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Business News/ Companies / News/  Microsoft unveils new cloud services for Artificial Intelligence, industrial sensors
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Microsoft unveils new cloud services for Artificial Intelligence, industrial sensors

At its developer conference in Seattle, Microsoft will focus on Azure cloud services meant for Internet of Things, in which multiple sensors and smaller computing devices track data that can be analyzed by Microsoft's cloud and AI tools

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will deliver the keynote at the Build developer conference in Seattle on Wednesday. Photo: BloombergPremium
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will deliver the keynote at the Build developer conference in Seattle on Wednesday. Photo: Bloomberg

Seattle: Microsoft Corp. is showing off new cloud services for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and industrial sensors as well as database software tools designed to give Oracle Corp. a headache.

One artificial intelligence service uses the company’s ability to automatically translate languages to add subtitles to PowerPoint presentations, while another lets customers index video to identify a particular speaker by sight or tag when a word or phrase is uttered, company executives said during a briefing ahead of its Build developer conference in Seattle. The indexer can be used both to find specific things in hours of footage and to better match ads to clips. Microsoft’s collection of AI services for customers now numbers 29.

In a keynote featuring chief executive officer Satya Nadella, Microsoft will focus on Azure cloud services meant for the Internet of Things, in which multiple sensors and smaller computing devices track data that can be analyzed by Microsoft’s cloud and AI tools. Where the company’s previous focus has been on transferring that data back to its datacenters to analyze, Azure IoT Edge will allow that computing to take place on-site in local computing devices to speed things up. The company is focusing initially on industrial applications, and Nadella will demonstrate how this approach allows faster responses to things like malfunctioning equipment at Sweden’s Sandvik Coromant, a maker of metal-cutting tools.

He will also showcase a future scenario called AI for Workplace Safety, in which a construction site can tag pieces of equipment with properties like how it should be placed and used, as well as who can use it. Using AI software that can recognize what’s going on from things like video and sensors, the system can trigger alerts if the machine isn’t operated correctly or if there’s a spill.

Nadella has made both AI and internet-based computing key areas of investment for Microsoft as it looks for new areas of growth. In both spaces, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft is squaring up to rivals like Amazon.com Inc—Amazon Web Services is previewing a product to make IoT devices smarter too—as well as Alphabet Inc. At the same time, it’s trying to steal business from older competitors such as Oracle, even as the database giant makes its own foray into the cloud.

Microsoft is providing an early look at new tools intended to help customers switch from Oracle’s database to Microsoft’s rival product in the cloud, Azure SQL Database as a Service. The tools lets users of Microsoft’s standard SQL product switch to the cloud version.

The company is also unveiling a cloud database it regards as a significant technological leap by providing what the company terms a “planet-scale" product. Called Azure Cosmos DB, it can provide a single database instance across multiple countries so that information is always up to date anywhere. Retailer Jet.com is among the customers already using it, Microsoft cloud chief Scott Guthrie said in a blog post. Database is another front in the battle for cloud customers between Microsoft and Amazon, which has several products of its own in the area. Amazon has also been overtly baiting Oracle in public speeches.

While Microsoft is getting into newer technological spheres, its traditional businesses remain robust. Windows 10 is now in use on 500 million monthly active devices—the company had once been aiming for 1 billion in fiscal 2018 but its retreat from the phone market forced it to scale back volume ambitions. Office 365, the company’s cloud versions of the popular workplace apps, has 100 million commercial users.

Its Cortana voice-controlled search service has 141 million monthly active users. Microsoft said it signed agreements with Intel Corp. and HP to create reference designs for companies that want to make devices that use the service – though no actual companies nor devices were announced in a press statement. Harman Kardon has said it will make a competitor to Amazon’s Echo device that uses Cortana for sale later this year. Bloomberg

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Published: 10 May 2017, 10:17 PM IST
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