Microsoft 365 is Out - Yippee or So What?

The top boys were rolled out at the London launch of Microsoft 365 this week and loyal resellers stood by their side.

Hails and whoops were in evidence as the long awaited official launch of the Cloud based Microsoft Office solution became a commercial reality after a longish period of beta trial. Microsoft resellers can sell the product - well sort of. Basically any end user is provisioned and billed by Microsoft, the reseller gets a finder's fee. The ongoing customer relationship is with Microsoft, not the reseller. Unless, of course, as a reseller you are big enough to host the solution on behalf of clients yourself but it's not entirely clear what the costs involved are for this and whether it will work out more expensive for users. I'll try and find out.

But there is no doubt that there is considerable angst amongst MS resellers about this very profound change in policy by Microsoft. Resellers basically will lose the commercial relationship on the product with clients and get no share in future revenue. To boot, at a start up cost of £4/user/month it is unlikely that resellers will fall out of bed in order to sell MS 365 to small users as the margin involved in a one off finder's fee sale is far less than the cost of sale. Let's face it, anything less than 100 users is a pretty grim return.

The sales model looks flawed. If Microsoft want to get into the SMB/SOHO market then they are going to have to do it themselves when most of those companies actually want the knock on the door of the friendly recommender who sells their IT kit. There is an opportunity for the likes of PC World but I would suggest Amazon might be the better chain as they are more geared for small transactions.

Somehow, it needs to be automated with lots of resellers setting up easy to configure portals where customers can get access to MS 365 quickly and with low intervention by salespeople. If all resellers could customise the portal too, then why could they not participate in the sale rather than remain a one off third party? I have no idea and it shows lack of planning.

The problem is this. I just set up, out of curiosity, Google Apps on my laptop on my own domain. It took precisely 5 minutes and cost nothing. Zip. Nada. I get 7.5Gg of email space and I have access to a ton of Google fancy apps as well as the core business ones. That's it, sorted.

The same on Microsoft costs £4/user/month and there are not the myriad of extra apps associated with the domain name. Further, SharePoint which is at the heart of MS 365 as the file repository does not allow multiple users to access the same files.

It's clear that existing Microsoft partners will all be trying to punt MS 365 to larger customers to justify the selling time so who will address the SME market space is the big question? Will that be surrendered to Google? Surely, SMEs were the point behind MS 365 and will be the heartland of Cloud applications?

Some People Don't Get The Cloud At All

You may be surprised to know that many people in the industry, even amongst the channel and the vendors, don't get The Cloud and why it is important to small businesses. Such companies constitute 97% of the hundreds of thousands of companies in Britain and carry the bulk of the workforce, around 13 million staff in total. The opportunity is pretty big is the first thing you will notice. I have heard a director at Microsoft say that they expect up to 60% of all seats of certain software will be based in The Cloud in the future.

These SME companies want scalability of services, up and down, at a smoothed cost, lower risk and without massive capital costs every so often. They don't want to add or upgrade a server every time they go above a certain size of user or find it is out dated within a year or run out of disk space every 3 months or pay for licences they don't use as they have restructured or been sold. The world is changing and companies understand that The Cloud means that they get real scalability by buying essential services through The Cloud.

The Cloud is a reality anyway. Most companies run websites and domains - these exist in The Cloud. The internet, believe it or not, is in The Cloud. Nearly every company in Britain then already uses The Cloud for some part of its business. Even huge, security befuddled companies like banks use The Cloud - internet banking, IFA portals etc are all presented as Cloud applications and are highly secure. Travel agents, supermarkets, flower shops - you name it they all have secure Cloud based options to purchase on the web which now constitutes a huge portion of our annual spend and it is growing exponentially whereas High Street trade is falling. The Cloud is actually quite passé when you really think about it.

Google as a company was predicated in The Cloud and I doubt if anyone has ever received a disk with a Google App on it - the whole thing is based in The Cloud. A significant number of people even in corporateworld have their first task each day to look at their Facebook page - in The Cloud. It's little wonder why such companies have massive valuations when they have that kind of reach.

It is a short step then to believe that the new generation of business applications will be served in The Cloud. The old objections on downtime and security have long since been dealt with. Today, the bulk of the world's financial transactions are conducted in The Cloud. What happens if internet connections are lost is the same as the corporate network failing which happens more regularly than most would admit. The fact is that I have a full mail client wherever I am in the world on any device I carry accessing the web by broadband, WiFi and 3G in any combination. I am online to all my applications from mail to CRM to travel agent to Evernote to back up manager all the time. I am trialling my accounts on NetSuite too.

I still run an Exchange server through a hosted site as I have tree hugged. But why will I continue to do this? MS Office 2007 is still the same as it was when I bought it 5 years ago. The applications have not moved on, it looks the same and crashes in exactly the same way with monotonous regularity when it cannot find its server even when my other applications work fine. Why do I keep it? Probably because I am a slave to the Microsoft machine.

Things are changing. For simple monthly costs, I can have the vast majority of every serious applications and thousands of frivolous ones served from The Cloud - securely and with 99.99% uptime - and wherever I am, using whatever device I have. As a small businessman, I don't have to worry about IT, managing servers, increasing disk space, security and the like. I just focus on creating revenue with the right tools at my fingertips, wherever I am. Scale that up to a 100 person company and suddenly you can see a fast moving, dynamic workforce dedicated to revenue creation and not encumbered by outdated or constrained systems. Even as I waited to get acces to my client's network this morning, I was able to access salesforce.com, my internet banking facility, Twitter and Evernote using 3G. I can be productive more easily in The Cloud, unrestrained by creaking private networks with limited accessability.

As Google says, the web is the platform not the PC. For those executives who do not get it just watch the PC market as it declines as new platforms drive sales. Just watch how traditional, on-premise licence sales will drop as SMEs drift toward buying online and only what they need, when they need it. It's all there to buy - even Microsoft is there now. The problem for SMEs is buying it all from one point, with one bill and having 'one neck to choke' if it goes wrong is not viable today. You have to buy from multiple sources, often only from the vendors themselves. The traditional channel is at risk but SMEs would not be happy to have to keep buying from multiple sources. The channel somehow has a role to play.

The change is happening. Embrace and get prepared or whither on the vine. For Microsoft, to make MS 365 successful, they need a business model that leverages their partners for fear of cutting them off. Considering that channel of thousands of partners has put Microsoft where it is today, that isn't shrewd thinking.

However, as was echoed by distributors like SDG and vendors such as IBM at the Cloud Forum this week, a value proposition needs to be clarified to see how the channel can play. Distributors want justification on the benefits - in my opinion, that shows a lack of understanding. If you want to share in the benefits, you need a plan. In my experience, markets have rarely landed on a plate. You need to go make it happen. It seems that in many cases in distribution, no decision is at least a decision. I don't think vendors will wait - as in Microsoft's case they have defined their own plan in which it is hard to see where channel exists in the future. No decision could cost distributors dearly if that's the case.

Meanwhile, MS 365 could be brilliant. It could also fail. Now wouldn't that be an unusual thing for Microsoft as Google Android and Apple start eating into their share of the device operating system market?

Consumer - Know Your Rights

There is a terrific article on the BBC online Magazine which I refer to. It highlights five consumer laws you should know when buying goods.

With it comes a few horror and good stories from punters. I am sure we can all relate a few stories about buying products and what the article shows is that you need to know your rights.


Travel


I do a lot of travel and the last few months two things have affected me.


1. Eurostar


I took a trip to Paris and that included a meeting in Lille. So I bought a ticket to Paris returning from Lille so I caught the SNCF train to Lille from Gare du Nord which incidentally is an identical train to the Eurostar in every detail. The Eurostar tickets were Business Class, fully flexible and I noted there was no difference in the price of a return ticket from Paris or the halfway point which is Lille - ah, well you pays your money. My meeting at Lille ended slightly earlier than anticipated and I was able to catch an earlier Eurostar that had coincidentally come from Brussels not Paris. The first thing is that there is no special facility at Lille for Business Class like a lounge. Then when I got to my seat on the train there were only 3 other passengers in the carriage and no one came through with a drinks or meal service. Eventually I had to buy some water and ask for some service. A person came through set out the meal table and then did not return.


I complained to Eurostar and it took weeks of wrangling as all they wanted to do was to compensate £30 for the missing meal. However, I argued that the ticket was Business Class and several services were missing which made the ticket missold. Only when I said that I was referring the matter to a solicitor under my rights as a consumer did they act - then suddenly they went over board and sent me a return ticket to either Paris or Brussels, Business Class. I had not asked for that or expected it, but had clearly touched a raw nerve.


2. Air Travel - Budget Airlines


I recently had to travel to Germany and, late as usual, I could not get back to Dusseldorf in time to catch my flight home and so had to make for the nearest airport which happened to be Ryan Air hub at Frankfurt-Hahn airport. It should be noted the 'Frankfurt' title is pretty stretched as it is over 200km from Frankfurt, about as far as Birmingham from London. No matter, it served a purpose. I called to buy a ticket but as I was inside a 4 hour limit to buy either online or by phone (I didn't know such a limit existed), I had to go to the airport to buy the ticket. I was quoted €239 over the phone which I was assured was the all-in price. When I got there, the price was €354 and I had to check a bag in for extra, I had also to pay for automatic check-in which did not work and priority boarding, the total was closer to €400 for a single flight.


It was late by several very sweaty hours and most of the time we had to wait at a packed gate. It went over the 4 hour trigger to get looked after but nobody manned any desks for Ryan Air and we were told to call them when we got back even though there were small families with thirsty children. When I got back I was told that you had to write in as salespeople didn't handle customer support calls and all is done in writing. Naturally I have received no reply.


For budget airlines, there is misconception that it is implied you only pay for what you get. That is not true - all airlines are governed by the same international compensation policy which have clear guidelines - Ryan Air get away with it as no one calls them out on it while they do not have staff focused on dealing with customer problems or complaints. There is a 'like it or lump it' and 'you pay peanuts, what do expect?' policy in action.


Buying A Car


Some years ago I bought a BMW 7 series - why, I don't know. I went into the garage to buy a 5 series and ended up with an exceptional deal on the 7 series that had languished on the showroom floor. It was an odd car - luxurious and annoying at times but very nice to drive. After about 4 months a recall letter came through and the engine management software needed a bug fixed so I booked the car in to have it done. I was expecting to pick it up later that day but got a call - they had done the fix but there was a problem with the transmission or gearbox. They needed it for another day.


4 weeks later and I still did not have my car back. They had put brand new software, put all the settings back to the factory ones, and still the transmission was stuck in 4th gear. They then tried to get me to take a replacement car for a while but I went to the garage to find my car and found it with it's transmission on the floor beside it, laid out like animal entrails. I turned to the manager and said I wasn't going to have that car back - it was clearly not going anywhere fast let alone back to me. It was not fit for purpose, i.e. driving.


There was long exchange of letters, some help from the Citizens Advice Bureau and a solicitor. In order to stop adverse publicity and have the law poking around, the garage agreed to replace the car with a new one and said I could have any BMW to the same value. I went for the 645i and applied the same discount which sent them into fits as they could sell those quickly. After some wrangles and legal threats, they agreed and I got my new car.


The key factors here were that the car was less than 6 months old and was effectively 'not fit for purpose' in that I couldn't drive it and they had changed the transmission once and could not get it to go. The law was in my favour within that 6 months period. The second thing was that it was the garage, not BMW who had to remedy it. In fact, BMW did not want to know and made it absolutely clear to me, in very legal terms, that they were not responsible for selling me a car not fit for purpose even though it bore their name and they manufactured it. It was entirely the dealer's responsibility.


Finally, it does not matter how big or expensive the item is, if it is not 'fit for purpose' you have six months to exercise your rights and demand your money back or a new product - your choice.


Buying on the Internet


I recently bought a new computer for my business on my credit card - it was with PC World Business. When it arrived, after a few goes, the power block failed. I phoned Sony as PC World said it was a warranty issue. Sony said they would send a new power block to see it it fixed the problem. Clearly this was my work PC, and so I exercised my right to reject it under the 7 days cooling off period you have for any goods or service bought on the internet.


In praise of PCWB, they were excellent and made no quibbles. They took the product back, collecting and delivering the new one of my choice at the same time at no extra cost and credited the full amount on my card within two weeks (with a bit of prompting).

PCWB are a good company - there was never any question of taking the product back for a full refund and the service was superb. I didn't replace it with another Sony, I bought Lenovo instead and it is excellent.