Beyond Binary

Microsoft's move into the energy monitoring business may sound like a stretch, but to Craig Mundie, it's one of several natural new businesses for the software maker.

Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, said the company has its eye on any area that can be helped by technology and in which society is spending a lot of money and not seeing the return it would like.

Microsoft's Hohm service lets users enter information about their home and energy use to get tips on cutting their gas and electric bills.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Energy consumption specifically, and environmental issues more broadly, were natural areas for the company to delve into, he said, and follow Microsoft's moves into other thorny challenges such as education and health care. On Wednesday, Microsoft is officially announcing Hohm, a free service that households can use to monitor their household energy use and get tips on how they can cut their gas and electric bills.

Mundie said Microsoft started with the residential market because it accounts for $160 billion of the $365 billion that the U.S. spends on electricity use.

"The big industrial guys have already entered into special contracts," Mundie said, noting that businesses often have done energy audits and agreed to cut their use in exchange for lower rates. "To some extent, they don't need it so much."

Hohm, which was code-named Niagara, is the culmination of about two years of work in the area, Mundie said. It's also one of the first commercial services to launch running on Windows Azure, the cloud-based operating system that Microsoft introduced last year.

One of the big questions though, is whether the issue is that people don't know what is using energy in their home, or if they just don't care.

"I don't think anybody can tell," Mundie said. "So you give it a try."

But Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds notes that we have seen signs that apathy rather than ignorance may be the biggest hurdle when it comes to cutting energy consumption. Reynolds noted that even when gas prices tripled, most Americans opted to pay more rather than to dramatically change their energy use.

That same attitude will be a challenge in the home, Reynolds said, noting that he gets a chilly reception when he suggests a family member put on a sweater rather than turn on the heat.

For its part, Microsoft is betting there are enough people who are focused either on their energy consumption or their bills to make the investment pay off.

While the business model isn't totally clear, Mundie said there is potentially money to be made both from advertising as well as from connecting consumers to products and services that might cut their energy use.

There are other reasons Microsoft may be interested in energy, including the fact that its chief nemesis, Google, has also made a move in the arena.

The big difference in approach, Microsoft said, is that unlike services from other big companies and start-ups, Hohm works without needing any sort of special smart plugs or other gear, though it can work with such products as well.

"We didn't want to start with something predicated on some major infrastructural change," Mundie said. Microsoft is partnering with utilities so that consumers can get their energy use data directly imported into Hohm, but for those whose provider isn't one of the early partners, Mundie said consumers can enter information from their bill.

Hohm works by asking people a series of questions about their home and energy use. Consumers can enter as little as their zip code. But the more information a consumer gives, the more detailed the recommendations.

"You can answer one question or a hundred questions," Mundie said.

To hear more from Mundie, check out our video interview above.

Microsoft Research head Rick Rashid and Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie on Tuesday kick off TechFest, Microsoft's internal science fair.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET Networks)

REDMOND, Wash.--Although some companies might see basic research as something to put on the chopping block in tough economic times, Microsoft's top strategy officer argued Tuesday that's the worst place to cut.

Craig Mundie, Microsoft chief research and strategy officer, said companies that slash research do so at their own peril.

"A great many companies have a fairly short lifespan," Mundie said, kicking off the company's annual TechFest internal science fair. Even many big, great companies only last 30 years or so, he said.

"The company would struggle I think to survive and certainly to prosper if we didn't have the research investment," Mundie said.

Microsoft Research head Rick Rashid put it more bluntly.

"It's really about an investment in survival," Rashid said.

He noted that in the early days of the software business, when Microsoft had only a few thousand workers, it made a decision to start up its basic research operation. Other companies in the business, he said, made a different choice.

"Most of those competitors aren't with us anymore," Rashid said.

Asked which of the technologies on display this week are likely to help Microsoft move beyond the recession, Mundie pointed to some of the types of new computer interfaces that will help the industry move beyond the mouse and keyboard.

Rashid, meanwhile, said it's hard to know which research bets will pay off.

"You invest in basic research precisely because you don't know what the future is going to hold," he said. "If you knew what you were going to get, it wouldn't be basic research."

Among the several dozen projects on display to the press Tuesday is an effort to build a better thesaurus that CNET News covered last week.

Microsoft employees will have a look and an even broader assortment of technologies on display starting Wednesday.

The goal of TechFest is to expose those in Microsoft's product groups to what is cooking in the labs.

See the rest of our coverage from TechFest 2009 here.

Microsoft plans to use this robot receptionist to handle the task of reserving interoffice shuttles for its employees.

(Credit: Microsoft)

REDMOND, Wash.--Microsoft's receptionist of the future is a robot.

Chief Research and Strategy officer Craig Mundie on Thursday demonstrated a software-based robot that uses a combination of visual and voice recognition as well as speech synthesis to handle basic tasks. Microsoft itself plans to use the software robot to handle shuttle requests in its own buildings, which typically have a pair of receptionists to handle visitors and shuttle requests.

In a video, two Microsoft employees approach the robot, who said (in a rather robotic voice) "Which building do you want to go to?"

After checking that she heard the visitors correctly, and double-checking both workers want to take the same shuttle, the robot declares: "It should be here in four minutes."

"This is what a natural user interface is all about and it won't be just a receptionist," Mundie said. "This is just the tip of the iceberg."

Microsoft has launched a robotics effort, though it is still in its early stages.

The demo came as part of Mundie's presentation at the company's Financial Analysts Meeting here. Mundie is one of two executives (Ray Ozzie is the other) tasked with filling the very large shoes left by Bill Gates, who stepped down from full-time work at Microsoft last month.

Ozzie also presented Thursday, promising the rest of Microsoft's cloud computing strategy will be revealed over the coming fiscal year (which runs through June), although he gave little in the way of new specifics.

"FY 09 will round out the story with some significant announcements," he said. Microsoft is widely expected to expand on its Live Mesh product and discuss its developer strategy at its Professional Developers Conference, which takes place in October in Los Angeles.

It's become a morning ritual for me: grab a bagel and a cup of tea and sit down and parse the latest comments from a Microsoft executive interviewed overseas.

This morning, instead of my usual Lemon Lift, I'm trying a cup of mandarin orange green tea. And, instead of Bill Gates, today's quotes come from Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy.

The comments themselves are along the same theme. First, say how you are moving on. Second, leave the door open a crack, just to keep everyone guessing.

Now to the details, so I can get to my cup of tea.

Speaking to Reuters in Indonesia, Mundie said "The market may wish that the Yahoo deal may come back together, but Microsoft at least at this point assumes it's over."

He reiterated that the economics just didn't make sense. Microsoft was offering $33 a share, while Yahoo was demanding at least $37. Now, to open the door a crack.

"Yahoo could always come back again and say please buy us for $33 (a share) and I'm sure we might reconsider it but we're not assuming that's going to happen," Mundie told Reuters.

Microsoft aimed to spice up its TechFest keynote event Tuesday by inviting actor and PBS science show host Alan Alda onstage to chat with executive Craig Mundie.

Former M*A*S*H star Alan Alda chats with Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, as part of this year's TechFest.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)

Though perhaps an odd pairing, it's not uncommon for Microsoft to have celebrities and executives mingle onstage at its events.

During the talk, Alda and Mundie talked about how computer science is moving into new areas such as biology. One topic they adressed was the notion that at some point drugs may be able to truly be tested on computer cell simulations rather than living beings.

Alda pressed Mundie on whether Microsoft would keep funding projects that had no hope of becoming profitable products for the company.

"We will continue to look for ways to place things where the benefit will continue," Mundie said. For example, he said that if the company discovered something that would dramatically help farmers in Indonesia, but had limited application beyond that, "we might find a way to transfer that technology."