Los Angeles is buzzing with 12,000 Microsoft partners who are all here to attend the annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). It is these partners who work with you to deploy our products and solutions. Between visiting LA landmarks and celebrity sightings, partners are learning about our latest programs, strategies, and cutting-edge technologies.
One of the hot topics here is Office 365 and how it is a game changer for business. Partners were wowed by a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on the Total Economic Impact (TEI) of Microsoft Office 365 on Enterprise Customers. This June 2011 study found that Office 365 delivered a risk-adjusted 315% return on investment with a four month payback period based on a composite organization. It also determined that Office 365 has a lower total cost of ownership, and it greatly reduces implementation times compared to a similar on premises solution.
So, you may wonder, how did Forrester Consulting come to this conclusion? They interviewed 10 Office 365 enterprise beta customers, analyzed the results, and created a composite corporation that is an aggregate of the results. Check out some of the benefits – they are truly astounding.
A key finding in this study is the importance for enterprise customers to have the option of taking a hybrid approach to the cloud. While this wasn’t quantified, it is one of the primary benefits of our approach. We want you, our customers, to be in control of your IT decisions – no mandates from Microsoft.
I think you will enjoy reading this study on the TEI of Office 365. Take a look and let me know what your thoughts are.
One of my favorite things about camping is that it enhances my appreciation of all the day-to-day luxuries I normally take for granted. After a few days roughing it in a tent, it’s easy to appreciate even the small amenities like turning on lights with the flip of a switch or filling a cup with clean water via a faucet. The beauty of these services is that they’re always there when we need them. The infrastructure already exists. To tap into it, we simply sign up and then pay as we go for the quantity we consume.
Microsoft Office 365 works much the same way. Organizations can access the enterprise-grade productivity software they’re already used to with Microsoft Office. No upfront infrastructure investment is required. Just like water, enterprises simply turn on the faucet whenever they need it – and pay for only what they consume.
The beauty of Office 365 is that it can increase productivity while also lowering costs. Employees can tap into the sophisticated messaging and calendaring features they’re already familiar with. They can also facilitate collaboration with features such as instant messaging, web conferencing, and document sharing. At the same time, organizations can significantly reduce costs by eliminating the need to purchase and maintain servers and software.
Take Patagonia, a global provider of apparel and gear, for example. Executives wanted to improve productivity by making it easier for employees to communicate with each other and with outside vendors and suppliers. Patagonia pilot tested Office 365 and found that it’s helping to increase efficiency. Says Casey Stoops, Network Operations Manager at Patagonia: “We believe Office 365 capabilities, like video conferencing, will help our employees drive real-time decisions, which will help us reduce problem resolution time and potentially accelerate our products to market.”
At the same time, Patagonia expects Office 365 to help it reduce costs. Patagonia anticipates saving $300,000 in server and software upgrades. It also expects to save thousands of dollars in administrative costs by reducing the need to maintain servers and install software updates. “If you look at the Office 365 price point, we could not provide this same level of IT service, at the same cost, ourselves,” Stoops says.
If you are looking for ways to increase productivity and reduce costs, please check out our Office 365 Cost Estimator and see the savings first-hand. If you’ve already signed up for Office 365, please share your experience. In what ways is it raising productivity and reducing costs? Your feedback is appreciated!
I was watching the Suze Orman Show on television the other night, and it occurred to me that her job is really all about helping people understand the risk associated with their decisions. For those who aren’t familiar with Suze Orman, she’s a personal finance expert who helps people evaluate whether they can afford something they want to buy. If their financial risk is low (i.e. they have enough money and other assets), she gives the purchase her stamp of approval. But if the risk is too high, the word, “DENIED,” flashes across the screen in big letters.
Watching her show, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if we could transform Suze Orman from personal finance expert into cloud computing guru who helps individual enterprises weigh the risk versus the opportunity of moving to the cloud. How would she describe the opportunities? And what advice would she give enterprises for mitigating the risks they face?
The opportunities presented by the cloud are many. Among them include:
But what about the risks? Many IT pros are concerned about the risk of compromising security, the privacy of their information, the reliability of their systems, and a lack of operational control.
Our approach has been to mitigate the risks of cloud computing so that enterprises can fully reap the opportunities. How? By placing the same high value on security in the cloud that we’ve developed through years of experience managing security risks in traditional computing environments.
Our philosophy is simple: If you want an effective security program, you need a culture that places a high value on security. The Microsoft leadership team has long been committed to making the proper investments to drive secure behavior. Trustworthy Computing – and its four pillars of privacy, security, reliability, and business practices – has been in place since 2002. It’s a core corporate value of Microsoft, and guides nearly everything we do.
So how does a culture that values security translate this into an approach enterprises can trust when it comes to the cloud? Microsoft takes a defense-in-depth approach to security in the cloud that includes robust security measures across all service layers, frequent internal and external evaluation of practices and capabilities, and the continual evaluation and incorporation of measures to comply with government and industry mandates as they evolve.
Here is an example of our approach: We have a team devoted to cloud security called the Online Services Security and Compliance (OSSC) team. Each year, OSSC conducts a comprehensive assessment of threats to the Microsoft cloud infrastructure, and calculates the severity of each potential risk. The assessment leads to additional reviews throughout the year, and guides the development of security controls and related activities. It’s a very proactive and comprehensive approach. And it’s just one example.
If you’ve watched the Suze Orman Show, I’m sure you’ve noticed she’s not one to take uncalculated risks. Yet if Suze were a cloud computing guru, I’m sure she’d give Microsoft’s approach her full stamp of approval. She might even make Microsoft technology a condition of moving to the cloud.
To learn more about our approach to cloud security, please watch a short video called “Security and the Cloud.” Also, please share how your organization is assessing the risk vs. the opportunity of cloud-based computing. We’re eager to hear from you!
Today we are featuring a guest blog post from Tony Scott, our CIO at Microsoft. Tony will be sharing his perspective of how the cloud is changing the enterprise landscape and the role of the CIO.
One of the big challenges CIOs face is the increasing cost and complexity of IT infrastructure. As the needs of the enterprise have evolved, we have, over time, added a Band-Aid here, some glue over there and a little baling wire in that corner. All this to quickly meet the demands associated with evolving business needs. These demands have, however, added complexity to the infrastructures we manage.
To make the situation even more challenging, the work environment itself has changed. No longer do our employees work from one, centralized location. Today, offices are often located around the world, and employees across different cultures work in different time zones in many different places ranging from their home to an airport. And it’s only going to get more intense as companies continue to build a greater presence in emerging markets.
The cloud has tremendous potential to help CIOs address these challenges. As organizations move their messaging and collaboration workloads into the cloud, CIOs will have the opportunity to reduce the cost and complexity of managing their infrastructures, freeing up their time to focus on more strategic organizational imperatives.
As you explore cloud solutions, here are three pieces of advice that I have found helpful:
The role of the CIO will continue to evolve as cloud computing matures. Traditionally, CIOs have been the gatekeepers of important information and of people’s privacy. As the work environment has changed, information sharing and access has become increasingly important. Employees need access to information 24/7, wherever they are. I am finding that with the cloud, I have a new set of tools at my
Welcome to another round of featured news items from around the web. Each week, we handpick articles for our community related to cloud and enterprise technology. We welcome your suggestions for next week’s round-up— share your links in the comments section or tweet a link to us at @msproductivity.
Microsoft Shares Video Tour of its Cloud Datacenters
We have come a long way since our first datacenter in 1989. The server count, power efficiencies and number of facility locations have grown dramatically. Microsoft’s cloud is now comprised of a globally distributed datacenter infrastructure supporting hundreds of online services, including Windows Azure, Office 365, Bing, MSN, Windows Live, Hotmail and Xbox Live. More than a billion customers and 20 million businesses in over 70 countries use these services each year.
The 5 Biggest IT Security Mistakes
Like cleaning the windows, IT security can be a thankless task because they only notice when you don't do it. But to get the job done in the era of virtualization, smartphones and cloud computing, you've got to avoid technical and political mistakes. In particular, here are five security mistakes to avoid:
Cloud Security Fears Exaggerated, Says Federal CIO
Vivek Kundra, the federal CIO, has made cloud adoption a priority for federal agencies. But the agencies moving in this direction seem enthusiastic about it as well, and not simply because the president's top IT appointee thinks it's a good idea. But Kundra also believes that cloud security issues have been used to discourage cloud adoption. "I think there's been an exaggeration," Kundra said. Doubts about cloud security were expressed by some U.S. lawmakers at a recent hearing by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "A lot of people are sort of driving this notion of fear around security," Kundra said. "And the reason I think that's been amplified, frankly, is because it preserves the status quo."
CIO Issues: The Search for Relevance
In an interview, Vivek Kundra, chief information officer for the federal government, explained that the data center consolidation was part of a broader strategy to embrace more efficient, Internet-era computing. In particular, the government is shifting to cloud computing, in which users use online applications like e-mail remotely, over the Internet. These cloud services can be provided by the government to many agencies or by outside technology companies.
Microsoft Introduces Solutions to Help Partners Build New Business With Cloud Computing
"Cloud computing is as big a transformation as we have ever seen and, together with our partners, Microsoft will help customers through the shift," said Satya Nadella, president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. "By betting on Microsoft's comprehensive approach to cloud computing, partners can embrace this transformation and build strong and vibrant practices that will advance how business gets done."
Office 365: What a Rush
As discussed today during Steve Ballmer’s keynote at the conference, the American Red Cross will move 66,000 people to Office 365 email this year, across its 620 U.S. chapters. Email is a big deal to the American Red Cross; it needs to be reliable, secure, and fast, to help the organization support disaster response, supply nearly half the nation’s blood supply, teach lifesaving skills, provide international humanitarian aid, and support military members and their families.
What CVP Joe Matz Describe How Volume Licensing Enables Customers and Partners to Become Cloud Ready
Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft Worldwide Licensing and Pricing Group, Joe Matz, sat down recently to share Microsoft'sperspective for how Volume Licensing is enabling customers and partners to become cloud ready. Recent changes to the Enterprise Agreement and Software Assurance provide the flexibility, manageability and cost-effectiveness to create the right licensing solution to address the breadth of customer scenarios: on-premises, virtualized, private or public cloud.
WPC 2011 Thoughts
This past week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference I had the opportunity to hear Sir Richard Branson as the guest keynote speaker. He shared some of his success and wisdom with the audience – and I found it to be very interesting and motivating. One of the key statements he made involved his approach to life: “Screw it, let’s do it”. He is all about taking risk (calculated and controlled) but taking action. Far too often we sit back thinking about ideas rather than getting after it and making things happen.
Microsoft Commits Multibillion-Dollar Partner Investments
“Winning together with our partners today, and long into the future, means delivering incredible world-class technologies to meet customer needs, as well as the right partner incentives, tools and training, which will ultimately drive business growth for them,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president of the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft, speaking before more than 15,000 attendees from around the globe at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference. “We are bringing our partners to the cloud with us — they can use the tools and skills they have now to take their clients to the cloud.”
Microsoft: Building Businesses in the Cloud
Emphasizing that cloud computing is the biggest shift ever seen in the IT, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella said that together with the company’s partners, Microsoft will help customers through the transition. “By betting on Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to cloud computing, partners can embrace this transformation and build strong and vibrant practices that will advance how business gets done,” Nadella said.
The New CIO – Embrace The Empowered Era or Step Aside
Many employees are no longer relying on IT to provision, manage, and run their technology because they feel IT is too slow and puts unnecessary restrictions on their use of technology. Many customers expect on-demand information, customized user experiences, and mobile apps that IT is expected to deliver quickly, cheaply, and reliably. Some CIOs have reacted to this shift by vigorously defending their turf from these encroachments. Others have ceded control to third-party service providers and business managers who now make their own technology decisions.
CIOs See Promise in Public Cloud Storage
Public cloud storage is like any outsourcing decision. Companies are faced with ever increasing storage requirements, many of which imply permanent retention of archives. So is it better to leave long-term storage management for generic applications like e-mail and CRM to external organizations whose primary business is providing those services, leaving IT more time to focus on critical business applications? Clearly, many CIOs and CTOs believe it is.
U.S to Close 800 Computer Data Centers
Welcome to another round of featured news items from around the web. Each week, we handpick articles for our community related to cloud and enterprise technology. We welcome your suggestions for next week’s round-up—share your links in the comments section or tweet a link to us at @msproductivity.
Here are 4 links addressing Office 365 for the Enterprise:
Office 365: 5 Factors That Swayed One Enterprise
Hendrick Auto already uses Office Communications Server to support internal collaboration via audio, video, and Web conferencing. Office 365 opens the possibility of creating those same kinds of online get-togethers with partners, suppliers, and customers. Office 365 gets those capabilities from Lync Online, which enables online meetings, video calls, and more. "We think there's going to be an advantage in that," Taylor said.
Microsoft Office 365 is Also for the Enterprise
"We've developed a wide range of service plans [and] our service level agreements are the best in the industry," Ballmer told his launch event audience. He cited a list of enterprises that have been testing Office 365 since it's been in beta test in April, including McDonalds, Philips, Starbucks, Volvo, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Hyatt Hotels, Coca Cola Enterprises, GlaxoSmithKline and Kraft Foods, claiming that more than 200,000 organizations signed up to test Office 365.
Office 365 Bring Enterprise Ready Cloud Productivity to State and Local Governments
Microsoft Office 365 is designed to help agencies and departments take advantage of the cloud with greater agility and flexibility, while providing cost-effective choices to support their mission. The solution offers the Microsoft Office applications agencies already trust-including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint- from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection, and integrates new cloud versions of our real-time communications and collaboration services, including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Lync Online. The result is an enterprise-ready set of productivity tools that allows agencies to accomplish more with less, while directly supporting state and local telework, information sharing, and data center consolidation initiatives.
Why Choose the Office 365 E2 Enterprise Plan Reason #1: Unlimited Personal Archive
The E2 plan has an UNLIMITED PERSONAL ARCHIVE! Let me say that again, …AN UNLIMITED PERSONAL ARCHIVE!! Sounds sweet. Pasted below are the relevant points of documentation taken from the newly released service description.
Here are 4 links focusing on the future of cloud computing from the view of a CIO.
Cloud CIO: Are You Making Your Data Centers Cloud-Friendly?
Data center construction is growing ever more complex and expensive as data center facilities expand to meet enterprises' seemingly limitless computing needs.
Only 5% of CIOs can Authorize IT Spending – Gartner
Financial executives hold the IT department reins, analyst firm finds, as CIOs make independent decisions on investment in only 5% of organizations. Most CIOs cannot authorize IT investments on their own, and instead require the approval of a chief financial officers (CFOs) according to a report released today by Gartner.
Cloud Computing’s Present & Future: What You Need to Know
Cloud computing is entering companies with the momentum of a locomotive, writes CIO.com virtualization blogger Bernard Golden. Here, he shares the striking facts about cloud computing's present and future that he obtained while attending recent conferences on cloud computing.
Innovation & The CIO
The 2011 survey of over 2,500 CIOs and IT leaders reveals that CIOs are playing an increasingly influential role within their organizations with 50 percent now sitting on operational boards or management teams. However, the main demands on them remain cost saving, increasing operational efficiencies and delivering consistent and stable IT performance to the business.
Last week in front of an audience of 13,000 partners who attended the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), Steve Ballmer called this a special year for Microsoft Lync, the centerpiece of our unified communications solution. He quoted Microsoft COO Kevin Turner who has referred to Lync as “the Kinect of the Enterprise.”
That statement rang true for those of us who use Lync on a daily basis. For our partners, customers and users like me, it is a tool that is present across all of the productivity programs that we use on premises or in the cloud with Office 365.
If you are not familiar with Lync, it gives you rich presence information and communication tools across the PC, phone and browser. If I want to collaborate with a colleague, I have a lot of options – I can start an instant message conversation, talk on the “phone” (via VOIP), chat on a video conference call, brainstorm on a virtual whiteboard, or share my desktop. And I can do all of this using the Lync interface itself, or through Office, SharePoint and other applications. It has redefined how I think about integration and collaboration, as I no longer send emails to colleagues for “quick questions.” I find it much faster to send an instant message and have a real-time conversation.
One of our customers, Nikon Corporation, found that deploying Lync not only saved the company money on conferences and travel costs, it boosted productivity in some areas by 30 percent, while increasing responsiveness to customers. Michiko Noborisaka, General Manager of the Information System Planning Department at Nikon sees the benefits firsthand. “With Lync, communication is much more efficient because people do not have to switch programs to make a call or join a meeting.”
If you haven’t deployed Lync in your company, it is time to consider it. It is a game changer for communication and collaboration. Your employees, regardless of their work style, will thank you for it. And, if you are using Lync, please share your thoughts. Has it had a significant impact on your business?
Many IT professionals are familiar with the German proverb, “Trust is good, but control is better." As the father of two children, I understand that sentiment. Like most parents, I feel protective of my children and want to steer them out of harm’s way. Yet to be a good father, I actually believe what’s required is the right balance of trust versus control. Too much trust, and I’ll be the last to know if my children veer down the wrong path. Too much control, and I’ll turn their lives into a police state. Not good!
That same balance of trust vs. control also applies to information security. Too much trust, and an organization’s data may become unsafe. Too much control, and employees won’t have access to the information they need. We’ve paid close attention to achieving the right balance with Microsoft Office 365. Office 365 puts IT administrators in control through an easy-to-use administration console that lets administrators manage users, security groups, and domains, while monitoring service health – all from a single dashboard. Employees receive access to the information they need, while IT administrators maintain the proper level of control over sensitive information.
While Office 365 puts IT administrators in control, there’s a certain amount of trust that’s required when moving one’s business productivity applications to the cloud. Will your organization’s data be secure? Will it be available whenever employees need it? Microsoft has worked hard to guard against these concerns by implementing a multi-layer approach to security that includes enterprise-grade reliability, continuous data back-ups, disaster recovery capabilities, globally-redundant data centers, and a strict privacy policy. For example, when you store your data in a Microsoft data center, it’s actually housed within two separate data centers located hundreds of miles away from each other. That way, if a catastrophic event occurs in one location, your data remains fully safe and accessible. By applying enterprise-grade best practices such as these, we’re able to guarantee our customers 99.9 percent scheduled uptime.
To a lesser degree, trust is required by giving up certain tasks IT administrators were previously required to perform themselves. With Office 365, IT professionals transfer some of the mundane tasks to Microsoft. No longer are you required to install updates or upgrade your Office software. Microsoft takes care of these tasks, managing the risk and complexity of the backend. The payoff is that IT administrators are freed up to focus on more strategic business initiatives.
Another way in which we put IT administrators in control is by offering 24x7, IT-level support. This enables IT staff to get the support they need whenever they need it, in turn providing the highest level of support to their users. To better understand the control Office 365 offers, take an interactive tour of the Office 365 administrator portal. As always, please share your thoughts and experiences. We would like to hear from you.
Last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the availability of Office 365, Microsoft’s next generation productivity service. It brings together Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service, all at a fixed monthly subscription.
Since the beta was first released last year, more than 200,000 organizations have signed up for Office 365. The response has been enthusiastic. Many organizations report significant increases in productivity. And some have reduced IT costs by as much as 50 percent. Wow!
The beauty of Office 365 is that it takes the enterprise-class productivity tools employees are already familiar with and makes them available around the clock – from virtually any device. All the while, administrators remain in control – over the security of their data, the use of information, and which workloads they deploy off-premises.
During the month of July, I’ll be devoting my blog to the Cloud and how Office 365 addresses the needs of enterprise business. Specifically, I’ll be focusing on the following topics:
Check out this short video about Office 365 and see what it offers larger organizations. As always, I look forward to your feedback!