Discrete Manufacturing Industry

Hello, I’m Craig Rode and I’m the Industry Technology Strategist for the Microsoft World Wide High Tech and Electronics group. In this role, I help bring together technology and partners which provide solutions for our customers in High Tech. I’ve been...

Written by Craig Rode. I just returned from COFES, (Congress Of the Future of Engineering Software). It’s held in Phoenix, which is not a bad place to visit when one lives in the Seattle area where it’s been raining for what seems like...

It was 3:05pm; I was driving from Austin to Dallas to meet a customer and stopped at a gas station in Temple to get some cold beverages. As I was paying at the counter my phone received a calendar alert. I looked at it, and it was my car manufacturer’s...

In early March, we attended the annual Global Electronics forum and came away with a number of great insights into how top-tier high tech and electronics (HTE) companies are looking to survive this recession and then thrive in the next upturn, when it...

In our last blog we noted that several high tech and electronics (HTE) company executives attending the Global Economic forum said they are placing a premium on gaining greater visibility into what is going with suppliers, customers and worldwide operations...

Written by: Craig Rode I just returned from Orlando where I was attending the JT Open conference. What an interesting couple of days! JT, of course, is the open format for display of 3D data in a lightweight fashion. It lends itself to collaboration...

Guest blog from Dave Lassiter, Director of Manufacturing Industry Solutions for Microsoft. The current economy is certainly challenging all of us to do more with less. As supply chain professionals, how often in the last year have you heard,...

We’ve been writing in previous blogs about the mistake that High Tech and Electronics (HT&E) companies would make if they fail to market to people in emerging economies . And we’ve written about how technology applications can overcome the difficulty...

We’re closing out the year seeing encouraging signs of growth around the world. As evidence we need only look at semiconductor manufacturing, traditionally an early indicator of future demand for HT&E products. The SICAS Semi Industry report has shown...

Microsoft is BIG in Big Data Last week I chaired our High Tech Executive Customer Advisory Board (CAB) made of a dozen of CIOs of the High Tech ecosystem and the focus was Big Data. The conversation was lead by one of our Big Data expert Shoshanna...

Contributed by Guest Blogger, Paul Manikas. The use of Social Computing in the consumer space continues to show explosive growth. Facebook has now exceeded 700 million users. 110 million Tweets are sent per day on Twitter. There are 200 million views...

As the pace of global economic upturn increases, so too will the challenges to the smooth operations of the global supply chain resume. Remember that in 2007, we were beginning to see severe strains in material availability and manufacturing capacity...

A recent conversation with Prime Magazine spurred my thinking about the incredible complexity of regulations which High Tech & Electronics companies must comply with during their production of market leading products. Every new regulation – no matter...

In the after math of CES a few weeks ago, where the numbers of attendees and exhibitors increased from last year as a result of the global economic upturn, I think it’s important to go on record in this blog to highlight some of the key macro forces that...

Guest blog from Paul Manikas, Industry Market Development Manager, High Tech & Electronics Industry group Gary Hamel, best-selling author on business management, was the keynote speaker at the recent Microsoft Global High Tech Summit. The subject...

Guest blog from Paul Manikas, Industry Market Development Manager, High Tech & Electronics Industry group The marketing landscape has undergone a major transformation. Broad usage of the internet and socal media has created a shift in customer...

With the economy continuing to show signs of improvement, manufacturers are turning their attention to strategies for capitalizing on new business opportunities. In the high-tech sector, improving collaboration across the value network will be a key...

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen as much discussion as I have recently about this new paradigm, cloud computing. A couple of years ago the concept was floating on the horizon, but today you can’t really have a conversation about technology...

Written by: Craig Rode In my last entry "Cloud computing: What’s the story?", I tried to differentiate between different types of ‘clouds’. With the definition behind us, I want to try and describe some of the characteristics of a...

Maintaining research and development spending during economic downturns seems to be a key theme of various press and research reports out in recent weeks but to us maintaining or reducing such investments isn’t really the question. The better question...

Worldwide, national policymakers are requiring companies to clean up their environmental footprints and otherwise comply with a range of regulations around health and safety. High tech and electronics industry companies in turn are evaluating how technology...

Few people noticed an announcement in February that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will help fund projects that enable poor mobile phone users to transfer money using handsets . What was interesting about the announcement was that while many...

Perhaps this story caught your eye: earlier this month Anthony Zuiker, the creator of “CSI:Crime Scene Investigation,” a U.S. television show, announced that he will be releasing what he’s calling a “digi-novel.” This novel will combine three different...

High Tech & Electronics who are keeping their eye on the ball of their underlying business should pay attention to a Wall Street Journal story that appeared in early July. The story, “ Why Companies See Bright Prospects in Rural India ,” describes...

Written by Craig Rode. I was listening to the radio the other night on my way home from the office, and heard a story about manufacturing. It concerned a local large manufacturer, and its concern about engineers. Apparently, it anticipates having ten...