Category: Uncategorized

Facebook effect

When I give presentations to technology types I am always amazed at how many have never heard of docs.com. Docs.com is a collaboration between Microsoft and Facebook to allow the creation (using Microsoft Office Web Apps) and the sharing (using Facebook) of these Office documents for FREE. To get an idea have a look at my docs.com stuff at:

http://docs.com/@ciaops

Why would Microsoft want to do this you may ask? Firstly, most ‘younger’ people don’t use desktop applications anymore to create documents they use ‘cloud’ based alternatives. Microsoft realized that if it didn’t provide something to keep these people using Microsoft products they would lose them forever and potentially forgo future revenue as they moved into business and continued to use the same non-Microsoft ‘cloud’ products they use now.

Secondly, Facebook is really starting to become a very powerful feature of the technology landscape. Like it or not it is perceived as the place to be these days. This is further evidenced by the recent high profile defection of Lars Rasmussen (of Google Maps and Wave fame) and Kate Vale (Google’s first employee in Australia) to Facebook. You can read about these moves here:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/why-i-quit-google-to-join-facebook-lars-rasmussen-20101101-1799q.html 

and

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/giant-flaw-pair-put-finger-on-google-brain-drain-20101101-179mk.html

Microsoft already owns a small percentage of Facebook and that is looking like a smarter and smarter move every day as Facebook continue to vacuum up all sorts of technology companies as it seeks to continue to grow and monetize its more than 500 million users.

Here is another interesting article “Google: The Search party is over” which details how Google is not only facing maturity in its major product (search), but also a brain drain to ‘hipper’ companies like Facebook. A few years back people considered Google untouchable, oh how times change eh?

All this makes for interesting reading and seems to indicate the way forward at this stage will involve Facebook. I would say that if you are pondering the ‘cloud’ then I think you should take a look at what docs.com (and Facebook) can do and where it may fit, because if you aren’t I’ll bet your customers and competitors are.

Need to Know podcast – Episode 8

The next CIAOPS Need to Know podcast (Episode 8) with Richard Tubb from Jamescash.co.uk.

 

The details of the podcast are:

 

http://www.ciaops.com/n2k – Episode 8 = 55MB (58 mins)

 

or via direct download:

 

http://bit.ly/cia-n2k8

 

Richard and I discuss the challenges of merging a technology business and how to use social media successfully.

 

So let me know what you think and if you are interested on being on the show please also contact me (director@ciaops.com) as I am always looking for people to talk about business and technology.

 

Stay tuned as there plenty of great episodes coming real soon.

Never say die

Your Office365 business model


Chris Knight left a comment on my recent post about why I am positive on Office365. His major points are that firstly, here in Australia, BPOS (and Office365) is sold through our largest Telco (Telstra). They are aggressively going after service business including your clients. No arguments there. Secondly, there is virtually no margin in BPOS for resellers. Again, no argument. This is EXACTLY why I love resellers when it comes to BPOS, they have a restricted business model when it comes to online services.

Here in Australia we know that Telstra is the 600 pound gorilla when it comes to BPOS. So many resellers I see are hell bent on opposing the gorilla. My approach is, they are the only game in town and I have to deal with that. In my books it is better to ride the gorilla than try and fight it. Sure, I might get some bruises and scratches but it is going to be a hell of lot less than if I tried to fight it. Wouldn’t a smarter thing be to team up with Telstra and offer skills and services they lack? Wouldn’t be smarter to leverage their sales teams to do the lead generation for you? Telcos are good at selling phones and are looking for IT people to help them sell technology to customers. If you were a smart operator you’d seek out these relationships to help build your online business. I know I am. The interesting to note here is that there is only a limited amount of these relationships available so those that choose to ride the gorilla are going to reap the benefits I believe.

By far the biggest sticking point for resellers is the lack of margin on BPOS. Couldn’t agree more. Can you change that? Nope. So why focus on it? I believe the major revenue stream with BPOS and ‘cloud computing’ is what it has always been – SERVICES. Customers still need IT Professionals to set up, configure, architect and support technology solutions no matter where they ultimately reside. The only way that your business will make money from selling product is to sell lots and lots of it no matter whether it is infrastructure or online services. I know that is a game I can’t play so that’s why I focus on SERVICES.

For many, including myself, this means a change of business model but in this game if you don’t change you die. The resistance of most traditional resellers to move to some form of cloud strategy is creating a gap in the market that is allowing competitors to enter and potentially steal business. These new competitors probably don’t have the experience, knowledge or professionalism that existing resellers have but guess what? They are still going to win business. Why? Rightly or wrongly customers want ‘cloud’ computing because it is being portrayed as saving them money. No matter whether that is correct it is what the customer perceives that matters.

Let me give you an example of a service opportunity in relation of Office365 I see. From my understanding the small business edition of Office365 will come with 3 web sites, an intranet, an extranet and a public facing website. Guess what? They’ll all be provided on SharePoint 2010. Most customers will probably need these to be configured, customized and managed because they won’t have the time or the knowledge. To me that means SERVICES revenue and I’m sure the same applies across all the other Office365 products.

As I have said before, it warms the cockles of my heart to hear resellers focus on dealing with telcos and how little margin there is in selling online services for I know they still don’t ‘get it’. You can’t expect to go into the world of online services with the same business model (no matter how well it worked previously). You have to change, adapt and overcome. This will mean making hard decisions, that in the short term may be quite painful. However, as a business person I encourage you NOT to take these, keep doing business the way you have been doing things and leave this ‘cloud stuff’ to me.

Office365

Recently Microsoft announced an upgrade to BPOS. It is being revamped and renamed to Office 365. If you haven’t seen the announcement then it is worthwhile taking a look.

http://www.microsoft.com:80/presspass/presskits/office//videoGallery.aspx?contentID=office365_announce&WT.z_convert=Share

I think that this a major step forward for the product. I continually hear resellers criticize BPOS, pointing to all its failing and I have no argument with the fact that it is far from perfect. Most of these people are comparing to mature on-site technologies like Small Business Server (SBS). They are overlooking the fact that the online offerings from Microsoft are still version 1 (maybe even still beta realistically). To be truly fair you should be comparing to SBS 4.0 rather than SBS 2008.

The other thing that I find most interesting about these people’s attitudes is how they don’t realize how short sighted they are being. They continue to pick apart Microsoft online offerings, pointing to how it doesn’t do this, how it doesn’t do that and how the products they use are so much better.

Let’s come at this from another angle. Let me ask you this question – who wouldn’t want to be able to offer more product options to their customers? Who wouldn’t want to be able to offer more product options to prospects? Hmmmm…I think most ‘business’ people would certainly welcome more product options in their suite.

Let’s assume that you do a great job for your clients and their technology. Let’s assume that all your peers also do stellar work for their clients. Great. Does that cover every potential business using technology out there? Hardly. It probably represents some minute fraction of the potential market. What happens when a new prospect, who already has a cloud solution, comes to you seeking your services? Are you going to turn them away because you don’t do ‘cloud’? Are you going to tell them they have to dump the ‘cloud’ and go back to implementing infrastructure on premises?

I certainly hope you are. Why? Because it means more market share for me. I run a business and if you can’t services these clients then I am happy to do so no matter where they are. Yes, you read right – no matter where they are. I can achieve this with ‘cloud’ services can I not?

I’ll have plenty to say about Office365 in upcoming posts but I’m on board because I know it is only going to improve. The jump from BPOS to Office365 proves that, imagine what the next improvement will be? I can hardly wait to get my teeth into Office 365 and start offering it to clients AND prospects. Office365 is simply another ‘product’ that you can make money around. If you are not prepared to do so someone else certainly will (but if you send them my way I’ll pay you a finders fee at least).

SharePoint Guide discount code

Even though I’ve now returned from SMBNation I’ve decided to extend the discount on my SharePoint Operations Guide (www.wssops.com) for a little while longer. To get a 10% discount via the SMB Books site use the following details:

 

URL = http://www.smbbooks.com/browse-smb-books/item/84-windows-sharepoint-operations-guide.html

 

Checkout code = tour2010

 

I’ll also let you know that after some discussions I am now working on a few new products for the guide. One example will be a book on ‘5 essential SharePoint projects’. This will take you step by step through a range of SharePoint customization projects that can be applied to any SharePoint site. If you are a Guide subscriber you’ll get these for free as part of your subscription. Otherwise they’ll be a separate purchase.

 

Remember, if you have any questions about my SharePoint Guide or suggestions about what you would like to see please contact me (director@ciaops.com). Also the above code is only valid for a short time, so if you have been thinking about getting the guide now is the time!

Need to Know Podcast – Episode 7

The next CIAOPS Need to Know podcast (Episode 7) with Vlad Mazek from OwnWebNow.

 

The details of the podcast are:

 

http://www.ciaops.com/n2k – Episode 7 = 65MB (70 mins)

 

or via direct download:

 

http://bit.ly/cia-n2k7

 

Vlad and I discuss cloud technology and where business is headed for the SMB.

 

So let me know what you think and if you are interested on being on the show please also contact me (director@ciaops.com) as I am always looking for people to talk about business and technology.

 

Stay tuned as there plenty of great episodes coming real soon.

Office Web Apps and SBS 7

It seems that there are issues when you try and install Office Web Apps onto SBS 7. In many cases it breaks the remote functionality in SBS. Damm. The solution is an apparent upcoming white paper from Microsoft that explains what you need to do.

 

Now I haven’t seen the white paper and have no idea when we are likely to see it but I am disappointed that this is happening. I know it is beta code and early in the product cycle but surely on of the major reasons to want SharePoint 2010 in the SMB space is to have the ability to install Office Web Apps.

 

As I said in a previous post I was seeing issues around Search Server Express 2010 and Office Web Apps on SBS 7 and that wasn’t good. In my opinion both of these products should seamlessly install on SBS 7 and I would even suggest that Search Server Express 2010 should be included on SBS 7 by default.

 

Alas, not the case. I’ll keep you updated with what I find now I am getting back into the swing of things but at this stage WAIT for the white paper from Microsoft on how to successfully install Office Web Apps on SBS 7.