Enterprise, Enterprise, Enterprise
Simon Witts gave enterprise partners their marching orders at the Worldwide Partner Conference, "Go and sell the enterprise versions of our products."
Witts, the vice president for the Enterprise and Partner Group, wants partners to focus on three upcoming enterprise editions: Windows Vista Enterprise, Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 and the Enterprise CAL Suite. "I think this is a game change," Witts said of the opportunity with the enterprise editions.
Windows Vista Enterprise is the Software Assurance-only version of Windows Vista. In addition to the regular Windows Vista Business features, the enterprise edition includes Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption, the Subsystem for Unix-based Applications and multi-language support. Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 goes beyond Microsoft Office Professional Plus with Groove 2007 and OneNote 2007.
The Enterprise CAL Suite, also new, offers client access licenses for many more products than the older Core CAL, which delivered CALs for Windows Server, Exchange Server, Systems Management Server and SharePoint Portal Server. The Enterprise CAL Suite adds System Center Operations Manager, Live Communications Server, Windows Rights Management Services and the Microsoft Security products as well as enterprise data searching, spreadsheet publishing, Web-based form creation and unified messaging. "For just $80, the customer can move from the Core CAL to the Enterprise CAL Suite," Witts said.
In describing the opportunity, Witts said that today about 40 percent of enterprises are under platform agreements with professional versions and the Core CAL. "I see two things happening," Witts said. "I see the standardization on the core products increasing to maybe 50 percent or even 60 percent over the next three years, and I see this migration to the enterprise version, and in particular to the Enterprise CAL Suite."
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 17, 2006