Ignite 2018: Microsoft, Adobe, SAP plan Open Data Initiative for improved customer experience

Microsoft, SAP, and Adobe today announced plans for a new Open Data Initiative built on Azure that aims to improve the customer experience software category by giving customers of the three companies access to their full range of data across solutions without the traditional silos.

"We've collectively worked with so many customers on their digital transformation journeys and we've learned so much about what they think about the opportunities for customer engagement and what is needed for them to keep pushing," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella onstage today at the opening keynote of Ignite 2018.

The new initiative, called the Open Data Initiative, will aim to provide a single open data model accessible to companies using all three companies' solutions, as well as solutions from other vendors who wish to participate. According to the plans revealed today, the Azure will be the underpinning of the overall approach.

"Clearly there's a big data opportunity, except there is a small data challenge," said Nadella. "All of this data is trapped in silos, many of them internal but also [external]."

The planning for the Open Data Initiative started with calls from SAP CEO Bill McDermott to Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayan, McDermott said. Based on relationships of "friendship and trust", McDermott said the three aligned on key premises around digital transformation in the context of customer experience and the ideal of easier access to a company's data across systems and vendors. The companies have prebriefed some the biggest retail customers, they said, ...