A few useful things
One of the nice things about the job I do is that I get to see pretty much all aspects of the business we call hosting. Recently I’ve come across a new stratification taking place between those organizations who are happy to be ‘hosters’ and those who want to move away from that sobriquet and reclaim the title of Service Provider.
This is interesting in a number of ways, chiefly for me is that ‘Service’ is being seen once more as the route to market for those wanting to extend and expand their solutions and offerings. Part of this process is indeed moving away from the ‘selling by numbers’ model of recent years which, as you probably know by now, is something I’ve been banging on about for ages now!
Clearing the fog from the “Cloud”
The new, so called, “Cloud” technologies are possibly the most disruptive force in the market today but it’s important to remember that this is not new. The delivery and consumption of services over the internet is something which we’ve doing for many years, think here of email and web/data services for example.
Recently the definition of Software as a Service, or SaaS, has refreshed interest and promoted internet delivery into current thinking, the BPOS solution from Microsoft and Google’s Apps added momentum to the story but have also caused some increase of confusion in the market.
“Cloud” is almost too generic a term to use and both consumer and suppliers alike run the risk of mis-stating and missing expectations. As a potential consumer on on-line services, it’s important to understand what your needs really are and how online services can be used to support your business and integrated into your current environment where appropriate. As a service provider, it’s key to understand what your market and customers need and want, be able to communicate in common business, not technical, terms and build the right kind of infrastructure to provide those services backed up with real, substantial Service Level Agreements.
There’s no shame in not knowing and seeking that knowledge through some informal conversation or more formally in a workshop setting where your business needs and strategy can be discussed and a plan put in place (you might not need to move online!). As a service provider it’s also important to know how the different technology platforms out there are going to deliver the services you are planning, and whether there’s a differentiator that you can bring to put you above the crown or in your own market space.
HMC and the future of Hosted Exchange
With the announcement last year that HMC4.5 was to be the last “Solution” provided by Microsoft to Service Providers for the delivery of services based on Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Offices Communications Server (OCS) as a package, many were left wondering what the future and the release of Exchange 2010 was going to bring.
Microsoft’s statements on the subject were pretty clear – 1) If you have the resources and customer-base, build a solution with Exchange 2010 natively. Offer this both directly and as White Label solution for others. 2) Find a good White label provider and resell their solution 3) Sign up with Microsoft and resell BPOS.
These decision points were predicated purely on mailbox numbers and inferred ROI on the technology platform – currently figure is circa 5000 mailboxes for ‘viable’ solution – but unfortunately it ignores usage of HMC platform as a value-add service supporting other integrated services – the suppliers of which may be more than happy with 2-3000 users of such a platform. For those wishing to offer Microsoft CRM on a hosted platform the future is even more confusing given it’s requirement of HMC as a base!
For these Service Providers there seems to be no ‘solution’, but there is always an answer and I would like to offer a lifeline. If customer ownership is important or you have an integrated solution set or you simply need to know what to do with your HMC 3.x / 4.x platform, please let me know. Register here on the site and drop a comment (they’re all moderated so nothing will be made public) as, for a limited time, I can arrange for a free 1/2 consultation call to discuss the technologies and options for you. After the call you’ll receive a summary document detailing what was discussed and describing some possible ‘next steps’. What have you got to lose… really!
Get your datacenter Dynamic!
“Change brings opportunity” a phrase used so often it’s almost clichéd. It remains true though that the introduction of new technologies provides considerable opportunity for savvy Service Providers to delivery new and exciting services out to an ever growing and hungry market place.
Key to the success of these services are the integrated solutions underpinning them which allow for service delivery AND consumption to be truly flexible, scalable and on-demand
Virtualisation as a solution is capable of delivering so much more than the simple VPS’ of times past, the technologies themselves are great but are not necessarily products to be offered out to the wider market. The key to success is to use the technologies well in order to allow customers to move themselves easily up the value chain. Never forget that increased ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is easier to gain and maintain than increased customer acquisition!
It’s also important to understand that today’s technologies, such as Microsoft’s Dynamic DataCenter toolkit, allow Service Providers to start small and to scale easily as their customer-base and service portfolio grows and develops.
I mention DDC specifically here as I’m aware that there is support available for those Service Providers who want to adopt this kind of platform. The support is in the form of workshops which aim to provide not only knowledge of the toolkit itself, but also some key direction and guidance on how services can be delivered and also in the form of assistance for the deployment of Proof of Concept platforms allowing products and services to be built for real.
If you are considering adopting a dynamic platform you could do worse than contacting your Microsoft Account Manager or HSS and finding our if there are workshops being run in your area. Or let me know your interested and I’ll see what I can do.
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