On Thursday, Microsoft announced a new operating business called Microsoft Frontier company, focused on delivering successful enterprise AI deployments with Microsoft’s existing AI tools. The project will be backed by a $2.5 billion investment from Microsoft, as well as 6,000 industry and engineering experts.
In a statement announcing the venture, Microsoft’s Commercial Business CEO Judson Althoff resisted the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) label that is often applied to these ventures. “This goes beyond what has been labeled as Forward-Deployed Engineering,” Althoff wrote, “and will be the largest, most capable, outcome-driven engineering organization in the industry.”
Nonetheless, the venture bears a striking similarity to a number of FDE-based AI ventures announced in recent months. Just two days earlier, Amazon Web Services announced an internal commitment of $1 billlion for its own AI deployment venture, explicitly embracing the FDE model. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have launched joint ventures along similar lines, although those efforts also involve outside capital from private equity firms.
Microsoft’s existing client base will give the new effort a significant head start, as the company has already deployed engineers to much of the Fortune 500. The announcement cites an early partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group, as well as Unilever, Land O’Lakes, and Accenture.
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