Microsoft and Nielsen accelerate retail innovation through data and AI; announce strategic alliance

Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) today released details around a newly developed enterprise data solution that democratizes one of the largest consumer data sets in the world.  This strategic alliance has been brought to life through Nielsen Connect, powered by Microsoft Azure, the trusted and global-scale intelligent cloud platform.

In today’s rapidly changing marketplace, Microsoft and Nielsen are together focused on helping Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and retail companies find growth and accelerate innovation within an open data environment.

Already, Nielsen Connect is inspiring companies to glean more value from their data and sparking a movement for the industry to reimagine its approach to data strategy.  Through advanced analytics and artificial intelligence services built on Azure, Nielsen Connect is helping companies integrate data assets to more easily spot emerging trends, diagnose performance gaps, and act faster on opportunities to grow. Most notably, this platform enables clients to use their data as an enterprise asset across all parts of their organization.

“Nielsen’s powerful data is as much of an enterprise asset as people and products,” said John Tavolieri, President, U.S. FMCG and Retail and Chief Technology and Operations Officer at Nielsen. “It’s our priority to make sure clients are maximizing their data assets, so Nielsen and Microsoft are breaking down the silos of the status quo. We are helping the retail industry reimagine its approach to data by creating a truly open and global environment of collaboration, encouraging companies to evolve beyond mere data management. Adopting a holistic data strategy will be the only way to win in FMCG and retail.”

“The first critical step toward digital transformation, especially among retailers, is breaking down the barriers between customer and operational data to fuel insights for the business,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business. “Because retail happens wherever customers are and whenever they choose, Nielsen Connect provides high reliability at a global scale 24/7. Microsoft is a natural partner for Nielsen, trusted by global enterprises to protect their data and power their critical business solutions.”

Grounded by the richest data available in the fast-moving consumer goods space, Nielsen Connect brings clarity to what’s happening in the market from every angle.  Nielsen’s deep media and consumer measurement (including retail point-of-sale data, consumer panel, e-commerce, fresh food and cross-platform media data), is integrated with a robust variety of data sources, including  data provided directly from clients as well as from Nielsen Connect Partners. Nielsen’s reference data, which provides structure to the world’s most robust retail and shopper information, powers this system to make integration across data sources and countries simple. Within this open and agile platform running on Microsoft Azure, customers can easily access data sets via APIs and connectors, allowing them to extract the data they need to fit their own technology strategy.

The joint Microsoft and Nielsen solution is live today and will serve as a one-stop-shop in creating scalable, high-performance data environments that enable greater real-time collaboration for faster results. Through this strategic alliance, the two companies will continue to work toward a mutual vision of an open and connected data universe, empowering a new generation of solutions for the FMCG retail marketplace.

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Microsoft holds annual shareholders meeting

Speaking to shareholders at Microsoft Corp.’s annual meeting on Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella highlighted the importance of creating technology that benefits people and society broadly, and the opportunity for Microsoft to help its customers and partners thrive in a world where every company is a software company.

“I’m proud of the progress we made this past fiscal year as we innovate and help our customers digitally transform,” Nadella said. “We create economic opportunity in every community, and this broad impact – coupled with our focus on instilling trust in technology across everything we do – makes me incredibly optimistic about the opportunity ahead.”

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood shared highlights of Microsoft’s record performance over the past year fiscal year including continued growth in its commercial cloud business and strong growth across each service. Hood noted that Microsoft is confident in its ability to execute against its innovation roadmap, positioning the company for continued growth and to deliver shareholder value.

The following proposals were acted on by the company’s shareholders at the meeting. All proposals received above 95 percent of votes cast.

• Re-elected 14 directors to serve until the next annual meeting of the shareholders.
• Approved, on a nonbinding advisory basis, the fiscal year 2018 compensation of the company’s named executive officers.
• Ratified the selection of Deloitte & Touche LLP as the company’s independent auditor for fiscal year 2019.

Microsoft’s board of directors consists of John W. Thompson, Microsoft independent chairman; William H. Gates, co-chair and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock Partners; Hugh Johnston, vice chairman and chief financial officer of PepsiCo Inc.; Teri L. List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gap Inc.; Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft; Charles H. Noski, former vice chairman of Bank of America Corp.; Dr. Helmut Panke, former chairman of the board of management at BMW AG; Sandra E. Peterson, former group worldwide chair for Johnson & Johnson; Penny S. Pritzker, founder and chairman of PSP Partners; Charles W. Scharf, chief executive officer of The Bank of New York Mellon Corp.; Arne Sorenson, president and chief executive officer of Marriott International; John W. Stanton, chairman of Trilogy Partnerships; and Padmasree Warrior, chief development officer, NIO Inc. and chief executive officer, NIO USA Inc.

Microsoft acquires FSLogix to enhance the Office 365 virtualization experience

The way Microsoft 365 enables customers to shift to a modern desktop experience puts it at the heart of workplace transformation. A modern desktop with Windows 10 and Office 365 not only offers the most productive and most secure computing experience, it also saves IT time and money, and allows for a focus on driving business results. For many companies, their specific needs require a modern desktop be virtualized.

To help extend our virtualization capabilities and provide an even richer experience for Microsoft 365 customers, we are excited to announce the acquisition of FSLogix.

FSLogix is a next-generation app-provisioning platform that reduces the resources, time and labor required to support virtualization. From small businesses to very large global enterprises across numerous industries, FSLogix solutions enhance customer experience and productivity, while reducing support requirements for IT departments.

In September 2018, we announced Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop – a Microsoft 365 service that empowers customers to run a modern desktop experience on Azure. It is the only cloud-based service that delivers a multi-user Windows 10 experience that is optimized for Office 365 ProPlus and includes free Windows 7 Extended Security Updates. With Windows Virtual Desktop, you can deploy and scale Windows and Office on Azure in minutes, with built-in security and compliance.

With this acquisition, customers will benefit in a number of ways. Through customer engagement, we know that Microsoft Office applications are some of the most highly used and most commonly virtualized applications in any business. Office 365 ProPlus is currently the best Office experience, and, with FSLogix enabling faster load times for user profiles in Outlook and OneDrive, Office 365 ProPlus will become even more performant in multi-user virtual environments (including Windows Virtual Desktop).

We are excited to welcome FSLogix to Microsoft, and we look forward to the impact its technology and its people will have on our customers’ virtualization experience.