Microsoft working on password-free world: Satya Nadella

With growing concerns over security of emails and mobile phones, technology giant Microsoft on Thursday said it is working on ways to rid tech users of their worries over passwords. “One of the biggest security issues is passwords. One of the things that we are working on is a world where passwords are not going to be the ones that you know can get hacked but you really have other biometrics that really help us secure our computing interfaces,” Microsoft Corporation Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said here.

He was delivering keynote address at ‘Future Unleashed: Accelerating India’, Microsoft’s largest ever customer conference here, celebrating 25 years of the Richmond-based company’s in the country. 

Hyderabad-born Nadella said the company has a sense of purpose that is about empowering every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.

“We had a mission of putting a personal computer PC on every desk in every home, but in retrospect that was a goal... Our mission was to empower every individual and organisation. That’s really what I look at as we go forward,” said Nadella, who has completed 25 years at Microsoft.

Nadella, who runs an average of 5 km a day — even on Thursday despite 16 hours of jetlag — and reads 10 books on weekends, said that with changing world and technologies, the company has more ambitions to reinvent productivity and business processes. “Our first ambition is about reinvention of productivity and business process. We want to make sure that work no longer is a place you go to. Work is about making things happen and getting things done wherever you are,” he noted, adding that the purpose of Microsoft is to to build an intelligent cloud.

Nadella also spoke about the tools which he uses daily to make decision, to have discussion across his team and harness the information inside the company. Talking about one of his personal phones, an iPhone, he said, “this is not my phone, but it is an iPhone. I like to somehow refer to this as iPhone Pro because it has got all the Microsoft software on it...there is Word, Excel, Power Point.”  He also added that he uses his own phone - a high-end Lumia.

Nadella suggested that all leaders should use digital tools to augment judgement, ingenuity and productivity. He went on to add that “one thing we are excited about is what app developers can do. One such developer, StaffPad, has changed the way music is composed. AR Rahman is a big user of StaffPad…. There is going to be more computing in our lives in next 10 years. Computing will be everywhere, what will be key is our mobility of our human experience through all this computing. That is where the cloud is important”.

Nadella said that Microsoft will fund hundreds of new generation entrepreneurs in India’s ‘smart cities’ space and is overwhelmed by the start-up culture in the country, especially in e-commerce. He also announced new partnerships with e-commerce leaders such as Justdial, PayTm and Snapdeal. 

Under the partnership, Microsoft will offer a special cloud initiative for start-ups aligned to smart cities, and make available its flagship devices such as the Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950 XL, and also Microsoft Surface Pro 4, which is its flagship computing device, in December and January, respectively. The company also showcased the Surface Pro 4 at the event which will be available for Rs 75,000 and above. 

Unveiling the new cloud start-up initiative to empower the smart cities, Nadella said its one-year cloud offering in the country, which is the first kind from a multinational corporation, the company will work closely with Justdial, PayTm and Snapdeal to help others develop solutions suitable for smart cities, apart from farming, healthcare and education. “At Microsoft, we strive to empower every Indian citizen and every business and government organisation to achieve more.

“With our cloud and with Surface Pro 4 offerings, our customers here have the digital technology they need to seize incredible new growth and opportunity on a global scale,” Nadella, who runs an average of 5 kms a day and finishes 10 books on his weekends told a select group of reporters after delivering his keynote at the Future Unleashed. He said he is extremely impressed with the adoption level of cloud computing in the country since it opened three data centres in Pune, Mumbai and Chennai 12 months ago.

Describing the pace of growth of ecommerce and start-up ecosystems as “pretty mind boggling,” he said he is not worried about the valuation part of this segment as Microsoft is not looking at acquisitions, but is concerned about the quality of the idea these entrepreneurs have.  “I am not worried about the valuation, because we are not going to be investors in this space, but we are more interested in the quality of the ideas these innovators have and to me most of these start-up ideas are pretty good and seriously innovative,” Nadella said.

On funding for local start-ups in the tech space to speed development of smart cities, Microsoft will provide individual fundings worth $120,000 or Rs 80 lakh worth of Azure computing so that these entrepreneurs can explore solutions and run smart city digital pilots. This initiative is anticipated to impact over 50 smart cities in the next year through a catalogue of over 50 start-ups and ISV solutions, Microsoft said.

Nadella added that already the company has been running two pilots in Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh since the past few months. These partnerships with ecommerce firms and offering special programmes and products to them are aimed at helping organisations and governments in the country to explore unchartered business areas, enrich their customer and citizen experiences, and catalyse digital transformation with the local Microsoft cloud offering and new devices can enhance, Nadella said. 

Under the ecommerce partnerships, Microsoft will help these companies innovate with the cloud so that their innovation energy is fully optimised. The broad-ranging agreements with JustDial, PayTm and Snapdeal will see Microsoft partnering these ecommerce leaders in creating new marketplaces, new services and new experiences for their customers. “Because our objective is to enable everybody in the ecosystem, especially the sellers on these platforms, and not just these front-end 

players become more productive,” Nadella said.