Welcome to the week of courting developers, preaching to the base and rolling out product and strategic visions from two of tech's giants.
Google I/O[1] this week and Microsoft Build[2] overlap and form a string of keynotes that will feature talks on artificial intelligence, cloud, mobility and platforms. The most obvious overlap between Microsoft and Google revolve around artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Here are some common threads and what to expect from the two tech giants:
- Cloud as an AI delivery mechanism (Google Cloud Platform vs. Microsoft Azure);
- The ability to connect dots between applications on their respective platforms;
- UX via Google's Material Design and Microsoft's Fluent Design principles;
- Software developer kits for IoT and augmented reality;
- Progressive Web applications with different names;
- Operating systems via Microsoft's Windows as a way to hook native developer apps and Google's Android;
- Android: Google will outline Android P and Microsoft will talk a bit of Android and iOS for its Office and products that go across platforms.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will court developers with a heavy dose of AI and tools.
For the enterprise, the Google and Microsoft powwows are going to garner more interest than Facebook's F8 last week[3]. Why? Google and Microsoft are both key enterprise vendors. Companies have both G Suite and Office in the house and may even have multi-cloud strategies. Microsoft and Google also both have AI and machine learning platforms that will be utilized by enterprises.
Microsoft touts Microsoft Graph[4] as a way to link its applications and platforms together and give developers more options. You can almost take the Microsoft Graph and connect it to a Google Graph. Going forward, developers will possibly