Why Microsoft Should “Go All In” – Takeaways from the 2014 Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference (WPC)

Juan Nassiff and I attended WPC in Washington, DC last week. We were there to find out about the latest in Microsoft application development, mobile development, business intelligence, and big data. WPC did not disappoint.

Microsoft’s tagline for its new strategy is “Cloud first, Mobile first”. This message was emphasized in every session we attended.

Microsoft is pushing cloud and Azure big time.  They have also recognized that cloud and mobile is the way the industry is going, and they are jumping on board. This reminds me of IBM in the 80’s and 90’s. IBM would often see how the industry was going and try to get in front of it. The IBM PC is one example.

Although Microsoft may be trying to play catch up with Amazon and Google in the cloud game, they seem well positioned to do so. They have some distinct advantages. With Office and now Office 365, they have the most popular office productivity software in the world. I bought a subscription a few months ago and love having Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on my iPad when I travel. I can install it on 5 devices (I also have it on my MacBook Air and my Windows laptop) and get 1TB of cloud storage per user.

SQL Server is one of the top three database management systems, way ahead of all the others. The new 2014 release is supposed to have some impressive performance improvements. This should be a big plus for the push Microsoft is putting behind Business Intelligence and Big Data.

The size and scale of what Microsoft has built and is building is impressive. They are committed. (Microsoft’s Cloud Infrastructure)

Although Juan and I spent most of our time in Application Development, Mobile Development, Business Intelligence, and Big Data sessions, we did get to see a little bit of the new Azure. They have done a good job in allowing you to quickly stand up virtual machines in Hyper-V and SQL Server instances. You can create Linux or Windows virtual machines. I was, however, disappointed that you can’t use VMWare with Azure for virtual machines.

This continues to be a problem for Microsoft. They put their toe in the water, but don’t go all the way in. I know they are confident in Hyper-V, but business users should have a choice to mix and match. Microsoft, go all in and open Azure up to all technologies and combinations.

Another example of this is the inability to use other cloud storage providers like Google and Dropbox with Office products like Word on the iPad. You can work around it be moving the files you need to work with to OneDrive, but that’s such a pain. Microsoft, go all in and open it up! If you want to be the biggest, greatest player in the cloud marketplace, open everything up to all technologies and integrate with all cloud providers. And while you’re at it, can you simplify all the pricing options?

All in all, though, I was very impressed with what Microsoft is doing with its cloud offerings and the direction in which they’re headed. I am hoping they will deliver on the nice marketing strategy they have put together.