What I Learned at Microsoft Hosting Days
by Chris Day @ Fully Managed™ Posted 1 year ago
I spent the day at the beautiful Loews Hotel Vogue in Montreal, QC for Microsoft Hosting Days. The room was filled with a variety of Microsoft partners including VARs, ISVs, Hosting Providers and System Integrators (see photos). Here are a few of the most interesting points presented by Rob Kent from Microsoft:
- There is a difference between how Information Technology is sold and how hosting is sold. The traditional hosting sale is going the way of the dodo bird since "box-pusher" style dedicated hosting has very much become a commodity.
- To be a leader, you need to automate the delivery platform to reduce cost and layer value-added services to increase margins.You need to be able to provide significant value above and beyond basic hosting to attract new clients and retain existing clients.
- Microsoft is well poised to be a leader in Enterprise IT platform hosting. It's not about who hosts more websites or page requests, it's about who runs more businesses and IT departments.
- Cloud computing isn't going away, but cloud services need to be managed to be useful. Likewise, managed services without cloud computing will have a tough time keeping costs down. We fully embrace this challenge, it's all about driving true value to the client.
- For 2009, 55% of SMBs said IT is critical to their business. This is up a staggering 20% from 2008. With IT becoming a critical sub-component to any business, it's no surprise that robust computing environments need to be considered: enter the cloud.
- It is estimated that today approximately 65% of SMBs are already leveraging hosted services. This number is anticipated to be 100% by 2012.
- In the end, it is likely that each business will subscribe to several cloud services - a one-stop shop is unlikely - the challenge is embracing it and learning to work with other service providers and system integrators to provide a great end-to-end solution for your client.
Overall, the day was extremely valuable and I learned a lot. It was a great opportunity to meet some of the Microsoft people we've been meeting / speaking with in person. I opted for the Business Track and ended up reinforcing a number of thoughts I'd been having recently about the evolution (or revolution) of "The Cloud" and hosting services in general.
