SPECIAL Offer 12-16 January: This week only, save up to $1,000 on Microsoft World Partner Conference in Orlando 2015

Hi everyone,

For Microsoft partners, whether you are a managed or a non managed partner and wherever you are located, this offer can be interesting for you.

Hope to see you there in Orlando.

Follow me on twitter:@jeanclaudechan or connect via Linkedin: jean.claude.chan@jccconsultancy.com

Have a good one.

Jean-Claude Chan

WPC Orlando 2015: This week only! Refer a friend to #wpc15 & earn up to $1,000 in your all-access pass discount! http://msftca.it/vV19ct

This week only, save up to $1,000 on WPC 2015.

That’s right, partners: we’re offering all of you a weeklong promotion on referrals to WPC 2015. From January 12-16 only, for each person you refer to register for WPC, you receive US$100 off your registration price—and you get this refund for up to ten referrals, meaning you can save up to US$1,000 on attending Microsoft’s largest partner event!

There’s more: each person referred also receives a US$100 discount, so they’ll only pay US$1,695 for their all-access pass. Get the full details about this incredible opportunity here.

Join us for WPC 2015 in Orlando, Florida from July 12-16, 2015 for unparalleled networking opportunities, business building thought leadership, and the chance to hear insights from the leaders, innovators, and visionaries of our industry. For a limited time only, you can purchase your all access pass for only US$1,795.

Terms and Conditions

• One all-access pass may be purchased per person.
• Pre-purchased passes to WPC 2015 cannot be resold.
• We reserve the right to rescind the pass at any time.

You may expect to receive additional communication from wwpartnerconference@microsoft.crgevents.com and/or mswpc@microsoft.com.

Important voor Microsoft partners in Canada: Earn partner subsidy dollars when you purchase qualifying eligible licenses of Windows Server (Standard and Datacenter), SQL Server (Standard and Enterprise), Office 365 and Azure

Hi All,

For Microsoft Partner  in Canada and their customers i think this is very interesting for all of you to take a look at and if possible claim your money back from Microsoft.

Earn partner subsidy dollars when you purchase qualifying eligible licenses of Windows Server (Standard and Datacenter), SQL Server (Standard and Enterprise), Office 365 and Azure as outlined in the appendix.

Taking advantage of this offer is simple:

1. Purchase eligible licenses of Windows Server (Standard and Datacenter), SQL Server (Standard and Enterprise), Office 365 and Azure as outlined in the tables above.
2. Submit your claim within 30 days of purchase.
3. Microsoft will validate your claim and send a cheque to you in the mail!

Offer valid from September 2 – November 30, 2014. Conditions apply. Please read the Terms and Conditions. For qualification and redemption questions please contact CloudReady@microsoft.com.

Good luck and hope your business will be great in the last quarter of 2014!

Have a good one. If you have a question mail me on jean.claude.chan@jccconsultancy.com or follow me on twitter @jeanclaudechan or Linkedin via jean.claude.chan@jccconsultancy.com

Jean-Claude Chan

Click on the following link for an overview how to claim your money:

Overview Earn partner subsidy dollars when you purchase qualifying eligible licenses of Windows Server (Standard and Datacenter), SQL Server (Standard and Enterprise), Office 365 and Azure as outlined in the tables below.

For more information go and visit : http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/web/cloud-ready/

 

 

The Rise of Microsoft Productivity and Platform organization in A Cloud and mobile -first world

Hi All,

Last week at the WPC in Washington, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella presented his keynote and profiling Microsoft new strategy which is to make Microsoft a productivitiy and platform organization ready for the mobile and cloud first world. And Satya nailed it, because if you are looking at the latest sales figures, you can clearly see that Microsoft is heading the right cloud way and on the way to beat Amazon Cloud Services and maybe also Google.

The main question on the long term is : who will be the master of the cloud: Amazon, Google or Microsoft. I will put my bet on the last one.

A nice article written by Juan Carlos Perez show these figures and facts:

Strong sales of cloud products to businesses helped lift Microsoft’s revenue by 18 percent last quarter, though its profits declined.

Revenue for the quarter ended June 30 was $23.4 billion, up from $19.9 billion last year and ahead of the consensus analyst estimate of $23 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.

The revenue figure includes $2 billion from the Nokia Devices and Services business that Microsoft acquired. That deal closed 25 days after the start of the quarter.

Net income was $4.6 billion, or $0.55 per share, down from $4.9 billion, or $0.59 per share, a year earlier, and 5 cents below the Wall Street analysts’ consensus expectation. On a per-share basis, profit was down 7 percent year over year, including an $0.08 loss from the Nokia business.

“I’m proud of the results we delivered this quarter and across the fiscal year,” CEO Satya Nadella said during a conference call to discuss the earnings report.

Nadella said commercial cloud revenue grew almost 150 percent year over year to a $4.4 billion annual run rate, driven primarily by sales of Office 365, the Azure Infrastructure- and Platform-as-a-Service products and Dynamics CRM Online. Microsoft is switching its focus to selling more cloud services and away from on-premises software.

The Devices & Consumer Division grew its revenue 42 percent to $10 billion, including the $2 billion from Nokia phone hardware.

Meanwhile, the Commercial Division saw its revenue grow 11 percent to $13.5 billion.

The results for the quarter — the fourth of Microsoft’s fiscal year — don’t include any impact from the 18,000 job cuts Microsoft announced last week and which will be carried out over the next 12 months.

In the new fiscal year, which started July 1, Microsoft expects pre-tax costs from the layoffs in the range of $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion. The layoffs, amounting to about 14 percent of the company’s staff, are the largest in Microsoft’s history. The majority will come from Microsoft’s recently acquired Nokia business.

The Surface Pro 3 started shipping in late June and sales are outpacing earlier versions. Microsoft positions it as a device that can double as a tablet and a laptop. The Surface Pro 3’s geographic availability will be broadened this summer, according to CFO Amy Hood.

She added that a new “form factor” that was in the works has been scrapped, likely referring to a smaller tablet that was widely rumored to be in development.

Sales of on-premises server and system management products like SQL Server and System Center grew 6 percent to $11.22 billion, while Windows volume licensing revenue climbed 11 percent.

The Bing search engine has been growing its usage and search ad revenue and is expected to become profitable in fiscal year 2016, Nadella said. That starts next July.

Regarding Windows, Nadella said its next major version — known informally as Windows 9 — will be a “single, converged” OS for “screens of all sizes.”

“We will unify our stores, commerce and developer platforms to drive a more coherent user experience and a broader developer opportunity,” he said.

He was basically reiterating Microsoft’s strategy to simplify development of Windows apps, in order to draw more developers and grow the apps collection for the Windows 8.1 “Modern” interface, which is based on tiles and optimized for touch.

He didn’t say when the new version of Windows will ship but added that details will be provided in the coming months.

Follow me on twitter @jeanclaudechan or mail me info@jccconsultancy.com for any questions.

Jean-Claude Chan

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.

One week to go: JCC Consultancy will bring you live news/ updates during the Microsoft World Partner Conference in Washington DC from July 13 till July 17th

Hi followers and Microsoft non managed partners worldwide,

The summer holiday is about to start in a week or two and so is the Microsoft World Partner Conference WPC) in Washington D.C.

This is event will take place from July 13th till July 17th and over 15.000 partners from all over the world will attend this event and over 7000 partners will watch this event from a distant or at home.

We will bring you live updates/ news on this event like we did at the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas last March

JCC Consultancy will be there ofcourse and bring you live updates/ news on the keynotes, break out sessions during these period. You can follow me on TWITTER @jeanclaudechan or via this portal site http://www.jcccloud.com and follow me.

If you are a Microsoft non managed partner, you can also connect me to Linkedin via jean.claude.chan@jccconsultancy.com or become a member of our special linkedin group ICMNM PARTNERS ( International Community for Microsoft Non Managed Partners).

As I mentioned before in my previous blog 2 weeks ago,   I will solely attend Executive sessions and keynotes like I did at the SharePoint Conference last March in Las Vegas and I will live share the information I am collecting at these sessions. For more information on the SharePoint events and blogs take a look here.

So how does the event agenda looks like

For those who are following me via this blogsite or twitter, below is how my agenda will look like during the SharePoint event and what I will be doing during the stay.

This year as an attendee you can participate in many different kind of areas and interest.

• Big data
• Business leadership
• Cloud
• Emerging leaders
• Enterprise social
• ISV discussions
• Mobility & Devices
• MPN Portal
• Open Source
• Public Sector
• Sales & Marketing

During this events and days, I will keep you updated with the latest information I will collect during the Executive/ keynoteS, Business leadership, Mobility & Devices, Cloud and Sales & Marketing sessions which I will attend.

As I said before, this site is really interesting for Owners or C-level members of Microsoft Non Managed SMB Partners worldwide who are not able to attend this event or the upcoming World Partner Conference in Washington, but still want to be updated with the latest Executive information and intelligence.

Check out our website www.jccconsultancy.com  for more information how we can help you out to execute your plans in terms of Strategy, Sales, Marketing, Delivery and Change Management.

82% of Microsoft Unmanaged SMB Partners will not attend the WPC 2014

Last December and January 2014, JCC Consultancy has conducted a survey among 500 Executives/Owners of Microsoft Unmanged SMB Partners in the Benelux and one of the questions imposed was:

Are you going to attend the WPC 2014 Conference?  

82 % answered: ” No, i will not attend the WPC 2014 Conference, but I do want to be updated with the latest developments and updates during the conference”.

The result was an eye opener for us, but also a very interesting opportunity for JCC Consultancy,  because this figure shows that most of the attendees at the WPC Conference are mostly Microsoft Managed Partners and  not Unmanaged SMB Partners.

Special platform for Business Decision Makers and owners of Microsoft Unmanaged SMB Partners worldwide

So JCC Consultancy decided to launch a special platform/site (you can call it a interactive live Blogsite) called JCC Cloud , which is only focused on providing information in terms of Strategy, Sales, SharePoint, Office 365, Windows Azure, Cloud to solely Business Decision Makers or owners of Microsoft Unmanaged SMB Partner worldwide.

What can you expect from JCC Consultancy during the WPC 2014 event?

After JCC Consultancy conducted the survey and presented the figures, we were approached by Microsoft Unmanaged SMB Partners and they wanted to hire JCC Consultancy to collect relevant information in terms of Executive and Strategy at the WPC 2014 in Washington.

Real live information on Strategic and Executive level

So you as an owner or business decision maker of Microsoft Unmanaged SMB Partner who is not able to attend the WPC 2014 event in Washington, can stay home in your country and expect from JCC Consultancy the following:

1. JCC Consultancy will solely visit Executive/ Business decision makers sessions. There are over 400 sessions.
2. JCC Consultancy will blog live daily during the event from Sunday July 13th till Thursday July 17th , via our JCC CLOUD platform during all Executive sessions we will attend;
3. JCC Consultancy will collect all relevant and interesting Customer Showcases presentations and white papers and for Microsoft Unmanaged SMB Partners who are interested in this intelligence, you can contact me on info@jccconsultancy.com to order relevant white papers or presentations.
4. JCC Consultancy will also give you an impression of Washington by taking pictures and movies at the event and during the sessions and share relevant pictures or movies on our platform JCC Cloud.

We help Executives and owners of Microsoft Unmanaged SMB Partners who are staying at home

I hope you have a good overview of what JCC Consultancy is trying to do with these activities in order to help, support, advice Owners and Executive of Microsoft Unmanaged SMB Partners who are not able to attend this event.

Follow us via  JCC Cloud to be the first Unmanaged SMB Partner who is staying at home, but still get live and updated information/intel on a Executive/Strategic level.

If you have any questions please mail me jean.claude.chan@jccconsultancy.com

Have a good one and I wish you all a nice summer holiday and enjoy following me during the WPC.

So what is the treshold of Windows 9?

Hi all,

here is some latest news on the new Windows 9.

Windows “Threshold,” the next major version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system due to hit around the spring of 2015, is coming into focus.

And not too surprisingly, one of the Microsoft Operating Systems Group’s main goals in designing and developing the coming operating system (OS) release — which may or may not ultimately be branded as “Windows 9” — is to try to make it more palatable to hold-out Windows 7 users.

In order to do this, Microsoft is working on including in Threshold lots of new features specifically aimed at “desktop” users, meaning those who interact primarily with their Windows computing device from a desktop or laptop PC with mouse/keyboard and optional touch.

With Windows 8.1 Update, Microsoft officials designed Windows around a set of profiles based on the hardware specifications of the devices in use. Certain devices running Windows 8.1 Update include Power and Search buttons on the Metro-style Start screen; others don’t. Some of those running Windows 8.1 Update have their machines start up by default in the Desktop/Win32 legacy environment, while others on touch/mobile-first devices start up in the Metro-Style Start Menu by default.

According to my sources, Microsoft will continue in this vein with Windows Threshold. The Threshold OS will look and work differently based on hardware type.

Users running Threshold on a desktop/laptop will get a SKU, or version, that puts the Windows Desktop (for running Win32/legacy apps) front and center. Two-in-one devices, like the Lenovo Yoga or Surface Pro, will support switching between the Metro-Style mode and the Windowed mode, based on whether or not keyboards are connected or disconnected.

The combined Phone/Tablet SKU of Threshold won’t have a Desktop environment at all, but still will support apps running side by side, my sources are reconfirming. This “Threshold Mobile” SKU will work on ARM-based Windows Phones (not just Lumias), ARM-based Windows tablets and, I believe, Intel-Atom-based tablets.

One of Microsoft’s primary missions with Threshold is to try to undo the usability mistakes made with Windows 8 for those who prefer and/or are stuck with devices that are not touch-first and for which keyboard/mouse use is of central importance.

The Desktop/laptop SKU of Threshold will include, as previously rumored, the Mini-Start menu — a new version of the traditional Microsoft Start menu, an early concept of which Microsoft showed off at the company’s Build developers conference in April. It also will include the ability to run Metro-Style/Windows Store apps in windows on the Desktop. Will it turn off completely the Metro-Style Start screen with its live-tile interface, as Neowin is reporting, and make the tiled Start Menu a toggleable option from the Mini Start menu? I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

(Update: It’s worth pointing out the Mini Start menu is expected to be customizable. Users will be able to include Metro-Style apps or remove all Metro Style apps/tiles from the menu so that only Desktop apps are included in the Mini Start menu — either as tiles or in list form.)

Between now and Threshold: What’s next?

Before Threshold is released next spring, Microsoft is expected to deliver a public preview of the Threshold release, most likely in the fall of 2014, my sources say.

And before that, Microsoft will deliver a second and final update for Windows 8.1. Since Microsoft officials decided earlier this year to make the Mini Start Menu part of Threshold instead of Update 2, there’s not a whole lot of new features of note coming in Update 2. There may be some UI adjustments and tweaks, but nothing hugely noticeable, my sources claim.

Windows 8.1 Update 2 should be code complete any time now and will be locked down about two weeks before August Patch Tuesday, my sources say. (August Patch Tuesday is on August 12.) Microsoft may opt to not make a big deal out of Update 2 and just push it out quietly as part of the set of August patches, I hear.

The Microsoft OS team is hoping to get as many Windows 7 users moved to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 8 users to Windows 8.1 Update in preparation for (hopefully) getting them to move to Threshold once it is out. It’s still early in the Windows development cycle for Microsoft to have decided on packaging, pricing and distribution, but my sources say, at this point, that Windows Threshold is looking like it could be free to all Windows 8.1 Update, and maybe even Windows 7 Service Pack 1, users.

Microsoft is basically “done” with Windows 8.x. Regardless of how usable or functional  it is or isn’t, it has become Microsoft’s Vista 2.0 — something from which Microsoft needs to distance itself, perception-wise. At this point, Microsoft is going full-steam-ahead toward Threshold and will do its best to differentiate that OS release from Windows 8.

This article is published on http://www.zdnet.com

Have a good one!

Jean-Claude Chan

Founder/owner of company JCC Consultancy (www.jccconsultancy.com) and portal site http://www.jcccloud.com