Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

Remote Assist Team, Hololens Team, azure tenants, and business structure disconnect

I think the Remote Assist Team, the Hololens Team, and Microsoft have a disconnect in how a lot of business entities are actually structured either in the U.S. or as part of their global operations particularly in the area of service and maintenance. And this understanding matter’s profoundly in the operations of the Hololens and its mixed reality services that Microsoft offers. I will use the automotive industry as the example because its similar in many countries.

In many countries, corporate Ford or BMW do not own the actual dealerships where vehicles are serviced and sold. Those automotive technicians are not part of any Ford or BMW corporate Microsoft Azure Tenant. Now corporate Ford or BMW engineering and technical documentation teams are the ones who would create a D365 Guide for a service issue and staff a “help & service” lab that technicians from a dealership would Remote Assist call into. But again those techs are not corporate employees so they are not on the Microsoft Azure Active Directory for Ford or BMW.

Further still, in some places, the actual service technician is a business “entity” separate from the dealership where the actual vehicle is being serviced. Thus, the Microsoft Azure tenant disconnect can be another layer removed.

The Hololens w/ Remote Assist or Guides is a tool. In the automotive industries tools are commonly purchased and the ownership of the technician, not the dealership or service business. So the Hololens, the Remote Assist service, the Guides service are going to be purchased by an automotive technician who need to use that tool to connect the 3^rd party lab, or access the Guides, of Ford or BMW and there is this huge Azure disconnect.

And to think an OEM is going to add Azure Active Directory accounts for hundreds of thousands of 3^rd party techs etc, to their OEM accounts to make these communications work is not a reasonable expectation.

I have provided a global example of how the auto industry is structured for service and maintenance from a business entity perspective. But this setup is found in many areas so it won’t go away and I would like to see the Hololens and Mixed Reality service flourish, so this needs to be addressed.

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