Transcript 0:01 Why is now the perfect time for this digital revolution, as we keep talking about? Well, it was in some ways forced upon us, a- and I don't mean that in a negative way. 0:11 It's a natural evolution of technology and innovation. And America and the US is tremendous bed for innovation, right? And so we're lucky to be in it, and be a beacon to the world. 0:21 But ultimately, it's started with this digital transformation that has happened in the last 20 years within our society. 0:30 [rock music] Welcome back to the Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the Peggy Smedley Show. 0:47 I'm your host, Peggy Smedley. And we took a quick break, and we've been talking with Henry Bizé, who's the CTO, CSO of Automotive and Transportation at Microsoft. Henry, welcome back to the show. Good to be back. Hi. 1:02 Henry, when we took our break, we were just talking all about Microsoft and the Metaverse, and all the things that are happening in automotive and transportation. 1:10 And I thought it would be great if we continued our conversation with you talking actually what Microsoft is doing to enable all of this at this point. Why don't you start right at that point? No, absolutely. 1:23 So from, uh, the AR, VR, MR perspective, you know, we have our Microsoft HoloLens product. It's certainly something that is part of that equation, you know, to create that experience. 1:35 So we have that out in its second generation, and we have many examples of that being applied in many areas, industrial, Metaverse, whether it's, uh, automotive. On the 1:47 Metaworld side, you know, we feel the Microsoft Mesh creates that environment in which it's combining that capability of our HoloLens with our Teams product to create sort of a platform, uh, a Metaworld platform in which to engage. 2:02 For example, I gave you example of the, uh, the service and the dealership in which the technician is collaborating, uh, work- working with this augmented reality type product, uh, on the vehicle with the technology folks at the OEM to solve a given problem. 2:19 And so those are two areas in which we started to kind of stitch together and build that journey, uh, from a Metaverse perspective. 2:27 Uh, and so that's what Microsoft really i- is doing, and this is how much I could share at this point. So that, that would be our, uh, contribution. 2:36 So let's talk about that example that you gave of an OEM looking at the ability to help a dealer. Yeah. Those are... or there's many ideas like that. 2:46 I- I would imagine when you talk about digital twin experiences or others like that, that you're working with partners in this area of trying to figure out how to help automotive make manufacturers, uh, the ability to do a lot of different things. 3:02 I know that was one experience. I would imagine you have others that you can share that says, "Look, these are ways that we can- Yeah... leverage digital twin or the Metaverse in ways- Yeah... 3:12 make our minds go different. Are those things that you can give us so we can visualize even beyond that? Totally. 3:19 So the one thing I did not mention when you asked me about how we're enabling this ecosystem of which the most important one, which is the partner ecosystem. 3:28 You know, so as you know, Microsoft is a partner first company. 3:32 And, you know, I'll give you one example in which we are working very closely with a company called Touchcast, which they have a Metaverse solution for configuring of the vehicle. 3:43 So I think of that Fiat is the, is the example there, the Fiat 500e, for example. They're working very closely to, uh, as I mentioned already, color. 3:53 You can change colors, uh, configure options, get into the various features, and build a vehicle in this world, Metaverse world, all virtually. 4:04 And then this is just one example of where Microsoft uses the partner ecosystem, one called ISV, to come in and bring their first party IP or knowledge and knowhow on top or with Microsoft to create the experience. 4:18 So a very important piece that I forgot to mention, I'd like to add or augment what I said earlier. And to answer that question, that would be another example of how we are enabling this, this ecosystem today. 4:31 And the partners, when you talk about that, have been critical in being able to expand what you're doing or e- at least partner that, so that others understand how they can enable this to do the things that you're talking about. 4:42 That collaboration that we're talking about is so important, that you can share- Yeah... 4:47 those partnerships, enabling others to see what they maybe didn't see, or how they can actually take technologies to the cloud as we just described, but it's the Metaverse. 4:57 And people are seeing that they haven't imagined things or what new technologies. 5:01 Because I always look at this as that we, as we mentioned in the last segment, is you have to use existing solutions with the manufacturers we're talking about, those car companies, of what they have to do. 5:12 'Cause we're always gonna need cars, or maybe not, maybe we'll be flying someday. But it's that- [laughs]... 5:16 transport concept that we're thinking about of with maybe some new solution that's coming out, and we have to figure out how to make things simpler. 5:24 And you and I talked about how there's less distractions or how do we make roads safer. It's that frictionless idea is what you are always coming up with with your ISVs that we talked about. 5:35 Is, is that what comes to mind here? It is totally right where our strategy really is, which is we can't do things by ourselves. I mean, we're certainly a very big company. We're one of the big technology players. 5:49 But-We know and we are very pragmatic, we can't do things by ourselves. And by the way, our approach to technology has always been an enabling and nurturing approach, not one to compete with our customers, right? 6:03 So we- we've taken this approach, and what really gets us there is the power of Microsoft from a cloud perspective and different things that go along with that, which is ML, AI, data, the data at state, and the different tools that we have in our business apps and what have you, security. 6:20 Couple that with areas in which we have some really talented, really capable partners that have offerings, whether it's a, a PaaS or a SaaS, the, the power of the together for any given s- to address a solution or to address a, a customer need has been very powerful for the company. 6:38 And so collaboration and working with, not against industry has been a fundamental in us really gaining tremendous growth in our industry, especially in au- automotive and transportation. 6:49 The, the growth within Microsoft in this industry has been remarkable year over year, and that just really proves how, how we're playing that role, like I said, of enablement, of nurture, and not competing, not vertically, you know, integrating, you know, solutions to compete with OEMs or tier ones or what have you. 7:11 So that's the position we've taken and declared to industry. That trust factor is always, uh, helps us achieve more. Something you said there when you talk about the automotive industry has always been a big one- Yeah... 7:22 on safety. Safety has been foremost on their mind. But the other thing you mentioned as well is the security side, you know- Yeah... when you think about that. 7:29 So I have to think when we're talking about Metaverse things, it's gotta be that thing- Yeah... that there's gotta be bad guys always out there- Mm-hmm... thinking about what they're going to do. 7:38 And we talked about NFTs and how do you do these transactional things, making sure all of these things are secure, are safe, that the OEMs are, are making sure the things they're doing with you are secure? 7:51 'Cause constantly, those bad guys are constantly trying to figure out ways to get in. So how are you ensuring that all of this is secure all the time? And this is where Microsoft really plays a big role. 8:03 Uh, security is really something that we pride ourselves on, uh, the whole notion of zero trust. And so that's a very, very important, uh, piece in terms of when we deal with any solution that we apply these principles. 8:17 And so we apply zero trust across entire value chain end to end in every step of the way. 8:23 And what zero trust means, that means if you break things out into its components, you have to make sure it's secure at that component level, so that way the entire end to end is, is secure, and that's the whole notion of zero trust. 8:35 And so very underrated in my opinion, what Microsoft brings to the table from a security perspective. We were rated by Gartner and others as one of the, the top security offering solutions that we have. 8:45 So we take this very seriously, and I feel, to your point, that when we talk about all these different technology frontiers, it really, it, it goes for naught if we don't really make sure it's trusted, we don't make sure it's safe, we don't make sure it's secure. 9:02 And it goes back to what I said earlier on standards, because bad actors can do bad things in the Metaverse. 9:08 We've heard some, and I don't wanna get into the details, but there have been examples of if you can do anything, what can you do there? It's still virtual, but still, it's, it's- It's horrible, right? 9:18 You can think of it. Yeah. Yeah, they, they can think of it. 9:20 So, so there is, you know, and this is where Microsoft can really play a role as, you know, being part of that standardization process, what have you, in a standards body. 9:29 But it is something that is front and center e- every strategy that we do. So this leads me to ask this great question about why now? 9:38 It's always this one that says, why is now the perfect time for this digital revolution as we keep talking about? Well, it was in some ways forced upon us in, and I don't mean that in a negative way. 9:50 It's a natural evolution of technology and innovation, and America and the US is tremendous bed for innovation, right? And so we're lucky to be in it and be a beacon to the world in that sense. 10:02 But ultimately, it's started with this digital transformation that has happened in the last 20 years within our society. And the mobile phone played a big role. The internet obviously played a big role. 10:15 And access to technology and the, the scale of technology have really created compute solutions, the cloud. 10:24 All these things came together or coming together in a confluence in which creating an environment for innovation that is unprecedented. I mean, the, the scale of innovation that's happening. 10:33 A- and also you have to think from a demographical perspective, you know, and, and think about the generations that are grown up in this and their expectations. 10:42 So we've already set a standard in which nothing less would be accepted, and what that does, that sense of entrepreneurialship that we, you know, that is available out there and innovation culture is gonna push us even further. 10:56 And so, uh, why we're here today, it's a great thing. How we got here, you know, it was born out of digital transformation. So with that in mind then, what's next? 11:07 If you look at what would you like to see in the future for mobility, transportation- Yeah... I mean, that's the area that you've been in. You've seen it advance. You've seen multiple- Yeah... decades of it. 11:19 Uh, what, what's your thoughts then? You know, to me, there are a few things we need to solve. 11:24 One, for example, we need to reach the point in which we could scale our highly autonomous or fully autonomous vehicles, for example, right? That's still a challenge. 11:34 Even though we are embarking on robotaxi deployments and things like that in geofence areas, and, and that's great, but I feel that we have not solved the level five, that fully autonomous regardless where riddle. 11:48 No one has, I don't care who they are, no one's solved it yet, and I declare that, you know, with confidence, right? 11:53 So that's one.Two, electrification concerns me in some ways as we know we're, the train left the station, and we know we're headed down that path. But execution still is lacking. 12:05 You know, like, the adoption and the scale of, uh, electrification is still a big challenge from an infrastructure perspective. 12:12 Charging stations installed and, and the supporting e- the operational aspect is still lacking or missing. Adoption is still an issue. The customer experience is still an issue for an EV owner. 12:24 The price point and profitability of the automaker in electrification is still a challenge. Uh, we hear about lithium and availability of lithium and how that's gonna affect things. 12:37 We think about geopolitical situations that are happening in this world today. So that concerns me. To, to me, those are, like, challenges that still need to be solved. I know they're not in some ways technology, 12:49 but it all-encompassing, you know, big challenges that need to be solved for us to realize the dream of, uh, autonomous and electrified. And ultimately, I'll go back to what I said earlier on mobility. 13:02 Without having the data estate available, that collaborative data model or data estate coming together to support mobility, we will never realize the full potential of mobility. 13:14 We will have bespoke solutions, you know, for folks to be transported from A to B, but we will never be able to really reach that point of system of systems in which we are feeding from different inputs to create a great customer journey. 13:32 So that's the challenge. It's, it- Yeah... if we have these excitement, but there's a disconnect somewhere in- Yeah... in our mobility of all of this, w- we've gotta solve that first. 13:41 We, we have to have these visions, what I'm hearing you say- Yeah... but there's still a disconnect in getting there, and we've still gotta find those ways. 13:48 We've gotta have big vision thinking, is what I'm hearing you, and summarizing. Yeah. But yet at the same time, we have to solve this, and all of the players have to find an ROI, or they're not, or they can't do it. 14:00 I mean- Exactly... the car makers have to get a return on investment in order for us to do these EVs, or in order for us to, cities, in order for us to put in the infrastructure. 14:10 And, and us as consumers have to find a way to be able to enjoy the experience along the way as well. Totally. And the tech companies as well. 14:17 So it's the people, the process, the systems all have to be a part of this as well. So you just- Totally... described with the technology. 14:24 And even though those are challenges, Peggy, I mean, to me, I see those as opportunities, honestly, right? I mean, the challenge means opportunity. 14:31 And I'm very excited, uh, you know, being in the middle of all of this to see what can we do to resolve these challenges, and I believe we will. It's, and it's a journey. It's not gonna happen overnight. 14:43 But I wanted to share with you at least where I see the challenge, and we see the opportunity in parallel to all these challenges. And so that's what the exciting conversation is today- Yeah... 14:54 is despite all of what we might think might be what we have to overcome, the sky's the limit if we think- Yes... you know, we, we're not hindered by our imaginations. Exactly. 15:05 Henri Bizet, CTO and CSO of Automotive Transportation at Microsoft, this has been an amazing conversation. 15:12 Again, where can our listeners go to get more information and continue to work with Microsoft and so many other of your amazing partners? Microsoft.com/industry/automotive. 15:23 Henri, thank you again for all this wonderful time today. Thank you for having me, Peggy. Thank you. Okay, listeners, that's all the time we have for our entire conversation today. 15:33 Make sure to share and subscribe to all of our episodes each week. Remember, we are broadcast live every Tuesday at 12:00 PM Central. Share your thoughts with me on Twitter, Connected World. 15:42 Check out our website at connectedworld.com, or show website at thepeggySmedleyShow.com. And don't forget to check out Project Sustainability podcast at pspgreen.libsyn.com. 15:52 This is The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. Have an awesome week.
