Microsoft unveils ’the future of computing’
Everybody wants to be in the sweet spot: a seat on the halfway line for a big game, the parking spot near the front entrance at work, the house with the best view in the neighbourhood.
Microsoft sees itself in just such a spot with the emerging world of online services, and it expects this sweet spot to produce significant rewards for virtually all of its customers – from students and home-computer users to information workers and enterprises.
The company recently laid out a roadmap for the next phase of its online services strategy. It deliberately veers away from talking about software as a service (SaaS), preferring to use the term ’software plus services’ as it looks to increase computing options and break down barriers for everyone from individuals to large corporations.
"Vendors of point solutions can argue for one approach or the other. But either-or approaches do not address all of the technology challenges and opportunities in today’s workplaces," says Cyril Belikoff, executive for the Information Worker business at Microsoft SA. "In addition to giving customers more choice, software plus services balance the massive power of the Web to connect people, devices and information with the interactivity and performance of software on a machine with a powerful processor."
Belikoff says the future of technology at work will be a combination of local software on client PCs or on-premise servers, along with services available in huge online data servers known as the ’cloud’. He describes the software plus services approach as a continuum, ranging from pure software to pure services approaches, with most customers ’somewhere in the middle’.
"Different customers will make different decisions and even customers with similar situations will make different decisions for what they want on-premise and what they want as a service from the cloud," says Belikoff.
Microsoft’s strategy includes a new wave of services that combine elements of client-based programs with software that runs large servers and new services delivered over the Internet. Its solutions are designed to weave together software and Internet services to provide a new generation of seamless experiences that are personalised, integrated and available online anywhere. This approach gives individuals and organisations greater freedom of choice in how they interact with the people, information and activities that they value most.
These new services and investments take advantage of a combination of smart client software, programs such as Word and PowerPoint on the PC; the software that runs computer servers; and software offered via the Web as a service. The company sees this combination as increasingly essential as digital technology continues to grow, and as people rely on more and more digital devices at home and work.
By combining elements of different types of software, this new generation of solutions is designed to break through the boundaries between the isolated islands of information within many organisations, while also enabling people to connect easily and securely with partners and customers beyond the corporate firewall. These solutions also aim to help people to better integrate and manage their home and work lives, and will provide the tools needed to deal with information overload.
"Technology breakthroughs continue to transform the workplace and the rest of our world. We are talking more powerful processers, the increasing speed and prevalence of broadband networks and expanded storage on devices and in the cloud," says Belikoff.
"Technology needs to help us find the information we need wherever it exists and securely connect to that information wherever we are working. Software plus services will help individuals and organisations to do this – and more."
For business decision-makers, the promise of software plus services is streamlined access to critical information and insights needed to drive strategic advantage. IT professionals will be able to reduce costs, improve control and focus more time on delivering new capabilities and spend less time on system maintenance. Developers will have new options for creating interactive solutions with broad reach and enhanced richness.
For organisations with IT departments, these new services will deliver new levels of flexibility and choice. These services also will help businesses differentiate themselves from competitors and increase the return on their technology investments. For businesses that don’t have IT staff, the Microsoft approach aims to make it easier to take advantage of the connected communication and other technology. It will open the door to experiences that will redefine the way in which people create and share information and access content.
Microsoft plans to deliver a wide variety of new solutions during the coming months under two key families of service offerings: ’Live’ and ’Online’.
’Live’ services from Microsoft are designed primarily for individuals, business end-users and virtual work groups. Live offerings span entertainment, communication and productivity. These services emphasise ease of use, simplicity of access and flexibility, and are said to be suited for situations where people either don’t have access to professional technical expertise or don’t require high levels of system management.
’Online’ services are for organisations with more advanced IT needs where power and flexibility are critical. Online services from Microsoft give businesses the ability to control access to data, manage users, apply business and compliance policy, and meet high availability standards while providing performance, scalability, enhanced security, management features and service-level capabilities to support mission-critical applications and systems.
Microsoft says that it is providing business customers with the flexibility to choose between traditional on-premise implementations, services hosted by Microsoft partners and now Online services that reside in Microsoft’s data centres.
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