Microsoft Announces More Cloud Customer Wins

Google tends to favor announcing major Google Apps customer wins as they’re  confirmed. Not Microsoft, no. Microsoft likes to announce a lengthy list of BPOS and Live@edu cloud customer wins all at the same time, and yesterday saw Microsoft add companies like Sunoco Inc. and DuPont and schools like San Francisco State University to the list of SaaS victories. Here’s the story.

In addition to petroleum titan Sunoco Inc. and chemical giant DuPont, Microsoft Online Services signed contract management and retail specialists Spotless Group. While Microsoft’s press release has supporting quotes from each company’s CIO, they all say about the same thing: BPOS got the nod because they were already running Microsoft-heavy environments and valued the BPOS approach to cloud security besides.

Update: Google has pointed out that they didn’t compete for the deals, so it’s not accurate to say BPOS won over Google Apps – stay tuned to MSPmentor for more insight from Google.

And as for Live@edu, Microsoft’s no-cost collaboration cloud platform for the education market, several more schools have made the leap, including:

• California State University schools San Francisco State University Long Beach State University, California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, and the State Center Community College District (California)
• University of Montana
• Northern Kentucky University
• College of DuPage
• Aston University in the United Kingdom.

In all cases across both the education and enterprise markets, Microsoft’s press releases indicate that the main attraction of cloud solutions in the first place were the usual suspects: lowered IT spending and better collaboration between employees (or faculty and students, as the case may be).

So here’s MSPmentor’s questions: are these customer wins really better than those by main rival Google, or do they seem more impressive because it came in one big lump?

All the same, Microsoft BPOS seems to be building a lot of momentum. But we’re still waiting to find out where partners fit into Microsoft’s SaaS plans. Yes, we know some partners that have embraced BPOS. But we’re looking for partners that have actually bet their businesses on BPOS.

Sign up for MSPmentor’s Weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS,Facebook, Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.