Microsoft Challenges Apple In Wearable Market
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Microsoft Band works with Microsoft Health system to consolidate data among gadgets.
Microsoft has announced the release of its fitness wearable and coordinating program – Microsoft Health – n a bid to challenge Apple in the fitness and health market, according to a company statement.
Zulfi Alam, GM of Personal devices, explained during a demonstration of the new wearable, “Imagine you’ve set the goal that you want to get fit and lose weight as part of your exercise routine. Based on your burn rate and exercise over one week, we will soon be able to auto-suggest a customized workout plan for you. As you follow that plan – or if you don’t follow the plan – our technology will continue to adjust to give you the best outward-looking plan, like a real coach would do. Microsoft has the big data analytics and machine learning to attack fitness and productivity challenges in this way.”
According to the statement, the new platform allows consumers to combine and store health and fitness data from multiple devices to create significant health insights. The new Microsoft Health platform is available through the new Microsoft Health app for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Together with the Microsoft Band, a new wearable that works together with Microsoft Health, consumers can now track personal health and fitness in an easy and insightful manner. Forbes adds The Health platform has several initial partners, including UP by Jawbone, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal and RunKeeper.
This announcement means that Microsoft is finally catching up to some of the competition of its fellow tech giants. Google currently offers Goggle Fit for Android, while Apple has introduced HealthKit to centralize and analyze health data across a number of sources.
Todd Holmdahl, CVP of Next Generation says, “This is still our first play in the space but it is already the best instantiation of a mobile first, cloud first product we have at Microsoft. If you choose, information that is immediate and actionable on your body creates a new platform of data about you in Microsoft Health. Over time, you will have the option to integrate Microsoft Health with your calendar and email information from Office, as well as location based information to continue to enhance your overall productivity experience.”
“The fitness functions help you exercise and become more fit,” Alam said, “And we also found that once you have a high-quality screen on your wrist, you can be more in the moment. I no longer need to keep taking my phone out of my pocket. Cortana and productivity notifications help so much. If my boss or wife need to get in touch, I can glance at what’s going on and choose to respond later or tap and say, ‘I’ll call you back.’”