BY CHRISTOPHER CAEN
Theory Associates
www.theoryassociates.com
Yesterday Microsoft gave its first sneak peak at the upcoming Windows 10. It’s an important product for the company, and one that will give many insights on where new CEO Satya Nadella is planning to drive the industry icon for the foreseeable future. And it’s even more important given that Microsoft have been late to the party for nearly all the recent breakthrough products, from the Internet, to search, to mobile, and the cloud. Windows 10 represents the chance to start making up for past sins.
The biggest gossiping after the presentation was about a piece of functionality that was not shown: Cortana. For those that don’t know this piece of technology, Cortana is the Siri competitor that appeared on the recent Nokia/Microsoft handsets. The coolness was upped by the fact that the character name (and the woman who does the voice) were lifted from the mega-franchise Halo, where she appeared as an artificial life character.
There were rumors that Cortana would appear as a desktop version on Windows 9. When that launch came and went without a sighting, attention immediately shifted to Windows 10, and in fact already test frameworks are starting to appear on the web with this functionality being integrated into the Windows 10 desktop.
Now, at a glance this may not be terribly interesting. Sure, I can now use my voice to get Cortana to set up a meeting on my calendar. I can do notes and grocery lists, and reminders. Nothing at first glance seems earth shattering about this. However, if you back out a few feet and look at it from a different perspective, things start to get interesting.
First, let’s talk about search. Bing has allegedly been a dead man walking at Microsoft for years. And when Nadella took the helm of the company, he made it quite clear that the cloud was the focus for Microsoft moving forward. Immediately folks starting wondering if this meant that Xbox and Bing were about to get ejected from the mothership, as neither of these seemed to support this new core mission.
Search is a key function though, if the cloud is really your future. The inability to have a “front door” to your cloud is an invitation to get disintermediated from your own customer. And the reality of the Internet is that people are finding content more and more from avenues other than search. Don’t believe me? Then ask yourself this question: how many articles did you read last week because you clicked on a link in Facebook? And how many did you read because of a search?
In this dynamic, the further “upstream” you can stick yourself, the earlier you can grab that customer on the hunt. Search sits there and waits until you need something. Facebook gets you before you knew you wanted to consume a certain type of content….oh, look, kitten video! Click! But what if you could get them before they knew they even wanted to interact with content in the first place?
Ah, so now Cortana starts to get interesting, right? Imagine you wake up in the morning….hey Cortana, what’s my schedule for the day. Turns out you have a meeting with a company. How about Cortana gives you the latest article on that company while you are at it? How about their financial numbers?
Or say you have a meeting with a fellow employee. Would you like me to confirm with them? You can make sure documents are circulated, information is provided…hell, why not order lunch while you are at it. As much as companies are battling over the back end of the cloud, the ultimate battle is going to be at the front end.
This should not be that surprising, as we have seen this before. Right now cable providers, gaming console manufacturers, and smart television set companies are all battling to own that first screen in your home for entertainment. And as the smart home market continues to build, the same battle is starting to break out there to see who will be the key interface for your home.
Now take smart homes, the Internet of Things, and the cloud, and smash them all together. And now put yourself, the consumer, in the middle of this madness. How exactly, on a day to day basis, are you going to be able to manage this? Probably with something that can give you access to it all, from any device, whenever you need it. And suddenly, that silly little character from Halo doesn’t seem, so…well…silly.
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