Worldwide Partner Conference

Wayne reports back from his fifth WPC

This was my fifth Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) and it was always going to be interesting for a variety of reasons, not least of which was that this was the first time we would have multiple attendees – Bruce Smith, Simon Bright and me – and that we were an award winner.

Also, following a huge release cycle at WPC2009, it was always going to be challenging to have as much excitement this time around.

This turned out to be the case and there was less new release content. Having said that, WPC10 was the busiest and most valuable WPC that I have attended. There were a number of reasons for this, including the networking, meetings and activities related to our award win. We were kept extremely busy from the day we landed in DC until the day we left.

Key messages from WPC2010 

The Cloud

We are “all in.” No surprises there, and if anyone thought that cloud wasn’t going to be huge at WPC then they have obviously been in the backblocks for the last year or two. Almost every presentation, demonstration or discussion covered the cloud in some way shape or form. Microsoft is certainly fully
committed. Equally importantly, they recognise that the transition to the cloud will take time and that it requires both an on and off-premise capability.

Windows Azure Appliance

This was released at WPC. Basically organisations will be able to order their own containerised Windows Azure appliance farm. We checked out one of the containers and, as a former hardware engineer, I was very impressed with how they have put it together. The only downside is the quantity of servers required (initially) as a minimum: around 1000.

Microsoft Partner Network changes

While this was announced late last year, this year there was more detail available. Microsoft is introducing a more structured partner framework that will allow customers to get greater appreciation of a partner’s capability and experience.

InTune

This is a cloud-based PC management tool that was demoed at one of the keynotes. Currently in beta, InTune looks great and I think it will certainly be something of interest to a lot of organisations, including Intergen.

CRM2011

While Intergen has been working with CRM5 pre-release for some time, this was the fi rst time
I had heard its offi cial release name: CRM2011.

Interestingly, in keeping with Microsoft’s cloud focus, CRM2011 will be released online first.

Consumer

Traditionally ignored at this partner-focused event, Microsoft discussed and showed several
consumer-focused offerings this year, including Windows Phone 7, Xbox Kinect and Windows
7 Home wireless experience. All I can say is I want all three and I’m sure my kids (not me, of course) would have a lot of fun with Kinect. Seriously cool.

Vertical solution alignment

As part of Microsoft’s extensive R&D, considerable effort is being put into solutions tailored at or for specific vertical markets. Microsoft’s focus is on core product development and add-ons and accelerators to ensure unique business requirements are more easily met.

The other area of WPC this year of significance was the number of meetings that we had, both with Microsoft executives and our partners who were also attending WPC. Microsoft New Zealand did another great job of lining up Microsoft Executive meetings for the Kiwi contingent and looking after us during our stay. Many thanks to Brent, Misty, Bernadette, Stewart and the wider MSNZ team.

No review of a conference of this nature can ignore the many social aspects held over the five days, and there were certainly plenty of them! The Kiwi contingent was well represented at the various events, the most apt being the Football World Cup final where the Intergen team was decked out in undefeated All Whites shirts!

The last and most significant aspect of WPC10 was receiving our award for 2010 Country Partner of
the Year – New Zealand. Winning this award is fantastic recognition of our efforts with Microsoft and
our customers over the last 10 years. It required being onstage in front of about 10,000 people at
Tuesday’s keynote – as you can see there was plenty of yellow!