Today we are excited to announce, Office 365, a new brand of cloud services that I believe will lead customers to increase their adoption of cloud services. For the official news of the day, I recommend you visit our event site. Go sign up for the BETA!
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve announced several new customers including DuPont, Godiva, The State of Minnesota and State of California have all decided to join existing BPOS customers such as GlaxoSmithKline, McDonalds, Starbucks, and American Express.
In fact, the number of businesses using our existing BPOS solution has more than tripled since the beginning of this year and we have companies as small as 5 users up to hundreds of thousands of user organizations relying on Microsoft as their trusted partner in the cloud.
Complete Offering
Today’s announcement means customers will have access to our software in a way which completes our vision to ‘light up’ the best end user tools with the best set of server products on the market.
In fact the value of Union brings the capability which other vendors treat as distinct software markets into one complete offering for your business.
Considering that the on-premises versions of these products consistently rank as a leader (upper right quadrant) in related Gartner Magic Quadrants, you can understand why customers of all sizes will be excited about the opportunity to gain access to such powerful set of tools.
Upper Right More of the Time
Gartner Inc., one of the world’s largest and most influential industry analyst firms, is a trusted source for IT decision makers in all industries. One of Gartner’s best known research methodologies is the “Magic Quadrant” which assesses a market and its participants (vendors) to help customer identify a short list of vendors for consideration.
According to Gartner, “Assessing a market and its participants is a daunting task. Vendor differentiation caused by differing sizes, levels of complexity and strategies can inhibit comparisons of vendor offerings, and the market's overall direction is often murky. Gartner's Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes solve these problems by offering snapshots of markets and their participants, enabling you to map vendor strengths against your current and future needs.” You can read more here.
Products such as Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and BPOS, participates in 16 relevant Magic Quadrants, ranging from Business Intelligence to Unified Communications to Social Software and more.
This year, Gartner placed Microsoft’s products in the Leader’s quadrant – the highest possible ranking within these reports, in 11 of these categories, highlighting the confidence Gartner analysts have in Microsoft products and solutions. The 16 categories and 11 ‘Leader’s Quadrant’ designations include (bold means available with Office365):
If you want to get more information about Gartner Magic Quadrants, go to www. gartner.com or call 1.203.964.0096.<-->
As part of the Real World Microsoft Online Services series, we spoke to Christian Kuttler, Director of Information and Communication Technology at Center Parcs, about replacing Google Apps with the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. Here's what he had to say:
Q: Tell us about the Center Parcs business model.
Kuttler: Center Parcs popularized the concept of a "short break" vacation experience. Each of our resorts provides an all-in-one getaway, combining luxury lodging with unique indoor and outdoor activities—set in the midst of beautiful forest acreage. From their rustic private cottages nestled in the woods, guests can explore nearby hiking trails and lakes, or stroll to first-class spas, restaurants, and shopping venues.
Q: What were the biggest challenges Center Parcs faced with Google Apps?
Kuttler: We welcome 36,000 guests each week to our resorts, so we need to provide employees with effective communication and collaboration tools. We initiated a proof-of-concept deployment of Google Apps to 250 of our employees. We found that a significant number of employees spent considerable time learning the Google Apps interface or compensating for deficiencies in the tools, which meant they had less time to create documents and manage projects.
Google Apps worked well for small teams creating documents that required simple formatting. But when our finance group needed to collaborate on a complex budget document, for example, Google Spreadsheets lacked the sophistication we needed, including all of the formatting shortcuts and analytics capabilities that we were accustomed to in Microsoft Office Excel. With Google Spreadsheets, the more complex the document, the more unstable it became.
Q: Why did you switch from Google Apps to Microsoft Online Services?
Kuttler: Given our direct experience in experimenting with it for more than a year, it was clear that Google Apps is simply not yet ready to be used as an enterprise solution. It lived up to the promise of discounted costs in the beginning, but it didn't deliver on long-term value; in fact, the cost in terms of lost productivity consumed any up-front savings we achieved by moving to Google Apps. After taking a closer look at the hosted solution from Microsoft, we recognized that it offered true value and gave us a stable, reliable platform for growth.
Q: What kinds of benefits have you seen since Center Parcs started using Microsoft Online Services?
Kuttler: When we used Google Apps, I had employees standing in my office saying that they'd given up, that they could not use the applications to complete certain tasks. Now that we've moved to Microsoft Online Services, I don't have that problem anymore. Through our use of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, we've increased employee productivity by a minimum of 20 percent; we've achieved this by giving employees access to high-performance, on-demand tools so that they can work together to meet the needs of our guests.
You can read the full story online and we invite you to join our upcoming TechRepublic Webinar on October 14th to hear from other customer's like Center Parcs who found Microsoft a better fit for their business than Google Apps.
For more success stories like Christian Kuttler's at Center Parcs, read other real-world testimonials on our whymicrosoft website.
If you're reading this post, you're probably interested in the cloud and hopefully in Microsoft Online Services and BPOS in particular. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to highlight some of the great things happening with Microsoft's cloud offerings and also provide you with pointers to some Cloud information resources that I find useful.
First, I want to make sure that you saw the big news this week about the State of Minnesota selecting Microsoft's BPOS cloud offering for their communications and collaboration solution. In a related blog post, Gopal Khanna, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Minnesota talks in his own words about his thoughts on some of the criteria that Minnesota focused on when making their decision, including security, scalability, and cost.
It's exciting for me to see that Microsoft is delivering on the requirements that customers are looking for as they consider taking advantage of the benefits that cloud offerings deliver. You can also find information on other customers that have adopted our offerings on Microsoft's Customer Evidence site.
Keep your eyes on the following resources to make sure you're aware of all the cool stuff happening in this space.
Here are the resources I follow and some examples of what they have to offer.
Microsoft Online Services Team Blog
Why Microsoft Blog
Microsoft News Center
We live (and work) in exciting times!
We recently talked to Jake Harris, Director of IT at Aisle7, about replacing Google Apps with the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, which includes Microsoft Exchange Online. Here's what he had to say.
Q: Tell us about the Aisle7 business model.
Harris: We are a health and wellness marketing solution for grocery stores, health food outlets, drug stores, and mass-market retailers. Customers including Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, and The Vitamin Shoppe feature our content on their websites through in-store kiosks and mobile applications and use it to educate shoppers about the wellness products they carry.
Q: What was the biggest challenge Aisle7 faced with Google Apps?
Harris: When we decided to implement Google Apps Premier Edition, some people warned that Google might be good for personal use but not for business. I think those people were wise—I've come to believe the same thing after trying it. The Google Apps Sync tool never worked as advertised. For example, if you're using calendar features, that's where the Google sync tool really fails. I had to update distribution lists manually, save them onto a network share, and then send everyone a ten-step procedure for remediating their distribution lists. Also, Google provided almost no support at all.
Q: Describe the solution you built with Microsoft Online Services?
Harris: Microsoft went to great lengths to make sure that the solution was the best fit for my company. (By contrast, the salesperson at Google kept repeating that the best way to try Google Apps is to buy it.) We replaced Google Apps with the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, which is available on a per-user, per-month basis—and we pay only for the services that we subscribe to. Everything is hosted at Microsoft data centers.
Q: What benefits have you seen since Aisle7 started using Microsoft Online Services?
Harris: I was tired of the headaches with Google Apps. I'm quite excited to be using tried-and-true Microsoft products. The Exchange Online pricing is competitive and the overall value is higher. There are all sorts of advanced functionalities you get from the full, rich feature set of the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. And it actually works. What a concept.
For more success stories like Jake Harris at Aisle7, read other real world testimonials on our whymicrosoft.com website.
Today at our annual Financial Analyst's Meeting (FAM) we announced that The Dow Chemical Co., Hyatt Hotels Corporation and the University of Georgia have each selected Microsoft cloud solutions. If you'd like to watch any of Executive keynotes, please visit the digital site dedicated to this event.
Three Different Customers, One Common Strategy
These three customers are certainly a diverse set of businesses but they do share a common strategic direction to leverage Microsoft's cloud for the next generation of their computing needs. Ina Fried from CNET has a great summary of the customer stories in her post from today's announcement.
Momentum
These customers join over 40 million paid users' who leverage Microsoft Online services today including 500 government entities, 13 of top 20 global telecom firms, 15 of the Top 20 global banks, and 16 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. As I previously posted, Windows Azure also has recently announced the addition of over 10,000 customers in nine months since full scale production.
Hyatt Hotels & Resorts – Check's In to BPOS
This win is another great example of a customer leaving an on premises competitive solution for Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite. Just like Codelco, Hyatt will take advantage of the full suite for "information workers" while offering a more cost effective option for 40,000 associates who do not have a need for fully dedicated suite. This is a great way to unify the entire workforce with one platform and enable a common user experience for everyone.
University of Georgia – UGA is All In
For those not familiar, the University's mascot is 'the bulldogs'. In fact, there is a real bulldog affectionately named "UGA" pictured below. His Bio is here. With teeth like that, you better believe we are excited to have him on our side!
(courtesy: georgiabulldogs.com)
Over 85,000 students, faculty and staff will take advantage of Live@Edu. The university joins other great educational institutions such as the University of Arizona, Kentucky Department of Education and New York City public school district who have recently selected Microsoft as their vendor for cloud based solutions.
Dow Chemicals – The Right Formula is Microsoft Online
Dow Chemical is moving their enterprise workforce to BPOS. Global companies such as Dow have expansive business units and a need to remain reliable and highly secure while taking advantage of the flexibility the cloud can enable. We are very excited about welcoming them to the BPOS family.
For more information on any of Microsoft's cloud solutions, please this website.
We just wrapped up our annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), held in Washington, D.C. where thousands of partners from over 100 countries came to participate in this years meme 'Cloud Computing'. If you haven't seen any of the coverage or watched the keynotes, I highly recommend you take some time to visit the digital site to take in some of the content.
My two favorite blogs this week were actually here on the "Meet the Experts" blog. Mario Jaurez on the Windows Server blog does a great job explaining the news surrounding our new Windows Azure Platform Appliance which in IMHO is a game changer and huge differentiators for us in this space. Donald Farmer weighs in on the SQL Server blog with a great write upon "Project Dallas" our information marketplace that will revolutionize the sharing and usage of large data sets. Read both as they will give you an appreciation of just how massive our "All In" initiative is across Microsoft.
Over the last couple of weeks, it's clear the cloud discussion is growing louder and more dispersed. It's sort of like a conversation that starts between two people, a third joins, a fourth and fifth weigh in, then split off to talk about something new and so on and so on. This is a sign of momentum and maturity. We are now well beyond the Hype Cycle and into real execution by vendors and significant usage by customers.
The week before WPC, several companies went to our nations capital to attend a hearing on cloud computing held by the Oversight Committee to Examine Government-wide Transition to Cloud Computing. Information Week covered the newsand our own Scott Charney discussed Microsoft's view on the cloud and it's potential opportunities and challenges. When it comes to 'walking the walk' in public sector, I think our success with the Kentucky Department of Education demonstrates just how powerful, fast and wide sweeping a cloud project can be for constituents.
Federal News Radio also featured a great interviewwith Vince Menzione, General Manager of Microsoft where he discussed how Microsoft's solutions are built to meet the needs of customers with flexibility and security at the core.
Dan Lyons over at Newsweek also posted a great storyabout my area of expertise, cloud based productivity and messaging. He highlights two great Microsoft customer stories, Rexel and Serena Software, who both recently migrated to our BPOSsolution. The cloud can deliver dramatic cost savings, on average of 30% for workloads like email and collaboration. But 'cheap' isn't the only driver because as with everything, you get what you pay for. Just ask these customers how they felt about pursing a 'cheap only' cloud strategy.
Despite outrages claims by some vendors, the cloud isn't magic. It's just another way for great software companies to deliver the next wave of innovation for another generation of computing.
"Dogfooding" is a term that was started by engineers at Microsoft. I originally read about the term in the book "Showstopper" and immediately became fascinated with software and in particular Microsoft's approach to build world class products. Put simply, it means to use your own stuff as early and as often as possible. I am huge believer in this but might feel differently if I were a virologist tinkering with new vaccines. :)
Techtarget had a nice write up about Amazon making the move internally over to their AWS (Amazon Web Services) solution. At Microsoft, we still 'dogfood' most every product we deliver, including our new cloud offerings. For example, I've been using our Office Web Apps for over a year and my inbox is managed by the same team of Ops engineers who support our BPOS customers. This approach makes our products stronger, makes our customer happier and in the end, drives the industry forward.
Catching up on a set of industry news there were two articles recently that caught my eye as significant and worth summarizing.
The first was Frank Gens blog over at IDC where he summarized their new forecast for public IT Cloud services spending for the next four years. As with any macro spending forecast, it's half science, half art but the fact that IDC remains one of the most respected data analysis firms, it's worth sitting up when they predict spending will increase from approx $16.5Billion spent in 2009 to over $55 Billion in 2014, creating a 'scorching fast growth of 27% per year'.
This sort of forecasted growth is exactly why we are now sharing externally that approximately 90% of engineering at Microsoft will be working on cloud related projects in the coming years. When we say we are 'All In', we mean it. The cloud enables phenomenal new scenarios and business models that is solved by great software which just happens to run somewhere else. So in the future will you rely on software built by software companies like Microsoft Or will you bet on new entrants who make 97% of their revenue from Advertising and Search? (Yes, Google). Microsoft is a leader in the majority of Gartner Magic Quadrants today and my prediction is that when SaaS/IaaS/PaaS quadrants become the norm, we'll lead there too.
My Prediction: Knowing software and understanding enterprise needs will translate very well to the cloud for Microsoft. For Windows Azure, the evidence is already mounting after we acknowledged 10,000 customers only months after going into full production.
The next article worth summarizing is John Soat's "Five Predictions Concerning Cloud Computing" post over on Information Week. Please do read it but for my use, I've summarized his five below. Since John doesn't provide time period it's hard to argue with 'ever' so I've self imposed a 'in the next four years' (using similar IDC time) to evaluate his predictions.
Cloud Computing will disappear as a term.
The first one is arguably the most contentious. Running an application that physically sits somewhere else is as old as Remote Desktop & Terminal Services introduced in the NT era. This gave rise to companies like Citrix who enabled customers to install software on servers where someone could hit the box and screen scrape the session somewhere else. But John is likely arguing for a more SaaS purist approach where browsers, with no add-ins/plug-ins, can run an application such as a Word processor served from a high scale, multitenant platform. His example of CAD software is an interesting selection as it's usually the example touted as 'impossible' due to the reliance on local GPU for rendering etc that only a bare-metal (on a PC) install can provide.
HTML5 is not a panacea but in the next four years it will enable browsers to leverage local hardware to enable better graphics. IE9's preview has already weighed in with examples on how this will be possible. But what still isn't fully solved in the next four years will be the issue of latency. All applications require code and complex apps will still require complex code. That code needs a 'run time' to execute tasks. So when you take applications that run really fast on a PC and push them to a server, you introduce time and space for the processing which means latency.
Consider an application like an Excel Spreadsheet installed on a PC which has latency of microseconds that are not even perceptible by a human. It's literally using speed of light on the chip to process, use RAM and leverage GPU. If you scroll down through thousands of rows of data, it's as fast as the hardware can perform. But take the same spreadsheet and run it in a browser and then scroll through hundreds of rows. Chances are you will you now notice the performance lag as the app waits, pauses, then gives you more rows. Why? Simple. The 'run time' is on the server, so when a user scrolls, the browser makes a 'call' across the wire back to the server to simply 'fetch and paint' the next set of rows you want to see. In today's SaaS world this is something the user can actually witness, so this is a trade-off. Also consider the current constraints of 'offline' or in cloud terms when you lose an Internet connection. Google recently nixed their 'offline'docs and spreadsheets scenario likely because it was basically a view only scenario. Why? Simple. Browsers don't natively ship with a calculation engine. That engine sits on the server, so lose your connection, you lose the important part of a spreadsheet! Oh, but I could have typed 'offline' you will retort. True, you were able to leverage the browser control that allows text input but you couldn't insert Pictures or use a font not supported by a browser, so it was pretty stripped down feature set.
WinMobile, iPhone, Android have all proved that rich apps still matter. Most apps install on the phone itself. So even in the mobile space, the ultimate disconnected, untethered experience relies on installation of application to leverage resources from the device.
My prediction: HTML5 will become the foundation for the next web and drive new apps. But it won't create seamless magic for any application to run in the browser without any tradeoffs. Most applications that a business user runs on a daily basis will simply run better when installed on a PC and while cloud will offer new cool scenarios, we won't see every app in the cloud with full parity in the next four years. Ever? Sure.
I definitely agree here as it makes total sense when you think about it. Every application needs a platform to run on top off. As a SaaS player, it's tough to go it alone because of the huge CAPEX requirements to build data centers and a open platform. I feel super bullish about Microsoft in this space because our heritage is in the platform. Azure or WindowsInTune reflect our maturity in understand the provisioning, management and application development required to build a platform in the cloud. Since Azure supports multiple languages, we are opening up to embrace the broadest set of developers for the enterprise.
My prediction: Windows Azure will become the must use platform as a service for developers of all types.
Companies that are larger are typically more complex. Geographic exposure, size of partners and suppliers, numbers of employees etc all feed complexity in IT. As a result, the demands of larger customers to have a private cloud make sense. This is one of the reasons why we launched BPOS-Federal earlier this year. In the public sector there are particular security controls and certifications to run software and host data. As a result, it makes more sense to create a unique, private or ring fenced cloud that can meet requirements such as ITAR, FIPS 140-2 etc. I used to work at SAP Markets 10 years ago when B2B markets became a way to create private trading networks which was arguably v1 of private clouds based on commerce between entities. Now the cloud enables shared data, shared resources so a private cloud will become a smarter way for larger organizations to leverage the efficiency of cloud but in a more tailored, reliable and secure approach.
My prediction: Debate will continue in the industry to define clear lines between a private and public cloud for 2 more years. But the industry will cease to care after 2 years and it will be totally acceptable to pick whatever cloud based approach you want.
The concept of deploying code anywhere you want is a huge software challenge as tasks must orchestrate across multiple run times and platforms. Without this ability, the cloud could be seen as an 'Ultimatum' on IT. For every customer who wants to go 'All In' today, it's great and for every other one that wants to wait, that's okay too! Hybrid scenarios allow for this reality to occur and it's why BPOS is architected to talk to on premises versions of the software and why Windows Azure App Fabric and Windows Server AppFabric are key assets for Microsoft to enable Hybrid scenarios for the future.
My prediction: Where software lives, cloud or not, will cease to be the primary windmill we all charge for debate. It will be replaced with how deeper debate about how software orchestrates and spans any implementation in the most seamless way.
This is my favorite. As cloud platforms grow and become mainstream, hybrid scenarios will also demonstrate a more fluid software experience. This is will make the definition no longer be relevant and it won't matter. We'll all go back to realizing it's all software and every company will leverage the best tools and methods to meet their strategy. 'Cloud' will sound as funny as 'information superhighway' or 'Handheld Device'. In the end, the companies who build great software will continue to be the preferred vendors and this is why Microsoft is so well positioned for years to come.
My prediction: In the future, I will still read about the Top 5 things to come in the future and enjoy seeing what actually came true.
Over the last several weeks, I've been proud to highlight why customers of all sizes, geographies and industries have picked Microsoft over Google Apps. Some have left Google after realizing 'it's more pony than horse', others gave it a test drive and found out quickly it was 'more showroom than track ready'. (Sorry, I couldn't resist) . Despite the hype machines running overtime at the GooglePlex in Mountain View, customers are voting with their feet to pick Microsoft.
This is why I am excited to highlight two more customers who have decided to share their reasons why Microsoft has become their trusted software vendor. As always, if you want more customer examples or content that outlines how our solutions differ to Google, you can always visit this website.
Leaving Google. Why Even Free Google Apps Wasn't Worth It
Jared Morgan from Bradshaw and Weil in Paducah, KY has written a guest post over on the MS Online blog about their experience leaving Google Apps Standard Edition for MS Online. Standard edition is a free offering from Google that is limited to 50 users. They see the tremendous value in BPOS to now pay for the suite of services. Jared shares why as a small business the cloud offers a cost effective way to remain agile while gaining access to technology previously out of reach due to cost and on site company support. My favorite part about Jared's post is his singling out of SharePoint Online as a key benefit of the BPOS Suite, "What I thought I was getting as a simple throw-in with BPOS, SharePoint Online has turned out to be as valuable as Exchange Online, if not more so."
SharePoint is the fastest growing product in the history of Microsoft. It's received numerous accolades from industry analysts including top placement in all related Gartner Magic Quadrants. Imagine being a small business with under 50 employees and having access to such a product via the cloud? It's no surprise why SharePoint is a winner for Bradshaw and Weil and 'Why Microsoft' is an affirmative statement and not question at all.
Future Proofing Your Business - Cloud on Your Terms with Microsoft
On the Exchange Blog, David Aird, Head of IT for MITIE, a strategic outsourcing and asset management company, shares his insights into why they selected Exchange over Google Apps. He explains how Microsoft provides flexibility they need and how Google is an ultimatum full of hidden costs. We are the only company in the industry that allows you to run your solutions on prem, in the cloud, hosted with a partner or a hybrid. That means that companies like Bradshaw and Weil who are 'All In' can embrace the cloud immediately and for companies like MITIE, they can still run the systems themselves but by being on Microsoft, they have a product that is 'future proofed' because it allows them an 'on ramp' to go to the cloud on their terms.
"We looked at Google. They were competitively priced but with only three years in the productivity space, they lacked maturity and seemed like a risky investment… Ultimately, we choose Exchange 2007 for its manageability, reliability and enterprise class support. Despite all the recent focus on the cloud, we're not quite ready to move our data outside of our immediate control. When we do, we'll do it on our terms rather than being forced into a fit that's not right for our business." (see post for full transcript. I pulled from two paragraphs)
Stay tuned for more customer stories in the coming weeks as we continue to highlight 'Why Microsoft'.
Codelco, the world's largest copper mining company is 'All In' with BPOS! Today on the MS Online blog we are proud to provide a guest post by Marco Orellana, CIO of Codelco. You can also watch a great video interview between Marco and Chris Capossela, SVP of Microsoft Business Division. Codelco is a Chilean State owned copper mining company formed in 1976 with headquarters in Santiago. It is the largest copper producing company in the world with more than 18,000 workers and pre-tax profits of over $4 billion in 2009.
There is a great storyline's here with this customer win.
Codelco has taken advantage of the Microsoft Online 'deskless' product to provide email to mine workers who were once disenfranchised from IT because of cost. This is EXACTLY what Forrester analyst, Ted Schadler wrote about in last years report, "Tier Your Workforce To Save Money With Cloud-Based Corporate Email; Forrester Finds Customers Can Save “$1.3 Million Annually With Exchange Online Deskless Worker” Given the flexibility of the BPOS suite, customers can buy solutions that map to their needs. If you want just mail, Exchange Online is available. If you want just SharePoint, we'll support that as well. And if you have workers who need to participate in the flow of information and replace the 'bulletin board' in the break room, we can support a lighter weight solution for them via the deskless offering. NET.
They selected BPOS because as opposed to other solutions in the market, you don't under-buy for your core Information Workers with 'good enough' or over-buy for the task, deskless worker with huge inboxes, video, IM, etc. IT can meet business needs in a agile and cost effective way by managing all the workforce on one central system and bring the workforce together so they can focus on mining not stitching together IT across disparate solutions. Win-Win.
Today we've publish two more case studies that highlight how customers have answered the question "Why Microsoft?" Building on our previous post about customers 'Leaving Google Apps', both customer interviews both provide continued examples of why Google Apps doesn't really deliver the nirvana its creators claim. Just last week, Clint Boulton over at Google Watch blog on eWeek also posted a nice piece on the Serena win back to Microsoft Online.
China Navigation Jumps Ship from Google Apps.
China Navigation is a customer with 300 employees located throughout Asia in the shipping management industry. Email is the hub of their business to communicate with customers and partners throughout the world. Originally, they selected Google Apps but after issues with support and reliability they migrated over to Microsoft Online (BPOS).
"To us, email is a primary service and we viewed outage as somthing quite serious. Microsoft's financially backed SLA gave us a high level of confidence in addressing our enterprise needs We did not get that same level assurance with Google" Joshua Loh, IT and System Manager, China Navigation
Intero Real Estate Vacates Google Apps.
The second case study highlights Intero Real Estate which is located literally a few freeway exits away from the 'Googleplex' in California. As a Silicon Valley company with close to 2,000 employees, the firm is a reflection of their clientele; innovative and 'out of the box' with their approach to IT. Initially the firm used Google Apps for franchise offices but quickly found that running the entire company on the solution created more problems than it solved. Similar to the findings of other companies I've highlighted, Google Apps could be simple to a fault, lacking table stakes type of IT features for Group Management etc.
"It was one thing to migrate a small team of 15 franchise users to Google Apps, but I suspected that it was another thing entirely to move the company's more than 2,000 users," says Eric Rees, Director of IT for Intero Real Estate Services.
If you are a customer who has migrated to Google Apps (or a partner who has done this already) and are considering a way to migrate to Microsoft Online, leave a comment and I will get in touch with you.
Today, we are excited to announce that the Department of Education in the Commonwealth of Kentucky has gone live with Microsoft's Live@edu solution. With more than 700,000 people, this is one of the largest cloud deployments in the world! Schools in the Bluegrass state are 'All In' for the cloud.
I think it’s best to hear directly from Chuck Austin from the Kentucky DOE who has written a guest blog post which highlights their decision and experience moving to Microsoft’s cloud.
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Live@edu Brings the Future to Kentucky
I’ve been managing technology in schools for more than 20 years. And there’s one thing I know: There are very few times when you can simultaneously streamline output and lower costs, while also dramatically increasing capacity and add new features.
But one of those rare occasions occurred during the weekend of May 21. That’s when the Kentucky Department of Education – where I work – switched its email, communications and collaboration capabilities to Microsoft’s Live@edu service. Now we can offer every one of our students the newest and best technology. We support more than 700,000 students, faculty and staff, and the move to Live@edu helps us avoid some $6.3 million in costs over four years we’d otherwise have to make to upgrade and maintain our previous system.
And when I say we made that move in a “weekend,” I mean just that. Between Friday and Monday, we moved over half a million students, teachers and staff to Live@edu. True, we had planned the move for almost two years. But the speed and ease with which we made the final transition – we called it the “big bang” – speaks well of Live@edu and Microsoft’s ability to handle that enormous influx of users. In fact, it is the largest cloud deployment, to date, in the United States and one of the biggest in the world.
We’re delighted with the new capabilities Live@edu brings to the teaching and learning environment. Our students and teachers were struggling with an older system that lacked capacity and lacked the ability to scale up. Now all of our users have cloud-based email and calendars that they can access from any Web browser and from multiple device factors. They have 10 gigabytes of mail storage and another 25 gigs of file storage so people can collaborate on documents and class projects. And they now have document sharing, instant messaging, video chat, mobile e-mail and much more so people can collaborate more effectively and communicate more easily. Live@edu really gives us the ability to take away the walls of the school and enable our students and teachers to work together in new ways.
What’s equally great is that even the most remote of our 174 districts now has state-of-the-art technology. Equity has been a cornerstone philosophy of the Kentucky Education Technology System (KETS) since 1992, and continuing to meet this goal was really an important consideration for us. We have a lot of rural districts, and we wanted to give every district the same technology whether it was in the country or in the city, whether a rich district or a poor one. With Live@edu we were able to do that.
I want to thank Microsoft for being a great partner in this project. Our Microsoft team worked really hard to make sure the transition to Live@edu went smoothly. And Live@edu itself is a great product.
We’re excited about what the future holds for us with Live@edu. We’ll be able to gain access to new technology and innovative features without incurring extra costs, and grow the system as we need to. I think it will give a tremendous boost to the education of our young people. Which, after all, is why we’re here.
Posted by Chuck Austin
OFFICE OF EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY, KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Now more than 11 million people across 10,000 schools on every continent are using Live@edu as their technology solution. This is fast on the heels of last year’s move by the Board of Regents in the State of Ohio who also selected Live@edu for a University System wide initiative and last week’s University of Arizona decision to choose BPOS. The Commonwealth's criterion for selecting Live@edu is similar to the countless others I've highlighted in previous weeks and it offers stark contrast from the discussions being had at the: University of California-Davis, UMass and Yale University, regarding deep privacy and security concerns related to the use of Google Apps.
For a more detailed take, you can also read my WhyMicrosoft blog.
Today we are proud to announce that the University of Arizona has selected Microsoft Online as the messaging and collaboration platform for all faculty and staff. Earlier in the month I highlighted the fact that 10,000 institutions on every continent have enrolled with our Live@Edu offering in just the last six months.
Research Read and Compliant
The University of Arizona often receives funding and grants for research from the government. As a result, the IT department needs to provide staff with cutting edge tools that can increase collaboration but do so in a way the remains secure and compliant to industry standards. "With Microsoft's cloud based service, we found a solution that will essentially bring us into the 21st century for communications tools. We have a complex environment and our employees demand modern-day technologies and Exchange functionality to be successful at their jobs" said Michele Norin, Chief Information Officer at the University of Arizona. "We also have federal programs we need to comply with, so meeting ITAR and HIPAA rules are critical, and we came away more confident that Microsoft can help keep us complaint." You can also read up on our new BPOS Federal offering.
Their criterion for selecting BPOS is similar to the announcementby three universities in the UK who recently chose Microsoft's cloud platform. Chris Randle, IT Director at UCL summed it up "Microsoft could tell the university exactly where its data would be held and said that it would keep the content of all emails private."
These statements offer a stark contrast from the discussions being had at: University of California, Davis, UMass and Yale University, regarding deep privacy and security concerns related to the use of other solutions, namely Google Apps.
Wisdom of Crowds through Diversity
So whether you are large research university like UofA or a sports union and pride of a nation or a small law office or a global Pharmaceutical firm, you can take comfort in the wisdom of others who found that only Microsoft Online could meet their unique needs. We are "All In" and so are our customers. Sign up for a free trial today.
If you've never seen the NZ All Blacks Rugby Haka, it's truly one of the great events in any competitive sport. (see video below). So we are proud this week to announce a win for BPOS with The New Zealand Rugby Union.
As one of New Zealand’s largest sports organizations they are charged with fostering, developing, administering, promoting, and representing the game of rugby in New Zealand. In their guest blog post they share why the picked Microsoft Online over Google Apps to meet the needs of their organization. They take IT as serious as they take the game of Rugby so it's great BPOS has been selected to be a partner with the New Zealand Rugby Union.
Just as I highlighted last week, the NZ Rugby also outlines why they've picked Microsoft instead of a competitive alternative. They discuss the competition's lack of enterprise grade features, hidden costs and extra work for IT to support.
We look foward to supporting them as a customer and following the All Blacks in the 2001 Rugby World Cup.
Security Concerns. Hidden Costs. Document Fidelity. Marketing Hype. No Support. Lack of Roadmap. Oh My!
(NOTE: this is a duplicate entry from previous week due to blog platform migration at Microsoft)
These are a few of the reasons that the organizations I've spoken to have either left Google Apps or simply put it 'through its paces' and realized it's more pony than horse.
You can check out our new site of customer testimonials. In fact, this entire week, I'll be highlighting similar customers and partners stories, even guest blog entries. Phaeton Automotive blogs about why they left Google Apps on the Exchange Blog. TransCorp of Nigeria also blogs why they picked BPOS over Google Apps at the MS Online Blog. Please also read Chris Capossela's blog on Productivity Applications and the Cloud. UPDATE: Serena Software announces they are leaving Google Apps. Read the customer blog. CapGemini announces their partnership to sell BPOS. NZ Rugby Union announces they have picked BPOS over Google.
Customers Say: "Google Apps isn't Business Ready."
Google's heritage is in advertising. Google Apps was born from consumer applications designed to serve more advertising. There is nothing wrong with this. The Consumerization of IT is very real. However, when you start telling customers to use your consumer product as an enterprise solution, you have to at least deliver the basics - provide support, implement meaningful SLAs, understand enterprise customer's real concerns about security and privacy, invest in innovation that matters and deliver a real roadmap.
On the latter, Google Apps strategy continues to vacillate. Last week, they were touting Google Apps as a complement that "works well with Office". In April, they touted Google Apps as "an Office replacement", while simultaneously admitting that the Google Apps architecture 'hit a wall' and needed to be rewritten. With less than 3 weeks' notice, they pulled offline access for an indefinite period of time and then suffered a widespread outage due to the fact they had deployed 'preview' code into the production environment used by paying customers. As a result, many of Google's customers are hitting walls of a different sort with Google's whimsical and 'see what sticks' approach to the applications their people rely on to get work done.
Rather than just hearing it from me, let's hear from customers who have tried Google and decided to go with Microsoft solutions:
Customers Say: "Google Apps can require more work for IT."
Google claims to have 'no dependency on desktop' software, but some customers quickly found that that in order to "Go Google" they needed to deploy software on the desktop!
For example, IT might need to run and maintain additional servers with Google LDAP Server Sync Tool, separate Postini Directory Sync Tool, separate Free Busy Sync Tool for co-existence while also deploying the following to every users machine; a Gtalk client, Video Conferencing Add In, an Outlook Sync Tool, Google Gears Add In and recommended new browsers.
Again, customers are finding they experience increased support calls, greater end-user training costs, loss in productivity and challenges collaborating with customers and partners:
Customers Say: "$50 per user doesn't get you much."
Finally, there's the attractive price. Even if you ignore all the labor, support and hardware costs mentioned above, other hidden costs quickly emerge. Take a hypothetical example of a 10 person business that requires email, lightweight document editing, Microsoft Office document synching, digital signatures and workflow. The first two are clearly included for the $50 price point. But for the rest of these basic features, the customer must now buy additional software: OffiSync $12/user/yr for Office synchronizing, $358/user/yr for EchoSign's Digitial Signature Package, $40/user/yr for RunMyProcess Workflow. Total cost: $460/user a year. Not $50.
In addition, these software add on's have minimal or no integration with Google Apps beyond supporting single sign-on. So you need to factor in development cost of integrating these solutions and managing multiple vendor contracts.
Why Microsoft: 25 years in Productivity
Juxtapose this with Office, SharePoint and Exchange, which appear as "Leaders" in 8 of 10 Gartner Magic quadrants related to Information Work.* Forrester's recent IT Pro survey found Google was still a distant Office competitor despite Google's best attempts to appeal to IT departments with a message of 'support for': Outlook, Office files, Active Directory and ActiveSync.
Customers want certainty, reliability, security, privacy, roadmaps and experience when it comes to a mission critical set of scenarios like Productivity, Messaging and Collaboration. That's why after 25 years, Microsoft Office remains the best suite of applications for the PC, Phone and Browser and it's why these customers have picked Microsoft as their trusted partner.
* related Gartner Magic Quadrants - Business Intelligence, Enterprise Content Management, Unified Communications, Horizontal Portals, Information Access Technology (Search), Enterprise Wireless E-mail, Social Software in the Workplace. Challenger: Web Content Management, UC as a Service.
Earlier today Bill Hilf blogged about Microsoft’s Technical Computing initiative and Bob Muglia sent an executive email on the topic. So what is the Technical Computing initiative? I think Bob captured it nicely by positing that recent world events have clearly demonstrated our inability to process vast amounts of information and variables. Two events in particular - the behaviour of global financial markets and the (ongoing) occurrence and impact of a volcano eruption in Iceland. I’ve been personally affected by both with my mortgage going down and almost missing a trip home for a wedding due to the volcano (my own wedding!).
The Technical Computing initiative seeks to bring vast computing power to the scientists and communities who are focused on these problems. It will focus on 3 areas as Bill called out in his blog:
All 3 are important, big hairy computing issues we’re looking to solve and enable the great minds in computing to solve the really big, global scale challenges (and smaller ones of course) with the power of computing.
A supporting website was also launched today at www.modelingtheworld.com to discuss the trends, challenges and opportunities. There’s some funky new stuff there for Microsoft and in particular I like the social side of it at http://social.modelingtheworld.com/#/home – the team is also on Twitter with the handle @modelingtw
My name is Andrew Kisslo and I am Sr. Product Manager with Microsoft Online. I've recently joined the Cloud Services Expert blog roll and am really excited about the opportunity to share my thoughts and insights about Microsoft's cloud strategy. I am also honored to share blogging space with Steve Clayton, Jim Glynn and Brett Hill et al.
As part of the team delivering Online Services (SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, WebApps, etc), I am at the center of "All In" for Microsoft's strategy to deliver cloud based solutions for our commercial customers. You can find my original "All In" blog that I was honored (slightly embarred too!) that Mary Jo Foley called 'coherent and plausible explanation'. I often write about the competition as a matter of comparative dialogue as I think it's only in comparisons do you find the answers that may be meaningful for your selection criteria. You can find me blogging on TechNet on the WhyMicrosoft blog as well as on Twitter.
It's hard to believe but I've been involved with ‘cloud' for almost 15 years. My first experience out of undergraduate involved working in London at Ziff-Davis supporting ‘banner ads' which were a radical new radical medium for advertising. How far we've come. In fact, the office next to me was a small group of folks launching something called ‘Yahoo.co.uk' a year after they were incorporated. I later joined Pandesic, an SAP/Intel start up that was one the first Application Service Providers (ASP's become SaaS in effect). We were very early pioneers trying to push the envelope on subscription business models, multitenant architectures and ‘real time' ecommerce.
I look forward to sharing my thoughts on Microsoft's approach to the cloud.
Rob Preston, VP and Editor in Chief of InformationWeek offers an interesting assessment of Microsoft’s cloud capability and closes by saying
Microsoft won't dominate the cloud -- no company will ... it's just too big a place -- but it will be the preeminent, most profitable player there in no time.
Bold words. Rob took time to go to Redmond and see if the claims of Microsoft being “all in” were true and he seems to have left being convinced. As regular readers will know, I’ve been working on this cloud gig for over 2 years and back in 2007 Steve Ballmer said this of “cloud” at our Financial Analyst Meeting
Now, when I talk about it I talk about it quite broadly. I'm not talking just about consumer stuff, or just about advertising. I'm literally I literally believe that every piece of software, the basic core value, and the way software gets created will change over the next three, five, ten years. So every piece of software will have a client component, a server component, and service component from the cloud, that all gets managed and orchestrated out of that cloud infrastructure.
I thought that was a pretty bold statement back then – that everything we do would have a cloud component – yet we now have a version of Exchange, SharePoint, SQL, Windows Server, CRM, Office and more in the cloud. I’m genuinely impressed by the execution, in particular with Azure and with hundreds of thousands of server in our datacenters already delivering cloud services to customers like Coca Cola, Domino’s, Aviva, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Royal Mail and many more. The cloud Microsoft isn’t coming. It’s here.
Thanks Rob for looking a little deeper and shining a light on this.
I was talking to Tim Weber from the BBC earlier this week about Microsoft cloud services and as often happens we discussed who is actually in the cloud already and who us there with Microsoft. I mentioned Coca Cola Enterprises is one of the customers who’ve made the move to the cloud with Microsoft Online and the video above highlights their use of SharePoint Online and hopefully helps convince people that Microsoft is definitely in the cloud.
Add to them GlaxoSmithkline, Aviva, Blockbuster, Energizer, Novartis and many more. Microsoft now have over 1 million paying customers using our Microsoft Online services so we’re definitely in the cloud. In fact we’re “all in”
I spent the weekend at a Microsoft internal event hearing from the makers of the next generation of cloud services to be available from Microsoft. It's too soon to discuss details but wanted to share some of my excitement about what's coming nonetheless.
Regarding Business Productivity Online Suite, the current online services provide an excellent value and deliver the key features that many users need. That said, there are differences between Exchange on premise and Exchange Online and in some cases, those features are important to users. Understanding these differences is key to having a smooth migration experience. This requires reviewing the service descriptions at microsoft.com/online and the deployment guide at quickstartonlineservices.com which is available to Microsoft Partners.
So what's the news? As Microsoft has been saying from day 1 with BPOS, our vision is to work continuously to close the gap so that our online services offer parity or near parity with on premise services. I can say with authority that the next release of our services will make significant progress in closing that gap.
What does that mean? It means that you can look at Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010 on premise servers and get a good idea of the kinds of features, administration, and capabilities of future cloud services. Yes, there will still be differences as there are unavoidable impacts from large scale, multi-tenant hosting as it is fundamentally different in significant way than a single tenant, on premise implementation. Those differences, however, are soon to become a lot less significant.
If you considered a company's suite of on premise solutions and services as a portfolio, with the new services to be available later this year, Microsoft will significantly expand the percentage of that portfolio that can be moved to the cloud. This means a dramatic increase in the size of the opportunity for Partners as there will be more markets, and greater opportunity to provide customizations, deep integrations, and automate administration with the new services.
This is good news for IT Pros who are concerned that servers moving to the cloud means their skills will not be needed, when in reality - their skills are simply "relocated" to managing cloud services. That's different that managing servers, in that you don't need to manage anti-virus implementation or service pack applications, and fight the never ending process of maintaining security and high availability. These tasks are now managed for you in a very high end data center with millions of dollars of equipment and ISO 27001 certification and SAS70 type I and II audits among others. (http://blogs.technet.com/msonline/archive/2010/02/24/microsoft-online-services-announces-new-certifications-bpos-federal-for-us-government.aspx)
The result is that IT Pro's are released from doing mundane, ongoing maintenance and freed to focus on high-value projects that can make a significant business impact. Not to mention that IT Pros that "speak cloud" are going to be in high demand as millions of users, thousands of new services, and hundreds of data centers come online. (One tip - Powershell is your friend.)
The forecast is sunny for cloud services.
Welcome to Microsoft’s data centre evolution (previously called the “Generation 4 vision”). As earlier videos have shown, we’re heading towards the pre-manufacturing every part of the data centre: the IT, mechanical and electrical components as part of Pre-Assembled Components that we call an “ITPAC.” We placed one of these outside the University of Washington recently during Steve Ballmer’s cloud talk.
This pre assembled approach gives us more flexible deployment options in both speed and location for our data centres, plus it helps with environmental sustainability. All we’ll need in future is a concrete pad to land these things and the crucial Power Usage Effectiveness measure will be as low as 1.15 to 1.19. The units will house somewhere between 400 to 2,500 servers and could be built by a single person in as little as 4 days. I have ordered the parts to test this and plan to set one up in my garden (joke).
Read more from Kevin Timmons on the MS datacenters blog
My boss just took off for Australia and New Zealand. Trying to get everything done before he left absorbed most of my time during the last few weeks, so after he left, I started catching up on my cloud services reading. This has been a busy time for cloud computing too! Here’s what I found.
I started with Microsoft’s official Cloud Services site and watched the 1.5 hour video of Steve Ballmer’s recent Microsoft Online Cloud Computing speech at the UW. You’ve got to watch the whole thing. I loved the “man on the street” videos with UW students, featuring Microsoft Channel 9’s Laura Foy.
With a little more digging, I found a recent post by fellow Cloud Services blogger Steve Clayton, Ballmer says Microsoft is “All In” with the Cloud. This is a great summary of Steve’s speech and tightens up the message to five bullet points:
I also found an InformationWeek article by Bob Evans, Global CIO: Ballmer's Cloud Commitment Makes Microsoft Relevant Again. Reading this article gave me goose bumps! Mr. Evans really gets it. I think that he does an excellent job of communicating the opportunities in the cloud, how committed Microsoft is to the future of cloud computing, and what an industry changing “bet-the-company” moment this really is. Both pages are recommended reading!
Did you know that Microsoft is actually one of the largest and most active players in cloud computing? Live Meeting, Bing, X-Box, Hotmail, and Microsoft Update are some of the cloud services that Microsoft has been running for several years. I’ve been working on Microsoft’s cloud computing offers in one capacity or another since Live Meeting 2005. The Microsoft Online Services team has released new features and functionality roughly every 6 to 9 weeks since November 2008, so we’ve been cranking on cloud computing for quite a while.
I’m excited to see that Microsoft’s commitment to cloud services is finally getting some attention. If you’d like to learn more about what’s going on with cloud computing, check out the links above and search for additional articles on Microsoft Cloud Services. All of our chips are on the table.
Providing online services like BPOS (http://mocp.microsoftonline.com) are not like shipping server or client software. Once you cut the bits for on-premise software, they pretty much stay the same for a while. Not so with online services. Microsoft is continually updating them to provide more services, protocols, and features. This makes it a bit of challenge to keep current. Since we shipped the services a couple years ago, we've added a bunch of capability including POP3, SMTP relay, migration from Hosted Exchange, Powershell commandlets for migration and administration, and a bunch more. AND the price went down to only $10 a month!
In that spirit, I'm happy to announce that the default mailbox size for Exchange Online is now 25GB!
That's up from 5GB. This 5x increase is free of charge and automatically implemented on new users. You can increase existing users to 25GB if you need as your overall allocation for mailboxes has been increased to (25GB x number of users) instead of (5GB x number of users). The best place to keep up to date BPOS feature announcements is the BPOS team blog http://blogs.technet.com/msonline/ so bookmark that blogs and track the RSS feed to stay up do date.
[credit: The Economist]
A lot is the answer as noted above in The Economist. They had a great special report a couple of weeks back on the enormous amounts of data we’re now creating in the digital age. For someone who remembers 5 1/4 inch floppy disks and loading computer games of an audio tape, the table above is a sobering read.
Of the articles in the special segment, I enjoyed Data, data everywhere and Clicking for gold. The former gives a real sense of how big the data challenge will become whilst the latter is about how the so called exhaust of information gleaned by websites is becoming incredibly powerful.
A few startling stats I gleaned:
There is so much good stuff in this report. If you step back and think how much digital data you create yourself, it’s a just a huge, huge volume. Websites you visit, documents you read/write, photos, videos, blog posts…then think of all your friends doing that and every business doing that.
Tim O’Reilly is insightful as ever with his comment that for Internet companies, “data are the coin of the realm”. Amazon, Google, eBay, Microsoft, Facebook are all big players in this new era that will demand massive skills and massive computing to do realtime analysis and serve up just what you didn’t know you wanted, right when you want it :)
Cloud computing has a part to play here for sure in terms of number crunching capability (I see big scope for HPC type workloads on Windows Azure…stuff like Monte Carlo simulations) and storage. Getting that data in to the cloud may be the bigger problem and as the late Jim Gray was fond or reminding us, a bunch of disks and FedEx are a pretty good solution to that problem!
Anyway…stop reading me and go read the report. I’m just generating exhaust here and most of it’s noxious :)
Moving to the cloud requires reframing how a business thinks about its data and services. It's quite a leap to get from having everything on premise where you have total control (and responsibility) to having all or some of your key business services and data provided in the cloud. This reframing extends past just services such as mail or collaboration but extends of course into applications and computer power that could be hosted in Azure. While Microsoft servers and operating systems can and do deliver scale to support the biggest farms on the planet, cloud computing and services bring even greater requirements for scale, management, and efficiency.
Who better to collaborate with than Cray on how to provide massive computing power, at entirely new levels of efficiency as service?
See http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-399926.html
I participated in the Exchange and SharePoint Online Services Live Chat on Tuesday, Feb 23rd. This event was a first for me. It added a new level of “interrupt-driven” to the usual IM and e-mail traffic that we deal with every day. It’s hard to provide deep technical information in an IM chat format, but I think we were able to answer most questions and to direct people to useful information.
I was impressed by the quality of the questions. Most of the participants had obviously done their homework. It sounded like many people were already BPOS customers or involved in a Trial. I’d say the most common questions were about migration and co-existence, which is always a hot topic for people just getting started with the service. SharePoint Online questions ran a close second.
I was surprised that we received only one off-topic question, “I have a Brother printer and just purchased Windows 7. I need a link to download some software so the printer works like it should.” I was happy to field this one and direct the person to the Brother website.
My favorite question was the one asking for a service architecture diagram. For security reasons, the details of our data-center and hosting architecture are proprietary, but I remembered a high-level diagram that we had previously shared publicly. It took me a few hours to track down that diagram, and a few more hours to discover that it was now out of date. This triggered a request to update the diagram and to get the necessary engineering and legal approval to publish the new version. I think it's great to be able to respond directly to customer requests. That’s what community is all about.
Speaking of Community, you can get involved in the Microsoft Online Services Community through the following links.