Old Player Is New Entrant To Wearables Market

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

As the wearables market grows, new entrants are popping up everywhere — from hardware manufacturers, to major players entering the software side as in the case of Google’s Health App Development Kit.

According to Health IT Outcomes, Microsoft is also trying its hand at wearables, and has launched Microsoft Band (which has already received its share of criticism) and Microsoft Health. The releases are expected to challenge Apple’s existing place in the market.

A demonstration of the product by Zulfi Alam, GM of personal devices at Microsoft, reveals what it’s all about: “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.”

Features

The new platform reportedly will allow users to collect, combine, and store data from multiple devices, all in the name of deeper health insights. According to Forbes, the Microsoft Health platform already has several partners including UP by Jawbone, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, and RunKeeper. Microsoft Health, in conjunction with Microsoft Band, will function like most other wearables, and allow users to track their health and fitness, in part using “the new security-enhanced cloud platform that stores and analyzes” user data.

Playing Catchup

The announcement means that, though late, Microsoft is finally entering the rapidly shifting healthcare wearable arena that’s been dominated by other tech leaders.

According to their CVP of Next Generation, Todd Holmdahl: “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.”