Aaron Booker from Varvid.com and Birger Steen from Microsoft spoke about the SMB space and VARs while at WPC 09. Birger is the VP of SMB & Distribution – Worldwide SMS&P. In other words – Birger Steen drives the bus that all the Partners we know are on. GREAT interview. We see Birger “getting it” about the SMB/VAR Partner space in a major way.
Part 1 of our Interview with Birger Steen:
Part 2 of our Interview with Birger Steen:
Prashant Ketkar, the Director of Product Marketing for Windows Azure, speaks with Aaron Booker of Varvid at WPC09. Prashant focused his discussion on how Microsoft Partners can leverage the Azure platform to deliver solutions for their clients. Clearly, the Azure team sees Partners as key to delivering robust solutions – the way they think about billing and their terms of service clearly demonstrate this. Partners can learn more about Azure at: https://partner.microsoft.com/40084702
While at WPC 09, Varvid’s Aaron Booker spoke with John Betz – the Director of Product Management for Microsoft Online Services – about the changes in the Online Services Program and some of the future services that will be coming. Most importantly he spoke about changes to the current BPOS program and how Partners needs are being better addressed. They’re not to the point where partners can directly bill but steps forward have been made.
Part 1 of our Interview with John Betz:
Part 2 of our Interview with John Betz:
Varvid’s Aaron Booker sat down with Chris Bryant of Microsoft at WPC09. Chris is the Group Product Manager for Office. He talked about several of the new features and enhancements for Office 2010 including the tighter integration between the desktop client, browser and mobile devices. Users can enjoy all the benefits of Office Web Apps no matter what platform or device they are using. The strongest message he shared is that Office is now a robust solution on the PC, on the phone, and on the web. They are specifically building Office 2010 Web for Firefox, IE, and Safari.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Aaron Booker from Varvid speaks with Alex Huart who is a Microsoft Gold Partner and Small Business Specialist with offices in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg (http://www.ordin-ere.com) . Alex is pretty fired up about Windows 7 and the opportunity he sees in the coming year for his business.
Here are some pictures from interviews we did today. We interviewed several Microsoft partners and their clients about their experiences with Windows 7.
We also sat down with John Betz, Director – Product Management for Microsoft Online Services and learned some of the new enhancements to the Business Productivity Online Suite.
We also talked to Chris Bryant, Group Product Manager, Office about some of the new features coming in Office 2010 and the integration between the desktop, browser and mobile devices.
To see all the pictures from today: http://www.flickr.com/photos/varvid/sets/72157621397612786/
The New York Times this morning has an insightful article about Google’s new Chrome Operating System (now more than a browser!). Google is thinking that a netbook optimized OS will be successful for them, and that’s what Chrome is. The browser will be the OS, the OS will be the browser.
Well worth reading – the key issue with this whole move into operating systems is well stated by the reporter – “But while Google has deep pockets and a vast reach, it is in for a difficult battle when it comes to challenging Microsoft in the operating system market. Many companies have tried this over the years, with little success.”
Big move by Google. It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out. To date, Android (despite early and considerable hype) isn’t exactly taking the mobile marketplace by storm. Google is facing Win7 and possibly some sort of Mac tablet/netbook as well as other linux distributions. I haven’t run Win7 on a netbook yet, but it’s AWESOME in Fusion on my Macbook Pro, so I expect it’ll perform amazingly well on netbook hardware. (Win7 is faster than XP Pro was in my virtual machine)
I think that Win7 is really going to surprise a lot of people – it’s got all the advantages of Vista, but the speed is what is most impressive. The other killer feature is that this OS speed is combined with true and fast universal search. The reason I live in Fusion instead of the Mac natively is because the built in search in Vista/Win7 is so excellent. Spotlight on the Mac was first to market but hasn’t improved much since in my opinion. For a couple of years, I’ve opened all my applications by searching for them – ie “Word” instead of fumbling around in Programs, Microsoft Office, etc…
Watch here at Varvid.com next week for video coverage of Win7 from Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference. We think that Win7 is the biggest story of the coming year for Solution Providers, so we’re focusing on it at WPC. In our opinion, Win7 is ready for primetime today - and it’s still a release candidate…
Update – looks like we’re not the only people who see this OS the same way – Ed Molzen over at ChannelWeb says much the same…
Dave Sobel spoke with Aaron Booker from Varvid about why Microsoft Partners should attend and engage with the annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. It’s the largest event of the year for Partners of Microsoft, so it’s a great place to meet Microsoft, but also to meet other Microsoft Partners. He posted recently in his blog about the sessions he’ll be presenting on at WPC.
Dave Sobel runs a solution provider in Washington DC – Evolve Technologies. Dave’s company has a strong practice in Virtualization and has literally written the book on SMB Virtualization. You can learn more about SMB Virtualization at: http://smbvirtualization.net
If you can’t attend WPC in person – you can follow Varvid.com for video highlights from WPC – and keep an eye on http://www.digitalwpc.com for all things WPC.
Aaron Booker from Varvid catches up with Erik Thorsell of Success Computing after the Twin Cities TechPulse. As a Microsoft Gold Solution Provider in Minneapolis, Erik explains the value of attending Microsoft’s WorldWide Partner Conference. (Held this year in New Orleans). If you’re a Microsoft Partner – you can learn more about WPC at Digital WPC – http://digitalwpc.com
