By Simon Quicke
10 July 2008
The main announcements from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston included a challenging keynote from Steve Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, who used his speech to paint a rather mixed view of the future.
He admitted that there was serious competition to dominate the cloud from SaaS competitors but also warned resellers that the future was not yet decided and they had to embrace change.
His speech followed on from the main announcements the vendor had already made around Online Services.
The vendor unveiled a business model that offers a customers a choice of online applications including Exchange, Office Sharepoint, Office Communications and Office Live Meeting available for $15 per user as a package.
Resellers get 12 per cent of the first year contract and then six per cent of the ongoing fee, which totals a potential 18 per cent.
The vendor also outlined a SAM optimisation model that is designed to help customers check their licensing requirements.
The vendor has been urging customers and the channel to pay more attention to licensing, not just as part of its drive to reduce piracy but also to help cut costs for those that are over-licensed.
The other announcement that caught the attention was around the server roadmap with the promise of pricelist for SQL Server 2008 coming out next month and avialibility of Hyper-V.
