Day 2, July 14th 2014: LIVE UPDATE FROM Washington at the Microsoft World Partner Conference

 Hi All,

Today at the WPC in Washington is the day with very inspiring keynotes and break out sessions. JCC Consultancy brings you live update on this event. I personally was looking forward to Kevin Turners keynote and once again he pulled it off by presenting in a very inspiring and energetic way.

Enjoy my blog and follow me via this blogsite or follow me on Twitter @jeanclaudechan

If you have any questions or comment, please mail me to info@jccconsultancy.com

Have a good one.

Jean-Claude Chan

KEYNOTE

Microsoft Vice president Partner Group worldwide, Phil Sorgen kicked the Keynote off by telling that Microsoft is still a partner first organization and that Microsoft is going to work more closely with partners worldwide. Microsoft is changing and the world and partners are also moving. This year over 14.000 partners attend this event and FY14 was a very very very good year for Microsoft and that is thanks to all efforts from Microsoft partners worldwide. The focus for FY15 will be selling more productivity solutions such as Office 365 , Office , Windows and more investments in Azure.

So topics for FY 15 will be :

• Big data
• Cloud
• Social
• Mobile
• Security

Scott Guthrie presented the new vision on Windows Azure and telling that Microsoft expanded their worldwide datacenter for Windows Azure. There are going to be 17 regions where Microsoft Azure datacenter will be worldwide. Each Azure region consists of 60.000 servers. Scott also informed the attendees that one of the focus point on Azure will be the SharePoint server farm module and the Machine learning module.

Scott also show why Azure is becoming more and more important for Microsoft , PARTNERS and Customers.

Some very interesting figures and facts regarding Windows Azure are :

• Over 57% of Fortune 500 use Azure
• 300.000 active websites are build and running on Azure
• More than 1000.000 SQL databases are used  in Azure
• More than 300 milliOn Active AD users
• More than 1.65 million developers are registered with Visual Studio Online

Power BI, Business Intelligence is becoming more and more important and is integrated with Office 365 and can be integrated with for example Salesforce.

NEW Cloud competence per september 2014

Gavriella Schuster , General Manager World Wide partner program,presented the new Microsoft Cloud Perfomance Path Competencies for Office 365 and Azure which will be effectiv September 29 this year. This competence will show how man Cloud solutions they will sell on Office 365 en Azure.

KEVIN TURNER with Thriving in a Mobile First and Cloud First world

Kevin speech was very energetic and inspiring. He gave Microsoft vision on the Mobile fIRST and Cloud first world. Microsoft has a new ambition and that is to become the Productivy and Platform company for the Mobile first and Cloud first world. This means that Microsoft wants to invent producitivity and mobile applications and solutions from one Cloud platform. The world is changing and in 2020 over 220 billion hardware will be connected with each other.

Because the world is changing so fast, it means that Microsoft partners also have to change. They have to disruptiv, to be differentiating from the competition and they have to change fast. They have to introduce new propositions and if it does not work, they have to change their strategy very fast into a new one.

For partners worlwide there are major opportunities for them to grow in terms of Cloud, Mobility, Social, Big data & BI.

    

Video made by Yahoo between the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 versus I-pad.

JCC Consultancy meeting with New businesss partners

Between the keynotes, break-out sessions, JCC Consultancy today was also involved with the First Time Attendees lunch as Mentor and facilitator of this lunch.

I met up with the following Microsoft partners to discuss new business opportunities:

• Lee Walker, International Channel Sales Manager from E-Share.eShare was established in 2004 as the leading provider of governance software and currently supplies software to over 300 clients in the UK and overseas, including some top brand names such as Barclays, Bank of England, Michelin, Ernst and Young, Diageo, Vauxhall, Heinz and Legal and General.The company has grown considerably since this time and now boasts over 3,500 users; across the Pensions Industry, NHS Trusts, Charities and Investment Management Funds, among others. Overseas markets have already been established in the Netherlands, Australia and South Africa.

From left to right

• Matt Searfoss, CTO from SA IT services from Atlanta USA. Customers rely on SA to implement solutions that optimize their IT environments and maximize their return on technology investments. Whether a strategy is to go full public cloud, private cloud or a hybrid solution, you need a partner who understands corporate data center environments, virtualization, cloud migration and management of your mixed environment. In addition, you want a partner with the experience to identify and mitigate risks associated with IT projects. SA is that partner– and helping customers take full advantage of their technology investments is what they are all about. website: http://www.saitservices.com
• Paul Lemon , Business Development Manager from EQUINITI. Equiniti ICS is one of the fastest growing IT software and services companies in the UK and Ireland.With over 95% client retention, they deliver value added solutions to our clients, driving positive transformation of key functions including HR, IT, finance, operations and sales.The Equiniti Group is the fourth largest business services provider in the UK. It was formed in 2010 by combining the resources and expertise of two businesses: Xafinity and Equiniti. website: http://www.equiniti-ics.com
• Freda Valassakis, Account Executive from Dialog Information Technology from Australia. Dialog is Australia’s leading privately owned information technology services organisation employing over 1,000 consulting staff nationwide.Dialog’s services range from strategic IT consulting through full lifecycle application development and managed application services to long-term operational support.Dialog’s subsidiary companies provide complementary products and specialist services.Established in 1979, Dialog has delivered innovative solutions to clients across all industries including all levels of government. website: http://www.dialog.com.au

• Eric Rabinowitz, partner from Nurture Marketing USA.

  Good things happen with Nurture Marketing.

  • Build lasting relationships.
  • Become top-of-mind with prospects.
  • Be there when your customers are ready to buy. http://www.nurturemarketing.com/about/philosophy

JCC Consultancy meets Microsoft Canada

Eventually i met up with Brian Miller who is Senior Partner Channel Development Manager for the Non managed SMB PARTNERS in Canada. Brian talked to me about their challenges in the Canadian market in terms of Microsoft non managed partners and does see possibilities to work with JCC Consultancy in FY15. We take it from there and keep you posted on this.