Microsoft Software + Services Event: Are you ready to evolve?

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Yesterday Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, was in the UK and presented alongside others at Microsoft's Software + Services event in London. By all accounts I hear it was a really good event and well received by Microsoft partners.

I wanted to direct you all to our Vijay Riyait's (our SBSC PAL) blog post who shares his account of the event. Also, Andy Trish has posted a comment to Vijay's blog sharing his views on whether he considers Software + Services as right for the SBSC partners. I've pulled out a few sections from Vijay's article that I think you might find interesting but recommend you go here to read the full post and others comments.

"...For me the most valuable contribution was by David Mitchell (funnily, we follow each other on twitter!) Senior VP of IT Research at Ovum. David gave a great perspective as to how to position yourself in the emerging S+S era. It was perhaps not a surprise he said that the keys to growth and success were :

  • Industry Specialisation (an area he said Microsoft needed to help Partners more on)
  • Using finance to increase the average deal size and get paid quicker
  • Having a mix of services in your business i.e. not putting all your eggs in one basket
  • Making the investment now into Online services to be ready for the future (otherwise it will be too late)
  • Having a repeatable solution which could be delivered with scale and low cost
  • Outsourcing those parts of your business to those who could deliver it more cheaply
  • Building Intellectual Property into your business

... He was asked if Microsoft had got it right with it’s S+S Strategy and he said that he believed they had the right building blocks but its success could not be measured yet as the services were not fully released and generating revenue, which would be ultimate test. He felt that nobody had got it right yet and couldn’t give more than about 2/3 out of 10 to anyone!...

... The highlight of the event was Steve Ballmer and boy does he have energy and passion! ... Steve Ballmer was keen to say that he understood that some Partners were not happy with Microsoft moving into this area but he said the business had to evolve to survive but that the Partner Ecosystem was still key to this.

...So, if you’re interested in Microsoft’s Online Services you can sign-up for BPOS (Business Productivity Office Suite) at the Partner Portal but the services won’t come online in the UK until Spring 2009."

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