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Follow UsIf 640,000
IT
players across the world, including the large ones who service
conglomerates and the teeny weenies who help out neighborhood shops
and homes are showing interest in cloud, there must be something in
it for them.
Last month's
mega meet of
15,000 plus channel partners was a clear
indication of the building momentum of cloud, and how CEO Steve
Ballmer is planning to shift gears for taking the flight high up
towards the clouds. Plus his statement that “Someone said we have
95% of our business through partners, I can't find the last 5%
myself. So, I'm just going to say we've got 100% of our business
with partners” clearly indicates who Microsoft's co-travelers are
going to be.
At a time
when cloud is being touted as the solution for all problems-of
vendors as well as customers-Microsoft's key executives are
focusing on explaining and convincing how partners will benefit from
the transition to cloud computing by helping customers improve
agility, focus on business goals and reduce costs. “Cloud computing
is as big a transformation as we have ever seen and, together with
our partners, Microsoft will help customers through the shift,”
said Satya Nadella, president of the server and tools business at
Microsoft. “By betting on Microsoft's comprehensive approach to
cloud com pu ting, partners can embrace this trans formation and
build strong and vibrant practices that will advance how business
gets done,” Nadella added.
Let's take
the Office 365 front for instance. Microsoft claims that more than
50,000 organizations have started trials-a rate of more than 1
every 25 seconds in the first 2 weeks after the cloud based
productivity service was released. According to Jitendra Kulkarni,
CEO, Winspire Solutions from Singapore, “Businesses of all sizes
are embracing the service, and I am very sure that more and more
partners will use the cloud route as that offers better reach and
ability to sell and support.” According to a Microsoft sponsored
Forrester Consulting survey, customers will get an RoI of more than
300% with a payback period of just 2 months with Office 365.
Of course,
it's going to be a numbers game, specially for the ecosystem. And
this is one area in which Microsoft is a big power to reckon with.
Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Office division said, “The
ecosystem of Microsoft partners has more than doubled in the last
year and now includes more than 41,000 partners and 300,000 trained
specialists on the cloud service. Partners who are first movers to
the cloud are building robust recurring revenue streams, ultimately
growing and transforming their businesses.” Clearly, Microsoft is
confident of its big ecosystem that is growing.
At the Los
Angeles partner meet, it was not just power point sessions-actually
quite a few new schemes and plans were announced to encourage and
enable partners to adopt cloud. For giving customers a better cloud
experience and creating a path for partners to transition of their
businesses to the cloud, Kirill Tatarinov, president of Microsoft
Business Solutions, announced that the next update of Microsoft
Dynamics CRM Online will be available in the fourth quarter of 2011.
This update will enable partners to offer enterprise customers
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online with Microsoft Office 365 and will
feature enhanced social collaboration capabilities.
In addition,
new Microsoft Dynamics ERP RapidStart Services were announced, which
help partners quickly configure and set up consistent and repeatable
steps common across the life cycle of an ERP deployment, reducing the
initial implementation time so they can focus on delivering
profitable value-added services. Built on the Windows Azure platform,
the extensible service will be available in September.
Similarly,
the company announced that partners could now sell their applications
through the Windows Azure Marketplace to reach more customers and get
more revenues. This capability builds on the extensive set of partner
data offerings already available for sale through the Windows Azure
Marketplace. Other initiatives to help cloud in the very near future
include System Center 2012, which helps customers build private
clouds and manage applications across both private and public cloud
systems, and Windows Server 8, which will be the next step in private
cloud computing.
Taking note
of the increasing importance of data in both public and private cloud
computing, Microsoft also announced the availability of a community
preview of the new Microsoft SQL Server, codename 'Denali'. With
this, partners and customers can begin testing the features of
'Denali' including Project Crescent for visual data exploration
and SQL Server Developer Tools codenamed 'Juneau', for a modern
development experience across server, business intelligence, and
cloud development projects.
To prove
that
the cloud route is paying dividends, Microsoft shared results of
another Forrester Consulting survey that found that partners
deploying solutions on Windows Azure are generating 20% to 250% in
new revenue by reaching entirely new customers.
Going beyond
product upgradation announcements, Microsoft also announced changes
in partner commissions, providing them improved cash flow and
enhanced opportunity. Ballmer said they plan to pump in about $4.1 bn
as incentives for partners-such as solution providers, developers,
SIs, VARs and distributors-to move to cloud. The fact that
Microsoft's partner ecosystem: 640,000 partners with 15 mn
employees generate $580 bn in total revenue-$8.70 for every $1.00
Microsoft makes-is clearly exciting for the partners to be on its
side. “It makes a lot of business sense to be with Microsoft in
this cloud journey,” said Rishikesh Trivedi of Epicor Software who
had come from Dubai.
And the
cloud
story is not just being written with the channel partners. Microsoft
has already tied up with over 30 telecom operators who will offer
popular business and consumer products and services through their
cloud. And there are some discussions going on with credit card
players such as Amex and MasterCard for reaching out to the market
via their clouds. “Let's use cloud to sell the cloud,” as Jon
Roskill, head, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft suggests.
While
Microsoft is meticulously putting together its big cloud plan, to
ultimately get everybody on board Microsoft's cloud flight will
actually need a lot of pushing and convincing. As Ballmer himself put
it, “We're all-in on the cloud, 100%, and we need partners who
want to come with us. Doesn't mean that the business has all
transitioned in the last 12-month period of time, but we're all in.
It is where things are going and we need you to decide whether you're
coming with us.”
But if the
tiger is taking the cloud flight, whatever be the apprehensions, that
flight has got to be exciting.
The
author
was hosted in Los Angeles by Microsoft.