Topic: Microsoft
Three business chiefs reiterate that relationships are the most important assets -- so handling customer data is critical business. As internet marketing continues to grow, chief marketers have more data than ever on their customers. Here, top marketers talk about their data assets and how it directs company actions. Nikesh Arora of Google, John Hayes of American Express, and Yusuf Mehdi of Microsoft talk with John Battelle.
Technology is changing: not only is it faster, more universal, and more integral to all facets of life, but each piece of technology is evolving to be quick, universal and integral by becoming multi-functional and interactive. Mark Rolston, Chief Creative Officer of frog design, gives a glimpse into the future of changing technology, predicting that present radical changes, such as touch screens and interaction like that featured in the Wii, will continue to grow and allow people to transmit data in any number of forms and function.
How much does a 1-second transaction cost you? This is exactly what Aladdin Nassar, one of three performance engineers for Windows Live Hotmail, is trying to find out. Hear how they measure and track 1.3 billion accounts at Microsoft, to improve the performance of Windows Live Hotmail, end to end.
To enable a free flow of data across platforms, operating systems and languages, Jean Paoli and his team, the Interoperability Strategy team at Microsoft, are working tirelessly. Paoli asks "What is an open cloud?" He contends that it's a cloud where data moves easily in and out, where programmers can work with the languages they choose. A truly open cloud will unleash the imaginations of developers to use the cloud's new data sets and computing power.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Architect of Bing Maps, discusses its structure and "information ecology," of content, users, and apps. By extracting the semantic content of 2D images and mapping them in 3D, Bing Maps continually improves a rich infrastructure of surface data about the world on which apps and services can ride. When it began allowing users to bind sets of images, Bing Maps found myriad partners to infill data, extrapolated to 3D, about tourist sites around the world.
Lili Cheng and her team at Microsoft's Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Lab take the challenge of making social networking more engaging while increasing productivity. Cheng, in this recording from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco (May, 2010), demonstrates the various social networking tools developed at the Fuse Lab designed to create a worthwhile social experience.
Join Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer for Microsoft, as he talks about the future of IT in government. With continued advances in microprocessing and radio connectivity over the next five to ten years, IT will soon be capable of providing novel solutions to government problems. From energy conservation initiatives to expanding highspeed wireless in remote locations, Mundie discusses how governments can address the twin problems of accountability and improved outcomes.
Everyone uses Linux: if they use Google, trade on-line, or use ATMs. Linux is the most ubiquitous OS in everything from cell phones to TVs, precisely because, Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation argues, it is free. As convergence between connectivity and device happens, network carriers and device-makers scramble to control a new service-based distribution. Zemlin urges continued protection and support of open-source through the filing of 'defensive publications' with the USPTO, and participation in several open-source projects.
For those who thought Microsoft had become a sleeping giant resting on the laurels of its popular Office franchise, Stephen Elop has news for you. In this frank discussion with Tim O'Reilly, Elop discusses Microsoft's intention to embrace interoperability and apply the results to its business model.
At some point while trying to get companies to adopt open source practices, Robert Lefkowitz realized that there was no specific open source software development methodology. In this presentation Lefkowitz discusses how he used Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory as a starting point to establish a framework for software development. With humor and insight, he outlines issues specific to open source, and shows how companies can create exceptional software by embracing a process where errors are not a bad thing.
