Microsoft on Wednesday announced the release to manufacturing of System Center
Data Protection Manager 2007, the company's disk and tape backup and recovery
server for Microsoft application and file servers.
New features since the DPM 2006 release include support for Exchange Server
2003 and 2007, including clustered configurations and restoration at the Exchange
database, storage group or mailbox level; support for SQL Server 2000 and 2005,
including mirrored clusters; and support for Microsoft SharePoint, both MOSS
2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
While Microsoft won't say how much business it's done on DPM 2006, Gartner
sized the backup and recovery market for Windows Systems at about $1.5 billion
in 2005. According to a Microsoft FAQ on the new release, "We entered this
market both for revenue opportunity and for strategic reasons relating to customer
satisfaction with current third party data protection offerings for the Windows
Server System family and for Microsoft Applications."
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 18, 20071 comments
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates put the private branch exchange (PBX) in Microsoft's
crosshairs during his unified communications keynote on Tuesday.
"This is a complete transformation of the business of the traditional
PBX. The PBX in some ways is almost like the mainframe was many years ago where
all of the functionality was there in that one piece. And the way that you had
flexibility to add value, to customize, to bring in third parties to do new
things, it just isn't there in that structure. And so by moving phone calls
onto the Internet, using the powerful industry standard servers, we've got a
very different way of being able to do things," Gates said.
But Gates acknowledged that corporations the world over won't go rip their
PBXs out of their closets tomorrow. (Maybe the reference to the mainframe was
a subtle acknowledgement that the old is never left completely behind? After
all, how many times was the mainframe declared dead?)
"This is happening in a way where it's an evolution, you can actually
take the software that we're talking about, and put that alongside the traditional
PBX, and by having software that takes the events in and out of that PBX, a
lot of these scenarios you can get without changing that out," Gates said.
"Now, over time the lowest cost structure will be to not have the PBX,
to simply rely on the software and the Internet connection as the way that communications
works."
In the meantime, Microsoft has partnerships lined up with three global telephony
providers, including Nortel Networks, Ericsson and Mitel Networks Corp., showing
that it's not a battle of the old hardware guard versus the new software kids.
Everybody is stumbling toward this new opportunity together.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 17, 20070 comments
Microsoft at last rolls out its unified communications opportunity, and partners
might ask, "Just how big is it?" At this point, I don't know, and
nobody else does either. But here are the numbers Microsoft is throwing around.
I'll pass them along without endorsement.
In a published Q&A with some strategic partners, Microsoft pinned the total
revenue opportunity of the unified communications market at $45 billion.
Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, put it another way
on Tuesday:
"For every dollar of Microsoft revenue on our unified communications products
in 2008, our partners are going to add an additional $3 of value."
That estimate is not as eye-popping as the $18 in ecosystem revenues for every
$1 Microsoft gets in Windows Vista sales, but it's a nice number nonetheless.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 17, 20070 comments
I'm not the only one who sees a huge systems integration revenue opportunity
coming from Microsoft's stack of unified communications products launched Tuesday.
According to Microsoft Business Division President Jeff Raikes, 793 partners
achieved the Unified Communications Specialization in the Microsoft Partner
Program over the last four months.
For the record, the UC Specialization is part of the Information Worker Competency
educational effort. Requirements include three customer references and two employees
or contractors who have each passed any one of seven exams.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 17, 20070 comments
Tuesday was the huge Microsoft Unified Communications blowout in San Francisco.
If you're looking for a solid overview of the products and technologies involved,
surf on over to Keith Ward's comprehensive news story
here.
My overriding impression from the festivities? I look at the software stack
Microsoft is putting forward for these solutions, and I can see why the channel
has been eager for Microsoft to get into unified communications.
Microsoft is vowing that customers will cut their costs for VoIP in half with
its solution. Research that Microsoft commissioned from Forrester claims customers
will get a 500 percent return on investment over three years. What I see is
a huge systems integration job, pulling together Office Communications Server
2007, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, a service pack for Microsoft Exchange
Server 2007, and connectors to PBXs or advice on removing PBXs, as well as new
phones and possibly Microsoft Office Live Meeting or Microsoft RoundTable.
Getting the voice expertise right will be a challenge for partners coming from
the software and systems side of the equation. It's a topic that Lee Pender
will explore in next month's Redmond Channel Partner magazine print issue. But
it looks like it'll be well worth the try.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 17, 20071 comments
The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for Microsoft and Best Buy Co.
to be sued under a law originally created to help federal prosecutors bring
down the mafia. The ruling stems from a class-action civil lawsuit by a northern
California man, James Odom. He bought a laptop at Best Buy in 2003 that included
a six-month MSN trial CD. Odom's attorneys allege that Best Buy signed Odom
up for an MSN account with the credit card Odom used to pay for the computer,
and Microsoft began charging him for the MSN service six months later. The lawsuit
is filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Perhaps the most eye-popping element comes from a friend-of-the court filing
by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to the Chamber, RICO is getting out
of control as a device against business. It has been used in more than 4,500
cases since 2001, with only 35 of those cases filed by the government, by the
Chamber's count.
Meanwhile, arguments by Microsoft and Best Buy attorneys indicated that the
companies weren't thrilled about "the reputational injury" of being
sued under a law "associated with racketeers and mobsters," according
to the news article about the case. You can find out more here.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 16, 20070 comments
Tech Data Corp., kicking off its major business partner engagements for 2008,
plans to launch a series of six regional channel conferences. The Clearwater,
Fla.-based distributor of IT products will hold "Technology Solutions Tour"
stops in the Northeast, Chicago, Washington, D.C., California and Orlando.
Some of Tech Data's existing events will be held in conjunction with the tour,
such as the TechEDG Government and Education Services Conference. Tech Data
hopes to bring together hundreds of resellers at each event with the company's
vendor business partners to highlight emerging opportunities. Keep an eye on
Tech Data's site for dates and more precise
locations.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 16, 20070 comments
Distribution giant Ingram Micro Inc. is inserting itself into the partner-to-partner
trend that channel analysts say is so hot this year. Yesterday, at its fall
VentureTech Network Invitational conference in Las Vegas, Ingram Micro announced
two online networking resources for its partners.
The first is "The Zone," online business-to-business social networking
sites that are supposed to facilitate partner-to-partner networking among Ingram
Micro's solution provider communities. There will be a separate section for
each of Ingram Micro's four communities: VentureTech Zone, SMB Alliance Zone,
System ArchiTECHS Zone and GovEd Alliance Zone.
The second resource, called "M&A Forum," will target solution
providers looking to acquire, be acquired or expand through capital investments.
The M&A Forum is co-sponsored by Ingram Micro and the M&A Forum LLC.
The forum is online immediately for Ingram Micro solution providers, and the
zones will go live next month.
More information is available at http://www.ingrammicro.com.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 16, 20070 comments
Microsoft's OEM chief, Scott Di Valerio, is leaving the company to join Chinese
computermaker Lenovo. Di Valerio will be senior vice president at Lenovo and
president of the Americas Group.
Di Valerio, 45, starts his new job on Dec. 3. He'll report to William Amelio,
president and CEO of Lenovo Group Ltd. Di Valerio will be responsible for sales
for the Americas. He replaces Rory Read, acting president since January 2007.
Read will continue his position as senior vice president for global operations.
Di Valerio's title at Microsoft since November 2005 was corporate vice president
of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Division, and his duties included
overseeing relationships with PC manufacturers, such as Lenovo. He also managed
relationships with multinational and regional OEMs and embedded systems manufacturers.
Di Valerio served on the Microsoft
Worldwide Partner Leadership Team, a Microsoft subsidiary made up of partner-facing
executives from across the company that set strategy and policy direction.
Prior to the OEM role, Di Valerio was corporate vice president of Finance and
Administration and chief accounting officer. He had also been Microsoft's corporate
controller. Before joining Microsoft, Di Valerio was corporate vice president
at The Walt Disney Co., CFO at MindWave Software Inc and a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
James Pickney will serve as the interim leader of the Microsoft OEM Division,
working with Bill Veghte, corporate vice president of the Windows Business Group,
and COO Kevin Turner.
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 06, 20070 comments
An effort to connect partners with customers on Microsoft's Web site is gathering a slight head of steam. One instance is Microsoft's Solution Finder, which the company launched in March of 2006.
Solution Finder is a customer-facing directory of partner solutions that appears in many places on the Microsoft Web site. It's also intended as a master directory of partner solutions -- consolidating the many such directories that exist across Microsoft.com.
At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, Microsoft channel chief Allison Watson said that the Solution Finder portal is driving about 10,000 contacts per month between customers and partners.
That figure is up from about 1,400 leads per month reported last September. That's good momentum, but Microsoft still has a long way to go. The company hopes to eventually generate one million customer leads per month through the tool.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 11, 20070 comments
The Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) is on the march, with 80 percent growth in the number of new partners reported over the last year, according to Allison Watson, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group.
At the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, Watson said there are now 4,200 members of the SBSC in the United States and 12,800 members worldwide.
Small businesses are a customer category that every major IT vendor wants to tap. Microsoft defines the space as companies with fewer than 50 employees, a category that includes 40 million companies worldwide spending $40 billion a year on software.
Those customers are notoriously hard to reach, and Microsoft's approach is to create a large community of specialists to take its software to small businesses. The community is carved largely out of Microsoft's massive Registered Member tier of its partner program -- about half of Small Business Specialists are at the Registered level. While the growth of the SBSC is certainly strong, it's not going as quickly as Microsoft hoped when it launched SBSC in July of 2005 or even when RCP asked about the program's potential last November.
In late 2005, Microsoft had hopes to have 5,000 U.S. Small Business Specialists by early 2006 and 20,000 worldwide by now. Last November, with enrollment at 3,100 in the United States and 9,800 worldwide, Microsoft still had hopes for 5,000 U.S. members and 14,855 worldwide by the time of its Worldwide Partner Conference.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 11, 20070 comments
There's been a lot of buzz over the last few months about "Octane." It's the code-name for the unspecified changes coming to the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP). And we've all been expecting those changes to be announced, presumably, at the
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), which is happening this week.
It made sense; the MSPP has had very few structural changes since the current framework was set up in 2004. Then there were the Microsoft executives and spokespeople repeatedly saying over the last few months that they weren't ready to talk about Octane. Later the message changed: Microsoft probably wouldn't be ready to talk about Octane at the partner conference. All of that mystery reinforced the idea that Octane might be a big deal.
Well, maybe not. I talked to Julie Bennani, new general manager of the Microsoft Partner Program, here at the WPC in Denver. According to Bennani, Octane is just a code-name for MSPP enhancements; it's not some massive overhaul of the program.
"I think people came under the impression that Octane was a point in time," Bennani said. Instead, she said, it's more routine, ongoing enhancements taking place now and into the next year. Major elements of Octane include evolving the initiatives to help Microsoft partners get more profitable, making an effort to collect customer satisfaction data on partners, and working to improve skills development and bridge current gaps.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 11, 20070 comments