Microsoft Azure – Announcing the Acquisition of GreenButton
    • To address this critical and growing need, today I’m excited to announce the acquisition of GreenButton. GreenButton is a leading provider of integrated on-demand solutions that allow customers to manage compute-intensive workloads in the cloud. These solutions are known in the industry for their ease of use. Using GreenButton’s solutions, applications can be cloud-enabled quickly without recoding existing software – and without a PhD in computer science. As a result of today’s acquisition, we’ll be working to integrate those solutions with the Microsoft Azure platform, enabling customers to simply and easily solve complex problems, get more from their data and drive their business forward
• MetricsHub, cloud monitoring,
  • Microsoft Acquires MetricsHub
    • As an innovator in Active Cloud Monitoring, a technology that automates cloud performance management, MetricsHub helps customers more efficiently manage their cloud services at a lower cost.
• StorSimple, cloud-integrated storage solutions, undisclosed
  • Microsoft Reaches Agreement to Acquire StorSimple
    • StorSimple solutions combine the data management functions of primary storage, backup, archive and disaster recovery with cloud integration, enabling customers to optimize storage costs, data protection and service agility. With its unique cloud snapshot capability, StorSimple automatically protects and rapidly restores production data using public clouds. Large enterprises across many vertical markets, including retail, oil and gas, manufacturing, consumer goods, healthcare, and financial services, have made their first public cloud deployments using StorSimple.
• PhoneFactor, multi-factor authentication
  • Microsoft Acquires PhoneFactor
    • “The acquisition of PhoneFactor will help Microsoft bring effective and easy-to-use multifactor authentication to our cloud services and on-premises applications,” said Bharat Shah, corporate vice president, Server and Tools Division for Microsoft. “In addition, PhoneFactor’s solutions will help Microsoft customers, partners and developers enhance the security of almost any authentication scenario.”

History:

• Introducing Visual Studio 97: A Well-stocked Toolbox for Building Distributed Apps MAY 1997
• Introducing Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 for Developers MARCH 2006
• The Next Generation: Visual Studio 2008 MARCH 27, 2008
• Better Coding – Better Coding with Visual Studio 2010 APRIL 2010
• Microsoft introduces Visual Studio 2012 and .NET Framework 4.5 SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
• Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2013 Launches With New Online Tools, Previews Browser-Based Code Editor NOVEMBER 13, 2013
• Microsoft Launches Visual Studio 2015 JULY 20, 2015
• Visual Studio “15” Preview Now Available MARCH 30, 2017

Adoption:

• Microsoft’s Visual Studio now reigns supreme atop the IDE popularity list maintained by the PYPL Index, but the IntelliJ offering is showing signs of catching up with impressive growth. Visual Studio Code is also coming on strong.
• While holding a steady market share over the past 12 years or so, Visual Studio has emerged atop the rankings following a slow decline by the open source Eclipse — formerly the main IDE for Android programming — over that same period.
• For most developers, that’s Visual Studio, topping the index with a 22.44 percent share, up 0.4 percent from a year ago.
• We have found 60,782 companies that use Microsoft Visual Studio. The companies using Microsoft Visual Studio are most often found in United States and in the Computer Software industry. Microsoft Visual Studio is most often used by companies with 10-50 employees and 1M-10M dollars in revenue. Our data for Microsoft Visual Studio usage goes back as far as 2 years and 2 months.
• Microsoft Visual Studio Market Share and Competitors in Software Development Tools

FUTURE PLANS:

• Following 12 years of investment in its vision to create a scalable computer based on quantum physics, today Microsoft announced the creation of a new programming language optimized for exploiting scalable quantum computers and deep integration of the programming language into Visual Studio, providing developers with debugging and other support and state-of-the-art simulators that can run locally or on Microsoft Azure

RELEVANT ACQUISITIONS AND INVESTMENTS:

• Xamarin:
  • The second huge announcement was that Microsoft’s Visual Studio, a long-popular tool for writing Windows software, is getting a free add-on to let you easily make iPhone, Android, or Mac apps too. That feature is based on the technology Microsoft got when it bought the hot startup Xamarin in March.

History:

• Microsoft Launches Windows Marketplace NOVEMBER 18, 2009
• Microsoft launches Windows Phone Marketplace SEPTEMBER 28, 2011
• Windows 10 was released with updated version of Windows Store. With Windows 10, however, Microsoft merged its other distribution platforms (Windows Marketplace, Windows Phone Store, Xbox Video and Xbox Music) into Windows Store, making it a unified distribution point for apps, digital video, digital music and e-book.
• Windows Store rebranded to Microsoft Store in Windows 10 SEPTEMBER 22, 2017

Adoption:

• There are 669,000 apps for phones, desktops and tablets in the Windows Store
• She shared with me that the Windows Store has already had more than 6.5 billion visits in just its first year

Relevant Acquisitions and Investments:

• Xamarin, Developer Tools, $400MM
  • Microsoft Corp. has agreed to acquire Xamarin Inc., a four-year-old San Francisco maker of software development tools, extending the software giant’s reach deeper into devices that don’t run its Windows operating system.
  • The Xamarin acquisition gives Microsoft a stronger presence on devices beyond those that run Windows, including mobile devices, a crucial goal as Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella tries to enhance the company’s relevance to developers who have largely turned their attention to mobile platforms from Apple and Google, a division of Alphabet Inc. https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-agrees-to-acquire-xamarin-inc-1456340494
• Havok, gaming, physics engine, developer tools,
  • Havok to join Microsoft
    • Microsoft’s acquisition of Havok continues our tradition of empowering developers by providing them with the tools to unleash their creativity to the world.   We will continue to innovate for the benefit of development partners. Part of this innovation will include building the most complete cloud service, which we’ve just started to show through games like “Crackdown 3.”
• HockeyApp, crash analytics, mobile,
  • Microsoft acquires HockeyApp, leading mobile crash analytics and beta distribution service for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone
    • As mobile, cloud, and DevOps continue to transform the application development landscape, we are bringing together the most complete set of tools and services for highly productive mobile-first, cloud-first development – from cross-platform mobile development tools in Visual Studio to Application Insights in Visual Studio Online.
• SyntaxTree
  • Microsoft acquires SyntaxTree, creator of UnityVS plugin for Visual Studio
    • UnityVS enables Unity developers to take advantage of the productivity of Visual Studio to author, browse and debug the code for their Unity applications. Already today, dozens of the biggest names in game development rely on Visual Studio and the UnityVS plugin.
    • With this acquisition, we have the opportunity to integrate this support for Unity even more deeply into Visual Studio, and to continue to push forward Visual Studio’s support for game developers.  Microsoft will also make the existing UnityVS plugin available for free on our download site shortly.
• Apiphany, API management, undisclosed
  • Microsoft Acquires Apiphany
    • Today, I’m excited to announce that we have acquired Apiphany—a leading API management delivery platform. While there is nothing new about app extensibility, cloud computing has rapidly accelerated the use cases for extensibility which has increased the value of the APIs. As you might expect, with expansion and increased value, comes additional work to expose APIs reliably, securely and at scale.  Our newly acquired API management services provide businesses of any size the tools they need to expose particular endpoints while selectively gating access to more sensitive data and services.
• InRelease, app lifecycle management,
  • Microsoft Acquires InCycle’s Release Management Service InRelease To Improve Its Team Foundation Server
    • Microsoft has acquired InCycle’s release management solution InRelease, a tool for automatically deploying application components to target services in different environments. InCycle is a Canadian company that specializes in application lifecycle management (ALM) and release management solutions on Microsoft’s .NET platform.

• Microsoft AI vision: https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsofts-ai-vision-rooted-in-research-conversations/
• Microsoft AI: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/overview/ai-platform/?v=17.42
• Machine Learning Studio: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/machine-learning-studio/

• Microsoft continues to invest in data and AI solutions that help customers convert raw information into insights and intelligent services. The new generation of Azure Machine Learning makes it easy to develop, experiment and deploy AI models on any data, at any scale. The new SQL Server 2017 is a hybrid cloud database for a company’s most important apps, with built-in AI and world-class security.
• We are infusing AI into all our products, and this last quarter we announced Dynamics 365 AI solutions —part of our focus on business applications that modernize work processes.
• Microsoft Research continues to make significant advances in AI technologies, infusing them into product experiences like Bing, Cortana, LinkedIn Newsfeed, Skype Translator, Editor and PowerPoint Designer in Office, Relationship Health in Dynamics, HoloLens, and many more. We are uniquely positioned to take this AI capability and democratize it, so that every developer can be an AI developer, and every company can become an AI company. It all starts with having support for the comprehensive data estate spanning Azure Database, Cosmos DB, Data Warehouse and Data Lake, combined with SQL Server. Azure is the cloud with the richest set of ML tools, bot framework and cognitive services, enabling developers to add AI capabilities into their applications. With state-of-the-art GPU and FPGA support, our Azure infrastructure is best in class for AI workloads. I am excited about our road map here and what’s to come.

Generic AI:

• Microsoft reveals Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) push with 8000 AI researchers
  • Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow & Director at Microsoft Research said “We’ve largely built what I would call wedges of competency — a great speech recognition system, a great vision and captioning system, great object recognition system. We’ve managed to do incredible work with those wedges.”

Autonomous Cars:

• Microsoft offers cloud to Baidu, gets autonomous car in return

Real-Time Machine learning:

• Microsoft unveils Project Brainwave for real-time AI

• Genee, NLP, Productivity, undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft acquisition of Genee to accelerate intelligent experiences in Office 365
    • Genee uses natural language processing and optimized decision-making algorithms so that interacting with a virtual assistant is just like interacting with a human one. For an example of how Genee works, let’s take a look at a common scheduling problem. Say you want to meet a potential customer, Diana, for coffee. Simply send an email to Diana and copy Genee, like you would a personal assistant. Genee understands that you want to “Find a time to meet with Diana for coffee next week” and will streamline the process by emailing her directly with appropriate options that work with your calendar and preferences. Genee will even send out the meeting invite on your behalf – freeing up your time. A coffee meeting scheduled in a snap!
• Maluuba, NLP, undisclosed terms
  • Microsoft acquires deep learning startup Maluuba; AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio to have advisory role
    • “Maluuba’s vision is to advance toward a more general artificial intelligence by creating literate machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans — a vision exactly in line with ours. Maluuba’s impressive team is addressing some of the fundamental problems in language understanding by modeling some of the innate capabilities of the human brain, from memory and common sense reasoning to curiosity and decision making. I’ve been in the AI research and development field for more than 20 years now, and I’m incredibly excited about the scenarios that this acquisition could make possible in conversational AI.”
• Magic Wand, NLP, undisclosed
  • Microsoft buys Wand Labs to add more natural language tech to messaging apps and bots
    • The deal is part of Microsoft’s bigger strategy to build out “conversation as a platform,” and the team will join Microsoft’s Bing engineering and platform team to work on intelligent agents and chat bots.
    • Microsoft, hot on the heels of the news that it is buying LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, has announced yet another acquisition, this time in the area of natural language and artificial intelligence: the company has purchased Wand Labs, a startup that develops messaging apps — and specifically technology behind them that lets them act more intelligently (beyond and alongside our own intelligent interactions on them, of course).
• Equivio
  • Microsoft acquires Equivio, provider of machine learning-powered compliance solutions
    • I’m pleased to announce that Microsoft has acquired Equivio, a provider of machine learning technologies for eDiscovery and information governance. We are making this acquisition to help our customers tackle the legal and compliance challenges inherent in managing large quantities of email and documents.

Adoption:

• Search advertising revenue increased $791 million or 15%. Search advertising revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, increased 9%, primarily driven by growth in Bing, due to higher revenue per search and search volume.

Future Plans:

• Bing Ads introduced native ads on MSN.com inventory over a year ago. A pilot for dynamic native ads is now running with a small set of advertisers and publishers. The aim is to build what the company is calling an Intent Network to differentiate it from standard display networks — and more specifically, the expansive Google Display Network
• Bing Ads executives acknowledge they can’t grow mobile share on the backs of Microsoft’s first-party platforms alone. “We think of it first in terms of partnerships like Apple and think about Bing in those kinds of partnerships for mobile supply opportunities,” said Steve Sirich, general manager, marketing for search advertising. “We will continue to build experiences like the Cortana apps and Bing apps, but the first priority is on building the third-party supply chain and partnerships.”