Microsoft Earnings Reality Check: 5 Partner Opportunities
When Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced Q2 2013 earnings today, most eyes were on Windows 8 sales. Wall Street was slightly disappointed with the company’s overall quarterly revenues. But instead of getting caught up in investor chatter, channel partners should focus — really fast — on these five areas. Here’s the list…
1. Office 365 and Windows Azure: Microsoft isn’t saying much about current revenues. Perhaps details will surface during an earnings call, happening right now. But overall, it sounds like Office 365 has turned the corner with channel partners. Want to wrap additional services around Office 365? Check out 365 Command. Still skeptical? Investigate Microsoft channel programs like Cloud Accelerate and Cloud Essentials.
2. Server Applications: Sales of Lync, SharePoint and Exchange continue to generate double-digit growth. Reselling basic server applications isn’t the point. Rather, develop some ISV expertise to add value on SharePoint and Lync in particular. Then, figure out how you can offer the solutions both on-premises or through the Office 365-Azure cloud combo.
3. Surface Pro and Windows 8 Tablets: Don’t have a Windows 8 tablet yet? Foolish. Run out and buy Surface Pro when it debuts in February. Or check out alternatives from Lenovo and more. The shift to Windows 8’s new interface may be overwhelming for some customers. But that’s exactly the point. Get to know the new operating system before your customers start asking about it.
4. Windows Intune: The VAR Guy has been tepid about the cloud-based PC management tool. It can’t manage Mac OS X and Linux, so if you’ve got a heterogeneous customer base you’re out of luck. But… it does offer mobile device management across Windows, Apple iOS and Android devices. Now that’s worth investigating, especially since there are special perks on Windows licensing…
5. Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V: Sure, VMware still rules the world of virtualization. But the latest Hyper-V hypervisor, part of Windows Server 2012, is quite positive.
6. Bonus: Hybrid Cloud Management: Check out how Microsoft System Center can manage on-premises networks as well as assets running in Windows Azure. One dashboard for everything on premises and cloud? Now that’s the future… in action today.
That’s all for now. Time for The VAR Guy to run off to dinner…
From CNNMoney: “Windows sales rose 24% to $5.8 billion in the quarter that ended Dec. 31. Microsoft unveiled its years-in-the-making Windows overhaul on Oct. 26. But [the Windows 8 launch] pales in comparison to prior launches of the operating system: Windows sales soared 76% during the quarter that Windows 7 launched, and rose by 65% when Windows Vista debuted.”
Well, the Windows 8 disaster that myself and ten thousand other analysts and testers have been predicting for over six months has now been confirmed. Windows 8 is doing only 1/3 as well compared to when Windows 7 and Vista came out. And guess what? PC sales as a whole are NOT 3 times worse as in those two previous cases, so it’s completely bogus to be claiming that a slump in PC sales is to blame. And besides, hasn’t Microsoft and all of their “partners” been claiming that Windows 8 was just the thing to turn that PC slump around? Kind of ironic that now they’re trying to blame the PC slump for bad Windows 8 performance, don’t you think?
Biggest problem with Microsoft is Growth. The stock which is down 7% in one Year where Samp;p and DJI are higher more than 10% will not attract customers who want Long term Growth. Factors such as PC demand decline , Microsoft office less demand, Not good performance from Windows 8 will ultimately lead stock price Down in Long term. A beautiful insight of Microsoft is given at
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