3. How do you assess the prospects of your business in China in conjunction with the Chinese market and economy?
I have a great deal of confidence in Microsoft's business prospects across series of industries, such as retail, services, healthcare and the government in the nation.
For example, we worked with PPTV to develop a content platform on the Microsoft Azure Cloud that enables Chinese television producers around the globe to easily upload their programs for Chinese audiences to discover and watch from anywhere with an internet connection.
Bank of China has introduced a financial management platform based on Office 365 and Microsoft's Intelligent Cloud that reduces the operating costs for Bank of China branches.
Taxi-hailing unicorn Didi Chuxing has started using Office 365's extensibility model to enable enterprises to link their corporate Didi accounts to Outlook -- allowing employees to book vehicles directly in Outlook and management and finance teams to control usage and costs within the same experience.
Haier is building the "U+Home" smart home platform using Microsoft Azure for its backend and XiaoIce as the intelligent assistant in their app.
By doing so, Haier is differentiating their products and delivering new value to consumers while creating an entirely new ecosystem of services that will capture new revenue.
4. Do you have any plans for new investments in China in the next few years? Do you plan to add to your R&D efforts in China?
Microsoft has been a part of China for more than 20 years and our largest research and development center in the world outside of our American headquarters is in China.
Over past two decades, many talented alumni from Microsoft Research Asia have gone on to help the China IT Industry thrive.
More and more of the basic innovation work that will shape future Microsoft technology are coming from China.
XiaoIce is a great example.
It is an AI chat-bot built by Microsoft researchers in China that has a unique personality and, thanks to massive feedback from Chinese internet users, a balanced IQ and EQ that allows her to form unique emotional connections with users.
XiaoIce has been released in both China and Japan and has 40 million users. In China, XiaoIce acts as a Trainee Anchor for Dragon TV's 'Good Morning' Program -- the first time an AI has achieved this level responsibility and notoriety in the world.
Microsoft is now using what it has learned from XiaoIce's success in China to influence its bots and AI experiences in other parts of the world.
However, our investments in innovation are not solely about research and product breakthroughs for Microsoft.
Microsoft's business model is all about building a strong and broad ecosystem of innovative partners who build upon our technologies and platforms to deliver innovation of their own - and use it to grow substantial businesses with global reach.
