Tag Archives: wave 15

3D Avatars and Kinect

by on March 15, 2011 in Kinect, Microsoft, Wave 15

It’s clear that Microsoft would like to implement their Kinect technology into the enterprise and here is another research project that is developing technology to inject live speech within an interactive 3D avatar. I’m sure a company like Proton Media (who already work closely with Microsoft) would be interested in implementing this type of technology within their 3D worlds.

I’m convinced that Microsoft’s Wave 15 will start to incorporate many elements of the Kinect and Research projects and if they do manage to execute correctly it could bring an entirely new dimension (forgive the pun) to their Office, Desktop and Collaboration value proposition.

Take a look at the avatar project here

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Windows News Day

by on February 21, 2011 in Microsoft

Interesting day within the Windows world.  Windows 8 builds, Phone 7 updates and a possible official Kinect SDK wraps up a busy day of unofficial news.  Why are these three elements important?  Because together they help form the picture of Microsoft’s next Enterprise (Wave 15) assault in 2012.

I have no data to back this next statement up but I suspect the Wave 14 releases (Windows 7, Office 2010, Sharepoint and Exchange 2010) have been a relative (I stress the word relative) sales disappointment to Microsoft.  This could well be due to the general financial climate but I also believe the Wave 14 products did not quite form a collective whole.  Each product was clearly an improvement over previous versions but CIOs need more reasons to invest.  They have questions that Wave 14 can’t quite answer:

  • How does my on premise and cloud investment dove tail together?
  • How do I plan continuous improvement without the need for fork lift upgrades?
  • Can I buy a solution that includes Desktop OS/Mobile/Cloud/Productivity Software and Service within a single consistent contract?
  • How do I show innovation and immediate business impact?
  • How does consumer IT and enterprise IT converge?

We’ll have to wait and see but Wave 15 could be the answer to many of these challenges and if it isn’t then Google and Apple will be more than happy to enter into Microsoft’s enterprise market.  No wonder Steve Balmer says that Windows 8 is Microsoft’s biggest gamble.

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Kinect and Microsoft’s Enterprise offer

by on November 15, 2010 in Kinect, Lync, Microsoft

I have written a couple of times that Kinect’s technology could play a large role in Microsoft’s next wave of Office and Desktop software.  I’m not surprised people have managed to build drivers for Kinect and are showing off the potential on both Windows and Mac as I assume the Kinect technology has been built to support desktop software.

Normally Microsoft aren’t too pleased with home brew coding but I am willing to bet on this occasion they are pleased to see the quick and enthusiastic development.  Not only does it provide a validation of their investment in Kinect technology outside of Xbox it also provides them with more potential use cases and skilled coders.

Watch out for plenty more Kinect related news within the Enterprise.

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