Avatar Kinect lets your personalized avatar interact with with up to seven other friends in 24 virtual stages ranging from a late-night talk show set to a sports tailgate party.“We think these are very interesting and important capabilities for the platform – if you think about gaming, it’s all about making the experience more immersive,” says Umaimah Mendhro, a senior product manager for Microsoft Startup Business Group. Adds Mendhro: “Some of this technology may be realized in games farther in the future, but we worked on these Fun Labs projects to offer a compelling, fun and cool experience that we could deliver today, using the power of Kinect.”Users can share creations from both Avatar Kinect and Sparkler with the wave of a hand on the Fun Labs Live friends feed or uploading to KinectShare.com. From KinectShare, users can share their creations on Facebook or download them to their computers, email them to friends, and more.Test-Driving Avatar KinectAvatar Kinect makes all kinds of interactive experiences possible – from hosting virtual events to creating your animated shows to just hanging out virtually with friends. Along with using Avatar Kinect to record monologues, or to chat with friends, there is tremendous potential for bloggers and podcasters to use the gadget as a new platform. When it comes to Kinect, including Avatar Kinect and Sparkler, “it’s about forgetting your inhibitions and letting your funny, creative side out,” Mendhro says.To celebrate the launch of Avatar Kinect, Microsoft invited a handful of up-and-coming comedians to record stand-up routines – but to perform them as avatars, using some of the virtual stages in Avatar Kinect. The videos will go on the Facebook Xbox fan page, where fans will get to vote for their favorite, and the winning comedian will get his or her routine highlighted by Xbox. One young comedian, Sam Comroe, gave a touchingly funny routine about Tourette’s syndrome and joked about whether his avatar now has Tourette’s syndrome as well. Another comedian quipped about being small in real life, and how it was nice to give his avatar more height and muscles; another wanted to explore hairstyles for his avatar.In fact, personalizing the avatar is a big part of the fun. Last week, Maria Bartiromo – anchor of CNBC’s “Closing Bell” and anchor and managing editor of “Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo” experienced this firsthand. Bartiromo customized her avatar, selecting just the right jacket and gold earrings from the Avatar Marketplace. Then, Bartiromo’s avatar conducted part of her interview with Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, using Avatar Kinect’s virtual News stage. The interview, avatars and all, was broadcast on Sunday’s Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo.“I really like this avatar-based interview,” Bartiromo told Mundie. “And maybe I don’t even have to come to work to do it.”
Kinect Sparkler lets players use their fingers to draw sparkling lines that whirl glowing, gold stars in front of, behind, and around 3-D photographs of themselves.Bloggers and podcasters Rebecca Levey, Nancy Friedman, Heidi Leder and Amy Oztan – who write and podcast as “The Blogging Angels,” a spoof on Charlie’s Angels – also tried recording their podcast using Avatar Kinect. The special avatar edition of their podcast, typically audio-only, took place on a talk show-style stage.“It was really funny – when we went to record, Rebecca had to leave the virtual room because she and Amy were wearing the same dress,” Friedman says, laughing.“It was horrifying!” Oztan says. The four women say that though Avatar Kinect is for fun, it could be adopted by bloggers and podcasters as another platform for sharing. Friedman says she was impressed by the technology.“When you’re playing Kinect, you’re seeing your avatar move, but there’s something about seeing it talk and have facial expressions that’s way cooler,” Friedman says. “The first time I saw Kinect, I thought, ‘The future is now,’ but this adds a whole other element that makes it seem that much more personal – like you’re that much more involved in the experience.”Adds Oztan: “If you guys had seen what I was really wearing and looked like you would have been appalled, but my avatar looked fabulous.”Invisible Technology, Connected ConsumersKinect Fun Labs, home to several new Kinect innovations, was launched at the E3 conference earlier this year, and is part of a growing catalog of controller-free experiences – including several Kinect and Kinect-enhanced games for Xbox 360 coming this holiday season. - Blogger and podcaster Nancy Friedman Kinect Fun Labs plans to release new applications (called gadgets) on a regular basis. Avatar Kinect is free for Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers who have Kinect, although it will be available to non-Gold-subscribers for 45 days so everyone can try it, Mendhro says. Kinect Sparkler will cost 240 points on Xbox LIVE.
The gadgets are meant to showcase Kinect technology in an approachable way – things like finger tracking, facial expression tracking, object capture, player scanning and augmented reality, says Shawn Wright, design director for Good Science, a Microsoft subsidiary and developer of Fun Labs. Wright also worked on the game “Kinect Adventures.”“We tried to make the technology invisible and focused on the consumer experience. They’ll say, ‘I don’t understand how this works, but I don’t care. It’s cool,’” Wright says. “In addition to putting the latest Kinect technology into games that will come out two years down the road, we’re trying to give it to consumers as quickly as possible.”Other key ideas behind creating Fun Labs, Wright says, are to help people make social connections and to inspire creativity – even from the Kinect community.Kinect, which was released prior to last year’s holiday season, became the Guinness World Record holder for the fastest selling consumer electronic device over 60 days. Not surprisingly, a community of Kinect enthusiasts has emerged, including scientists, students and hobbyists.Wright says people outside Microsoft are constantly thinking of new ways to enhance and use the device and its technology, and Fun Labs is a great avenue.“We’ve had people submit ideas, and some of them are actually going to get built,” Wright says. “We’re very open to ideas that come from anywhere, and we’ll produce them – the idea is to release gadgets on a regular basis, all focusing on the different Kinect innovations. Kinect is really tied in with its community.”
While businesses consider the implications and benefits of the cloud, many partners, including value-added resellers and independent software vendors (ISVs), must evolve and transform their business models to thrive among this change. Over the past 18 years, the Minneapolis-based consulting firm PowerObjects has grown from a humble, two-person operation to a multimillion-dollar company. PowerObjects’ chief operating officer, Jim Sheehan, attributes the company’s prosperity to a number of factors, but one stands out in particular: “The key to our success was that we stopped being everything for everybody and focused on becoming the best at one thing,” says Sheehan. “And that one thing is Microsoft Dynamics CRM.”While PowerObjects originally began working with the on-premises version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the company has been able to successfully transition its business to reselling Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, the cloud-based solution. “By partnering with Microsoft, we have access to a flexible computing model that lets us ramp up applications that we could never have supported in our own datacenter. Our cloud practice has become a standalone business for us. Because everything happens faster in the cloud, we’re able accelerate the sales process and deliver solutions at a much more rapid pace, while also having more options to solve problems for our customers,” says Sheehan. PowerObjects is one of many Microsoft partners embracing the cloud. Since the global launch of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in January 2011, nearly 50 percent of Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners have committed to selling the online solution, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers are now choosing the online version instead of the on-premises option more than 50 percent of the time. “Making sure the transition to the cloud is smooth for partners is a big priority for Microsoft,” says Doug Kennedy, vice president, Microsoft Dynamics Partners. Recently, executives released the Microsoft Dynamics Cloud Partner Profitability Guide, which gives partners a 36-month roadmap for transitioning to a cloud-based business model. At WPC, an addendum will be incorporated for ISVs, which covers the considerations an ISV should make when transitioning to the cloud and includes sample pricing and licensing models to show the financial impact over a five-year period.
Jim Sheehan, chief operating officer for PowerObjects, says the secret to his company’s success has been narrowing its focus. The company works exclusively in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.The cloud isn’t the only change partners are embracing. In 2009, the Microsoft Business Solutions group announced changes would be made to its partner network to encourage partners to take full advantage of a steady growth in demand for vertically specific enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management solutions. These changes included new, more robust requirements for partners to achieve Gold and Silver certification and updated Microsoft Dynamics-specific training focused on marketing, sales, project management and solution delivery, in addition to existing technical training. The training is offered through the Microsoft Dynamics Partner Academy and, since July 2010, more than 3,000 partners have been trained at Partner Development Centers located around the world, with an average satisfaction score of 8.02 out of 9.These adjustments are designed to provide partners with a sustainable model for delivering repeatable solutions to specific industries by increasing their ability to scale and helping them to be more productive. Kennedy says the dialogue at WPC is centering on these strategies and incentives, as well as on educating partners about what’s yet to be rolled out. For example, beginning Jan. 1, 2012, partners will have the opportunity to receive greater compensation for focusing on vertical specialization — they will be directly rewarded for growth, in addition to total revenue. “By helping our partners transition to a model of delivering vertical solutions, we can help them drive more demand, be more profitable and, ultimately, grow their business,” Kennedy says.Partners who have started implementing these changes are already reaping the rewards. “The more stringent requirements for Gold certification will help us differentiate ourselves in the marketplace,” says Jeff Geisler, CEO of InterDyn Socius. Socius provides highly customized business management software solutions for the distribution, manufacturing, not-for-profit, professional services, and healthcare and human services industries, with locations in Ohio, Kansas City and California. “Specializing in specific industries means we’re serving the client in a deeper way,” says Geisler. “We now have knowledge not just of the software, but of the clients’ business and messaging process. We’re much more familiar with their industry as a whole.” This approach has resulted in a higher win rate and a more efficient sales process.“The new Microsoft Partner Network is about refining what Microsoft offers partners, and its program exceeds the offerings of most other vendors,” says Geisler. “We believe that the Microsoft Dynamics partner program will help us continue to improve as our company grows into new areas, such as the cloud. We anticipate the cloud will be a bigger part of our business, and we’re doing a lot of planning around what the cloud will mean for our clients.”For Microsoft Dynamics partners, these changes amount to new ways of looking at their business and how they’re moving forward. Partners such as PowerObjects and Socius, who have embraced these changes as opportunities, are successfully growing their businesses. “When partners are growing, customers are growing and Microsoft Dynamics is growing,” says Kennedy. “We’re committed to fueling that growth with the right products and resources to ensure our partners are optimized for the future.”