Fun venue sets the stage for great hosting conversations and networking

by John Zanni

I am at WebhostingDay in Germany this week. It’s a fun event because it’s based in a theme park called Phantasialand and it’s closed to the general public so we have the run of the fair. I like the venue, but don’t think I will take any of the rides.

My keynote presentation, ‘Hosting is the New IT’, went well yesterday. In fact, Liam Eagle of theWHIR.com wrote an article that did a great job of encapsulating my presentation.

I get lots of questions from our partners asking about what we’re doing with the cloud and the impact it has on them as partners and the industry as a whole. Events like WebhostingDay give us the chance to talk through our plans and explain how the cloud allows us to present them with additional opportunities.

As Steve Ballmer said the other day, all our products are focused on the cloud and, bearing in mind that something like 95% of Microsoft’s revenue is through our partners, it means that hosters will be able to take advantage and deliver more products through our focus on the cloud.

I ended my session by saying that I would prefer to extend the dialogue beyond just events and one off meetings. Let’s keep the conversation going on this blog and make it a sustained dialogue on what we can do to move the industry forward. Please share your thoughts here with me and the rest of the hosting community.