Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: microsoft

  • A small business makeover challenge

    A small business makeover challenge

    One of the key factors in bringing the Personal Computer era of business to a close was the end of the upgrade cycle where users tended to buy new systems every three to five years.

    For companies like Dell, Acer, IBM and Microsoft this cycle was an important and reliable income stream.

    In the early 2000s though it stopped as customers decided that with most new innovations coming onto their computers through web browsers they didn’t need to buy new systems.

    For the PC industry, particularly Microsoft, this presented a huge threat to their business models and all of them have been trying to find ways to refocus their businesses.

    The ModernBiz Technology Make-Over

    Late last year I was asked by Microsoft Australia to participate in their ModernBiz Technology Make-Over where a small business running Windows XP and Server 2003 was given a free tech upgrade to the latest equipment.

    This was interesting as it was an opportunity to see how Microsoft and the market are adapting to a very changed industry.

    As well I still carry the many scars – most psychological but some physical – from my years of running PC Rescue where upgrading companies’ old technology was a core part of the business.

    Doing a tough job

    The fallacy many managers and inexperienced companies fall for is that migration customers from old equipment to new systems is a simple matter of copying a few files. It is never that simple.

    Upgrading company computers a tough field as every business is unique and in workplace where the technology has been in use for over a decade the learning curve onto new software is insanely steep for staff and management alike.

    So watching the process from a relatively safe distance where I wasn’t worrying about losing customers’ data or trying to complete a complex task within a short deadline was quite attractive. Basically I wanted to see the other guys sweat.

    Another attraction in participating was to see how Microsoft are managing the transition from supplying business servers to provisioning cloud services and how customers are managing that change in product offerings.

    Dealing with a shifting market

    For both Microsoft and their customers the shift from one off hardware and license purchases to cloud based monthly subscriptions is a major change in mindset, so seeing how small business users adapt to online services will be interesting.

    Overall the technology makeover promises to be an interesting exercise on how the small business computer industry is changing.

    For his participation in the Modern Biz Technology Makeover program, Microsoft gave Paul a Lenovo laptop which he hasn’t yet used.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Dropbox and Microsoft’s alliance of convenience

    Dropbox and Microsoft’s alliance of convenience

    Today’s announcement that Dropbox and Microsoft have deepened their alliance throws a further challenge out to Google’s ambitions to take a slice of the office productivity market while further reducing profits for the once dominant software giant.

    Dropbox’s new deal with Microsoft give of users the ability to edit Office documents natively in their browser. It’s an advanced version of the feature that Google have offered with their Docs service for some years.

    A notable aspect of this deal is how Dropbox have been prepared to partner with Microsoft – a decade ago smaller and relatively new companies were suspicious of working with Microsoft given the giant’s well deserved reputation for ruthless behaviour.

    Equally Microsoft teaming with more agile newcomers rather than trying to bully them out of business is a distinct change from the company’s peak days under Bill Gates.

    The real target of the alliance though is Google and the Dropbox-Microsoft deal makes Office 365 a far more formidable offering as a cloud service.

    For Google the deal means they have to add more features to their Docs service to counter a more competitive Microsoft offering. It also shows the marketplace is shifting as alliances of convenience are forming.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Microsoft’s server clock counts down

    Microsoft’s server clock counts down

    One of the challenges facing Microsoft are the millions of users quite happily using the company’s older products.

    While Windows XP is by far the biggest problem – only last year the number of systems running the fourteen year old operating system still outnumbered those running the latest version – Microsoft faces similar issues with its server 2003.

    This week Microsoft warned support for Windows Server 2003 has entered its last one hundred days and urged customers to look at shifting onto new systems.

    Interestingly most of the case studies they cite involve customers moving from on premise servers onto cloud services.

    While that’s very good advice as most customers, particularly small businesses, don’t have the capabilities it shows how the industry has shifted in the last twelve years.

    For most of those companies a decade ago cloud service, or Software as a Service (SaaS) as it was known then, weren’t available for most business functions. Today they are the norm and usually the best option for smaller operations.

    That shift to the cloud has meant an entire industry now faces extinction as the army of suburban IT service companies that once maintained those servers are now largely redundant.

    As the clock ticks down on Windows 2003 server so too does it for all the businesses that once depended upon the PC industry.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Microsoft in Middle Age

    Microsoft in Middle Age

    One of the great business stories of today is how Microsoft is reinventing itself in the face of a totally changed industry. With the company turning 40, The Economist has a look at the business in its middle age.

    The Economist concludes CEO Satya Nadella is making the important changes to the business that founder Bill Gates couldn’t make because he was too protective of the company’s core products and that Steve Ballmer, Nadella’s predecessor, wasn’t interested in making as he sweated the existing assets.

    As this blog has pointed out before, The Economist notes the profit margins of the cloud and mobile services Nadella is focusing on are far slimmer than those Microsoft are used to from their server and desktop products.

    Those fat profit margins were the reason why Nadella’s predecessors had little reason to refocus the company but towards the end of Ballmer’s leadership it was clear Microsoft couldn’t resist the shift for much longer.

    Microsoft’s dilemma was clear to the stock market as well with The Economist having a chart showing the relative performance of IBM, Microsoft and Apple over the last 35 years.

    share-price-value-of-tech-stocks-ibm-microsoft-apple

    When Microsoft peaked in the late 1990s, the company was worth over twenty percent of the total tech sector’s valuation – today Apple has stolen most of that value.

    A particularly jarring from The Economist’s graph is just how much IBM dominated the tech sector a generation ago and its steep decline following the introduction of desktop computers.

    IBM’s decline in its dotage is exactly the fate Nadella is trying to avoid for Microsoft, with companies like Google, Apple and Amazon as competitors he has a tough task ahead of him.

    Similar posts:

  • Management struggles with the Internet of Things

    Management struggles with the Internet of Things

    Exactly what benefits does the Internet of Things offer businesses? A survey of Australian businesses by Microsoft claims there are benefits but few companies have deployed the IoT in their operations as managers struggle to understand the technologies.

    In the survey “Cut through: How the Internet of Things is sharpening Australia’s competitive edge” carried out by research company Telsyte, Microsoft found two thirds of businesses that  deployed IoT technologies have achieved an average cost saving of 28 percent while half the businesses have improved efficiencies of around the same amount.

    A poor take up rate

    The devil however is in the details and most notable only a quarter of the 306 companies surveyed admitting to using IoT applications.

    While the sample size is small, and the Australian business community has been relatively slow in adopting the IoT, the survey indicates managers see the value but are struggling to see how they can adopt the technologies in their organisations.

    Although fewer than one in 20 organisations said they could not foresee any business benefit from IoT, an alarmingly high 48 per cent still have no plans to implement the technology.

    This reluctance comes largely from a lack of resources and expertise with the top five reasons for not adopting the IoT being technology challenges, affordability, security concerns, lack of skills and no management support.

    Lack of management support

    Management’s lack of understanding and support for IoT solutions presents a risk for businesses as the next generation of industrial machinery  – from cars to tractors – will have some connectivity built into it. A failure to understand the technologies built into equipment opens a range of operational and security risks for an organisation.

    Another aspect about the implementation of the IoT that comes from this survey is exactly what are we talking about? Microsoft’s emphasis in this report was clearly on the Big Data analytics, something else that might confuse the discussion with management.

    What’s clear from the Microsoft’s survey is companies do realise there are benefits from the IoT but managements are struggling to understand the technologies and how to implement them into their operations. This is an opportunity for the savvy integrator or reseller.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts