November 3rd, 2009

Microsoft seeks to lure Salesforce, Oracle users with six months free of CRM Online

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:22 am

Categories: CRM Live/CRM Online, Channel, Corporate strategy, Dynamics CRM, Resellers, Systems integrators

Tags: Salesforce.com Inc., Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp., Pricing Strategy, CRM, Pricing, Advertising & Promotion, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Marketing Research, Enterprise Software

Microsoft is getting more aggressive on pricing, in response to its competitors in the enterprise cloud application space.

On the heels of yesterday’s price cut for a number of Microsoft-hosted enterprise cloud service offerings, Microsoft is introducing a “free for six months” deal, in the hopes of attracting Salesforce.com and Oracle CRM On Demand users. The company also made all versions of its hosted  CRM offerings available for $44 per user per month (which includes offline support and 5 GB of storage). To qualify, customers must sign up by December 31, 2009.

(Just prior to today’s pricing announcement, Microsoft offered two versions of CRM Online: Professional (which was already $44 per user per month, and Professional Plus, which was $59 per user per month. Starting today, Microsoft is condensing these two into a single version that will have all the features of Professional Plus — including the offline Outlook access — and selling that single version for $44 per user per month.)

Here’s the competitive pricing chart Microsoft is touting as part of the new promotion:

More fine print around the six-months-free offer: The deal is good in the U.S. and Canada only. Users must have a minimum of five seats and a maximum of two-times the number of seats subscribed to under Oracle or Salesforce. After six months, the price goes to $44 per user per month for 12 months.

Microsoft announced the new promotion on November 3. Microsoft also began rolling out today the November 2009 service update for Dynamics CRM Online, its third update in the past 18 months. The rollout will be complete by November 15, company officials said.

The update includes several new features, which existing customers get for free, including:

• Enhanced data import via an “Import Data Wizard”
• A new “Get Started” pane providing guidance, training and access to Knowledge Base articles
• Faster online access. Users can get started with a trial or paid subscription to CRM Online in less than five minutes, according to Microsoft
• Free mobile access for any device running an HTML 4.0-compliant browser

I’d be interested in hearing from Oracle and Salesforce users if the new Microsoft deal and pricing is tempting — and if not, why not.

November 2nd, 2009

Microsoft chops prices of its hosted enterprise cloud offerings

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 3:28 pm

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Exchange Server, Office, Office Live, Resellers, SharePoint Server, Speech, Systems integrators, Telecommunications, Utility/cloud computing, VOIP, Web conferencing

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Office, Cloud Computing, Tools & Techniques, Office Suites, Software, Management, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is cutting prices of its Microsoft-hosted Exchange, as well as its suite of business services (known as the Business Productivity Online Suite, or BPOS), and is refunding the difference to existing hosting customers.

Microsoft is cutting its Exchange Online pricing from $10 per user per month to $5 per user per month. It also is cutting the price of the BPOS bundle — which includes SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Communications Online and Live Meeting — from $15 per user per month, to $10 per user per month.

Microsoft is leaving the pricing for its Deskless Worker versions of its hosted Online offerings the same. Exchange Online Deskless Worker and SharePoint Online Deskless Worker remain $2 per user per month. The bundle of the two Deskless Worker offerings stays at $3 per user per month.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft officials didn’t attribute the price cut to competition from Google Apps or other hosted offerings. Instead, they attributed the cuts to “rapid customer adoption, global scale and improved efficiencies from new software such as Exchange Server 2010″ (according to the press release).

Microsoft is making BPOs available in 15 new countries before the end of the year. Later this week, BPOS will be commercially available in Singapore; trials are slated to begin in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania and Taiwan. Commercial availability in India is also expected later this year, officials said.

Microsoft officials are now claiming to have more than 1 million paying users for Microsoft’s Online family of services (not counting Live Meeting, for which there are many more paying customers, according to company officials). Newly signed BPOS customers include Hofstra University, Lions Gate Entertainment, McDonald’s Corporation, Rexel Group, Swedish Red Cross and Tyco Flow Control.

Microsoft will be adding a paid, Microsoft-hosted version of Office Web Apps — the Webified versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote– to its Online stable next year. Company officials have said that paid offering will also be available to Microsoft volume-license customers so that they can host Office Web Apps themselves, on-premises, instead of or in addition to allowing Microsoft to host it for them. There will be additional (and, as yet, still unannounce) features that will be part of the paid Office Web Apps offering that aren’t part of the free, ad-funded version.

Microsoft is currently rolling out refreshes to its Online family of services every 90 days or so, according to Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Online. Some of the new features the company is rolling out to its on-premises software — such as Exchange 2010 — are debuting in the hosted, Online offerings before they are available to customers as server-based products. (The final Exchange 2010 software bits are slated to go to customers starting next week.)

I’m sure Microsoft customers will be upbeat about the price cuts for Microsoft’s hosted offerings. But I’d think Redmond’s partners who are trying to make money from selling Microsoft’s hosted services (if not their own hosted version of Microsoft’s wares) might be less enthusiastic…

October 30th, 2009

Microsoft to drop Office Accounting product, services

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:28 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Network service providers, Office, Resellers, Systems integrators

Tags: Accounting, Small Business, Microsoft Corp., Office Small Business Web Site, Microsoft Office, Operational Accounting, Financial Services, Office Suites, Software, Finance

Starting November 16, Microsoft is ending distribution and sales of its Microsoft Office Accounting product. Company officials began notifying customers of the decision on October 30.

All Microsoft Office Accounting products in the UK and North America are affected by the decision, including Office Accounting Express, Office Accounting Standard, Office Accounting Professional, Office Accounting Professional Plus, Office Accounting 3-user and Small Business Accounting.

Here’s the back story as to why, according to a statement e-mailed to me by a company spokesperson:

“After evaluating the product over the past few years we have determined that other Microsoft offerings such as free templates in the Office system used with Excel and the Dynamics product are able to meet our customers’ needs. The Office Small Business web site has links to free templates for small businesses, such as invoices, expenses, time sheets, budgets and more and Microsoft’s Small Business Center is also a great resource for small businesses.”

Microsoft officials said that existing Office Accounting customers will get five years of mainstream, free support and five years of extended, paid support. Those who recently bought the product can return it for a refund within 30 days of purchase. (Details on how to return the activation key are here.)

The add-on services that are part of Office Accounting, including online sales from eBay and credit profile from Equifax, will no longer be available after December 15, 2009. The credit-card-processing services and service allowing users to order compatible checks and forms are still going to be available, however. In addition, according to a Frequently Asked Questions document on Microsoft’s Web site, “your customers will still be able to pay emailed invoices directly through PayPal.”

In the UK, as of October 30, Microsoft parter Mamut is taking over product support for Microsoft Office Accounting users. From an update sent to me by Mamut:

“In addition to receiving ongoing customer support from Mamut, current users of Microsoft Office Accounting will be offered a free upgrade to Mamut Business Software solutions. Microsoft will no longer distribute Microsoft Office Accounting in the UK as of November 16, 2009, but Mamut will continue to invest in product development and services to ensure an easy transition for the approximately 100,000 registered users of Microsoft Office Accounting in the UK.”

Update: Microsoft is not disclosing how many total existing customers it has for Office Accounting. (I asked.) I also asked Microsoft whether it has a U.S. support partner in the wings and received this response from a spokesperson:

“Microsoft is considering possible partnership opportunities for qualifying ISV partners in the US; however, we do not have anything to announce at this time. For small businesses, free templates in the Microsoft Office system can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Excel. Mid-sized businesses have the option of using the Microsoft Dynamics ERP products.”

Microsoft has discontinued a number of its consumer and small-business offerings in recent months. In June, Microsoft said it was discontuining Microsoft Money. It also has dropped its Digital Image Suite and Encarta from its line-up.

September 30th, 2009

Microsoft opens Chicago and Dublin datacenters; preps for more hosted offerings

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:32 pm

Categories: Azure, Corporate strategy, Google, Management tools, System Center, Systems integrators, Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization, Windows Live

Tags: Data Center, Microsoft Corp., Chicago, Data Center Knowledge, Data Centers, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Mary Jo Foley

Just a week after celebrating the opening its “chiller-free” Dublin datacenter, Microsoft is turning on its $500 million, 700,000-square-foot Chicago one.

Phase one of the Chicago datacenter opened on September 30. Microsoft is turning on power in phases there so “customers today will enjoy top-notch performance and availability while we control costs for Microsoft and its shareholders,” according to a September 28 post on the Microsoft datacenters blog.

The Chicago datacenter is one of the largest datacenters in the world to make use of shipping containers, according to the company. Each of these containers holds 1,800 to 2,500 servers, which Microsoft officials have said enables the company to better conserve energy and take advantages of new power-effiency mechanisms.

“(T)he isolated nature of containers enables Microsoft and its vendors to research new approaches around power and cooling alternatives to reduce energy consumption even more in the future,” according to the blog post from Arne Josefsberg, General Manager of Infrastructure Services for Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services unit.

The Chicago center Chicago also is focused on “water-side economization, which enables us to cool the facility without requiring the high levels of electricity typically needed to power large chillers,” according to Josefsberg.

Dublin, which is aimed primarily at fulfilling the cloud-service needs of Microsoft customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, officially began operations on July 1. According to Microsoft, it covers 303,000 square feet, and currently is providing 5.4 mega watts of critical power. It can expand to a total of 22.2 mega watts of critical power. Data Center Knowledge has photos of the Dublin datacenter here.

Speaking of Microsoft and its hosting plans, here is an interesting Azure roadmap slide from a September 2009 PowerPoint deck from Microsoft Application Architect David Gristwood. (Click on slide below to enlarge.)

This slide shows some of the features Microsoft is planning to offer as part of its Azure cloud platform this November, when it moves from beta to its first official release. It also includes information on what’s on the team’s plate for inclusion in Azure in the future, including System Center integration, enterprise ID federation, Common Language Runtime (CLR) support and analytics and reporting functionality.

July 21st, 2009

Microsoft's fiscal 2010 game plan: Seven must-see slides

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:05 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Database, Network service providers, OEMs, Office, Office 2010/Office 14, Resellers, SharePoint Server, System builders, Systems integrators, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows client, Windows server, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Games, Microsoft Windows 7, Operating Systems, Software, Personal Technology, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft officials have been saying for the past month that the company’s fiscal 2010, which kicked off on July 1, will encompass its biggest product launch wave ever.

We already know Windows 7 goes on sale on October 22. But Microsoft hasn’t provided specifics as to whether it will hold another Vista-like consumer launch around that time. And beyond that — what else do the Softies have up their sleeves? What’s coming when?

At last week’s Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft did share a few more launch tidbits with the 6,000 or so developers, resellers, integrators and hardware partners attending.

I’ve culled some of the best slides from the various WPC slide decks that show off how Microsoft is advising its partners — who, for all intents and purposes, are Microsoft’s salesforce — to plan to go to market with their customers in the coming year.

Keep in mind that these slides are focused on Microsoft products that it sells primarily through partners: Windows, Office, SQL Server, Exchange, etc. You won’t find mentions of Bing or Zune here. But it’s also interesting there is no mention of Windows Mobile — even though Microsoft is trying to light a fire under partners to help sell its beleaguered mobile operating system.

From these slides, this is what I’d expect the business-focused launch calendar to look like:

• Windows 7/Windows Server 2008/Exchange 2010 rollout: November/December 2009
• SharePoint 2010: Early 2010
• Visual Studio 2010: Spring 2010
• Office 2010: May/June 2010

Check out my annotated slideshow of Microsoft’s FY10 game plan here.

I’m curious whether you see anything interesting in these slides that I missed… Comments welcome.

July 16th, 2009

Microsoft's fiscal 2010 battle cry: Growing our share

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:15 am

Categories: Apple, Channel, Corporate strategy, Exchange Server, Google, Internet Explorer, Linux, OEMs, Office 2010/Office 14, Resellers, Search, SharePoint Server, System builders, Systems integrators, Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows client, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Enterprise Software, Sales, Software, Mary Jo Foley

It might seem ironic for a company that has cornered more than 90 percent market share in both desktop operating systems and office suites to be focused on growing its share.

But that’s how Microsoft officials are identifying their mission for fiscal 2010, which began for Microsoft on July 1. At the company’s global sales meeting, known as MGX, the week of July 20, Microsoft’s top brass is hoping to whip the sales troops into a share-growth frenzy.

Microsoft’s reseller partners got a taste of some of the sales priorities for the company during Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner’s keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference on July 15.  Microsoft is taking the gloves off, Turner wanted to make clear.

“We’ve got lots of competitors. We’ve got great competitors. They’re out there every single day trying to take our market share,” Turner told the resellers on Wednesday. “But you know what? We’ve got incredible products and solutions. And in each case, they’re built on that high-value, low-cost proposition with partners.”

Turner listed the companies Microsoft is most focused on taking share from in the coming year. They are:

• Oracle (with SQL Server 2008 R2)
• Google (with Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 on the Google Apps front and Bing on search)
• VMWare (with Hyper-V/Windows Server 2008 R2)
• Lotus (with Exchange 2010)
• OpenOffice (with Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010)
• Apple (with Windows 7)

(I found it interesting who Turner failed to mention when talking up Microsoft’s competition. Amazon sure has a hefty head start in the rent-a-cloud space. Mozilla is sure coming on strong against Internet Explorer. Apple has Microsoft on the run in the mobile OS market. Red Hat and other Linux distributors still have a lot of mind share in key parts of the server space — in spite of Turner’s claim that Microsoft has competed really well agains “the fraudulent perception of free.”)

Turner’s message to partners in many of these cases was the competitive offerings may carry higher margins, but they are a lot more expensive than what Microsoft has. It sounds like the Softies, buoyed by the reception its Laptop Hunter ads received, is going to try a similar sales/marketing tact with SQL Server, Hyper-V and other products by touting their higher cost vis-a-vis Microsoft’s offerings.

(Speaking of the Laptop Hunters ad campaign, am I the only one who thinks Microsoft’s obsession with Apple has gone around the bend? Apple has less five-plus percent of the desktop operating system market, and, according to IDC, is now down to No. 5 among U.S. PC vendors. The majority of consumers I know who are looking to buy a new PC are either in the Windows or Mac camp when they go out to make a purchase. But Microsoft is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Apple-focused ads and retail stores which will be located next door to Apple’s temples for the faithful. Why?)

Anyway, back to “Grow our share.” I guess “Save our share” wouldn’t have the same ring to it. But I wonder whether Microsoft’s arrows are missing some key targets and are focused too much on competitors from the past. What’s your take: Are the Softies back in fighting form or just tilting at windmills?

July 16th, 2009

Read the fine print in Microsoft's new application platform license

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 5:59 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Database, Development tools, Dynamics CRM, Resellers, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, Systems integrators, Windows server, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Software, Volume-license, Software License, Microsoft Corp., Software Assurance, APA, Micosoft, Tools & Techniques, Management, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft (unsurprisingly) doesn’t tout the fact, but its newest licensing agreement could leave enterprise customers product-less if they don’t renew it.

As of October 1, Microsoft will offer customers with its Application Platform Agreement (APA) license the right to buy software covered in the contract. But even with that new clause, is the APA a good deal?

Microsoft APA — an “all you can eat” license for Microsoft’s server products — was a big topic at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference show for its reseller partners this week. The APA license is focused on products that Microsoft considers part of its “application platform,” including SQL Server, BizTalk Server, SharePoint Server, Visual Studio and the Dynamics xRM “everything relationship management” business software.

In many ways, the APA is like Microsoft’s Software Assurance (SA) add-on to its volume-license agreements. Except for one, as one reader told me recently:

“There is an important difference between the APA licenses and the ‘old’ ones that Microsoft doesn’t tell you and that is that when the APA  license runs out you don’t own the products. Normally if you decide to not have a SA license anymore you still own the products.

“When the SA ends, you own perpetual rights to the most recent version that was released during the SA coverage. But when APA ends, you don’t get any perpetual rights (unless bought separately or somehow negotiated in),” Microsoft licensing expert and Senior Vice President of  Distributed Desktop Services at NET(net), Inc. Scott Braden confirmed.

When contacted about the APA particulars, Microsoft officials acknowledged the current limitation of the APA license. A spokesperson told me the following via e-mail:

“Today, under the former Application Platform Agreement (APA), new software licenses that are added during the agreement term need to be purchased at the end of the agreement or need to be de-installed…. If the customer has Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) when they purchase Microsoft Application Platform (App Plat), they keep the rights to the latest version of the software licenses.If a customer doesn’t have SA at the time they decide to purchase App Plat, then they need to purchase the software licenses to retain the latest version.If a customer opts not to purchase the software licenses at renewal, then the software licenses revert to the original version they purchased.”

Starting October 1, however, Microsoft is planning to add a new option to the APA to allow customers to buy products they licensed under APA. That new volume-licensing option is called the Enrollment for Application Platform.

Read the rest of this entry »

July 14th, 2009

Microsoft announces its Azure cloud computing pricing

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:23 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Channel, Corporate strategy, Database, Management tools, Red Dog, Resellers, SQL Server, System Center, Systems integrators, Utility/cloud computing, Windows server

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Pricing Strategy, Pricing, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Storage, Databases, Marketing Research, Marketing, Hardware

Microsoft reconfirmed today that its cloud computing platform will be commercially available this November and unveiled pricing for its Azure components — the base operating system, its hosted database and its messaging service.

At the Worldwide Partner Conference on July 14, Microsoft, as expected, announced prices for customers who want to host their apps in Microsoft’s and/or Microsoft partners’ datacenters. Microsoft also shared more details on its private-cloud positioning during the kick-off keynote at the show on Tuesday.

Here’s the Azure pricing, courtesy of the Windows Azure blog:

Windows Azure:

Compute @  $0.12 / hour
Storage @ $0.15 / GB stored
Storage Transactions @ $0.01 / 10K

SQL Azure:

Web Edition – Up to 1 GB relational database @ $9.99
Business Edition – Up to 10 GB relational database @ $99.99

.NET Services:

Messages @ $0.15/100K message operations , including Service Bus messages and Access Control tokens

Bandwidth across all three services will be charged at $0.10 in / $0.15 out / GB

Microsoft reiterated that Azure will be available via consumption-based pricing. Compute hours will be charged only for when apps are deployed, not during development and testing. Microsoft is advising customers to “remove the compute instances that are not being used to minimize compute hour billing.”

Update: Microsoft also spelled out some of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) terms for Azure on July 14 via the Azure blog post. According to that post:

“To support partners’ and customers’ complex business needs we are providing an enterprise-class guarantee backed by a service-level agreement that covers service uptime, connectivity, and data availability.  For compute, we guarantee that when you deploy two or more role instances in different fault and upgrade domains your Internet facing roles will have external connectivity at least 99.95% of the time. Additionally, we will monitor all of your individual role instances and detect within two minutes when a role instance’s process is not running and initiate corrective action.   For storage, we guarantee that at least 99.9% of the time we will successfully process correctly formatted requests that we receive to add, update, read and delete data. We also guarantee that your storage accounts will have connectivity to our Internet gateway. “

Microsoft is trying to make sure its reseller partners don’t feel cut out of its Azure equation, even though Microsoft is doing much of the hosting. Microsoft is providing its partners with an additional five percent promotional discount on Windows Azure compute, SQL Azure and .NET Services, officials told WPC attendees.

Any initial observations on Microsoft’s licensing and SLA terms?

Update: The Register has a good analysis of Microsoft vs. Amazon consumption-based pricing which shows Microsoft only marginally undercuts Amazon. I don’t think Microsoft is actually offering Azure for free for the next three-plus months, as the Reg says, however. I think Microsoft is just continuing its free tech preview/beta program for its cloud offerings until it takes the “beta” tag off in mid-November.

Roger Jennings, of Oakleaf Systems fame, notes that Azure pricing isn’t competitive with Google App Engine for developers because Microsoft doesn’t appear to offer a free threshhold.

July 13th, 2009

Microsoft to flesh out further its private cloud strategy

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:15 pm

Categories: App Compatibility, Azure, Channel, Corporate strategy, Management tools, Network service providers, OEMs, Resellers, System Center, System builders, Systems integrators, Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization, Windows server, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Strategy, Data Center, Microsoft Corp., Data Centers, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is crystalizing its “private cloud” positioning and plans to run it by the 6,000 or so partners attending its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) this week.

Microsoft officials previously have said that they won’t allow customers to run the Microsoft Azure cloud operating system on customers’ on-premise servers, but that they will make available to users many of the advances in Windows Server, System Center, Hyper-V and other Microsoft technologies so users can create their own “private clouds.”

Microsoft is expected to tout its Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Enterprises at the show. The product, originally expected to ship by the end of 2009 — according to a private cloud fact sheet that was on Microsoft’s site earlier today but is gone — is now slated for the first half of 2010. It is a “free, partner-extensible toolkit that will enable datacenters to dynamically pool, allocate, and manage resources to enable IT as a service.” Microsoft already offers a version of the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for its hosting partners.

The Enterprise version of the toolkit is available to enterprise customers, systems integrators and independent software vendors. According to Microsoft’s site,, the toolkit includes an architectural roadmap, deployment guidance, best practices, tools (to help users move existing apps to the cloud?) and unnamed technologies that will provide “interoperability with public clouds.”

Microsoft is attempting to make the distinction between its private and public cloud solutions more concrete. On its Private Cloud subsite within its wider Virtualization site, Microsoft is providing definitions of its on-premise and off-premise datacenter offerings. According to the site:

“Private Cloud - an internal service-oriented environment optimized for performance and cost that is deployed inside a customer’s datacenter. Powered by packaged server products including Windows Server and Microsoft System Center family of products, private cloud provides compatibility with existing applications.

“Public Cloud - provided by service providers and offering customers the ability to deploy and consume services. In this category, Azure is a highly scalable services platform providing pay–as-you-go flexibility delivered from Microsoft’s datacenters.”

While it may not be the Azure OS itself that Microsoft is providing to datacenter users who want to host their own data rather than having Microsoft or its partners do it for them, Microsoft is playing up the similarities between the on-premise and hosted approaches. The tag line from Microsoft’s cloud computing subsite:

“By providing tools that enable customers to manage their fabric and deliver services, Microsoft is providing customers the foundation for cloud computing.”

Do you think Microsoft is just rebranding its existing datacenter software as “private-cloud”-capable? Or does Microsoft’s private-cloud tools and software give it a leg up over Amazon and Google?

In related news, Microsoft is expected to unveil Azure pricing and licensing on Tuesday, July 14, at the Worldwide Partner Conference.

(Thanks to Oakleaf Systems’ Roger Jennings for the pointer to the Microsoft cloud information site.)

July 8th, 2009

Microsoft updates more of its hosted services infrastructure

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:35 am

Categories: .Net Framework, Azure, Channel, Code names, Corporate strategy, Database, Exchange Server, Network service providers, Red Dog, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, Systems integrators, Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization, Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC)

Tags: Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Update, Storage, Databases, Content Management, Microsoft Windows, Collaboration, Groupware, Enterprise Software

As Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) closes in, more elements of the company’s Azure cloud platform and hosted Online services are being sorted out.

As Ars Technica reported earlier this week, Microsoft has rolled out its July update to its Online Services family. (Microsoft Online encompasses the Microsoft-hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Communications Server and other prodcuts. These services are not yet hosted on top of Microsoft’s Azure operating system; they run on Windows Server in various Microsoft datacenters.)

The July Online Services update includes a number of new features, including worldwide user provisioning, support for bigger SharePoint file uploads and more. Microsoft also is adding trials of these services for users in India, with commercial availability there slated for this fall.

Meanwhile on the Azure side of the house, Microsoft has changed yet again the name of its database component that’s built into the Azure Services Platform. Once known as SQL Server Data Services and then SQL Data Services, the newly renamed database piece is now “Microsoft SQL Azure Database.” Earlier this year, Microsoft went back to the drawing board with this component, announcing plans to make it more of a hosted version of SQL Server, rather than a clone of Amazon’s SimpleDB.

Microsoft also announced that the underlying storage component that is part of the Azure OS itself also has been rebranded as Microsoft SQL Azure. (I believe this is the technology formerly codenamed “Cosmos.”)

(Thanks to Windows-Now’s Robert McLaws for the pointer on the latest rebranding.)

Microsoft also is expected to talk up some of its plans around making its hosted services available to customers who want to run them on-premise in “private clouds” during next week’s partner show. Company officials also are likely to talk up some of the new test versions of the interoperability components of Azure there, as well.

Microsoft is on tap to outline Azure pricing and licensing, and to explain how its partners fit into its services picture at the New Orleans show next week.

Azure is expected to remove its “beta” tag by November during the company’s Professional Developers Conference.