Earlier this week, I blogged that Amazon's cloud computing problem from a three-day outage at its Northern Virginia datacenter had important ramifications for cloud computing.
Steve Clark, IT infrastructure architect for cloud, virtualization and Wintel with Lexmark, sent this thoughtful response taking issue with my characterization of Amazon as one of the big three in cloud computing and making some other good points:
"Personally, I don't think of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft as the big players. Yes, Google has Mail/Docs, Microsoft has Office 365 and Azure, and Amazon has IaaS -- but in all these cases, the solutions are basically special-purpose. It's kind of like saying IBM's Deep Blue is an example of artificial intelligence.
"In Amazon's case, they are providing an inexpensive product, not ready for true production -- despite their latest claims to have changed their delivery model. It's still IaaS for the not-faint-of-heart. Think about it: They are not running VMware, which is the only OS with true automated HA failover capabilities. Use it for transient, non-business-critical workload. Buyer beware.
"If you wish to host business-critical workloads with a cloud provider, you should be looking at the real players: the AT&Ts, Verizons, Savvis (in no particular order). These vendors not only provide HA capabilities, but also can provide DR planning assistance.
"I think the points you ask the reader to take are well-founded. First, don't depend on Amazon (or any vendor) for DR unless it's built into the contract (this likely is for SaaS, not IaaS or PaaS). And second, build in monetary penalties for missing well-defined SLAs. But, I don't think they should be looking to Amazon for HA."
An anonymous poster also left a lengthy response on the blog that included this bit:
"Public cloud services are nothing new. We've all been using them since we started using IM, e-mail from our Internet provider, Gmail, Hotmail, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. What's different is that companies are basing their entire infrastructure on the public cloud. That's probably not a good idea."
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 27, 20110 comments
A survey of 2,700 Appcelerator users released today shows that mobile developer momentum is shifting back toward Apple as multiple levels of fragmentation frustrate developers who had been enthusiastic about the Google Android platform.
While Microsoft Windows Phone 7 passed the RIM BlackBerry platform for third place in developer interest in the Q2 survey conducted jointly by Appcelerator and IDC, it was a pyrrhic victory as interest in both platforms was dropping.
For Apple iOS, however, 91 percent of developers were very interested in developing for iPhone and 86 percent were very interested in developing for iPad.
Interest among developers in Google's Android phones compared to Q1 fell two points to 85 percent and in Android tablets fell three points to 71 percent after a 12-point gain in Q1. (Interest in actual Android-based tablets, as opposed to theoretical Android tablets, is much lower, with the Samsung Galaxy Tab leading at 52 percent.)
Microsoft dropped seven points compared to Q1 with 29 percent of developers saying they're very interested in developing for Windows Phone 7.
BlackBerry phones dropped 11 points and now only 27 percent of developers are very interested in developing for RIM devices.
"Android remains an exceptionally strong OS but the cumulative effect of unresolved issues with the Android ecosystem is taking a toll on developers," said IDC analyst Scott Ellison in a statement. "The challenge for Google will be to better align app developer momentum with the momentum of Android device shipment numbers, and therein lies a competitive opportunity for Microsoft, Nokia and RIM."
Taking advantage of those problems will be tough, Ellison argued. Some 62 percent of respondents said it would be impossible for anyone to catch up to Apple and Google. One of the biggest reasons: 46 percent of respondents said they have their hands full developing for iOS and/or Android.
Nonetheless, the IDC/Appcelerator survey attributed part of Microsoft's smaller interest share drop compared to BlackBerry to its partnership announcement with Nokia. A key to Microsoft's chances of success would be providing tools for painless app migrations from iOS and Android to Windows Phone 7, according to IDC.
The full survey is available here.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 26, 20111 comments
A central tenet of the environmental movement is that when it comes to cutting down on waste, it's best to reduce, reuse and recycle, in that order.
As the environment got its due on Earth Day Friday, a Microsoft OEM executive provided an update on the refurbishment channel, which is an opportunity for partners to help new customers reuse old systems -- and profit from the process.
In an e-mail interview, Robert Bostwick, manager of U.S. OEM at Microsoft, said the refurbishment market has seen year-over-year growth, there's been a shift to Windows 7 PCs from Windows XP in the secondary PC market and that the number of refurbisher partners is growing.
The most widely quoted figure about refurbishment is the 35 million commercially resold systems included in the Gartner Secondary PC Market Study from 2008, which included worldwide figures for 2007.
"Since the Gartner study was published in 2008, we estimate the yearly addressable market to have increased close to 25 percent, to more than 46 million units worldwide," Bostwick said.
The partner opportunity in the secondary PC market includes IT Asset Disposition to recycling to remarketing, Bostwick noted. Asked the value of the refurbishment market, Bostwick said it is difficult to quantify but he added, "If you looked at the average selling price of a secondary PC sold for commercial purposes being in the $100 range, this is easily a multi-billion dollar industry globally."
Among refurbished PCs, more and more are Windows 7, Bostwick said. "A growing trend with Windows 7-capable machines is also occurring. The PC refresh cycle has reached the point where refurbished Windows XP machines have begun to fade as the focus of the secondary PC market," he said.
The number of Microsoft partners in that secondary PC market is also growing. The big partners are called Microsoft Authorized Refurbishers, or MARs. Worldwide there are 64 MARs. But Microsoft has a broader group of partners that used to be called Community MARs. In 2010, Microsoft relaunched the Community MAR category as the Registered Refurbisher Program.
"This program is for small and medium-sized refurbishers across the globe that wish to supply refurbished PCs preinstalled with Microsoft software, both commercially to local consumers, as well as to qualified charities, non-profits, schools, and government programs. More than 2,500 RRPs have registered worldwide with Microsoft to date," he said.
For more about the refurbisher market, see our article profiling Austin, Texas-based MAR TechTurn Inc. from last April.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 25, 20110 comments
Ahead of its earnings call this week, Microsoft formally announced that Windows 7 has sold more than 350 million licenses.
In announcing the milestone on The Windows Blog on Friday, Brandon LeBlanc noted that it comes 18 months after the Windows 7 launch and comes amid IDC estimates that more than 90 percent of businesses have Windows 7 migrations in progress.
Last July, Microsoft reported with the release of its annual earnings for fiscal year 2010 that it had sold 175 million licenses of Windows 7. That was about nine months after the October 2009 launch of Windows 7. This new benchmark, doubling the number of licenses sold, comes after another nine months in the market.
That means the pace is strong at nearly 19.5 million copies a month. That's a very stable platform for partners to build businesses on, but weirdly steady.
Usually momentum behind a new operating system (when the operating system is solid like Windows 7) builds slowly to a crescendo as businesses evaluate, pilot and deploy. On the other hand, PC sales have been all over the map -- very high through much of 2010, then slowing considerably in the first quarter of this year. Has that had a steadying effect on the numbers?
It's also possible that there's a new paradigm in PC purchases. By skipping Windows Vista and only replacing Windows XP systems when they failed, have companies permanently changed their purchase cycles so they're mostly replacing PCs as needed rather than doing major rip-and-replace rollouts of each new Microsoft release?
I put those questions to Al Gillen, the analyst at IDC who is mainly responsible for the firm's widely cited operating system market numbers. "I have trouble with that too," Gillen said of the flat rate. "It should have more of a profile," Gillen said, referring to the shape of a statistical graph showing change over time.
Gillen's figures for IDC put Windows 7 paid new license shipments at 31 million (7 million commercial, the rest home) for 2009, 158 million (102 million commercial) for 2010 and project 204 million (113 million commercial) for 2011.
Part of the difference in the figures is that Gillen uses customer surveys to model how many businesses are exercising downgrade rights on their Windows 7 licenses and deploying them as Windows XP systems.
"I would estimate that probably 80 percent or even more of the initial shipments of Windows 7 got downgraded," he said. On the consumer side, however, a Windows 7 license sold maps almost 1:1 as a Windows 7 deployment, he noted.
The other element is that PC shipments have gone up. Gillen said that IDC's PC tracker shows the worldwide market went from about 300 million systems a year in 2008 and 2009 to nearly 350 million systems in the recovery year of 2010, with fast growth in the second half. Even Bill Koefoed, Microsoft general manager of investor relations, said back in January of calendar Q4 2010, "We estimate close to 90 million PCs were sold globally, the biggest quarter ever ... Business PCs grew faster than consumer PCs as companies continued to refresh hardware and adopt Windows 7."
That rising tide doesn't seem to have lifted the Windows 7 boat. "It would seem to me that they should have been lower in the first nine months and higher in the second nine months. Putting the downgrade rights aside, just the fact that the PC market was growing, the numbers should have gone up," Gillen said.
Ultimately, the numbers are very high, and that's a plus for Microsoft partners. We'll keep an ear out during the Microsoft earnings call for any clues to why the numbers are so steady.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 25, 20110 comments
Amazon Web Services appears to be back online after one of the most significant outages in the short history of cloud computing.
As my colleague Jeff Schwartz reported today, Amazon Web Services seems to have finally gotten a handle on the problem at a Northern Virginia datacenter that left some organizations crippled for three days. High-profile companies affected by the incident included Foursquare, Reddit, Quora and HootSuite.
Here's the money quote from Jeff's story:
"Amazon's outage was significant enough that it will likely cause those who have reserved judgment over the use of cloud computing services to sustain those reservations. For others, it will place greater emphasis on service-level agreements and redundancy."
We're looking forward to Jeff's reporting on the details of a postmortem that Amazon is promising to post soon. For those inclined to favor cloud computing, the postmortem will include critical intelligence about best practices for end users. For those inclined against cloud computing, the postmortem should provide ammunition in their internal fights to keep data and infrastructure on premises.
Either way, the event has ramifications beyond Amazon's business. As one of the big three in the cloud, what Amazon does will affect how Google and Microsoft are perceived, and affect the reputations of all of the cloud's many smaller players.
How does this event change your approach to cloud computing? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 25, 20111 comments
An expansion of Kaseya's automated IT systems management software toolset that will be available later this month brings the Swiss vendor closer to offering an end-to-end solution for smaller managed services providers.
The company introduced two new modules for its Kaseya IT Automation platform. Service Billing 1.0 is designed to allow MSPs to automate billing from a central portal. That module is integrated with the new Service Desk 1.3, which tracks billable time against open tickets and work orders and includes other enhancements to streamline the ticket process from ticket entry to remediation, according to the company. A related enhancement is integration of Service Billing with Intuit QuickBooks for generating invoices and processing receipts.
Kaseya traditionally played on the remote monitoring and management side of the MSP marketplace, relying on partnerships with professional services automation (PSA) vendors like Autotask, Connectwise and Tigerpaw for most business, time tracking and billing functions.
Gerald Beaulieu, director of product marketing for Kaseya, says the company will continue to enhance its integration with those PSA vendors. At this point, the new Kaseya tools are for smaller MSPs for whom the PSA tools are overkill, he says.
"We've been primarily [designing] this solution set for the smaller end of the service provider space -- around five employees" and up, Beaulieu says. Of Kaseya's existing MSP customer base of roughly 4,000 providers, about half are potential candidates for the new service tools, he says.
"Within that base, it's probably about 20 percent using a PSA," Beaulieu says. "They're primarily using Excel, QuickBooks and some other solutions they may have cobbled together. We really think we can provide them with a great solution out of the box."
Subscriptions for Service Billing start at $0.75 per seat per month and for Service Desk at $1.50 per seat per month. Both are also available through a perpetual license and both will be offered as either a cloud service or on-premise solution.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 22, 20110 comments
Former Microsoft Online executive Ron Markezich may need some sensitivity training for his new role as a senior executive facing Microsoft's U.S. partners. Or maybe someone at Microsoft appointed him to the role of bad cop to enterprise partners.
Markezich was named corporate vice president of the U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group at Microsoft on Monday, according to his executive bio. The same day, identified in that role, he gave an interview to AllThingsD about the beta launch of Office 365 (the top 12 features of which we've spotlighted in this Web feature).
Markezich said, "If you look at the total industry spend, most of it is on activities where there's no value added. Every dollar you spend on software from Microsoft, you spend $6 trying to get it to do anything. What we're trying to do is drive that six dollars to zero."
In another context, that $6 could be thought of as...the channel. The idea of getting the software to "do anything" could potentially also be referred to as being customized for a customer environment, integrated with line of business applications, managed and secured.
For example, last month, Microsoft touted its semi-regular collaboration with market researchers at IDC to quantify the size of the Microsoft partner ecosystem. IDC estimated that the average partner ecosystem revenues for each $1 of Microsoft revenues was $8.70 in 2009. Broken out by partner type, product-oriented partners made $4.09, value-added partners made $2.30, logistics-oriented partners made $2.70 and retail logistics partners made $2.93.
To be sure, Markezich may be talking about something else when he talks about that $6. His role combines enterprise customer and partner audiences, and his experience includes a stint as Microsoft CIO. He may have been referring to internal IT costs in large organizations that don't add the value that partners add.
Still, there's no question that Microsoft's cloud push would take a bigger chunk of overall IT spending, with ramifications for that $580 billion worldwide partner ecosystem that IDC defined. In his previous role, Markezich served as a driver for that, and it was Markezich who described at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference last year what partners would need to do to be involved. We'll be sure to ask Markezich what that $6 refers to and how he views the channel's role in Microsoft's online services future as soon as we get a chance.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 22, 20110 comments
Microsoft's U.K. subsidiary is firing a shot across Apple's design bow with a showcase of attractive Windows 7 PCs called, somewhat presumptuously, "The Collection."
The 30 PCs in The Collection will be featured at retail stores across the United Kingdom.
In launching The Collection this week, Ashley Highfield, managing director of Microsoft U.K., was quoted in the Telegraph newspaper saying that it was a mark of the "end of the beige-box era of computing and the beginning of another where computers are appealing things to own and use."
The Collection consists of five categories of systems: Everyday, Mobile Companion, Professional, Entertainment and Gaming.
The two business-focused categories in the collection are Mobile Companion with seven PCs and Professional with four PCs.
The Mobile Companions are the Toshiba NB550D, Dell Inspiron Duo, ICONIA TAB W500, Asus EeePad EP 121, Acer Aspire 1830T, Asus U36JC and HP Pavilion dm1. The Professional PCs are the Samsung Series 9, Toshiba Portege R830, Sony SB Series and Dell Vostro V130.
In addition to a slick site design, Microsoft also comes right out and explains for each model "Why we love this PC." For example, of the Samsung Series 9, Microsoft writes: "Exquisite design, razor thin, stunning screen and powerful too. Prepare to impress."
Whether Microsoft replicates the approach in other subsidiaries, the U.K. Collection does provide a useful resource for Microsoft partners worldwide looking for a directory of the hottest Windows 7 PCs to recommend to clients. (Another useful resource is RCP's "12 Notable Windows 7 Notebooks.")
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 21, 20110 comments
J.J. Antequino, over at Microsoft's U.S. SMB&D TS2 Team Blog, has a couple of helpful posts this week for partners evaluating Windows Intune, Microsoft's new cloud-based systems management and security toolset.
In one post, Antequino explains how partners can activate their customers' Windows 7 Enterprise licenses, one of the killer values in the Windows Intune package.
In the other, Antequino walks partners through the process of "branding" the end-user experience. Windows Intune allows partners to manage desktops on behalf of their partners and view all their customers in a unified dashboard. (The product also targets in-house IT departments in addition to managed service providers and partners looking to extend their businesses into MSP-type engagements.)
According to a screenshot on the TS2 blog, partner contact information appears at the bottom of the interface for the Windows Intune Center, which is installed on all computers managed by Intune. Partner information appears below large boxes for Windows Update, Windows Intune Malware Protection and Microsoft Easy Assist. The partner-branded information says, "Your computer is managed by" and has room for the partner's company name, phone number, e-mail and URL.
It's not exactly white-label or top billing for partners, but it's certainly visible enough on an uncluttered interface. Will that branding help your business? Is it enough for now to offset the fact that Microsoft is still the one billing the customer? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 21, 20110 comments
Microsoft has started to make some progress in search -- partly from the vast improvements to both its search technology and strategy with the Bing relaunch, and partly from the integration deal with Yahoo.
But things don't look so rosy from Yahoo's perspective, according to comments made by CEO Carol Bartz during an earnings call on Tuesday.
"The Search marketplace is encountering some issues related to Microsoft adCenter technology," Bartz said, according to a transcript of the call provided by Seeking Alpha.
"AdCenter isn't yet producing the RPS [revenue per search] we hoped for and are confident [is] possible. Advertisers are seeing strong ROI, but technical limitations in the current adCenter platform mean the click volumes just isn't there yet. We had expected RPS to be neutral by midyear, it's now evident that it will take Microsoft longer to achieve that goal. We expect that to happen by year-end. In the meantime, the RPS [guarantee] helps protect our revenue, and our view of the long-term potential of the marketplace remains unchanged."
Bartz did say that Microsoft understands the issues and is working hard on the internals of adCenter. "They have an aggressive roadmap to bring those to the marketplace," she said. She also said that some key advertisers are pretty pleased with the system.
"The good news is that many of our most important advertisers are realizing a much higher ROI on their campaign in the combined marketplace. We see major financial, auto, retail and customers spending multiples of what they spent with Yahoo and Microsoft previously because returns have been great," Bartz said.
Yahoo is partially protected by Microsoft RPS guarantees that run for the next four quarters, Yahoo officials said.
But the adCenter problems are impacting the global rollout of the Microsoft-Yahoo integration. "As Microsoft focuses on RPS improvement in the U.S., we're holding off on transitioning more paid search markets this year. We'll transition the remaining paid search markets once we believe the changes are in place to yield the right results for our advertisers," Bartz said.
Technology integrations of this magnitude are complex, and the Yahoo-Microsoft problems sound at this point like roadbumps rather than impassable barriers. But talk of Microsoft missing partnering benchmarks must be a little alarming for Stephen Elop over at Nokia.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 20, 20110 comments
After a 45-day delay, partners can get Windows Small Business Server 2011 through the Microsoft partner digital distribution portal, where partners with Action Pack subscriptions or gold or silver competencies go for internal use rights (IUR) software.
Microsoft had originally planned to make SBS 2011, which is a key product for partners and especially the large Small Business Specialist Community, available by the end of February. But Microsoft ran into unspecified problems with posting the server software and Multiple Activation Key (MAK) product keys to the portal, and delayed the release to Q2.
In a blog posting announcing SBS 2011's availability on the digital download portal last Thursday, Eric Ligman, director of worldwide partner experience for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, wrote that he was "very happy" to provide the update. He was so happy, in fact, that he put the "very" in all caps and in red letters.
In his role as the public face of Microsoft to partners, it has fallen to Ligman to bear the brunt of partner frustration with the delay. One example of those raw emotions was left earlier this month on RCP's original blog post about SBS 2011 coming to the Action Pack. A partner identifying himself as Peter Harris wrote, "It is April NOW and still NO SBS2011 for action pack subscribers even if you have the development option. NOT available via MSDN that comes with the action pack either. So what...is Microsoft doing?? We are losing sales through not being able to demonstrate SBS 2011. Is anyone interested in a Class Action?"
On Thursday, Ligman wrote, "Thank you to all of our partners for their patience as we worked to resolve all of the regional certification compliance processes needed in order to bring you the bits and keys online. We truly appreciate your partnership, understanding and utilization of the workaround methods we provided for you in the interim."
The update covers Windows SBS 2011 Standard and Windows SBS 2011 Essentials. SBS 2011 Standard was released to volume licensing customers on March 17. Engineering work on SBS 2011 Essentials was finished on March 29 and general licensing availability as well as the first systems with the software preloaded are expected around May 1. (See the full timeline of SBS 2011-related updates on RCP's 2011 Microsoft Product Roadmap here.)
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 20, 20110 comments
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| Ron Markezich |
Ron Markezich, a 13-year Microsoft veteran who has served as chief information officer and most recently ran Microsoft Online, has been named corporate vice president of Microsoft's U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group.
Microsoft updated Markezich's executive bio with the new title and role on Monday.
According to the bio, the U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group serves 1,500 customers across the company's enterprise software offerings, cloud services and devices. "In this role, Markezich is responsible for leading U.S. enterprise sales and marketing, including national and field sales, partner, marketing, operations and vertical industry teams."
His previous title was also corporate vice president. Markezich had been responsible for "building Microsoft's cloud business for enterprise and public sector customers globally," the bio states. Markezich's change in role coincides with the public beta release Monday of Office 365, the Microsoft cloud computing offering that is expected to have the highest volume of sales.
"Because of his experience in Microsoft Online and as Microsoft's CIO, Markezich is uniquely positioned to drive the transition within Microsoft's U.S. sales force toward the company's cloud services-based offerings," his bio states.
In his new role, Markezich reports to Robert Youngjohns, president of Microsoft North America, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.
Markezich replaces Chris Weber, who followed former senior Microsoft executive Stephen Elop to Nokia Inc. The Finland-based mobile giant announced Weber's hiring as president of Nokia in the United States and head of markets for North America on Feb. 11. At the time, Weber had already been gone from Microsoft, according to Nokia's press release, which identified Weber as a former corporate vice president of the U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group who had been running his own consulting business.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 19, 20110 comments