When Little ice meets milk tea, when Microsoft meets Zetian

[Abstract] Zetian is currently the new identity of Microsoft internship Product Manager, and her first project is "small ice" chat robot.

On the afternoon of May 27, 5th Danleng Street, Beijing Zhongguancun West, in the North Building of Microsoft (Asia) Internet Engineering Institute.

Jing, product Director Peng and internship product manager, Bing China's chief research and development director Zhang Ze days, the three are talking about some of the details of Microsoft's Little ice that will be tested on the next day.

Zetian's new identity is the internship product manager at Microsoft's Internet Engineering Institute, and her first project at Microsoft is the "ice" project under the Bing search team, a chat robot that can provide services in a micro-trust group. But not many people know that this may not be a new concept in the outside world, but it is Microsoft's Global Executive Vice President Lurkey this person directly decided the strategic level test.

Microsoft (Asia) Internet Engineering Institute is responsible for the project's chief development director Jing to Tencent Technology, WP system VOICE assistant Cortana and "ice" are rooted in the Bing search of large data base, Cortana in the WP system to build their own ecosystems, and "ice" is to provide services to the ecosystem of other companies in a low profile. From the standpoint of taking root in China's local market, "Little ice" is even more important in China than previous Microsoft voice aide Cortana.

Within Microsoft, the "Small Ice" project was also seen as an innovation in localization strategies, in addition to specifically for the development of China, the Microsoft conventional products 30-36 months development cycle, reduced to 6 months, but also the first attempt to make their own service initiative more "grounding gas", to try to open up the young group of thinking, " Because the micro-letter of the user base more younger ".

As a result, Microsoft began to try to connect with the Internet-Zetian, after excluding a large number of people unable to integrate into the Microsoft Research and development model, it was not possible to contact with Microsoft has become a team member. With Zetian own words to explain, she is from the angle of college students and to see "small ice" this product, and then stand in the product manager's point of view to improve the idea of college students, and finally from the "small ice" this angle to reflect it.

In fact, in addition to Zhang Ze days, the team has 1 trainee product managers. Two 90 and a few 80, whenever product manager together to support the "small ice" in the rapid development of the function, and finally the small ice from the cold chat robot, molded into the "Meng sister" image, with the young people chat, active in countless micro-letter group.

"Little Ice" was born.

Before the reorganization, the "Little ice" of the Chinese market alone is unthinkable. In the Microsoft applications and services engineering sector, which used to be seen as the most important market in the United States and the United Kingdom, with the insistence of Lurkey, China has also become one of the important markets, because China has produced a series of innovations in the Internet.

According to the Microsoft (Asia) Internet Engineering Institute brand and product marketing Director Li De (Micro bo) introduced, "small ice" was born in the end of 2013 he and King Kun on the "Bing Network Code" front-end form of a brain burst. Network code is an encyclopedia of Knowledge collection search products, will be structured to organize countless information, the idea of a chat robot to provide the basic support, so that "small ice" answer number reached 15 million.

After confirming the direction of the chat robot, a new project group of more than 10 people, code-named "Social Helper", was born in Microsoft (Asia) Internet Engineering Institute, in January 2014, Lurkey saw the earliest "small ice", for the project direction to give affirmation, identified the "small ice" In China, it will be like Cortana as the front-end display of Bing content.

Then the team members increased again in April when Lurkey saw the entire actual operation of the product, the formal approval of the project, the entire team to coordinate more resources to enter the closed development state. May 29, "Small Ice" officially released, the entire project time less than half a year.

This is an incredible speed, according to Microsoft's past habits, the development cycle of a product takes 6-10 months to get the feedback of the OEM and enterprise customers on the previous version of the product, and then to the next version, through the tuning and optimization of several scenarios, do 18 months, research for 10 months, Development 18 months, testing 8 months, each product from the design to the end is 30-36 months.

Thus, "small ice" inside Microsoft is more like a lurkey test, the carrying value is much larger than the chat robot.

Why are micro-letters and Zetian?

Another feature of "ice" is openness, as Microsoft's products are not common in other companies ' ecosystems, and in the long history of Microsoft, Microsoft has simply restructured an ecosystem to compete with other companies.

To this, the "Small Ice" project group to Tencent Technology, today's Microsoft changes very much, the whole Microsoft is learning Chinese Internet experience, including micro-letter. Second, although it is to join Tencent's ecology, but still provide services to end users, Microsoft is most afraid of no users and Microsoft contact.

It is reported that in order to better user experience, "small ice" in the chat most of the situation will not send a jump link, which means that "small ice" is difficult to obtain from the micro-letter users to convert and profit. In this respect, Li De said, micro-trust platform for Microsoft, is a very large user group contact and data sources, greater value when optimizing Bing's data structure and contact with users.

For Microsoft, Zetian such a well-known to join, is also a rare experience, Microsoft (Asia) Internet Engineering product Director Peng introduced, the traditional Microsoft Bing Project manager can control the product platform is a search page, Whether the user is young or old and the final display is as clear as possible is actually a restrictive condition is very large work.

But porting the search to a micro-trust platform will find this an innovative channel, and in addition to the professional answers, there is a need for more young people to join in the micro-trust that is outside the web. I say a word never better than Zhang Ze days know how to close to the language style.

In addition to Zhang Ze days, the team has 1 other trainee product managers, who, in addition to providing advice on the personification of "small ice", are also developing new skills for "ice" independently. "Ice Clever" is Zhang Ze Day's creativity, this group reminds the function and the constellation, the weather and so on other 50 many skills together realizes to "the small ice" the function comb.

Zetian to Tencent Technology, she is from the perspective of college students to see "small ice" this product, and then stand in the perspective of product managers to improve the idea of college students, and finally from the "small ice" perspective to reflect it.

It is reported that the future Zetian may also join the Microsoft Voice assistant Cortana Chinese version of the project.