Lack of mobile will keep MS from being a major player in AI.
- Thread starter aximtreo
- Start date
This points to how short sited MS Management is towards Mobile market needs. Interesting to see how other WC readers react.
Adventurer64
New member
I agree and long term viability of Windows 10 is at risk. My employer is slowly transitioning to Apple because of mobile. My kids, and all their friends, hate Windows / MS and prefer Apple or Google.
theefman
Active member
I suspect they will be satisfied with being the cloud backend it all runs on and will use those numbers to brag how many AI "users" they have.
Sent from mTalk
Sent from mTalk
I have to agree with the article. This is just starting and they don’t have a mobile presence to speak of.
techiez
Member
Everyone knows this except for maybe Jason Ward and few hardcore fan boys who drool about surface foldable, project rome, woa etc.
Even the late comer Samsung Bixby is way better then Cortana(I'm not in US, cortana is better probably there)
MS leadership just hides its lack of efforts behind big talk. Remember how they said they want to grow Cortana slowly to ensure cortana is really smart to unerstand region/language accent specific nuances, but what has happened is that cortana is now miles behind.
FindleInClev
New member
the continued myth that MS isn't in mobile because they didn't try is laughable. Its more accurate to say mobile as a market couldn't support more then 2 ecosystems and that at the end of the day they weren't one of the first 2.
Looking through lens of history the only way that MS could have drastically changed how things turned out would have been to outright buy one of the major telecoms in the US before they launched.
Looking through lens of history the only way that MS could have drastically changed how things turned out would have been to outright buy one of the major telecoms in the US before they launched.
Probably true, but MS's reluctance to introduce Cortana to most markets is probably even more hurtful...
I believe that the mobile market can support more than 2 ecosystems. The 3rd needs to be as desirable as the 2 incumbents though.
People keep saying the market can't hold more than two, but fail to remember that Microsoft was there first.
If Microsoft went all in like they should've, then they would be still in it.
Lack of engineers, marketing, and most importantly vision at the top failed them.
If Microsoft went all in like they should've, then they would be still in it.
Lack of engineers, marketing, and most importantly vision at the top failed them.
EspHack
New member
cortana at launch was amazing, they could've used kinect 2 on xbox and pc to push it into the living room where it makes the most sense, it was already capable of login in different users simultaneously and most consoles and obviously htpc's would have a decent to excellent sound output
instead they just made a few "voice commands" like they were in 2003 and left an SDK on windows so developers hopefully pull all that off, not even simple UI interaction and webcam-mic functionality was added for w8.1 or 10 until recently, cortana took forever to arrive on xbox and now nobody cares about it, aand they just killed kinect
its not so much a failure as it is a deliberate decision to die, failure would be blackberry trying until the end, unlike this "retrenchment" bs
instead they just made a few "voice commands" like they were in 2003 and left an SDK on windows so developers hopefully pull all that off, not even simple UI interaction and webcam-mic functionality was added for w8.1 or 10 until recently, cortana took forever to arrive on xbox and now nobody cares about it, aand they just killed kinect
its not so much a failure as it is a deliberate decision to die, failure would be blackberry trying until the end, unlike this "retrenchment" bs
TechFreak1
Moderator
I've been harping on about Microsoft's short sightedness for awhile, soo I'll refrain from sharing my views on the matter otherwise I'll end up typing an million page novel and render myself short sighted from typing too much without a break :grincry:.
Wevenhuis
New member
No, I don't see a lack of mobile as the "killer" of A.I. at microsoft. I think cracking the code of language and cultural support for A.I. is the limiting factor. Microsoft mentioned early that they were working on this. I have also noticed the other platforms lacking adequate language support for their AI. It is almost main English that is used as the main input data to develop and enhance it further. But for everyday use regionally and locally, eventually recognition of culture and language will me more relevant and valuable. I don't find A.I. very useful due to lack of language support.
I think microsoft still has a chance to redeem itself with A.I., when talking about it synonymously with technologies like, Siri, Google, Alexa and Cortana. Microsoft still has over 600 million potential users to co-develop Cortana with. The biggest frustration I have seen and experienced with windows and insiders and windows phone is the horrendously poor access to region and language support of the Cortana A.I. Only a handful of languages and regions are supoported. I do believe microsoft has their rational techinical, but also likely economic reasons for doing this. But as I see it this really slows down A.I. use and development. If microsoft is willing to challenge the competition by fully developing Cortana A.I. for multiple regions and languages in parallel, the lack of actual A.I. will matter less, as with a potential experimental datagroup of 600 million international users, combined with the insiders hub. There will be a massive datapool to refine it. If microsoft puts work into that first, then release the technology, I think they could still be ahead or at least at level of the competition. But it is a big jump microsoft will have to make.
But despite repeated feedback from my region and language, and many other regions, things haven't changed. Cortana is will only be mostly relevant for the US and a few English speaking countries to be of any value. They still haven't opened up to other regions in any meaningful way, when it comes to Cortana for windows. It's just not an interesting market or value proposition. In that position I exprience google and siri as the same, even though they have a higher market penetration with actual hardware. But in this case the hardware is only as good as its software if A.I. is also part of the sellingpoint. Microsoft has cut a lot in mobile, but I would then believe it has the space and financing then to redistribute financing to fasttrack the A.I. language support. I believe the hardware can follow quickly form this and doesn't necessarily define a lack of progress. Window 10 on current and older devices is the foot in the door that can help gather the necessary data to propell that fasttracking milestone. I'm sure insiders are waiting eagerly to help fastrack this development.
I think microsoft still has a chance to redeem itself with A.I., when talking about it synonymously with technologies like, Siri, Google, Alexa and Cortana. Microsoft still has over 600 million potential users to co-develop Cortana with. The biggest frustration I have seen and experienced with windows and insiders and windows phone is the horrendously poor access to region and language support of the Cortana A.I. Only a handful of languages and regions are supoported. I do believe microsoft has their rational techinical, but also likely economic reasons for doing this. But as I see it this really slows down A.I. use and development. If microsoft is willing to challenge the competition by fully developing Cortana A.I. for multiple regions and languages in parallel, the lack of actual A.I. will matter less, as with a potential experimental datagroup of 600 million international users, combined with the insiders hub. There will be a massive datapool to refine it. If microsoft puts work into that first, then release the technology, I think they could still be ahead or at least at level of the competition. But it is a big jump microsoft will have to make.
But despite repeated feedback from my region and language, and many other regions, things haven't changed. Cortana is will only be mostly relevant for the US and a few English speaking countries to be of any value. They still haven't opened up to other regions in any meaningful way, when it comes to Cortana for windows. It's just not an interesting market or value proposition. In that position I exprience google and siri as the same, even though they have a higher market penetration with actual hardware. But in this case the hardware is only as good as its software if A.I. is also part of the sellingpoint. Microsoft has cut a lot in mobile, but I would then believe it has the space and financing then to redistribute financing to fasttrack the A.I. language support. I believe the hardware can follow quickly form this and doesn't necessarily define a lack of progress. Window 10 on current and older devices is the foot in the door that can help gather the necessary data to propell that fasttracking milestone. I'm sure insiders are waiting eagerly to help fastrack this development.
Radu Simionoff
New member
Definitely, lack of mobile is going to keep Microsoft from being a major player in AI and this move away from Mobile could be the beginning of the end for Microsoft. They are saying that their services will be available on any platform, but this is just big talk, because in reality Microsoft is at Google's and Apple's mercy, if Microsoft is relying on other mobile platforms and they do not have their own platform. Any time Google or Apple change something to their platform there are big chances that something will not work with Microsoft's services. For me, this is a loosing bet.
Steven Ramsden
New member
I can only say for definant my own experience. I have been forced to embrace the competition for Microsoft's lack of region support out of the US and UK. if they ever expected me to return as a customer they would have to embrace a better global approach for there entire product portfolio. lack of mobile and accompanying products is a direct impact we use cortana on Xbox or win 10 laptop 1% compared to how the whole family have accepted Google home and Google AI on mobile.
teaglass
New member
Assuming that (not sure about the following):
We are not yet able to answer if Microsoft is or is not becoming a mayor AI player. The question is not specific enough as well. Microsoft can for instance define spearhead areas to focus it's AI development upon. Maybe this is a more cost effective approach of approaching AI research, with a faster return of investment than the generalist approach a company like Google is attempting.
So it is too early to say to draw conclusions yet, but if Microsoft wants to be a player, than it is wise to create some answers on the policies of the competition.
- mobile users lean more heavily on their use of Cortana
- Cortana is not the most logical option on other mobile OS makes
- Cortana is not dominant (yet) in the use of Domotics
We are not yet able to answer if Microsoft is or is not becoming a mayor AI player. The question is not specific enough as well. Microsoft can for instance define spearhead areas to focus it's AI development upon. Maybe this is a more cost effective approach of approaching AI research, with a faster return of investment than the generalist approach a company like Google is attempting.
So it is too early to say to draw conclusions yet, but if Microsoft wants to be a player, than it is wise to create some answers on the policies of the competition.
Who cares about Cortana. I live in Norway and have given up on getting this here! When it comes to Norwegian in 2578, I'm long dead anyways! This is not the best of Microsoft. But you get a trend....
FindleInClev
New member
There were 2 problems:
1. the market had already decided MS wasn't going to be offered to the public in the same manner. All the marketing in the world won't help if clerks in the stores decided they shouldn't offer it.
2. Dev that matters to ecosystem is really the services that have to create or commission the apps. For them if 90+ % of the market is on 2 it means less cost to not bother with a 3rd. MS had to pay people to make apps.
True, but store reps would have been more than happy to offer it if customers would have liked it. Store reps are not out to sell an ecosystem. They're out to sell devices that their customers want, and keep.
I've thought this too. Why create a 3rd app when 2 will cover virtually all smartphone users anyway? There is little in it for devs.
Right now 2 apps will catch 99.5% of smartphone users. So lets say WM or another OS takes a large enough slice of the pie so they cannot ignore it. Now the devs must create 3 apps to get the same user base.
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