Cloud based management of an in-store device experience

• US 9,171,314 B2
• Filed: 06/16/2011
• Issued: 10/27/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Greenbaum, Gary Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): Dam, Tuan Q.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wei, Zheng
• Application Number:
  US13/162,347
• Publication Number:
  US 20120324440A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,594 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3438 monitoring of user actions tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

The technology allows a user'"'"'s demo experience to be set up and maintained remotely. Retailers and vendors may remotely manage and update the user experience on demonstration devices. A package of applications that highlight a particular device'"'"'s capabilities can be selected and installed on demo versions of the particular device in stores all across the country. Usage information from the demonstration devices may be collected. With the collected information, retailers can ascertain user interest in particular devices and applications. Further, the user experience may be maintained and reset to default settings on a regular basis. Automatically resetting the experience maintains a consistent retail experience.

Claims

1. A method of remotely managing a consumer experience in a retail store, the method comprising:

binding a plurality of demonstration devices to a retailer corresponding to a chain of retail stores, wherein the plurality of demonstration devices are located in a plurality of non-virtual retail stores belonging to the chain of retail stores;

receiving demonstration device information that describes device hardware and software characteristics for each device in a plurality of demonstration devices;

receiving a user-experience profile that specifies at least one device characteristic and a group of applications to be installed on each device in the plurality of demonstration devices that has the at least one device characteristic, wherein the group of applications to be installed is selected based on matching the at least one device characteristic specified by the user-experience profile with the demonstration device information and provides a consistent consumer experience across the plurality of non-virtual retail stores belonging to the chain of retail stores with regard to each device that has the at least one device characteristic; and

communicating the group of applications to each device within the plurality of demonstration devices that conforms to the user-experience profile to provide a consistent consumer experience on each device within the plurality of demonstration devices located in the plurality of non-virtual stores.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises receiving additional user-experience profiles for different types of demonstration devices within the plurality of devices located in the plurality of non-virtual stores.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the group of applications is communicated with activation codes that allow the group of applications to be installed on a demonstration device within the plurality of devices located in the plurality of non-virtual stores without a need to pay for the group of applications.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises communicating a group of access codes for network based applications, wherein the group of access codes allows consumers to use the network based applications without paying.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises communicating a reset message to a demonstration device that instructs the demonstration device within the plurality of demonstration devices located in the plurality of non-virtual stores to reset one or more settings to an optimum value.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises receiving an update for an application within the group of applications, and, without human intervention, communicating the update to a demonstration device within the plurality of devices located in the plurality of non-virtual stores.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the group of applications comprise one or more of applications that pull demonstration content from a network, applications that deliver core functionality of a demonstration device, and applications that provide specific demonstration functions.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises receiving a modification to the user-experience profile from the retailer.

9. A system for providing a retail experience on a demonstration device, the system comprising:

a processor; and

a remote experience manager located at an experience management device, the remote experience manager configured to;

receive identification information from a demonstration device that specifies that the demonstration device is associated with a chain of retail stores;

bind a retail store identification to the demonstration device, the retail store identification corresponding to the chain of retail stores, wherein the demonstration device is one of a plurality of demonstration devices located within a non-virtual retail store belonging to the chain of retail stores;

receive demonstration device information that describes device hardware and software characteristics for the demonstration device and identification information that identifies a retail store bound to the demonstration device;

generate, a group of applications for installation on the demonstration device based on a user-experience profile determined by matching the demonstration device information received with the user-experience profile, wherein the group of applications generated highlights the hardware and software characteristics of the demonstration device based on the demonstration device information, and optimizes the consumer experience in the non-virtual retail store by producing a consistent consumer experience across the chain of retail stores based on the retail store information, and wherein the user-experience profile specifies the group of applications for installation to satisfy the hardware and software characteristics of the demonstration device; and

communicate the group of applications to the demonstration device located within the non-virtual retail store.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the demonstration device information comprises a hardware configuration for the demonstration device.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the remote experience manager is further configured to communicate a list of the relevant group of applications to the demonstration device and receive a selection of one or more applications from the demonstration device.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the remote experience manager is further configured to:

receive a request from a store-experience controller that specifies a specific additional application, to install on the demonstration device, and

communicate the specific additional application to the demonstration device such that the store-experience controls enables a retailer of the chain of retail stores to remotely control the consumer experience in the non-virtual retail store.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein remote experience manager is further configured to:

receive a request from a brand-experience controller associated with a brand, which specifies a consumer experience for the brand'"'"'s demonstration devices located within the non-virtual retail store;

install an additional application on each of the plurality of demonstration devices conforming to a designated profile;

determine that the demonstration device conforms to the designated profile; and

communicate the additional application to the demonstration device.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the remote experience manager is further configured to communicate an instruction to the demonstration device to automatically reset a state of each of one or more applications to designated settings.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the remote experience manager is further configured to:

receive a request from a brand-experience controller associated with a brand, wherein the request specifies a consumer'"'"'s retail experience for the brand'"'"'s demonstration devices located within the non-virtual retail store;

install an additional application on the brand'"'"'s devices conforming to a designated profile;

determine that the demonstration device is the brand'"'"'s device and conforms to the designated profile; and

communicate the additional application to the demonstration device.

16. One or more computer-readable storage memories having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon, that when executed by a computing device perform a method of remotely managing content on a demonstration device within a retail setting, the method comprising:

communicating identification information from the demonstration device to a remote experience manager that operates on a separate computing device, wherein the demonstration device is available for consumer interaction within a non-virtual retail store belonging to a chain of retail stores, and wherein the identification information specifies that the demonstration device is associated with the chain of retail stores;

receiving from the remote experience manager a group of applications and optimum values for one or more settings of the demonstration device, wherein the group of applications and the optimum values are selected based on matching a user-experience profile with the identification information that specifies the chain of retail stores with which the demonstration device is associated, such that a consistent consumer experience is produced across the chain of retail stores with respect to the demonstration device;

installing the group of applications on the demonstration device within the non-virtual retail store belonging to the chain of retail stores; and

updating the one or more settings of the demonstration device within the non-virtual retail store to match the optimum values received from the remote experience manager.

17. The memories of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises receiving one or more access codes that enable the demonstration device to access applications that run over a network.

18. The memories of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises receiving, at the demonstration device, a new application to install, wherein the new application was added to the user-experience profile.

19. The memories of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises receiving an instruction to reset the one or more settings to the optimum values.

20. The memories of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises communicating consumer interaction information to the remote experience manager.