Microsoft Hosting Summit 2008

What are the SaaS implications you foresee for vendors, partners and customers?

With the developing SaaS ecosystem we have much more of a competitive environment than before. There are an increasing amount of vendor types and activities today which will only spur more competition. Through these initiatives, many SaaS players are increasing their direct sales efforts in addition to their indirect strategies. This means that there are more “feet on the street” delivering the SaaS value proposition to customers.

In addition, more companies are looking towards channel and alliance relationships to help expand their reach in SaaS. These partnerships will be used to reach new customer segments, software markets, regions and vertical industries.

All of these factors have a tremendous amount of implications for customers. There will be more messages and information to customers which may cause customer confusion about the various deployment and delivery options available.  Therefore, clear and consistent messaging will be important.

What is the key to becoming a more prominent participant in the SaaS ecosystem from a business perspective?

Any player active in the ecosystem has the potential to emerge as a prominent participant, or “hub”, in the SaaS ecosystem. Each company or partner within the ecosystem will seek business relationships over time with the companies that help develop their offering and optimize their market position. We believe that there are certain characteristics that will help drive a company towards becoming a hub. These key attributes include technical, market, and sales enablement:

1.      The first attribute is technical enablement. When thinking about technical enablement, one can envision a role of providing partners with roadmaps, tools, and reliability.  This is to help partners understand how they can best navigate the SaaS opportunity by linking to a hub’s network.

2.      The second attribute is market enablement, which consists of a company’s presence and go-to-market strategy. It needs to have the ability to increase the adoption and growth of SaaS products and services. Therefore, a clear go-to-market strategy is essential in order to help partners plan their investments to support and promote the relationship.

3.      The last key attribute is sales enablement, and sales enablement can be considered as a company’s ability to generate sales opportunities by providing partners with resource accessibility and exposure as well as driving leads.

What is the opportunity  for SaaS adoption by company size?

With SaaS, its a very incremental and organic form of adoption rather than the landscape purchases that are typically associated with traditional on-premise software purchases. For instance, we have seen large enterprise adoption of on-demand solutions, however it is not usually the entire organization that adopts, but rather a particular department or business unit which can very much act like a small business which is something to keep in mind.

What is your perspective on how the software ecosystem will continue to evolve?

We believe that a new software ecosystem is emerging where many more companies are participating beyond just software companies. This means that the industry is shifting from being partner-centric to an ecosystem that is network-based.

Part of this new ecosystem development is SaaS. The traction gained from on-demand providers has forced traditional software, services, hardware, and telecommunications companies to reevaluate their business and partner strategies. To a large extent, many of these companies are trying to identify the right type of partners to help them take advantage of the on-demand opportunity. These partnering relationships and ecosystem development are what IDC believes will be key to maintaining software-on-demand growth.

What should hosters, ISVs or telcos do today, be it technical, partnerships or marketing, to maximize the SaaS opportunity?

To take full advantage of the SaaS opportunity, hosters, ISVs and telcos should consider how to build their own ecosystem of partners. In doing so, we recommend that they ask themselves key questions such as: Who are the right partners for you? What criteria are you looking for in a SaaS partner? How do you build out a total package of capabilities for the end customer? Ultimately the key is for a company to take a look at their core competencies and determine what its key strengths are, and what strengths partners can bring to the table depending on what it is that the company wants to accomplish.

For hosting providers and telcos, SaaS/ISV players represent a key market for establishing partnerships as they can offer the hosting expertise and SaaS hosting that ISVs seek. In addition, telcos can provide billing, and other infrastructure assets that they seek.

Philbert Shih, Tier1 Research

April 17, 2008

T1R recently had a chance to attend the Microsoft Hosting Summit, an annual event in Bellevue, Washington, that Microsoft holds for its hosting partners. The event is set up for Microsoft to present its vision and product roadmap to partners, offer technical and marketing advice, and maybe most importantly, provide a venue where partners can reach out to Microsoft and express various concerns and trade ideas – somethin1g not to be overlooked, given how much feedback from the hosting sector goes into Microsoft's product development. Needless to say, the event is a chance for Microsoft to reiterate its commitment to the hosting sector, which was done in convincing fashion in both formal presentations and the many conversations taking place at the event and its related social gatherings.

In terms of the product road map, there were no real surprises. Microsoft has rebranded a few products and already announced its direct services strategy with Exchange Online. A couple of hints, however, were dropped that foreshadow future product rollouts. One of these was a cloud-type initiative and the other is some sort of hosted productivity application suite (Office online?), both of which will be made available to hosters (and with details on how revenue will be shared) later this year. The cloud-type initiative will clearly be interesting, as hosters continue to concern themselves with the challenge emerging from Amazon and now Google and others. The topic dominates discussion at many events T1R attends and hosters are actively looking for a way to compete. Microsoft believes it will have an answer and we will track this in the months leading to a formal launch.

The partner versus competitor issue

This issue was expected to be a main topic and T1R recalls the tension this caused last year. But, in a bit of an upset, it did not seem to be that huge. With a few months to digest what many have seen as inevitable, T1R got the sense that much of the partner channel has accepted it and is ready to move on and face the new challenges Microsoft's shift in strategy entail. Credit Microsoft for doing a good job here. Last year and at other industry events, Microsoft has been vague and unclear about its strategy. This has caused frustration among partners and created some of the above-mentioned tension. It is not entirely Microsoft's fault. We understand that management has its hands tied in certain ways, but the official launch of its direct service strategy has coincided with a clear and transparent messaging to the sector. Whether one is happy with what Microsoft is doing is not really the point. It has articulated its strategy and demonstrated where it sees hosters fitting in this value chain. Overall, a much clearer and transparent voice was apparent and T1R got the feeling that hosters were receptive. The partner channel seems to be have turned the page and is taking a 'we'll give it a try' approach.

Microsoft's vision is pretty clear. It is nudging the hosting channel up-market and into segments where it does not plan to play (at least for now, we suspect). Software as a service is clearly a big part of this. It also wants to push hosters into the layer of value emerging around hosting services, such as with Exchange and things like mobile services, security, compliance and archiving. This is a nice sweet spot for hosters and they would be wise to move here quickly.

Interestingly, there seems to be little if any discussion about Office Live Small Business, which is a more traditional Web hosting offering (though it comes in flavors that pack a bit more value) that also competes directly with hosters. OLSB preceded Exchange in coming to the market and initially spooked much of the mass-market hosting community. Those fears do not seem as intense these days and our feeling is that this is a positive sign – not because the Microsoft offering is weak, but because it appears that hosters are quickly moving away from the commoditizing segment of the market. There seems to be a broad acceptance of the need to move up the stack (as evidenced by the enthusiasm over Exchange) and deliver value around basic commodity hosting services. This is a healthy development for the sector and its great for Microsoft, not only because this is where they want to push its partner channel, but because partnering with Microsoft is an excellent way for hosters to get equipped with the platform and technology they need to head in this direction.

Overall, Microsoft got what it needed out of this event. It opened up lines of communication with its partner channel and got over the hurdle of the partner versus competitor issue. With its channel on board, it can focus on development, which it will need to excel at to meet the myriad challenges facing the sector.

Some random facts

The Microsoft hosting segment is still growing at about 40% Y/Y and is apparently somewhere over a half billion dollar business, but not quite at $700m. We'll take $600m as an estimate.

(Source: Tier1 Research)

On day two of the Hosting Summit, the IDC industry perspective, SaaS and CRM enablement was the focus of the day before the attendees were given their bag lunches and sent to the airport. Here are some thoughts and some summary notes on day 2.

Erin Tenwolde, Research Manager, IDC - "Software as a Service, Entering a new world of Partnering Opportunity"

SaaS ecosystem and delivery channel, SaaS generally falls into two categories such as: Hosted application management, such as organizations like AT&T and Corio would use a provider to deliver the traditional package software OR software on demand which is one solution for many such as a shared infrastructure.

Two types of classifications within SaaS and their providers of SaaS are Access (Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce) and Availability (Google, Oracle, Amazon)

CRM is the most recognized and most popular on demand SaaS solution, 3.4B by 2011, wow! By the year 2011, it will be a14B dollar business software on demand, huge! What does the industry need to REALLY kick it up to compelling levels? Integration, better channel and core to businesses business! Does that make sense? J Erin stated that venture capitalist look very favorably to companies who have a SaaS or software on-demand delivery model, very encouraging for this market and new growth! 67% of those companies surveyed, deemed SaaS as VERY important, but the sample size of the data/feedback was smaller than what we would have liked.

IDC believes that strong partnerships and ecosystems are FAR more important to success than traditional software deliver. This is very encouraging. The relationship between nodes, links and hubs was helpful to illustrate this premise. Overall, it is still early in the market. Erin did show an excellent matrix on high configuration, low configuration, solving IT problems and business problems and what solutions are seen as resident in these areas. Today, CRM and ERP delivery seen as more direct channel sale, collaboration, communications and security more prevalent in an indirect channel/reseller. This presentation was more of a validation than a revelation regarding SaaS or software on demand, but still very useful and helpful from a established industry source.

John Rowell, CTO, OpSource - "Industry Perspective"

OpSource is a leader is SaaS delivery and has always been great Microsoft partner is founder in SaaS incubator program, with 40 ISV's! John felt like, we should know the fear and understand that this is the time of the "On-demand hosting commoditizers." OpSource and successful hosters need to sell the stack and services for ISV's, thus reinforcing what is already known. As John Zanni stated yesterday, ISV's should not try to host or run operations, look to a hosting provider and do what you do best, Dev and sell!

The SaaS channel needs to improve and on a techological level interoperate and integrate better as according to John, is the number one barrier to SaaS adoption. Web services can improve this. Create a better marketplace than just Appexchange to interchange sales channel data and publish robust business-class, new applications and get away from consumer-based “widget” apps.

Good and entertaining session John, thanks!

Mark Corley, Senior Director, CRM product team, Microsoft - "Hosting Microsoft Dynamics – CRM”.

In the SMB market, CRM is growing faster than any other segment at a rate of 18.3% through 2010. Today, the CRM team sees that CRM installs are becoming smaller for SMB's (departmental, group) and S+S is driving this activity.

I had a great time and really enjoyed meeting with partners, customers and hosting team members. We should do this every year from now on! Oh wait…

- Chris Samson, Senior Hosting Technology Specialist, Microsoft

Web Host Industry Review Blog

Liam Eagle

April 9, 2008

My notes say "grueling," which is not quite the right word, but the Wednesday morning sessions at Microsoft's Hosting Summit were definitely an exercise in endurance, in terms of both the length and the volume of information to be digested.

From 8:15 to 12:30, the company rolled out a series of keynote presentations designed to put Microsoft's message to its partners into sharper relief, and to outline roadmaps for some of the software most relevant to the company's hosting partners.

A fairly long list of presenters took the stage during that time, and offered a lot of commentary on a lot of subjects. Covering everything interesting that came up is definitely the work of more than one blog entry (halfway through day one, my notes are close to 4,000 words long). But there were a couple of key points that kept coming up, which sort of put Microsoft's general partner message in context.

The early presentation by John Zanni seemed to anchor the whole thing, and while a lot of what he had to say dealt with what partners ought to expect from the conference itself, he brought up those key points that were repeated often in, or informed, the rest of the presentations.

First, and this is certainly not the first time I've heard this from Microsoft or anyone else, was the idea that there is a tremendous opportunity in what Microsoft terms the market for "software + services," of which "Software as a Service" is a part. With data from groups like IDC and Gartner, some of which you have probably seen, Zanni and other presenters highlighted the point that hosted applications, be they straight-up Microsoft applications or other tools developed by ISV partners, are one of the areas of greatest opportunity for hosting providers in the years to come.

Microsoft, says Zanni, is seriously invested in the hosting space, and the software + services space.

From that assertion come questions, presumably, of what Microsoft's approach to the market will take. The second really major point made in the morning sessions, and the one made most emphatically, is the fact that Microsoft is committed to its partners.

Not a surprising statement, given the audience. But there are some questions about exactly where partners lay in Microsoft plans, given the semi-competitive prospect of Microsoft's recently-announced Online Services.

According to Zanni, Microsoft depends on its partners. The company knows that in order to be successful, it needs its partners to be successful.

This, more than anything else, appears to be the premise of the event. The company wants to find out from its partners what they need in order to succeed - what strategies and processes work best for its partners so it can speed the process of integrating those processes into the platforms for high-end hosting.

Zanni says that's not just him talking. It's a notion that is held at even the highest levels of the company (he put up a slide with a quote from Steve Ballmer about the nature of the company's relationship with France Telecom).

Online services, he says, is about building the platform to grow the market - another concept I'll likely tackle in another post. But he, and Microsoft, see it not as competing but as an offering that will benefit partners.

But that key partner-focused message carried on into the other presentations, and to the event itself. The Hosting Summit is about Microsoft being transparent to its partners, in terms of its technology and roadmaps, and about inviting input, contribution and feedback from its partners.

It's worth pointing out that there are some folks who aren't quite as accepting of the message as others - that is, there are people who remain not quite convinced that Online Services , for instance, is not a competitive product to their hosted exchange product.

But that's all in the spirit of this event, according to Microsoft. That's precisely the kind of concern they want to hear about.

Web Host Industry Review Blog

Liam Eagle

April 10, 2008

Being at the Microsoft Hosting Summit this week gave me a chance to talk to Ravi Agarwal, founder of pivate label Exchange provider groupSPARK, who sold his company last week to managed service provider mindSHIFT.

Agarwal, who along with a less visible partner was founder and owner of the company, is clearly still on-board at groupSPARK. The business was acquired, he said, to add revenue to the mindSHIFT business, and will continue to operate as a separate unit.

Both companies are private, and they're not prepared to share the specifics of the acquisition, in terms of price or other details, but he says he and his partner have agreed to work with the company for an amount of time that can be measured in years.

Agarwal says groupSPARK was profitable, but without any large-scale backing, it was putting its own profits back into the business and was only able to grow as fast as those profits would allow. About a year ago, the company decided to set out in search of a buyer that could provide them with some of the financing they would need to grow at a pace that would keep up with the exploding demand for hosted exchange and related services.

GroupSPARK engaged an investment bank, Noonmark, to find a buyer. The mindSHIFT deal, concluded just last week, was about six months in the making.

Now that growth is taking place at a quicker pace. The company is hiring at a rate of about one person per week, says Agarwal, and is able to build out its infrastructure in advance of demand.

Beyond the obvious synergies related to the companies' shared unusual taste in capitalization, Agarwal says mindSHIFT has some technologies, such as online backup, that groupSPARK is likely to want to provide to its customers. And groupSPARK might have some things mindSHIFT will want to sell.

"Integration is at the bottom of the list right now," though, he says. The mandate at this point really is revenue growth, and not cutting costs.

Microsoft is a sort of fountain of terminology. Every time I speak to somebody at the company, I hear an acronym or a term I'm not familiar with. And a Microsoft-led series of presentations is just a concentration of that situation. There were whole pieces of software mentioned or alluded to in the Wednesday sessions that I'd never heard of. Microsoft is a big company.

One expression that came up pretty consistently on Wednesday was Microsoft's notion of the "software + services" ecosystem. This is not a new expression, but it's an important distinction that's worth understanding thoroughly. I had the opportunity to talk to Michael Van Dijken, Microsoft's marketing manager for hosted services, Wednesday about that very thing.

Importantly, "software + services" is not a semantic distinction (it's not a different way of describing, say, "software as a service"). It's a description of Microsoft's vision for the software environment - which certainly involves software as a service.

Software as a service is the much-discussed delivery relationship that has a lot of people excited. On-demand software hosted in the cloud, in the opinions of many, is the future of software delivery - and the future of the hosting business.

Micrsoft's software+ services distinction, describes the idea that SaaS is a delivery mechanism, and while some applications such as Exchange or CRM lend themselves to that model (the excitement about SaaS is certainly not unfounded), others simply don't. They do, and will continue to, lend themselves to a desktop or on-premise model.

Many applications, he says, lend themselves to a blended model, in which an application has parts that are installed, and parts that are delivered as a service. As an example of this he offers the Xbox Live service. A video game can be played offline, on-premise, but the service piece, which enables players to play together online adds considerable value.

This combination is why Microsoft doesn't think of itself as a "SaaS company." It's not a defensive distinction, says van Dijken. It's a description of how Microsoft sees the world. We're not living in a world where all the software will be hosted in the cloud.

Microsoft doesn't see its path as becoming like Google or Salesforce.com. And those competitors have validated this thinking somewhat by introducing offline components to their services. Google released the desktop-installed Google Gears, and even Salesforce.com has issued offline pieces of its applications.

From a hosting perspective, hosts would probably prefer that all software transition to the on-demand model, considering the business that would create. Hosts typically aren't that interested in talking about the on-premise delivery model. But they ought to be very interested in the applications that will have service components. There's a big opportunity there, says Microsoft, for partnering with the ISVs developing that software.

Software + services isn't a description of a fully-developed marketplace, or a view from a crystal ball. It's an impression of the ecosystem that might develop around software and software as a service, and a best guess as to how things are likely to shake out. Nobody's quite certain what the value chain is going to look like, but Microsoft is trying to provide its partners with a model that will help provide ISVs and hosts with a model for working together.

Michael Wicander, CEO

Smarthost Sweden AB

Sweden

Q: Who are your customers and what do you do for them?

A: Smarthost enables resellers in different markets and segments, who previously could not overcome the barriers of entry associated with launching an in-house hosting operation, to go to market with a full range of Microsoft hosted services in their own name and brand.

Q: What’s your relationship with Microsoft?

A: As we base our offering upon Microsoft Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC), with hosted Exchange 2007 and SharePoint services 3.0, Smarthost is partnering with Microsoft Communication sector as well as SMS&P, both on a local as well as on EMEA and international level.

Smarthost also contributes in the development of next generation HMC by participating in the HMC 4.5 technical adoption program.

Q: As a partner of Microsoft, what is your view on their S+S strategy?

A: We believe that Microsoft’s  S+S strategy is an accurate positioning in line with the evolution of the industry and that it will generate significant opportunity for Microsoft partners, enabling them to offer a wide portfolio of services leveraging local software with Microsoft hosted as well as partner hosted services.

Q: What challenges does your business face as you continue to grow?

A: To ensure continued growth Smarthost is dependent on offering a relevant service portfolio to our partners. We therefore closely monitor the market and partner with Microsoft and leading ISV:s to be able to continuously launch new in demand services.

Q: How can Microsoft help and what you would you like to see next?

A: We believe that it’s important for MS to actively promote and aggressively market Microsoft Online as well as partner hosted services to stimulate demand generation in the market.

Today was day one of the 4th annual Microsoft Hosting Summit! The Hosting Summit of 2008 is definitely the most anticipated, well attended and the most visible than the previous Summits. Here are my impressions of the sessions I attended.

Martha Bejar, Corporate Vice President, Communication Sector, Microsoft - "Welcoming Remarks"

Martha welcomed all the attendees and of course, stated just how important our hosting. ISV and S+S providers and our overall hosting partner channel are to Microsoft's overall success in our Online Services strategy. Martha provided a good snapshot of the market, stressed the importance of Software + Services (S+S) and hybrid models, such as on-premise and pure hosting. She also highlighted how our partner channel and hosting becoming a competency for the partner program.

John Zanni, Director, US Hosting Business, Microsoft - "Hosting State of the Union"

John, as a great center of knowledge of the overall hosting business and market opportunity, provided a candid reflection of hosting business as filled with "Turmoil," and listed key product releases such as Windows Server 2008, Windows SharePoint Services and Business Productivity Services (BPOS, Hosted Exchange, OCS and SharePoint services of MS Online) termed as creating "heated discussion" as many HMC and hosting partners see this as what it is,  a great opportunity to partner even better with Microsoft to deliver rich S+S services while some see this as direct competition with them. No doubt, it definitely has created good "discussion" points :)

John had some good data points to validate the industry trend he sees, such as referring to "Amazooglesoft" as "gorilla’s" large offerings, pointing out, Amazon’s 333K devs online, wow! In addition, Ad based web 2.0 ISV's are capturing sites from shared hosters and that shared hosting is sinking due to this dynamic! VARS (value-added resellers) and ISV's want to own the customer relationship and must expand services. Key topics such as MS Online and streaming office were top questions John receives from partners.

John highlighted that the IDC forecasts that SaaS (Software as a Service) business 4 Billion in 2006, 2011 it will be 15 Billion. In addition, he stressed if you are an ISV, do what do you best but don't host, partner with a Hosting provider or BPOS (perhaps?). This ISV market will over time, (year 2011) will be larger than entire hosting market! John also stressed importance of partners as core what Microsoft has done historically and what we WILL do moving forward with hosting providers, indeed, something that needs to be stressed over and over! John indicated that we see as well as IDC, that 30 million mailboxes online in next 4 years! BPOS is base platform, while providers need to differentiate on top of it.

Great session John!

John Roskill: US Marketing Corporate Vice President, Microsoft - "Partners in a Software +Services World"

John started off ensuring all the attendees that today at Microsoft, all product teams know that all products need to be web services enabled for the S+S market that our hosting partners deliver! Great start to the presentation, as many in the hosting space still feel we are very Enterprise Centric, which we have been historically and some commented on that but as today hopefully demonstrated, that perception is changing. 

John highlighted that Amazon seen as a competitor with Development and storage (UC2) hosted solutions available today. Also, he reiterated that, given the fact that Google continues to make Google apps and their recent postini integration more full-featured keeps us REALLY focused on making S +S delivered via Microsoft and it's hosting partners the best they can be!

Bob Kelly, Corporate Vice President, Tools and Server Division, Microsoft - "Microsoft Technology Roadmap for Next Gen Hosting"

Bob started off by thanking and reiterating what a Great launch of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. This was due in part as many of the hosting providers and ISV's in attendance were responsible for the over 1800 Windows Server 2008 systems deployed prior to launch! Wow, that is what I call confidence in our latest releases even in beta and release candidates!

In fact, Bob brought our showcase partner, Go Daddy, on stage. Go Daddy was good and briefly spoke to how IIS 7 has improved their offering. Some attendees thought the delivery was a little too defined and scripted but the validation from a great partner like Go Daddy resonated.

Core to our growth in the S+S market is our Virtualization roadmap diversity was very compelling especially to stress management of our many Virtualization solutions such as Application Virtualization (Soft grid), Server Virtualization (Hyper-V), presentation Virtualization (Terminal Services), Desktop Virtualization (Virtual PC), Storage Virtualization (Storage Server, DPM) and management with our System Center Suite, SCVMM. This segment really stressed the overall breadth and depth of a hosted services portfolio that Microsoft can really help our hosting partners deliver rich services to their customers. Demo of Hyper-V management console in definitely got the WOW factor and demonstrated how core Hyper-V to compelling hosted virtualized offering.

Jeremy Cath: Silverlight demo of how Hard Rock uses Silverlight was really demonstrated well when he showcased how Silverlight can show things like John Lennon's rendering of his notes/songs was a BIG hit! How can Dev's at our providers and ISV's enable this type of development in new apps for Windows? EASY. Use Expressions, Silverlight, and Visual Studio and publish it on IIS 7 baby!

Overall, John provided a good overview of platform and finished services. This really shows how and will our S + S partners fit into this. Key to upcoming events are MMS (Microsoft Management Summit), and the Professional Developers Conference (PDC). Could the PDC be formal technical announcement of the release of BPOS? Maybe :)

Greg Urquhart, General Manager, US ISV & National SI Partners, Microsoft - "The ISV Opportunity"

Greg started of by showing some key IDC industry growth and projections data (some that John Zanni had highlighted earlier) that hosted on demand services are key for ISV's to thrive.  He indicated that today, successful ISV's need look past the browser and focus on rich users experiences!

Hyder Ali - Industry Director Next Web and Bryon Surace - Senior Program Manager, Microsoft -  "Virtualization in Hosting using Hyper-V"

Hyder launched this breakout session by showing a slide that highlighted that there is currently massive growth of virtualization in industry. No surprise there, 10% of Microsoft server sales to date are virtualized. I thought at times, we were little aggressive on criticism of VM Ware's design decisions for ESX (specific to the monolithic model, remember VS 2005 uses that model too) but great distinction between technology differences.

Great demo of hyper-v and discussion of differences between quick migration and live migration, and good highlight of how SCVMM can really take Hyper-V to the next level of managing hundreds and thousands of host machines and thousands and tens of thousands of virtual instances.

Just some notes and impressions, take em or leave em :)

- Chris Samson - Senior Hosting Technology Specialist, Microsoft

Last night the Microsoft Hosting Summit kicked out off with a really fun networking event at Lucky Strike Bowling. It was a night of food, fun, and fellowship oh yeah and of course drink. It was an opportunity for many of our hosting partners around the world to compete at something other than hosting for a change. If you have never been to Lucky Strike or don't have one in your city check it out here: Lucky Strike

Today the Summit kicks off with opening keynotes from Martha Bejar Vice President of Microsoft Communications Sector, Worldwide, John Zanni Managing Director of the Hosting Business Unit, Jon Roskill from the US BMO (that's Business and Marketing Organization for you non-Microsofties), Bob Kelly, and Greg Urquhart.

Judging by the agenda this years Summit appears to be heavily focused on Software as a Service/Software+Services.  I'll keep you updated. 

-Tito Leverette

SQL Server 2008 also introduces key new functionality for hosting companies, such as Resource Governor, backup compression, encryption and auditing, policy-based management, and PHP support via the SQL Server Driver for PHP. Our goal is to help organizations manage their information and unlock the power of their data, and we look forward to partnering with hosting companies to gather their feedback.

We are also excited to announce the SQL Server 2008 Hoster Go-Live Program, which provides participants with free licenses and deployment support to run SQL Server 2008 in production environments ahead of general availability later this year.

Below is a photo of Bob Kelly formally announcing SQL Server 2008 Web Edition

- Mark Jewett, Director, SQL Server Marketing

Today at the Hosting Summit, we announced the rebranding of the Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting to Windows Server Hosting Guidance. Based on the latest Microsoft server technologies with Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008, the guidance is comprised of expert advice and scripts for key application and infrastructure technology components that service providers can use when deploying Windows hosting environments. In addition, the guidance includes sample code for provisioning on shared and dedicated hosting, as well as automation support for server imaging and deployment. The Net result is an optimized hosting environment that empowers service providers to achieve their business objectives.

To date, the Windows Server Hosting Guidance has enabled a number of leading hosting providers to deploy Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008. For example, MaximumASP used the guidance to upgrade 15 server computers to the Windows Server 2008 Standard operating system for customers to use and test.

Other key benefits that hosting providers have noticed since deploying Windows Server 2008 with Windows Server Hosting Guidance include:

·         Provisioning. Mosso wanted an easier way to provision and manage its advanced hosting system. By deploying the Windows Web Server 2008 operating system and IIS 7.0, Mosso centralized configuration and simplified network management, reducing infrastructure and labor costs, saving time, and improving its ability to offer enhanced services.

·         Improved performance, security. When Hostbasket wanted to simplify its offerings but still meet customers’ technology needs, it upgraded to Windows Server 2008 Enterprise with IIS 7.0—with plans to eliminate its Linux hosting solution. As a result, Hostbasket is able to optimize security, easily manage IT tasks, and improve performance and reliability.

·         Minimize down time. Due to increased demands on its Web hosting infrastructure, HostMySite.com needed a solution that would minimize downtime while maximizing the number of sites on a single Web farm. With Windows Server 2008, the hoster increased server stability, lowered infrastructure costs, and reduced time spent on administration and diagnostics.

With the competition sporting a new face, a world-class platform along with proven architectural guidance is critical to hosters’ success. To move up the stack and offer customized and value-added solutions, the launch of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 represents an important step forward for hosters. They should take a close look at this technology and use the guidance to deploy as quickly as possible.

Click here for more information about the Windows Server Hosting Guidance.

- Michael van Dijken, Microsoft Hosting Solutions

Mark Adams, Managing Director

Cobweb Solutions Ltd

Q: Who are your customers and what do you do for them?

A: Cobweb have a range of customers from single user pro-sumers to mid market Corporates, with thousands of users. Cobweb have many thousands of customers and we believe we enable our Customers to have a completive advantage by combining the best of Software and understanding what the Service element needs to be.  

Q: What’s your relationship with Microsoft?

A: We are a Microsoft Gold Partner and have a great relationship with Microsoft on many levels, Local, Corporate and technical.

Q: As a partner of Microsoft, what is your view on their S+S strategy?

A: We welcome the evolution of the S+S market. Cobweb have been delivering Hosted Exchange since 2001, and are passionate about the hosted application market, especially for larger SMB’s.  

Q: What challenges does your business face as you continue to grow?

A: No1 is market adoption, we still see a resistance to hosting, server hugging , perceived security worries and sometimes unrealistic appreciation of the cost of running in- house are barriers to S+S No 2 is differentiation from the big players such as Microsoft. I hope that Microsoft do not devalue the S+S offerings by leading on price.

Q: How can Microsoft help and what you would you like to see next?

A: I hope that Microsoft deliver on the vision of Customer choice which for means the Cobweb has a very important place in the market ecosystem. So Microsoft should support Partners with a robust technical roadmap around HMC and beyond and by great marketing support by expanding the market and sharing the knowledge and best practice with key Partners.

So, here we are in Bellevue, WA. It's the time of year again for the WW Hosting Summit. Our groups annual event where we focus on connecting our great community of hosting partners with the exec's and industry leaders who focus on the Software + Services business.

The focus this year will be on how we can help the hosting business to move up the value chain and how we can get our partners to identify new channels to increase their reach. Sounds interesting? I think it's not just interesting but a huge necessity if we look at what's happening in the hosting business today.

The agenda looks very promising with a mix of MS execs and industry peers both from the analyst community and hosting providers it should provide some great insights to the some 300 hosters that will be joining us over the next 3 days.

Personally I'm keen to enage with the small group of dedicated partners in our SaaS Incubation Center program. Since the launch in 2006 this group has slowly expanded and has helped a significant number of ISVs in the move to a Software as a Service business model, especially on the sales and go-to marketing side of their business. The experience has learned us that a fair share of the ISVs are particularly fighting with the marketing and sales challenges of the new business they enter. Since the event is closed and invite only I will continue to post the highlights and findings from the event over the next couple of days. STAY TUNED!

- Pascal Walschots, Software+Services & ISV Enablement, Microsoft Communications Sector