Questions for Microsoft CMO Chris Capossela

<ol><li>When will we be seeing the Cortana/Alexa integration happening? It was supposed to happen this year. This is the only way you'll be able to sell smart speakers for now. Which also begs the question, will this come to the Invoke and any other smart speakers that may be coming or just to the PC?</li><li>Will we be seeing more cooperation with Amazon? I honestly see that the only way for MS or Amazon to succeed in the mobile arena is together. Both companies want to be in mobile, but aren't enough to do it alone. I hope Cortana and Alexa coming together is the first step to greater cooperation. What about MS working with Amazon on their custom Android implementation? MS could fill in the gaps that Amazon was missing with their phone. (Maps? MS could provide a Dialer, Edge, Calendar, Launcher, Skype, Office, Outlook, Photos, etc) And Amazon will fill in the gaps MS is missing. (Hundreds of thousands of quality apps in their store, Amazon Music, Amazon Video, Alexa, etc) Port WinRT to that custom Android implementation? Would finally have a mobile solution for UWP. Amazon is obviously trying to get into business and mobile so they'd be willing to deal. You guys will never make it alone, but you'll be able to put up one hell of a fight together. Just think of what you guys could do? Microsoft could waive the licensing fee to Android vendors if they install your custom Android implementation instead of Google's. We all know the love hate relationship these OEMs are having with Google these days. Wouldn't it be fun to stick it to Google and have the first real compelling Android fork? You could even add Android Apps from Amazon's Appstore to the Microsoft Store for Windows. I know you have Project Astoria code somewhere that you can use to make this happen.</li><li>Will we be seeing other Windows exclusive apps like Maps or Photos come to iOS and Android? This would be useful for Continue on PC/Mobile. </li><li>Google is leaning on AI to help a lot of it's apps such as Photos. I love how Google can surprise me with some relatively well made compilation videos on Google Photos. Is Microsoft going down the same road? You have something similar with the Windows Photos app, but it's not done automatically, you have to seek the functionality out. This will never work for casual users. I think you can even take it one step further by using Machine Learning/AI to improve the quality of pictures as well. (Post processing of photos) Imagine automatically scanning the users picture library and building a model of everyone's face in their gallery and applying that to blurry photos of those same people? I know some of that is already being done by people as Google already knows all the people in my gallery. Heck, you can even do this with pictures of famous landmarks since pictures of those are already all over the cloud.</li><li>When will Skype suck less? Teams is a good start, but the functionality of Teams needs to move down to the consumer version of Skype. </li><li>Will MS be less stingy with free OneDrive storage? Maybe unlimited uploads of compressed pictures/videos like one of your major competitors? This might move me back to OneDrive. Office 365 members get unlimited original quality pictures/videos?</li><li>Will Qualcomm be the only ARM chip supplier for WOA for the foreseeable future? Is this because of the disaster that was Windows RT in that other vendors don't have the confidence in the product? I want to see custom chips built for Windows that are more powerful and not just rehashed mobile chips. The reason why Wintel worked well is because you guys were on the same roadmap. The success of one was dependent on the other. With ARM, you're basically just getting sloppy seconds from mobile. Do you foresee Microsoft making their own chips? I know you have licensed the ARM architecture.</li><li>Xbox One getting more first party games that aren't FPS? When will we get something as cinematic as the Last of Us or Uncharted? I know we have Tomb Raider, but that's not exclusive.</li><li>Will a consumer version of Hololens be arriving soon? The longer MS waits, the harder it's going to be to make a difference. I do not agree with Paul in that ARCore and ARKit of the future of AR. It's useful in some applications but it's not the next billion that MS is trying to get ahead of. It definitely has it's novelties, but an actual Hololens type device is the next billion.</li><li>Do you see Microsoft getting out of the consumer space or do you see them doubling down to try and win back some consumer mindshare? I think Surface has done some of that, but it seems as though since Satya has taken over, Microsoft has been making a big pivot towards business and that's not necessarily a good decision in the long run. It plays to Microsoft's strengths in the short term, but the lines between business and consumer are getting blurred more and more everyday. If you don't capture the hearts and minds of consumers, your future in business will be numbered. </li><li>Will Microsoft ever debundle Office 365 exclusive apps? There are some apps that I think can really gain some traction but are stuck in Office 365. I think Teams and PowerBI are a couple of them. Both of those would be very powerful in the organization that I work in, but we're on G Suite. </li><li>Do you see Cortana making a push into business? The Echo is about to make a big push and if Microsoft doesn't work quickly, you're going to cede that market to Amazon. I was already thinking about putting an Echo into our conference rooms at work before Amazon made their announcement, but if I can get all my conference calling and automation done with an Echo in the office… Bye bye Skype.</li><li>How much longer do you see Microsoft taking to fully transition Windows into Fluent Design? Windows is still a jumbled mess and so far, Fluent Design has just provided some very subtle changes in the UI. (Basically transparencies) I'm not saying I don't like them, but I'm looking for things that are more obvious. Things that regular people will notice. Are we getting rid of Live Tiles or keeping them? Make a decision. It's pretty useless in the Start Menu as it is. If you want to make them useful, move them to the desktop itself and make them actionable. Don't half ass the UI. It frustrates normal users. </li><li>Progressive Web Apps are supposedly coming. Do you believe they're going to save the universe like Paul does? I'm still not so sure about how much of a difference they're going to make. I just don't see a huge amount of PWAs available at the moment. To me, it's just like UWP… It has potential but only if people develop them. It just doesn't seem like they've caught on in any meaningful way yet. </li><li>Will we ever see WinRT ported over to Android? Could Microsoft include installing WinRT onto their OEMs' phones as part of their licensing agreement they have with MS? Give them a break on the licensing fee to have them install WinRT (You're doing it with Skype and Office already) and bam! you have a compelling story for UWPs again.</li><li>When will Edge be fast and stable? I don't know if it's because Edge is trying to not hog resource and that's why you can claim that it has better battery life than Chrome, but I do know consumers don't care about that. If you can give me Edge that works quickly and is stable but my battery gets half an hour less, I'll take it. How about if I'm on an outlet, you can use all the power you need to make Edge run well and when I'm on battery, you can throttle how much CPU you use. Look, Edge works fine if I open Google or Bing, but when I start loading sites with a bunch of media or advertisements, the thing just doesn't feel very responsive. I really want to like Edge… and I do for certain things. Scrolling is amazing and I love the Continue on PC, but I cant use it as my daily browser. Not yet anyway. </li><li>Is Microsoft even working to convert their legacy Win32 apps into UWP anymore? And by that I mean Office. You have the Office Mobile apps that, at this point, you're trying to hide from consumers, but I mean the real Office programs. Visual Studio? The Office 365 apps like PowerBI? Has Microsoft given up on UWP for complex apps? You've got to be the example like Surface is to hardware manufacturers. If you can't bring Office to UWP, why would Adobe even attempt to bring Photoshop to UWP? It's things like this that leave little confidence for developers. </li></ol>