今年三月，微軟推出了面向職場環境的Teams團隊聊天服務平臺。面臨谷歌、Slack和Facebook等競爭平臺的圍剿，為了進一步改善Teams平臺的服務體驗，微軟公司上周三公布了幾種讓第三方開發者參與構建平臺應用的方法。

在華盛頓州雷德蒙德召開的微軟Build 2017大會上，微軟CEO薩特亞?納德納表示，企業的會議并非“開完就完了”。每個會議開完后，還需要員工做很多跟進的工作。

納德拉認為，在會前準備、會議規劃和會后跟進等一系列流程中，微軟的Office 365工具套件都是大有可為的——比如它的日歷應用。納德拉更是尤為重視微軟的Teams應用，因為它可以說是人們參與網絡會議的一扇“大門”。

不過微軟光靠自己是很難構建起預期中Teams平臺的全部功能的，所以它需要借助外部編程人員的力量來填補這個缺口。納德拉建議開發者利用微軟的Microsoft Graph數據庫構建Teams平臺的商業應用。這個數據庫中的數據可以映射出微軟用戶之間的關系，以及他們的設備、工作習慣和所使用的微軟軟件的情況。

納德拉表示，通過構建基于Microsoft Graph數據庫的應用程序，開發者們可以創建出能夠在多種設備（如手機和PC端）上運行的服務。這樣一來，用戶就能更好地隨時掌握自己的工作任務情況。

微軟公司產品營銷經理勞拉?瓊斯隨后演示了一個基于Microsoft Graph的假想Teams應用，該應用可以在多種設備上運行。它還使用了來自職業社交網絡領英（LinkedIn）的數據（領英也是微軟旗下公司）。即便用戶在開車的時候，也能通過這個應用參加網絡會議。

Teams應用還連接了微軟的語音數字助手“小娜”。因此，瓊斯可以通過微軟尚未正式發布的聯網揚聲器Invoke向“小娜”發布指令，查看日歷應用中即將召開的會議，以及設置自動回復等等。

瓊斯還表示，該應用還能通過她的微軟Xbox游戲機甚至是車載電腦向她發送提醒。這樣一來，可以說工作已經滲透到她的生活的方方面面。

“有了這樣的體驗，我幾乎能把任何設備都變成一臺工作設備。”瓊斯表示。

“小娜來了！#微軟Build大會上，微軟Teams和Graph服務也登臺了！”

——路易斯?貝爾特倫（@darkicebeam），2017年5月10日

會上，瓊斯還展示了如何利用Teams平臺召開多人網絡會議，這個功能有點類似谷歌最新改進的商業聊天及視頻應用Hangouts。另外她還讓Teams的聊天機器人檢索了一位參會設計師的工作信息。

最后，瓊斯還表示，編程人員將可以利用基于人工智能的微軟語音識別技術，自動將會議內容翻譯成“我選擇的語言”。

當然，這只是一次概念展示而已。但它也向我們描繪了微軟眼中未來的職場互動將是怎樣的一幅圖景。

然而微軟要想讓足夠多的開發者心甘情愿地替它打造這些功能，并且按照它的想法來為它效力，那么它要做的可不只是一次花哨的展示這么簡單。（財富中文網）

譯者：樸成奎

The technology giant debuted Wednesday several ways that third-party developers can build apps to improve Microsoft's Teams chat service for the workplace, which was introduced in March amid fierce competition from rival chat apps from Google (goog, -0.36%), Slack, and Facebook (fb, -0.13%).

At Microsoft’s annual Build conference in Redmond, Wash., CEO Satya Nadella explained that business meetings are not a “one-time thing” but rather require a lot of follow up by employees after they conclude.

It’s this long cycle of prepping, planning, and following-up that Nadella believes Microsoft’s various Office 365 tools like its calendar app can help improve. The Teams app is especially crucial for Nadella because it works as the gateway for people to join online meetings.

However, Microsoft can’t create all of Team’s features by itself, so it needs outside coders to fill in the gaps. Nadella urged developers to consider building business apps for Teams that siphon data from the so-called Microsoft Graph, a data repository that maps the relationships between Microsoft users, their devices, work habits, and the Microsoft software they use.

By building apps that tap into the Microsoft Graph, developers can create services that function across multiple devices like phones and personal computers, he continued. In that way, users would be able to better stay on top of their business tasks.

Microsoft product marketing manager Laura Jones then gave a demo of a hypothetical-Teams app powered by the Microsoft Graph that works across several devices. It also used information from the career-oriented social network LinkedIn, which Microsoft owns, and connected people into business meetings—even while driving a car.

Because the Teams app was wired to Microsoft’s voice-activated digital assistant Cortana, Jones could command it, via Microsoft’s yet-to-be-released Invoke web-connected speaker, to check for upcoming meetings in her calendar and set out-of-office reminders.

She said the app could also send her notifications through her video game console Microsoft Xbox and the on-board computer of her car, so her work essentially followed her in every aspect of her life.

“With experiences like these, I can turn any device into a productivity device,” Jones said.

Cortana time! #MSBuild Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Graph on stage as well ! pic.twitter.com/8ULZcuvAKG

- Luis Beltran (@darkicebeam) May 10, 2017

She showed how she could conduct a meeting with multiple people, similar to Google’s revamped Hangouts business chat and video apps, while asking a Teams chat-bot to retrieve information for attendees on a designer’s work portfolio.

Finally, she said coders would be able to use Microsoft’s artificial intelligence-powered speech recognition technology to automatically transcribe the meeting into “the language of my choice.”

Of course, this was only a demonstration, but it highlights the type of workplace interactions Microsoft believes will take place in the future.

Whether Microsoft can convince enough developers to help it build these capabilities and have them work as intended will take more than a conference presentation.