China Study Tour: Microsoft

Tuesday morning we went to Microsoft’s R&D Center at the Sigma building. We received a presentation from Yongdong Wang, General Manager of Search Technology Center Asia, meaning that he was responsible for the development and growth of the Bing search engine for China, Japan and Korea.

The presentation was very tech/future focused, as might be expected from an R&D facility. He focused on three screens connectivity, client and cloud functionality, natural user interface, Green IT and more.  The center currently holds 300 engineers, and their new campus will hold 5,000.

Yongdong showed us a chart of R&D spending by country for BRICs. It was interesting that while China outspent them all, nearly outspent them all combined, China doesn’t have the reputation that India does, and I would say that sending a job to China wouldn’t be any more guaranteed than sending it to Brazil, India or Russia – and yet, they have invested much more heavily in R&D and infrastructure. Perhaps this investment will pay more dividends in the future, but for now, they seem to be spending quite a lot for a minimal return on investment.

When asked about piracy and data privacy issues facing Microsoft in China, Yongdong stated that Hotmail’s servers are located outside of China, as is sensitive cloud data. He also said that if Microsoft were actually paid for the volume of Microsoft products in China, they would probably quadruple their current income easily.

After his presentation, we were presented multiple promotional videos by a young Chinese woman wearing hipter 80’s glasses. These videos ranged from 1-3 years old, so we questioned the “cutting edge” aspect of the work. Overall, I think it will be interesting to see what Microsoft comes up with in the next few years, as they have the cash to invest heavily in R&D in a variety of markets.