Recently, we sat down with our Chief Product Officer, Maximo Castagno, and asked him to share his vision of the digital workplace and some product roadmap answers. Read on to find out what he had to say!

Like personal computers, enterprise software for the digital workplace should be easy to use.

Back in 1991, the famous tech columnist Walt Mosseberg made a bold statement about personal computers at that time:

"Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it isn’t your fault" - Walt Mosseberg

This ominous Walt Street Journal column -and the subsequent decades of honest technology review by Mosseberg- changed an industry for ever. Today any kid in New York or Shanghai, grabbing an iPad for the first time will find it easy to use.

At Beezy, we think that corporate software is in a similar position and that we could adapt the quote to: "Enterprise software is just too hard to use, and it isn't the employee's fault".

On one hand, we're living in the golden age of artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, etc. On the other, in every large company out there, employees are struggling to find basic corporate information to do their job; they cannot cope with overloaded email inboxes, they have to use too many different tools with completely disconnected user experiences.

In the immediate future, enterprise software needs to play a "catch-up" game and put the focus on the end-user; providing a seamless user experience across the so-called digital workplace. Beezy provides today a smart combination of four key ingredients: Communication, Collaboration, Knowledge and Processes. All in one platform, all connected to each other. We firmly believe that the Microsoft platform is the most fertile ground to achieve this.

So, what does the future hold?

Now... this catch-up is not really innovation, it is about fixing the current state of things. But we also have ambitious and innovative plans in our roadmap.

In the long run, we foresee a future in which artificial intelligence, machine learning and iOT will have a critical impact in the workplace. We think there will actually be no clear distinction between the digital and the physical workplace. In that context, an intelligent workplace software will give "superpowers" to employees. It will surface the right piece of knowledge to the right people in the right context. Again here, the intelligent fabric that Microsoft is creating for its platform is unique for enterprise software. The Microsoft Graph, the Bot Framework, Cortana or its Cognitive Services are fascinating pieces of technology that we are experimenting with already and with very promising results.

This was our vision, many years ago when we started Beezy. This vision remains unchanged today. We firmly walk towards this future where the tools that we use at work will be more efficient and intelligent, where users will be less frustrated and definitely happier!