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tmsuk's deal with Microsoft

It's been a few weeks since Microsoft Japan announced that it will be teaming with tmsuk, the robotics startup that made Kiyomori. The press release said that the two companies will cooperate "to standardize software components" using the Microsoft Robotics Studio. So what does this mean? And what kind of impact will it have in Japan?

First of all, I got to talk with Yoichi Takamoto, founder and CEO of tmsuk in Los Angeles during WIRED NextFest. His explanation was this.

"We currently use Linux on our robots. Now that we have an alliance with Microsoft, we will try to make our robots work with Windows. But we don't know if that will work. At this point, what is decided upon is that Microsoft will let us use all their tools for free. In regards to how we will give them feedback, we have yet to decide on the details. We need to figure out whether tmsuk will receive royalties or patent fees or some other kind of technology transfer fees and in what scheme. We can't have just Microsoft profit from this relationship. The announcement came out first  but actually there are still lots to discuss about between the two companies before we move forward."

What do the people in the Japanese robotics industry think?

Said one CEO of a Japanese company that is in the robotics business. "I think this is a publicity stunt. Microsoft wanted to announce some kind of deal to show people that it is gaining support for its Robotics Studio." Since then Microsoft has announced a deal with ZMP, another robotics startup in Japan.

The Japanese government has been a bit concerned about Microsoft's moves in the robotics field, and one person close to the government said that "people are a bit relieved that the alliance was with tmsuk (and not a bigger company)."

Probably the best thing Microsoft has gained from this alliance is "tmsuk's connection with the Japanese universities" according to a couple of other people in the industry. tmsuk is well-known for having a good relationship with many of the major robotics labs throughout the country.   

There is an article on ROBOT CENTRAL too about this alliance. 

Why Bill Gates started Robotics Studio

The reason Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates decided that the company should come out with the Robotics Studio was because he was deeply impressed by the humanoid robot kits sold by Kondo Kagaku Co. when he saw them in spring of 2004, according to an article on Nikkei BP ITpro, Japan's leading IT news website. The article says that the CTO of Microsoft Japan, Shunichi Kajisa,revealed the anecdote during his keynote speech at WinHEC 2007 Tokyo on June 18.

Kajisa said that Mr. Gates, after seeing the Kondo robot kits, saw a future where every household will have a robot.  Microsoft is currently working on what it calls the "Concurrency and Coordination Runtime（CCR）" which is meant to enable the parallel processing of complicated tasks on the .NET Framework, and the Robotics Studio is the first development tool adopting CCR.

Books on the Robotics Studio have already been published in Japanese in Japan - the "world's first" according to Kajisa - despite the fact that the development tool currently comes in English only. How the Japanese robotics community will play a part in the future of Robotics Studio will be something to keep an eye on.