Razorfish raises the bar for Microsoft-based connected retail experience

The last time I wrote about some of the cool work the creative agency Razorfish were doing on the Microsoft platform – specifically Surface, they were owned by Microsoft. Even though they’ve since been sold by Microsoft, it appears they still have a soft spot for Microsoft platforms.

Yesterday, Razorfish announced a beta version of its Retail Experience Platform codenamed “5D” at the National Retail Federation (NRF) conference in New York. At the heart of its interactive retail experience is a synergy of Windows Embedded, Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Tag, Windows Phone and Kinect for Windows.

The 5D platform connects digital devices such as kiosks, large-screen displays, tablets and personal smart phones to better attract consumers into the store, drive product engagement and arm store associates with more contextualized digital tools.

In the fashion scenario demo above, a user is seen browsing a large-format catalog using the Kinect, transferring the catalog to a phone with a Microsoft Tag, shortlisting the catalog on the Surface and even virtually trying on products with the Kinect. At the same time, a store assistant is able to assist the customer with a tablet application.

Even though many components of the technology has been demonstrated before, this is by far the most polished and fluid applications of such technologies I’ve seen so far. The fact that this is now a shipping product means the “retail future vision” is now that much closer.

5 insightful thoughts

  1. Awesome video, can’t wait till this becomes an everyday reality. It seems MS need to update their ‘3 screens and a cloud’ mantra. More like any screen, anytime. Any idea what that tablet was ?

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