THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

It's interesting to see what I'm going to call the "Houston" effect.

There was definitely a weird "buzz" with this conference from the outside.

Joe Wilcox is saying that Partners were considering it an extinction event - http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/channel/microsofts_extention_level_event.html

Vlad and others are getting beat up for not being accountable  - http://www.vladville.com/2008/07/i-think-ive-strained-my-blogging-muscle.html#comment-34860 (and for the record Vlad is a MVP already and it sure doesn't stop him from the graphical image stuff)

And finally, Gartner says any site under 1,000 seats needs to go to hosted email - http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/07/02/231325/gartner-says-webmail-cuts-costs-for-smes.htm

And me out here in the sticks and being a business decision maker can see both sides.  For the business owner, for SOME FIRMS (not all) I can see that taking Exchange out of the network means that you can get away with lesser equipment.  Exchange 2007 is 64bit,  It needs good ram/muscle.  A real "Oferized" server for sure.  But I cannot agree with Gartner's blanket statement that anyone with 1,000 users and below need to pack up our email (or any other key business task for that matter) lock stock and barrel and hand to a hosting company.  Sorry, I ain't buying that it's the best fit for all of us in the SMB arena.  Gartner is reacting to the march to the cloud.

What I do see is that Microsoft sees that the partner model isn't working for them like they want it to be.  For all that Microsoft touts how large the small business marketplace is, I know that the partner model will not be the way to reach some of the "target markets" that they want to reach.  Costco isn't the largest seller of toilet paper and gas for nothin' folks.  In addition, my opinion is that Microsoft and other hosted players see/know that on premises servers means that the customer doesn't upgrade, thus why all these hosted players are pushing how great the cloud is because it's in their best interests to say how wonderful it is.  I'm guessing that they are also pushing pencils and thinking hosted will be cheaper for them to support.

I'll be brutally honest and say that there are some consultants (and I'll used the word lightly) that should not be touching a server.  Or a workstation for that matter.  They do need to lose their jobs and relearn something.  But then there are those trusted advisors that need to specialize and "boutique-ify" just as those of us in the accounting industry have done over the years with the impact of efiling, tax software and what not.  If you think my firm does tax returns all day long, guess again.  That's not what my firm specializes in at all. 

Will the future of the IT industry be a bunch of consultants that barely know what a router is but know the ins and out of business and workflows as Schrag commented?  I can't predict that.  I honestly don't think that will happen.  But I do think that the culling out of folks that shouldn't be touching servers is good for the ultimate consumer of technology. 

But in fairness to Vlad and in response to the poster on his blog who said.... "Vlad, Mark, Chris, MVPs, PALs, you need to be accountable to this community if you are going to keep on asking us to go to your conferences, buy your books, listen to your podcasts, subscribe to your services. Support needs to be mutual and we need some answers. Doubt we’ll see them.

It is nice to know nobody is really representing SBSC consultant interests to Microsoft. Way to go crowd!"

Let me tell you a little bit about being in "this side" where you do yell, you do give feedback, you do ask for change and sometimes the answer you get back is "by design, that's how it's going to be". 

The other day I saw a press release on a Company that received "Partner of the year" and I was thinking it would be a var/vap type of partner.  So I read the blurb about Sonic solutions and realized that the "Partner" was someone that I consider to be an OEM vendor.  Not exactly what I consider to be a "partner".  At the end of the day Microsoft is no better or worse than any other company... it's a business that makes business decisions.  And sometimes those decisions they make decisions that put their partners above their own customers to benefit those "Partners", and then there are those times that Microsoft benefits their customers over their "Partners".

So to Mr. Anonymous, yes, the SBSC consultant interest IS being represented to Microsoft.  But just keep in mind that feedback may not be where they want to be as a company.  Sometimes that feedback is accepted, filed away and the answer is 'Thank you, but that's "By design".'

The key here is that software as a service is here, and regardless of my personal lack of interest in it and thoughts that it's not right for my firm and my clients that currently have on premises email servers, as it does not serve the security and retention needs that they have, some of your clients WILL be interested... so what are YOU going to do about it?  Don't ask what Mark, Chris, Vlad and Karl are going to do, what business plans do you have to embrace, deal, integrate, with changes in the industry?  Industries have to deal with change.  IT just happens to deal with change a heck of a lot more often.