>> Did you know that Microsoft is still
doing business with car manufacturers?
Sammy from the MCV Team,
Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform Team,
is here to tell us everything about what's going on there.
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>> Hi everyone. Thanks for watching the IoT Show.
I'm Olivia your host and today we have Sammy
from the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform,
who is here to talk to us about the Connected Vehicle Platform.
Sammy, thanks for joining us.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> Tell us a bit about yourself first, who are you?
Where are you coming from?
What is your Team doing?
>> My name is Sammy, I've been at Microsoft a bit over 20 years.
I come from the Azure IoT Mobility Team.
That's a Team within Azure that comprises
both the Connected Vehicle Platform Team and the Azure Maps Team.
>> Can you tell me in a nutshell,
why that team part of the Azure IoT group?
>> Well, automotive in general,
vehicles are really an application of IoT.
It's essentially we do IoT for things that move,
is how we describe what we're doing.
An additional, value add that
the Connected Vehicle Platform provides on top is that,
we envision vehicles not just as a set of
IoT devices that happen to be
moving around in the same direction all the time,
but that they actually roll up to
the single logical notion of a vehicle.
>> Awesome, we had recent announcements for
that partnership with Volkswagen, with Renault-Nissan.
So I'd like to understand it better,
in the past Microsoft has been trying things or
developing system solutions for the car manufacturers,
and we had a infotainment systems in cars,
they were branded Microsoft,
and so on. Are we doing the same?
>> We're doing something quite a bit different than that.
So the approach that underpins
the Connected Vehicle Platform is very much a partner led.
Really any vehicle that you see out on
the road is the result of dozens
if not hundreds of partnerships lined up by
the OEMs to at the end of the day speed out a car.
We are aligning ourselves without approach.
So working with partners that handle things such as OTA,
delivering binary updates software updates to the car,
connectivity to deliver actual network connectivity to
the Internet from the vehicle
in order to round out a complete solution.
So we very much think of and talk to partners
and OEM customers as MCVP being a partner lead approach.
>> Okay, and what are the scenarios that
the platform allows this car manifest to implement.
>> Sure. So let's see,
we do from basic telematics scenarios.
So delivering location, speed,
different vehicles status messages up to the Cloud.
So that analytics can be performed and
your typical fleet management applications can be built.
On top of that, there is
an entire class of scenarios which involve
not from vehicle to Cloud but from Cloud to vehicle.
These include things such as command and control.
So a lot of the scenarios that have recently been popularized,
where you have a mobile app on the device.
You invoke some functions such as
unlocking the doors or honking the horn,
and MCVP arranges for
those commands to be delivered down to the vehicle.
Now, those things are not new.
What we're doing is providing
the connectivity platforms so that
the OEMs can focus on the scenario.
They can focus on building the mobile app.
They can focus on the experience.
Things around connectivity delivering
those messages down to the vehicle,
providing a straightforward way
to provide software updates down the vehicle.
Those are handled by us. That's the value add.
>> Got it. So yeah, they can definitely and
it's the same message that we have for
overall platform at Azure IoT
which is we simplifying this plumbing,
which is complex complicated and hard to maintain,
hard to build, security is part of it as well.
>> So it's a huge part of it. So we have
very specific recommendations on
how the connection to the vehicle is secured.
How devices and vehicles are provisioned and de-provisioned.
One of the messages that
the OEMs have really responded to and resonated with is that,
unless the OEM tell their customer,
unless they tell the driver of
their vehicle that Microsoft technologies
are underpinning certain aspects of
that experience, the consumer will not know.
So there will not be a Microsoft
branded piece of hardware sitting in the vehicle,
when the vehicle starts up and the
IVI display in that center stack screen,
you will not see a Microsoft Logo.
It's really up to the OEM to decide the manner in which they want
to customize and differentiate
that experience for their customers.
>> Awesome. One of the technologies that you guys are
using from the offer that Azure
actually has like some names of the technologies is that,
are actually audiences is using this products,
and always interested in
where these products are ending at the end of the day.
>> Sure. So if you were to look,
I think the question would maybe better
phrase which ones are we not using.
So if you were to do an MCVP deployment
into your Azure subscription and then you
went and looked at through the Azure Console,
you would see a number of resource groups
and then you'd see something like 35 to 40
constituent Azure services that
we bring together in order to make up MCVP.
Those include things like IoT Hub,
Event Grid, Azure Data Lake, Service Fabric.
There are a number of them that are in the Key
Vault, many of them.
>> Okay. So let's say it's a perfect illustration of
what can be done leveraging the Azure IoT Services.
>> GetHub absolutely is and that's a big part of
the message that we give to OEMs and
potential partners which is we say to
them connected vehicle solutions themselves are not new.
What we've done as you mentioned earlier
is we've taken the plumbing,
we've taken some of undifferentiated heavy lifting
is common across a lot of the things.
We've done it themselves. We've done at a global scale.
We point out that Azure has
this global coverage and this
incredibly fast network interconnect.
We've taken that all and put it into the platform
so that they can focus on the scenario is that
differentiate them from their competitors.
>> We help them customize the platform
to their needs as you were saying.
>> We absolutely do.
>> Awesome. Before we gave some call to action to our viewers,
are there any cars today that actually are powered
or equipped today, or is it coming soon?
>> Vehicles are rolling off the assembly line right now.
We're maintaining active counts of how many vehicles are
out there alive today connected via MCVP.
It's in the low hundreds of thousands today.
>> So it's internationally sweating or excited.
>> Very excited, definitely very excited.
>> I'm sure you guys are. Awesome Sammy,
thanks a lot for that introduction of MCVP.
>> Thanks very much for having me.
>> So people if you want to directly land into their web page
to learn more about what Microsoft is doing for Connected Vehicle,
go to aka.ms/IoTShow/mcvp like
Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform.
Sammy, you will be back for
actual demos of how all of that looks like, right?
>> Yes I'll.
>> Awesome. Thanks Sammy, thanks everyone for watching.
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