Eddie amos on Software plus services vision for hosters

Now on stage in the Bellevue Westin at the MS Hosting Summit is Eddie Amos, Server and Tools business.

Balancing capex and opex is the reality of many business when it comes to investing in IT. Mixing on-premise with online services leads into the software plus services model. He’s having some good examples of how the enterprise is mixing their on-premise software with services like off loading payroll to ADP.

Eddie is giving a great update on the many things we already do but apparently have kept way to secret. Good to see that BizSpark finds quite some people to raise their hand as one they know about.

Software plus Services has reached a point where the hype seems to have passed and most of our customers and competitors now embrace, still in their own wording and models, but it’s clear that just cloud or just on-prem are not the way forward.

Partners are front and center in the S+S strategy and vision. It has been proven that partners drive the innovation curve faster and more agile, which is key to the overall success of the partnership.

Another element of the success moving forward is choice and interoperability. On top of Windows Server and Windows Azure with .net and php the key is to provide industry standard connectivity through SOAP, REST and XML.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR HOSTERS

Windows Server and Windows Azure provide an opportunity for Hosters. Windows Azure can become a part of the set of services Hosters can use and add to their datacenter based set of services. Use Windows Azure to offload certain workstreams with a different economic model. The message is mix and match to provide your customers choice.

More details on Windows Azure at the World Wide Partner Conference in July this year. Stay tuned.