????微軟（Microsoft）在收購企業方面向來表現不佳。（大家還記得曾經被微軟收購的Danger、Massive和WebTV嗎？不記得了吧，大家都不記得了。）不過，微軟于2008年斥資12億美元收購企業級搜索新創企業Search & Transfer可能被證明是富有先見之明。

????本周早些時候，科技巨頭微軟對旗下的云端產能工具——Office 365產品進行了一系列升級，其中包括一款代號為奧斯陸（Oslo）的新應用。奧斯陸應用由駐挪威奧斯陸的Fast團隊開發，界面類似于Flipboard，用戶可以用它查看、搜索來自SharePoint和Yammer等幾款Office 365工具的相關數據。據微軟稱，（多虧了另一個名為Office Graph的創新）這款一度被雪藏的應用現在具有“智能元素”，員工能借此在一個簡單易用的用戶界面輕松查看最近使用的文檔、聯系人信息以及對話。

????“企業數據一直以來就像一個黑匣子，”Fast工程團隊的企業副總裁比約恩?奧爾斯塔德說?！拔覀儼l現，真正的價值不在于內容本身，而在于人們與內容的交互方式?！?/p>

????奧爾斯塔德表示，奧斯陸能利用人機交互和機器學習等技術向Office 365用戶提供最相關、最具時效性的信息。雖然奧斯陸目前只能從特定程序中抓取數據，但在不久的將來有望擴展到微軟所有產品中。

????奧爾斯塔德說：“比起傳統的孤立封閉型信息，奧斯陸依靠的是基于分享和云協作的數據模型，這是一個新起點。”

????Fast團隊大概有220人，從事的工作包括機器學習、搜索和其它任何與奧斯陸相關的技術。他們還在研究如何在種類繁多的Office 365產品上進行團隊協作。從產品演示來看，奧斯陸的界面頗為美觀，進行企業搜索也非常有效率。說實話，在企業內網界面上進行搜索通常令人痛不欲生。奧斯陸意義重大，它契合了微軟正在竭力兜售的企業級工具發展方案：更加網絡化，更具團隊協作性，使用統一接口來獲取所有應用程序的內容和交互信息。

????上周早些時候，微軟Office服務及服務器部門副總裁杰夫?特珀在微軟SharePoint大會上發表了一份聲明稱：“最新的Office 365產品集中了云計算、社交媒體、移動互聯網和大數據等技術，用戶及其團隊能更便捷地定位所需信息以及最相關的內容。”

????盡管聽起來很像其它公司眼下正在探索的“社交化”企業網，但微軟和它們是有區別的。誠然，Facebook等公司早就推出了Yammer等企業化社交工具，微軟此次算是跟風之舉。但這些公司僅僅能提供一到兩個企業級軟件（而且它們的使用范圍也很局限，不可能覆蓋到員工的方方面面），而微軟無論是在整體解決方案，還是數據處理方面，無疑都勝出一籌。

????是的，人們工作的方式的確正在發生變化，而不僅是因為微軟的工程師們這么說。微軟要在未來取得成功，不僅需要走向云端，而且必須利用自身資源融會貫通，將會話、文件以及演示文檔結合在一起，同時把它放到一個易于理解、易于查找且具有相關性的背景中，讓員工無論身在何處，都可以暢通無阻地工作。

????Fast是問題的答案嗎？恐怕不是，但它絕對是個拿得出手的開始。（財富中文網）

????譯者：項航

????

????Microsoft (MSFT) has a spotty track record when it comes to acquisitions. (Remember Danger, Massive, and WebTV? Yeah, neither do we.) But snapping up enterprise search startup Fast Search & Transfer for $1.2 billion back in 2008 may prove to have been a prescient move.

????Earlier this week the tech giant unveiled a series of updates to its Office 365 suite of cloud-based productivity tools, including a new application code-named Oslo. The app, developed by the Fast team based in Oslo, Norway, has a Flipboard-like interface and lets users view and search relevant data from a handful of Office 365 tools, like SharePoint and Yammer. According to Microsoft, the once-siloed applications now share an "intelligent fabric" (made possible by another new innovation called Office Graph) that allows employees to easily view recent documents, contacts, and conversations in one easy-to-digest user interface.

????"Enterprise data has been like a black box," says Bjorn Olstad, corporate VP of Fast's engineering team. "What we found is that the real value is not in the content itself -- it's how people interact with the content."

????According to Olstad, Oslo uses personal interactions and machine learning to highlight the most relevant, timely information for each Office 365 user. Right now it only pulls data from select applications, but the plan is to access content and interactions across all Microsoft tools in the near future.

????"This is a starting point for a transformation, a shared, cloud-based team data model as opposed to working with siloed information," Olstad says.

????The Fast team includes about 220 people, all working on machine learning, search, and other technologies that have gone into creating Oslo. They've also been working with groups across the various Office 365 products. In demos, Oslo seemed to be a much more eye-pleasing and effective way to do corporate search -- which, let's face it, is a pretty awful experience when done in a normal intranet-type interface. But it is also significant because it fits right into what Microsoft is touting as the future of work: a more networked, connected way of working together in teams, with a common fabric providing access to content and interactions that follow you from app to app.

????"The new Office 365 experiences powered by cloud, social, mobile, and big data technologies enable people and teams to find the right connections and most relevant insights to get more done," Jeff Teper, corporate VP of the company's Office Service and Servers group, said in an announcement issued at Microsoft's SharePoint Conference earlier this week.

????If it sounds a lot like other companies' attempts to "socialize" the enterprise, it is and it isn't. Yes, Microsoft has jumped on the bandwagon with Facebook-like enterprise social tool Yammer and other efforts. But unlike other players that offer just one or two enterprise software products (and are therefore limited in linking social to every aspect of an employee's work life) Microsoft still has an extensive suite of tools -- and data -- at its fingertips.

????And yes, the way people work is changing, not just because the folks in Redmond said so. For Microsoft to succeed in the future, it not only needs to be cloud-based, but must use its assets to connect the dots, weaving together conversations and documents and presentations and serving it up in an easy-to-digest, easy-to-find and relevant context wherever employees are already working.