Last week in Toronto Microsoft held their yearly Partner Conference! It was the largest Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) ever with over 16,000 attendees from over 156 different countries.
Microsoft did not disappoint the delegates making some big announcements on what is expected this year from Microsoft. Unsurprisingly it is going to be an exciting year with Surface, Windows 8 as well as some exciting news especially on licensing and cloud.
Some of the highlights included:
Microsoft Office 365 Open Announced – Customers will now be able to purchase Office 365 in Open license. Microsoft will offer this pre-paid allowing partners to realise more revenue and streamline the order process by delivering packaged services via a single invoice. Most importantly it will give partners the chance to manage the customer relationship more effectively. Luke Wheeler Chairman of Compare the Cloud www.comparethecloud.net said “we think its great news that existing customers are able to purchase Office365 through existing open Licence channels, this will only aid those wishing to move into cloud computing”.
Windows 8 – Windows 8 is on track for release to manufacturers during the first week of August, and the product will reach general availability at the end of October. Enterprise customers can get Windows 8 as early as August, and the product will be available in 109 languages and in 231 markets
Microsoft acquires Perceptive Pixel – Microsoft recently acquired Perceptive Pixel a well known manufacturer of large touch screens. Microsoft are looking to integrate their technology into smartphones and tablets such as Surface.
Switch to Hyper-V Program: Microsoft announced a new program to help customers transition from VMware infrastructure to Microsoft
Windows Server / Azure: A new community technology preview was given of new technologies that enable hosting service providers to use their Windows Server data centres to deliver the same great web site and virtual machine capabilities recently announced for Windows Azure
It looks 2012 will be a big year for Microsoft and its customers, which one of the Microsoft announcements are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments or vote in our Facebook poll.
