Gunter Logemann (Microsoft):
Hi Marek, nice to be here.
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
Gunter is a very experienced employee at Microsoft. You are there over 16 years already on different roles. Previously over 9 years at Siemens.
And your background seems to be strong engineering because you have your electrical engineering degree you’ve made in 1993 at Wilhelmshaven University of Applied Arts and Science in Germany. Gunter, what are you currently doing at Microsoft?
Gunter Logemann (Microsoft):
Very long time ago I I just remember I saw my first my first day at Microsoft Campus was actually in 95 when I was working on drivers for real time communication so… It’s actually a nice experience, and Microsoft actually changed a lot during this time. And yeah, nice to be here on this podcast and talk about robotics.
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
Yeah Gunter, great having you here and indeed, as you mentioned at Microsoft, changed a lot during times of three CEO’s
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
You began at Microsoft when the Bill Gates times were through Steve Ballmer and now through Satya Nadella, Wow! That’s amazing!
Gunter Logemann (Microsoft):
It’s really a lot of changes.
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
What can you say about the current status? How would you describe the current Microsoft in comparison to “The Bill Gates Microsoft”?
Gunter Logemann (Microsoft):
So I think in in the early days everything was really focused around Windows and if you work for Windows then you’re the king. If you don’t work for Windows components and you, you probably have a hard time at Microsoft, but this really changed and now everything is really focusing on cloud common communication adoption, but we are still have a very strong presence of Windows of course, and all the other components like office, all the intermediate technologies, all the gaming stuff and synchronous and I still feel that Microsoft has a great offer of all the different platforms, which is especially when we’re talking about robotics.
Very promising, because we can offer the whole set from from cloud, from the connectivity from the telecommunication, from real time communication and a lot of different operating system platforms which are actually not only Windows anymore, it’s much, much more. It’s different types of Linux. It’s real time operating systems now, yeah, and it’s it’s just the right time to offer. Actually, the whole end to end platform for especially robotics.
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
Yeah, well, I personally really appreciate about Microsoft – it’s also similar approach to the company where I currently work in Reply – is the Customer approach that we previously firstly look after the business case is what the customer really needs and then adapt our existing portfolio or try to combine the existing portfolio to deliver the use cases and the technical part which customers really need. But we will come back to this topic in in in the in the further minutes of our podcast or webcast (for those who are watching us on YouTube) but now, Gunter. Can you actually tell for the audience? How do we get know each other actually?
Gunter Logemann (Microsoft):
Yes, so it was actually a very interesting thing because we were actually working inside Microsoft for a long, long time on different types of robotics platforms. We had a component like ROS on Windows, different ROS nodes, and we’re building with a lot of partners together platforms around robotics and the robot itself. But of course, with the main focus on cloud connectivity and AI components, adding AI components to different robots. So, we were actually approached by Boston Dynamics with the spot robot, and it was actually interesting because Spot was at this time, really focusing on building a nice robot, which is not really into it was not really integrated into a bigger solution. So, Boston Dynamics was actually approaching us to ask us what we have on the truck for these types of solutions and how we can actually integrate this robot into bigger solutions. At the same time you guys were actually starting working with Boston Dynamics on the spot robot and Rene Schulte from the Reply Group (Valorem Reply) was publishing a lot on testing the spot robots where the spot robot was dancing through the office and had a lot of fun with these robots and I was chatting to him on Facebook actually to get a connection. I know Rene for a long time, but it was just the right timing when Boston Dynamics approached us and you were working with Boston and then we were looking into integrating the spot robot into something useful, and that’s where we started all the discussion. Finally, after I don’t know maybe 1 1/2 years during COVID times we came to a solution where we now have really success and really integrating the robot together with Roboverse Reply into a really big customer use cases which really make sense and not just PoC’s.
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
Yeah, exactly everything we’ve built together is based on the need from customers and our first get to know was in 2020 indeed, when we already got selected by Boston Dynamics as the worldwide integration partner, one of the first in the Europe who also received 2 spot robots. Now our fleet is expanding and we’re having more and more robots, not only on our premises, but also at our customers. Uhm, but when we talk about robotics, right, and especially in context of Microsoft so when I talk with different engineers with different Specialists, they often say that, well, Microsoft is actually not really visible in the area of robotics. But in in my opinion, it has actually a lot of interesting components which are crucial for robotics, and this is what we are using in our platform.
I don’t want to spoil too much because maybe there will be an extra event where we can reveal all of our features and what we’ve built together with Microsoft Team but Gunter, can you say in general, what are those components from Microsoft perspective, which are for robotics very crucial?
Gunter Logemann (Microsoft):
Yeah, so first of all, I think a lot of people don’t realise that Microsoft is actually, has a very strong presence in robotics applications over the past years. So especially, when it comes to providing the operating system platforms, the tools, the development tools, all the components which are used mostly in industrial robots, this is where we were present all over the time. Right, and especially if you look into manufacturing robots, a lot of these robots were based on real time kernels from Microsoft. They were based on Windows as an based operating system, windows embedded and this is going on like for yeah, probably 15 years now. And especially like in the the other days we had some even build things like Robotics studio and few people may remember this. This was even before ROS was actually there and was a thing right? And so there was a lot of activities around this, but it never really came to surface and especially when you look into consumer robots and all the educational robots, Microsoft was not really there in terms of providing ready solutions like other companies. But this is now slowly changing, I would say, but we are still in the game of providing platform components and if you look into the list of Azure services, operating systems and different software product coming from Microsoft, It’s actually a lot of these things are usable in robotics.
We are starting, of course with the operating system platform. In most cases we have this very strong focus on security and safety, especially the security components are becoming more and more important because also the robots where in the past mostly single connected or they only have very limited connectivity or only local connected. But now with your platfrom and the cloud power for robotics, especially in the AI case, or connecting multiple robots to each other. Those are becoming more and more important, so security is really one of our most important topic, and this includes a lot of things on the operating system platform. Making this secure, getting the right updates do the right deployments things and this is one of our main focus in the in the robotic space. On top of this we have already a lot of things developed as well, so all our rough components, what we have offered, and we have a lot of Linux versions. We have a lot of Windows versions for these ROS nodes. Just on a side note, all the ROS for Windows work we have done was actually based on the ask by the ROS community and by ROS people to improve the security and one of the foundation is of course to have a secure and managed OS which was not much more or less an unsolved problem in the ROS world where we have mostly running this on an Ubuntu. Ubuntu was more or less not accepted by most of our industrial partners. So, we either have to make sure that the that the Ubuntu gets the security approval or move to something which was already there and in in a lot of industrial environments we have actually Windows as an approved operating system, it’s accepted, it’s manageable. It’s integrated into the IT solution, and this is where actually the reason why we actually started the ROS on Windows work.
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
This is exactly, I think the game changer topic which we’ve been addressed by a lot of customers and our existing customers. It was exactly the case where, you know the product team or the people on the customer side who are responsible for the use case itself, you know, and delivering this for the power users who may need a robot for different purposes. And then we, you know, make couple rounds with the IT administrator and then, o- oh! I’m very sorry, but it’s not allowed. It’s a Linux device! If as far it is, at least Windows IoT, right IoT on for Windows IoT device, which can be as managed managed device visible In The enterprise network – you are good to go. Without this, forget it!
This this means that there were a lot of proof of concepts on the customers sites, this my perception as well, where the people were simply experimenting with this, but the level of production-ready to say: OK, now let us deploy this : customers were not there yet.
And right now, with our Roboverse platform and components we adjust and collaborate with you: make it possible.
Gunter Logemann (Microsoft):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely! And I think, this is sometimes interesting to see that a lot of people starting on the robot world with building or taking what’s there mostly on Linux based ROS systems and want to take this to market right? And this is where most of the companies are actually really fundamental. Struggling because there is. There is no real path, especially when you talk about real mass deployments in industrial environments where we have completely different requirements.
In opposite to when you talk about customer or more or less end customer IoT. So for example in hoovering robot which is connecting to a FirtzBox and moving around in your home has completely different security requirements and when you want to have a managed robot which sits in the manufacturing environment and has to guarantee to be running maybe 24 hours 7 days a week. This really makes a difference. So our approach is really we are offering both, but we take actually the security and safety level of windows into the robotics world, and this is one of our as I said before it this is one of our main focus on the whole robotics and what where we are contributing to this.
On the other side we have already, and this is actually not only valid for robotics, it’s actually for the whole IoT world important, that you have a certain amount of safety and security on your devices. I would say: when people are coming out of the POC state, they realise that, there’s more, there’s not just the PoC and the technical geek part of this to get all the AI components get the navigation right get the SLAM algorithm working. The real work really starts when you bring this to market and this is where we are really focusing and especially with you guys and the Roboverse Platform this is all about.
I mean, you can think about this service to be used on different types of devices or different types of robots of course, even machines you can even use it on drones you see another drone up there, so it’s a lot of possibilities with these type of service, it’s goes also beyond this, so the whole integration into office, AI, integration, dynamics integration and even other things like SAP integration. So you have all the gateways and all the cloud power behind these robots.
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
This is exactly the power of Roboverse Platform where you indeed can integrate the robot itself, which not necessarily have to be a robot. It can also be an existing IoT device or your camera monitoring system where you simply plug and play through our black box, right? And you keep your existing system running and additionally you add those AI features. Because adding the AI skills into the robots, for example, is as easy as turning on a skill for your smart home speaker.
However. I don’t want to spoil too many features and too many news about our platform itself for robotics, because this may come and again on on the stage, one of Microsoft Conferences. Just for reference, this year 2021 we’ve been already at Microsoft Build. We’ve been at Microsoft Ignite. We’ve been at Microsoft Inspire, where we show the use cases when we give couple updates, what we are doing with the customers. What we are doing also with Microsoft Germany: great use case about inspection on the cars we’ve been at Microsoft Inspire, where we’re talking about our integration with one of our customers: Phoenix Contact and their smart building system. However, let’s not spoil too much, it will definitely come more and more in 2022, however, you know, 2021 for me is still not over yet. The time when we are recording this podcast is December end of December 2021.
Gunter, can you tell the audience from your perspective what what robotic innovations which will announce in 2021 were interesting for you? Or maybe not all robotics features on all robotics announcement, but you know, maybe the AI skills AI components which are related for robotics are important for robotics?
Gunter Logemann (Microsoft):
Yeah, so it’s actually impressive because so when you are….
Marek Matuszewski (Roboverse Reply):
That was the first part of the interview with Gunter Logemann from Microsoft. If you are interested in the second part where we discuss more about the business cases and possible return on investments for robotic projects, don’t forget to subscribe to this channel. It will help to get you notified about the next episode.
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