back to article Microsoft's phrase of the week was 'tech intensity' and, no, we're not sure what it means either

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella came as close to a "developers developers developers" dance as he is ever likely to during this year's Ignite. "Tech intensity" was the buzzphrase of the week, defined by Nadella in his keynote as (Tech adoption x Tech capability ) ^ Trust. No, we're not entirely sure what that meant either and it …

  1. Blockchain commentard
    Terminator

    (Tech adoption x Tech capability ) ^ Trust is more like T3 which is one step on from the T2 and we all know how well that Terminator did !!!

  2. tiggity Silver badge

    Tech Intensity is nearly always 1

    "Tech intensity" was the buzzphrase of the week, defined by Nadella in his keynote as (Tech adoption x Tech capability ) ^ Trust.

    No, we're not entirely sure what that meant either "

    To answer question, its 1, as raised to power of Trust (which for most tech companies, value assigned to Trust by your average cynic would be 0, and anything raised to power of zero gives 1)

    1. JohnFen

      Re: Tech Intensity is nearly always 1

      Yes, this equation is rigged. My trust in Microsoft is zero, so a resulting "tech intensity", whatever that means, is 1 -- which seems far too high to me.

      1. gobaskof

        Re: Tech Intensity is nearly always 1

        Exactly, I have a negative amount of trust in Microsoft yet they still get a positive result!?

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Tech Intensity is nearly always 1

          yet they still get a positive result!?

          Not if you have zero adoption.

          For that matter, if you regard them as having negative capability and have the right sort of negative trust, then intensity is purely imaginary.

          It's also conceivable that "^" is the bitwise exclusive-OR operator, as in C. In that case, the only sensible interpretation of Nadella's equation is that it's an exercise in trivial obfuscation.

    2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Tech Intensity is nearly always 1

      Reminds me of the Sociology class I took in uni. Make up a bunch of numbers, write some equations, and hey presto, science!

      It's a Powerpoint equation. You take a sentence like "we create a lot of techy stuff and try to get people to buy it" and rewrite it as an equation to make it more "sciencey" and therefore, more important and relevent. Most people won't understand wtf you mean, so the idea is to make them feel that you're smarter than them. And, naturally, they should listen to you and do what you tell them to do, which, in this case, is to buy more Microsoft stuff.

      Simple as 1, 2, 3!

      There is neither a chair icon, nor a fat sweaty guy icon...

  3. Scott Broukell
    Coat

    Probably alludes to the desire to sign up all the worlds homeless folk, living under fly-overs and in run down former industrial parts of our super-dooper urban metropolises, to the wonderful world of Cortana, SaS, Surfaces and IoT - you know, Tech In Tent Cities.

    Mines the one with the sheets of newspaper and cardboard in the pockets.

  4. Dwarf

    So the formula was quoted as

    (Tech adoption x Tech capability ) ^ Trust

    When trust = 0, then that becomes x^0 = 1 for all values of x, so Tech adoption and Tech capability are irrelevant, Trust is what matters most

    1. ChrisC Silver badge

      Alternatively it could be read as "(tech adoption x tech capability) XOR trust", in which case trust = 0 is the only time you can be sure that improvements in your adoption and capability figures will result in corresponding gains in your intensity value...

      1. crispert

        One might also state the formula (developing on Ken Moorhouse's comment): The adopted tech if capable can't be trusted and if the adopted tech can be trusted then it's not capable. Or considering all possibilities: The more capable the tech and the more you adopt the less you can trust. (Nadella's law)

    2. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      (Tech adoption x Tech capability ) ^ Trust

      ^ could be interpreted as the intersection operator. In which case your formula equates to 0.

  5. Stoneshop
    Facepalm

    Tech intensity

    Tech in tent city, actually. To allow the developers to work from 'home'.

    Bay area housing prices, you know.

  6. JediMindTrick

    It was a boring keynote, and it was entirely too long.

    1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: It was a boring keynote, and it was entirely too long.

      Hmm, you think Ballmer should be wheeled out of retirement?

      1. Dwarf

        Re: It was a boring keynote, and it was entirely too long.

        No !

        1. Joe W Silver badge

          Re: It was a boring keynote, and it was entirely too long.

          Yes!

          Developers!

          *throws chair *

  7. chivo243 Silver badge
    Coat

    Sounds like a Ted Nugent endeavor

    Intensities In Ten Cities anyone? I was young, it was a galaxy far, far away.

  8. JohnFen

    I figured it out!

    After reading a number of articles and Microsoft's own comments on this, I think I've figured out both what "tech intensity" actually means and why we have a hard time understanding it.

    We have a hard time understanding it because we're not the target demographic for that message -- the target demographic is business executives.

    What it actually means is: everyone should upgrade all their hardware and software, and use Azure a lot more.

  9. sbt
    Coat

    Cringe squared

    Between the pointless maths formula and the digital "cock and balls" of the Minecraft segment, it seems MS have a very narrow view of their audience profile.

    No, I am not pleased to see you, I just have a slide rule in my pocket. -->

  10. Il'Geller

    Microsoft may very soon lose its main business, because it will not withstand the competition with AI. The slogan "Tech Intensity" is gaining unprecedented relevance for Microsoft, it must decide how to handle with AI.

    Microsoft manufactures and sells software products, which are created by programmers; where the work of programmers is to translate texts (so-called specifications), into a structured format (that is, into programming code). Thus Microsoft produces and sells "translations."

    AI is able to "translate" the same, but without the participation of people; "translating" texts in what I call "synonymous clusters". For example there is a paragraph:

    -- Press the blue and white button. Then press blue again.

    A programmer (human) must manually code ("translate" this specification); AI structures it into several patterns:

    - and press the blue button

    - and press the white button

    - then press the blue button again,

    using AI -parsing and - indexing.

    There are two patterns here, which compose a synonymous cluster on the blue button:

    - and press the blue button

    - then press the blue button again.

    AI "understands" the cluster, can easily find and execute it. Microsoft does the same using people, which is much more expensive.

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