Wednesday, July 11, 2007

WPC Notes -- SaaS (I mean software plus service)

Okay. So I'm always saying that 1) You go to these conferences for more than the parties. and 2) You are responsible for looking ahead 1- and 2- and 5-years down the road.

What are Microsoft (and Symantec and Citrix and everybody else) planning? What do they think the future looks like? Because if you stay in this business, you need to know that. And that's true whether you agree with their vision or not, and whether you think they'll be successful or not.

You need to see and interact and understand the message. Filtering 12 hours of conference activity into the three or four blogs your read will not do the trick. People here are running around and schmoozing and tired. They can't put all the details in their blogs.

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Having said all that, here are a few notes from yesterday.

Normally, keynotes are totally worthless marketing BS. That didn't change yesterday. But they were a lot better than last year!

Big, interesting change of focus for Microsoft.

First, Kevin Turner twice mentioned "Software plus Service" and made a point of saying "We're not talking about software as a service." Hmmmmm. Then Steve Balmer mentioned "Software plus Service" and made a point of saying "We're not talking about software as a service." Hmmmmm.

Hmmmm. Can I find a more direct way to distance myself from SaaS?

But wait.

Over at https://partner.microsoft.com/US/program/competencies/isvsolutions it's all about SaaS. Did someone fail to tell Steve Balmer that my "#1 Profitability Resource" is the SaaS vision thing?

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Perhaps my future includes only Microsoft-hosted systems and Microsoft-hosted office and Microsoft-hosted services.

And what do I get to do in the future? Help people learn how to use Outlook, I guess.

Or maybe I need to think a bit more about how all this fits together.

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Final note: I am planning to release a white paper on Hardware as a Service (HaaS). To make sure you don't miss any announcements, please sign up for my email newsletter at www.greatlittlebook.com.
Thanks.

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