Tag: Recent News

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South Africa-based Nedbank speeds toward a digital future

As the chief information officer for South Africa-based Nedbank Group, Fred Swanepoel recognizes that today’s consumers expect immediate responses to their needs in a 24/7 online world.

“Clients have experiences in other industries that they bring across, and they develop those kinds of expectations of their banks and financial services providers,” he says. “So, if a bank does not innovate along with the speed that clients expect, you will risk becoming irrelevant.”

Technology is at the heart of banking today and is moving Nedbank from being a bank to becoming a digital financial services provider. To make that shift and better serve its diverse client base, the 188-year-old company, which operates in seven African countries (plus 33 more through its Ecobank alliance), is partnering with Microsoft to migrate various operations to the cloud.

The company is using Azure-based compliance technologies to increase data privacy and security in a highly regulated industry. In addition, Microsoft Dynamics applications play a key role in managing customer relationships for the bank.

Nedbank also worked with Microsoft to develop a chatbot named EVA (Electronic Virtual Assistant), an app first used in South Africa that can understand the context of clients’ questions, then answer those questions, provide investment advice and prepopulate forms for investor clients.

“In thinking about banking in the future, we are reimagining client needs and how they will consume banking services,” Swanepoel says.

“Our investment in world-class digital technologies and talent means that we have established an innovative and streamlined IT operating platform that is secure and stable, but most importantly, delivers a convenient and seamless client experience in support of becoming more client focused, more digital, more agile and more competitive.”

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Microsoft Garage fan favorite Dictate graduates to Office and Windows

Today, we’re excited to graduate Dictate, a Microsoft Garage project, 2 years after its initial launch. The Office add-in for Microsoft Office released in June 2017, enabling Office users to be more productive with the power of dictation. Upon positive reception from users, Dictate’s approach to dictation was increasingly integrated across Office and Windows products. The feature sets are staffed by two dedicated teams and continue to improve over time.

Doing one thing really well

Dictate got its start as a Hackathon project in 2016 when a small team saw there was demand for enhanced dictation features integrated into tasks we handle everyday–drafting emails and documents, recording notes for ourselves and others, and even translating content. Anand Desai, a Software Engineer on the Speech and Language team in Microsoft’s Cloud and AI group and one of the hack project leads saw an opportunity to translate his team’s work in speech recognition to a simple tool for dictation. After building a prototype, the team reached out to Derik Stenerson, a Principle Program Manager on the Office team who was spearheading an initiative to bring dictation to Office. Together, they realized they could create a focused Office add-in that could help them zero in on the best experience before incorporating that approach into Office on a broad scale.

Dictate team image
The Dictate team pictured from left to right: Anirudh Koul, Anand Desai, Derik Stenerson, Eren Song, Prabhav Agrawal, Ayush Sharma, Cem Aksoylar

When Dictate launched, hundreds of users emailed in feedback. “It was invaluable to have a deeper conversation with the people who use this to make their lives more productive,” shares Derik. More importantly, the engagement from users confirmed they were on to something. “The thing that gave us the most encouragement to go forward was the reception,” continues Derik. We confirmed that there’s a huge gap and a really strong need, and more some users it’s incredibly impactful. It’s not just that the project enabled users to get more done in less time–we heard that from information workers and journalists. But the feedback we heard from people with challenges with hand dexterity issues and dyslexia about the impact in their lives really motivated our team.” The team began integrating confirmed features into Office and Windows shortly after launch and has maintained the Garage project as a way to continue to get detailed feedback from fans.

“The Garage afforded us the freedom to experiment and learn quickly.” –Derik Stenerson

We asked Derik about this unique strategy of creating a Garage project that focuses on doing one thing well to unearth insights for an integrated feature set. “We can do something really lightweight, really fast and confirm that we’re on the right track. That’s what the spirit of this was for me.” Since Dictate launched in 2017, the Office team has built a state-of-the-art testing experimentation platform that allows teams to flight new experiences and rapidly collect customer feedback right within Office.

For Anand, the Dictate launch and now graduation struck an even deeper chord, bringing memories of his first experiences with technology growing up in India. “Personally, if Microsoft had not reached the parts of the world I grew up in, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Specifically Office 97 inspired a sense of passion for software development in me–it’s so fulfilling to have had the opportunity to contribute to this same product and potentially inspire others in a similar way all these years later.”

Continue enjoying dictation on Office and Windows

The project will formally sunset on October 15, 2019. We recommend users who love Dictate leverage the dictation feature sets in Windows 10 and Office 365 that the project inspired. Full un-installation details are documented in an FAQ on the project website.

This effort would not have been possible without the users who tried the project and gave feedback–thank you for your time and passion. The teams are still working to improve these features. If you’d like to offer additional feedback on dictation features moving forward, you can do so through in-product feedback channels outlined here.

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There’s power in the ‘Location of Things’ – find it with Azure Maps

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the beginning of accessing planetary-scale insights. With the mass adoption of IoT and the very near future explosion of sensors, connectivity, and computing, humanity is on the cusp of a fully connected, intelligent world. We will be part of the generation that realizes the data-rich, algorithmically deterministic lifestyle the world has never seen. The inherent value of this interconnectedness lies within the constructs of human nature to thrive. Bringing all of this information together with spatial intelligence has been challenging to say the least. Until today.

Today, we’re unveiling a cross-Azure IoT collaboration simplifying the use of location and spatial intelligence used in conjunction with IoT messaging. The result is the means for customers to use Azure IoT services to stay better informed about their “things” in terms of space. Azure IoT customers can now implement IoT spatial analytics using Azure Maps. Providing spatial intelligence to IoT devices means greater insights into not just what’s happening, but where it’s happening.

The map shows four points where the vehicle was outside the geofence, logged at regular time intervals.

Azure Maps provides geographic context for information and, as it pertains to IoT, thus geographic insights based on IoT information. Customers are using Azure Maps and Azure IoT for monitoring movement of assets and cross reference the “things” with their location. For example, assume a truck is delivering refrigerated goods from New York City to Washington DC. A route is calculated to determine the path and duration the truck should take to deliver the goods. From the route, a geofence can be created and stored in Azure Maps. The black box on the truck tracking the vehicle would provide Azure IoT Hub to determine if the truck ever leaves the predetermined path. If it does, this could signal that something is wrong—a detour could be disastrous for refrigerated goods. Notifications of detours could be setup and communicated through Azure Event Grid and sent over email, text, or a myriad of other communication mediums.

When we talk about Azure IoT, we often talk about data (from sensors) which leads to insights (when computed) which leads to actions (a result of insights). With The Location of Things, we’re now talking about data from sensors which leads to insights which leads to actions and where they are needed. Knowing where to take actions has massive implications in terms of cost efficacy and time management. When you know where you have issues or opportunities, you can then make informed decisions of where to deploy resources, where to deploy inventory, or where to withdraw them. Run this over time and with enough data and you have artificial intelligence you could deploy at the edge to help with real-time decision making. Have enough data coming in fast enough and you’d be making decisions fast enough to predict future opportunities and issues—and where to deploy resources before you need them.

Location is a powerful component of providing insights. If you have a means of providing location via your IoT messages you can start doing so immediately. If you don’t have location natively, you’d be surprised at how you can get location associated with your sensors and device location. RevIP, Wi-Fi, and cell tower triangulation all provide a means of getting location into your IoT messages. Get that location data into the cloud and start gaining spatial insights today.

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Latency is the new currency of the Cloud: announcing 31 new Azure edge sites

Providing users fast and reliable access to their cloud services, apps, and content is pivotal to a business’ success.

The latency when accessing cloud-based services can be the inhibitor to cloud adoption or migration. In most cases, this is caused by commercial internet connections that aren’t tailored to today’s global cloud needs. Through deployment and operation of globally and strategically placed edge sites, Microsoft dramatically accelerates the performance and experience when you are accessing apps, content, or services such as Azure and Office 365 on the Microsoft global network.

Edges optimize network performance through local access points to and from the vast Microsoft global network, in many cases providing 10x the acceleration to access and consume cloud-based content and services from Microsoft.

What is the network edge?

Solely providing faster network access isn’t enough, and applications need intelligent services to expedite and simplify how a global audience accesses and experiences their offerings. Edge sites provide application development teams increased visibility and higher availability to access services that improve how they deliver global applications.

Edge sites benefit infrastructure and development teams in multiple key areas

  • Improved optimization for application delivery through Azure Front Door (AFD.) Microsoft recently announced AFD, which allows customers to define, manage, accelerate, and monitor global routing for web traffic with customizations for the best performance and instant global failover for application accessibility.
  • An enhanced customer experience via high-bandwidth access to Azure Blob storage, web applications, and live video-on-demand streams. Azure Content Delivery Network delivers high-bandwidth content by caching objects to the consumer’s closest point of presence.
  • Private connectivity and dedicated performance through Azure ExpressRoute. ExpressRoute provides up to 100 gigabits per second of fully redundant bandwidth directly to the Microsoft global network at select peering locations across the globe, making connecting to and through Azure a seamless and integrated experience for customers.

A diagram of an Azure Edge Site.

New edge sites

Today, we’re announcing the addition of 31 new edge sites, bringing the total to over 150 across more than 50 countries. We’re also adding 14 new meet-me sites to Azure ExpressRoute to further enable and expand access to dedicated private connections between customers’ on-premises environments and Azure.

A map showing upcoming and live edges.

More than two decades of building global network infrastructure have given us a keen awareness of globally distributed edge sites and their critical role in a business’ success.

By utilizing the expanding network of edge sites, Microsoft provides more than 80 percent of global GDP with an experience of sub-30 milliseconds latency. We are adding new edges every week, and our ambition is to provide this level of performance to all of our global audience.

This expansion proves its value further when workloads move to the cloud or when Microsoft cloud services such as Azure, Microsoft 365, and Xbox are used. By operating over a dedicated, premium wide-area-network, our customers avoid transferring customer data over the public internet, which ensures security, optimizes traffic, and increases performance.

New edge sites

Country

City

Colombia

Bogota

Germany

Frankfurt
Munich

India

Hyderabad

Indonesia

Jakarta

Kenya

Nariobi

Netherlands

Amsterdam

New Zealand

Auckland

Nigeria

Lagos

Norway

Stavanger

United Kingdom

London

United States

Boston
Portland

Vietnam

Saigon

Upcoming edge sites

Country

City

Argentina

Buenos Aires

Egypt

Cairo

Germany

Dusseldorf

Israel

Tel Aviv

Italy

Rome

Japan

Tokyo

Norway

Oslo

Switzerland

Geneva

Turkey

Istanbul

United States

Detroit
Jacksonville
Las Vegas
Minneapolis
Nashville
Phoenix
Quincy (WA)
San Diego

Country

City

Canada

Vancouver

Colombia

Bogota

Germany

Berlin
Dusseldorf

Indonesia

Jakarta

Italy

Milan

Mexico

Queretaro (Mexico City)

Norway

Oslo
Stavanger

Switzerland

Geneva
Thailand

Bangkok

United States

Minneapolis
Phoenix
Quincy (WA)

With this latest announcement, Microsoft continues to offer cloud customers the fastest and most accessible global network, driving a competitive advantage for organizations accessing the global market and increased satisfaction for consumers.

Explore the Microsoft global network to learn about how it can benefit your organization today.

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Fighting fire with AI: Unlocking the value of data in Seoul

Hongik University’s Professor Lee and his students used AI to develop a new model that can predict the probability of fires.

Nothing is more associated with death and destruction than fire. It can produce a primal fear in all of us.

So, when a university professor in Seoul, South Korea, challenged his class to use data to find solutions for complicated real-world problems, one student suggested analyzing information held by the city’s Fire Department.

The idea was to predict the probability of fires so that authorities could take action to make the city safer for its more than 9 million residents.

Hongik University’s Professor Jae Seung Lee and his students used artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms to develop a new model that can now do just that.

With Azure Machine Learning Studio, they ran different ML modules until they were able to predict fires with a 90% accuracy rate.

Maximizing readiness

The information they extracted from the datasets identified parts of the city with a high probability of fire – knowledge that has empowered firefighters to optimize their patrol routes and deployments.

Having more fire crews on duty in more “flammable” neighborhoods means they can respond to calls faster and so secure the safety of people and minimize property damage.

The analysis also looked at the locations of fire stations and spotted gaps or blank areas that were not adequately covered. Because Seoul is already a very developed city, you can’t just build a new station. Instead, authorities deployed more fire crews to stations on the fringes of underserved areas.

Professor Lee admits being surprised by some of the findings of the project.

“I used to think older districts, like Gangbuk, were more prone to fires. But the model revealed otherwise,” he said. “Newer districts, like Gangnam, are actually more susceptible to fire incidents, as there are more shops and people around the neighborhood. Illegal parking also plays a role.”

City authorities have welcomed such unexpected insights.

Jeong Joon Ahn, Director of Big Data Division at Seoul metropolitan Government said, “The project is a good example of what we want to achieve. We want to use the latest technology, like artificial intelligence, to make our city safer while using our resources more efficiently.”

The new AI model predicts that newer districts like Gangnam are more susceptible to fire incidents.

Building trust

The department had “a lot of data” about the causes of fires, their locations, as well as the casualty numbers, but they wanted to make sure the data would be shared in a way that protected citizens’ privacy.

To do that, Professor Lee suggested building a Microsoft virtual machine (VM), which kept data secure and restricted to only selected individuals.

No outsider, not even the professor, had access to original data. Instead, he had to work with “summarized” information, which he could not even download.

This cautious approach built a level of trust with the Fire Department that allowed the project to succeed.

Opportunities for the future

Professor Lee now wants to apply the team’s predictive model to other city problems, such as crime and traffic.

Currently, the team is tackling the issue of wheelchair accessibility across the capital. And, the university’s collaboration with authorities has paved the way for a “Seoul Metropolitan Government Big Data Campus” – an initiative that provides space for researchers to access public and private datasets in controlled settings.

To equip his students with the right skills for an AI-enabled world, Professor Lee teaches the essentials, like basic statistics and coding. But he also says they need more to have an impact.

“My students need to know urban planning very well and understand how the city works. That’s the kind of domain knowledge you need to define the right problems. If you’ve defined the right problem, the solution is much easier to find.”

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CTO Kevin Scott on the Intelligent Edge revolution

I’m old enough now to have experienced several distinct waves of transformation brought by digital technology. As a kid, the personal computing revolution captured my imagination and energy with gaming and programming and new ways to create and do work. As a young adult, personal computers were everywhere and the internet and the World Wide Web connected them, and more importantly, the people using them, in ways that allowed communication and information to flow freely, and for work, commerce, creativity and leisure to be done in radically different ways. In my 30s, the smartphone and an incredible ecosystem of apps and services extended the internet to our pockets, making our connections to information and each other more ubiquitous, helping us navigate our way through the physical world, allowing us to buy almost any good or service we can think of, entertaining us in wonderful new ways, and making collaboration to get our work done more powerful than ever.

Even though that’s already a lot of transformation in a short period of time, and technology has never been more present in our lives, I feel like we’re just getting started. The next wave – one that’s already happening – comes when cheap connected devices with powerful sensors become truly ubiquitous in all of our physical environments, and when those devices become powerful enough to use the techniques of artificial intelligence (AI) to interact with their surroundings and the people in them. We call this combination of connected devices with powerful sensors and AI the Intelligent Edge. A year ago, I shared my belief that the Intelligent Edge would unfold as a platform over the next several years in ways that would surprise us by its breadth and diversity. And it already has.

The Intelligent Edge is proving to be the last mile in the convergence of the digital and physical worlds. –whether it’s a mixed-reality device like HoloLens providing a technician with a digital overlay of analytics, diagnostics and documentation for a piece of equipment they are servicing, or smart devices making the places where we live, work and shop more responsive and interactive, safer and more efficient. Intelligent Edge technologies are already making our homes smarter, improving the yields of our farms, monitoring the environment, helping us navigate our work more effectively, and improving our health and safety.

We’re in the middle of a revolution that is more than just smart speakers, security cameras and clever thermostats. Right now, we have in excess of 12 billion devices connected to the internet. It’s forecast that by the end of this calendar year, that number will rise to 20 billion. We anticipate that billions more of these devices are going to connect to the internet in the next few years. It’s a staggering thought. This Internet of Things (IoT) is already many times larger than the universe of personal computers and smartphones combined, and devices on it are becoming more powerful and more intelligent every day. With the advent of 5G, with its higher throughput, lower latency to the cloud, and higher device densities at the edge, we are likely to see the growth of the Intelligent Edge accelerate even further.

It probably comes as no surprise that I’ve been super stoked by each of the big technology platform waves that I’ve personally experienced, from PCs, to the internet, to smartphones. The Intelligent Edge is no different. I can’t keep from tinkering with these technologies, and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I’m using bits of the Intelligent Edge platform to build, of all things, an AI-powered siphon vacuum coffee machine. Instead of screens and buttons, my machine has a camera, a microphone, a speaker, a small digital brain and a connection to the cloud. When you focus your attention on it, it notices, and will ask “Would you like a cup of coffee?” When you respond “Yes,” it guides you through the brewing process with a short dialogue. And if you like, it will remember you and your preferences so that you can get your next cup of coffee more quickly.

My coffee machine probably won’t be commercially viable, and no one should mistake my weekend tinkering for a product that might one day show up in the Microsoft store. But one thing that’s become very clear to me as I build this machine is this: The Intelligent Edge parts of the device are neither especially hard nor expensive. I’m having a tougher time designing a safe steam boiler than I am with the AI! The hardware I’m using to run some of the local AI is cheap and readily available, and the software techniques I’m using to split the AI computations between the edge and the cloud are relatively straightforward. The Intelligent Edge and Intelligent Cloud platform that’s already out there for everyone to use is already quite capable. And even though to some, my coffee machine sounds like a crazy sci-fi project, making it a reality doesn’t feel as challenging as writing my first PC program, internet service or mobile app felt in the early days of those platforms.

What I’m most excited about with the Intelligent Edge is not what we’ve already done, nor even what I can imagine might be done with this new platform, but rather, what others will imagine and create as tens of millions of developers, entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers start building new products and businesses with this technology. Given the magnitude of growth ahead of us, and the fact that the platform is becoming more powerful every day, the opportunities for creators, entrepreneurs and businesses are huge. As with any successful platform, the true measure of the Intelligent Edge’s success will be in the breadth and diversity of the things built on top of it. There, I have infinite faith in the vision and ambition of others.

The IoT Signals Report (an annual research survey published by Microsoft) identifies key, industry-relevant trends in IoT. The survey, conducted by individual interviews with more than 3,000 IoT professionals based in Europe, Asia and North America, found that IoT is considered mainstream. Businesses are seeing tremendous value and opportunity in their ability to improve their bottom lines through IoT adoption. Right now, we’re seeing significant advancements in what I call a new world order with the demise of Moore’s law[1] and the collapse of Dennard scaling[2]. This means that compute is no longer becoming cheap at the exact same time that machine learning is becoming an insatiable consumer of compute power. But while this shift is impacting PCs, we will still see a few years where the power and compute capabilities of Intelligent Edge devices will continue to improve exponentially without much increase in cost.

IoT devices that are part of the Intelligent Edge provide businesses with invaluable insights on how to transform processes for operational efficiencies, such as improving the maintenance of vital of equipment before a costly shutdown and accelerating innovation while simultaneously improving safety, for example. As the IoT landscape continues to expand, we can bank on critical breakthroughs in areas that benefit humanity, such as healthcare, conservation, sustainability, accessibility and disaster recovery.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling

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How Lucky Brand and its merchants are uncovering data-driven results with Azure VMware Solutions

Since announcing Azure VMware Solutions at Dell Technologies World this spring, we’ve been energized by the positive feedback we’ve received from our partners and customers who are beginning to move their VMware workloads to Azure. One of these customers is Lucky Brand, a leading retailer that is embracing digital transformation while staying true to its rich heritage. As part of their broader strategy to leverage the innovation possible in the cloud, Lucky Brand is transitioning several VMware workloads to Azure.

“We’re seeing great initial ROI with Azure VMware Solutions. We chose Microsoft Azure as our strategic cloud platform and decided to dramatically reduce our AWS footprint and 3rd Party co-located data centers. We have a significant VMware environment footprint for many of our on-premises business applications.

The strategy has allowed us to become more data driven and allow our merchants and finance analysts the ability to uncover results quickly and rapidly with all the data in a central cloud platform providing great benefits for us in the competitive retail landscape. Utilizing Microsoft Azure and VMware we leverage a scalable cloud architecture and VMware to virtualize and manage the computing resources and applications in Azure in a dynamic business environment.

Since May, we’ve been successfully leveraging these applications on the Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple platform. We are impressed with the performance, ease of use and the level of support we have received by Microsoft and its partners.” 

Kevin Nehring, CTO, Lucky Brand

Expanding to more regions worldwide and adding new capabilities

Based on customer demand, we are excited to announce that we will expand Azure VMware Solutions to a total of eight regions across the US, Western Europe, and Asia Pacific by end of year.

In addition to expanding to more regions, we are continuing to add new capabilities to Azure VMware Solutions and deliver seamless integration with native Azure services. One example is how we’re expanding the supported Azure VMware Solutions storage options to include Azure NetApp Files by the end of the year. This new capability will allow IT organizations to more easily run storage intensive workloads on Azure VMware Solutions. We are committed to continuously innovating and delivering capabilities based on customer feedback.

Broadening the ecosystem

It is amazing to see the market interest in Azure VMware Solutions and the partner ecosystem building tools and capabilities that support Azure VMware Solutions customer scenarios.

RiverMeadow now supports capabilities to accelerate the migration of VMware environments on Azure VMware Solutions.

“I am thrilled about our ongoing collaboration with Microsoft. Azure VMware Solutions enable enterprise customers to get the benefit of cloud while still running their infrastructure and applications in a familiar, tried and trusted VMware environment. Add with the performance and cost benefits of VMware on Azure, you have a complete solution. I fully expect to see substantial enterprise adoption over the short term as we work with Microsoft’s customers to help them migrate even the most complex workloads to Azure.”

Jim Jordan, President and CEO, RiverMeadow

Zerto has integrated its IT Resilience Platform with Azure VMware Solutions, delivering replication and failover capabilities between Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple, Azure and any other Hyper-V or VMware environments, keeping the same on-premises environment configurations, and reducing the impact of disasters, logical corruptions, and ransomware infections.

“Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple, brings the familiarity and simplicity of VMware into Azure public cloud. Every customer and IT pro using VMware will be instantly productive with minimal or no Azure competency. With Zerto, VMware customers gain immediate access to simple point and click disaster recovery and migration capabilities between Azure VMware Solutions, the rest of Azure, and on-premises VMware private clouds. Enabled by Zerto, one of Microsoft’s top ISVs and an award-winning industry leader in VMware-based disaster recovery and cloud migration, delivers native support for Azure VMware Solutions. ”

Peter Kerr, Vice President of Global Alliances, Zerto

Veeam Backup & Replication™ software is specialized in supporting VMware vSphere environments, their solutions will help customers meet the backup demands of organizations deploying Azure VMware Solutions.

“As a leading innovator of Cloud Data Management solutions, Veeam makes it easy for our customers to protect their virtual, physical, and cloud-based workloads regardless of where those reside. Veeam’s support for Microsoft Azure VMware Solutions by CloudSimple further enhances that position by enabling interoperability and portability across multi-cloud environments. With Veeam Backup & Replication, customers can easily migrate and protect their VMware workloads in Azure as part of a cloud-first initiative, create an Azure-based DR strategy, or simply create new Azure IaaS instances – all with the same proven Veeam solutions they already use today.”  

Ken Ringdahl, Vice President of Global Alliances Architecture, Veeam Software

Join us at VMworld

If you plan to attend VMworld this week in San Francisco, stop by our booth and witness Azure VMware Solutions in action; or sit down for a few minutes and listen to one of our mini theater presentations addressing a variety of topics such as Windows Virtual Desktop, Windows Server, and SQL Server on Azure in addition to Azure VMware Solutions!

Learn more about Azure VMware Solutions.

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ZF expands Partnership with Microsoft to Develop Digital Services

Whether in the passenger car sector or for commercial vehicles, ZF is well on the road toward Vision Zero. Autonomous vehicles, innovative safety systems and intelligent mobility solutions contribute to a future of road traffic with zero accidents and zero emissions. This will be accompanied by digitalizing the entire value chain. The technological backbone for these applications is the ZF Cloud based on Microsoft Azure. The closer collaboration with Microsoft allows ZF the development of even more customer focused and tailor-made solutions.

“The strategic partnership with Microsoft will allow us to work even more intensely on intelligent and networked mobility solutions of the future,” explains Mamatha Chamarthi, chief digital officer at ZF Friedrichshafen AG. “This puts us in the position of developing new digital services, on the one hand, and to adapt them perfectly to specific customer needs, on the other.”

Sanjay Ravi, General Manager, Automotive Industry, at Microsoft, adds: “We are excited to expand our collaboration with ZF. Microsoft Azure’s cloud, AI and IoT capabilities enable ZF to deliver highly secure mobility services at a global scale with a faster time to market and respond to the unique needs of their customers and partners worldwide.”

At the CES trade show, ZF will present their initial application options for the expanded platform. These options were developed with various partners and will encompass diverse areas of use:

Comprehensive fleet management

VDL, one of the leading manufacturer groups in the bus sector, uses the ZF IoT platform not only for its fleet management solution being sold to its customers, but also for its own fleet. The platform provides VDL a complete overview of the efficiency of its electric and diesel vehicles. By the end of 2018, more than 300 VDL electric buses had been equipped with the solution. In the process, VDL uses the entire bandwidth of Microsoft Azure services – from the Edge device to the cloud-based platform.

Smart transmissions through predictive maintenance

With the new Predictive Maintenance function, ZF is preparing its successful modular TraXon transmission for the digital future in the commercial vehicle industry. Starting in 2019, vehicle manufacturers and fleet operators can proactively plan vehicle maintenance using the cloud solution.

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LG partners with Microsoft to accelerate an automotive revolution

Signing of MoU between LG and Microsoft group image

Employing Microsoft Azure Technology to advance LG’s AI-driven vehicle strategy

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8, 2019 — LG Electronics (LG) and Microsoft entered into a memorandum of understanding to enhance and further grow LG’s autonomous vehicle and infotainment system business. Under the terms of the partnership, LG will accelerate the transformation of its existing digital platform for the vehicle industry, seen as key growth engines for the company, by leveraging Microsoft’s Azure cloud and artificial intelligence technologies along with LG’s future self-driving software.

LG will apply Microsoft’s AI knowhow to its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Driver-Status Monitoring Camera (DSM) and Multi-Purpose Front Camera products and incorporate Microsoft’s Virtual Assistant Solution Accelerator in LG’s infotainment systems. And with Azure Data Box service, data captured on the road can be uploaded automatically to create a library that helps the self-driving software grow even smarter.

In addition, LG plans to build innovative digital development and testing grounds employing state-of-the-art technology. High performance computing (HPC) and graphics processing unit (GPU) supported by Microsoft Azure will drastically reduce the time required for LG AI self-driving software to learn and evolve. Road and traffic patterns in cities that would normally require more than a full day for self-driving systems to comprehend would take only minutes with Azure.

And Azure can help AI self-driving software learn diverse patterns displayed by drivers as well as recognize and distinguish between pedestrians and other objects. By embedding AI self-driving software enhanced by Azure within the ADAS, performance of the DSM and Multi-Purpose Front Camera can be dramatically improved.

In addition to its ability to train AI self-driving software, Azure also has a voice-enabled Virtual Assistant Solution Accelerator with its AI services. With help from Azure, LG’s vehicle infotainment system will allow drivers to easily and quickly check traffic conditions on the road, search for nearby restaurants, call up favorite songs and more.

“Our expectation is that the combination of Microsoft’s advanced cloud infrastructure with LG’s fast-growing automotive components business will accelerate the self-driving auto industry as a whole,” said Kim Jin-yong, president of LG’s Vehicle Component Solutions Company. “We’re confident that the combination of Microsoft and LG technologies will create a new benchmark in autonomous auto AI.”

“Together LG and Microsoft can help shape the future of transportation,” said Sanjay Ravi, general manager, automotive industry at Microsoft. “Working together, we can empower automakers to deliver differentiated mobility experiences, create new services and revenue opportunities, and to build safer, more intelligent and more sustainable vehicles.”

Top image caption: Kim Jin-yong, President of LG’s Vehicle Component Solutions Company (center left), Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer (center right), and other executives celebrate the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on the enhancement and growth LG’s autonomous vehicle and infotainment system businesses.

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