Microsoft And Your Data

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Microsoft — a company most associated with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets — is getting a makeover.
Under new leadership, the software developer is analyzing vast troves of data about its users to create social tools for the workplace. They've got the goods — just think of all those Office emails that bind us together — but the question is, will customers want to cozy up socially with Microsoft, on and off the job?

Old Data, New Strategy
"Microsoft: the social network" is, at first glance, a strange idea. But it makes a kind of sense. While Facebook may have the best map of our personal relationships, Microsoft has the best map of our work lives.
"What drives me, is for you to be able to get more out of every moment of your life," says Satya Nadella, Microsoft's new CEO. "You want to be able to create a document, get to a meeting, be productive in the meeting, have your notes taken in the meeting automatically for you."
While many companies block social media sites in the workplace, companies pay Microsoft to be on the inside, and to store internal documents, calendar items, meeting notes and attendees, contacts and more.

According to a recent quarterly earnings report, more than 1 billion people use Office — that's 1 out of every 7 people on Earth. With just a bit of Big Data analysis, Microsoft could create social tools to help users decide what and who is important to them.
"In a world of abundance of computing, the only thing scarce is human attention," Nadella says. "And our job is to be able to help you get more out of those moments of your life."
And "those moments" don't have to be just from 9 to 5 — Nadella says he wants users to get as much out of the programs in the personal lives as they do at work.
Microsoft is racing to get its web-based version of Office, which is called Office 365, on every smartphone and tablet — which they recently decided to do for free.
That way, Microsoft's personal assistant can follow you everywhere and get more personal. For example, it could integrate your GPS location with your to-do list so that when you step inside your home, you get a reminder.