Per on IT or Per on it!

IAMCP European Leadership Summit in Brussels on 23rd-24th March 2010

It is snowing in Stockholm! This is the best winter in a decade! Lots of opportunities for skiing or just sitting by the fireplace with a brandy and do some blogging!

In March 200 members of the IAMCP will to Brusels for our IAMCP European Leadership Summit. Our aim is for partners to meet each other and create business together, for partners to learn a little bit from wonderful speakers - and for the EU Commission and EU Parliament to meet with SMEs in the ICT sector!

We have done a few smaller events earlier and the recection has been so great so now we are scaling it up!

The registrations are coming in and it looks like we will be 'sold-out' which is great!

Regards, Per

WPC 2010 in Washington D.C. will be great!

Dear all,

Happy New Year 2010!

In my part of the world I can assure you it is freezing cold! In Sweden we had the best Xmas and New Year's Eve in a decade! Lots of snow and plenty of opportunity for outdoor activity - as well as plenty of time sitting by the fireplace and warming up!

Every year Microsoft invite partners to the Worldwide Partner Conference. Right now summer seems far away but in July in D.C. we can expect a very different weather than right now in Sweden!

The dates this year are July  12 to 15. Microsoft have been very successful developing this conference from its early name Fusion to now Worldwide Partner Conference. The past year was excellent but I can promise you that this year Microsoft are re-inventing themselves by make a few great changes so that partnering will be easier and so that people can meet in smaller groups and have more of a bi-directional exchange.

This year's conference will probably be even greater than past conferences and reflect the way people like to meet in the new decade. We, that have given feedback the past years have given Microsoft a clear message that we want to take it further and this summer in D.C. we will all see that our feedback has really made abn impression!

A word of advice is to book flights early as D.C. is popular place also for other people!

It will be almost as hot as in New Orleans but in my view D.C. also doubles as a fantastic place for family vacation.

We all know D.C. is the epi-center of public life in USA and perhaps it is also the most powerful place in the world.

I would also state that D.C. offers a few of the greatest museums in the US. And for us that are interested in American history I say that in D.C. you are really living history!

One of my biggest personal impressions from D.C. is that in the Capitoleum there is a statue of Raoul Wallenberg. The extra ordinary Swedish hero that during WWII saved over 100,000 Jews from deportation in Hungary. I was humbled to see this great person being honored in such a great way on the other side of the Atlantic.

Other things to do are of course to enjoy the culinary highlights in Georgetown which is a vibrant place for great entertainment!

Regards, Per

EU Commission and Microsoft have settled the differences around IE!

It came as no surprise to me that the EU Commission accepted Microsoft approach around Internet Expolorer!

The EU Commission accepts the proposal from Microsoft with a 'ballot screen' so that a consumer can easily download any of the competing browsers in the market. This is a simple and straightforward process that also other vendors would fine as acceptable and even really good!

I am pleased to see that this issue was settled in a nice atmospehere without to much of a debacle.

I see that Microsoft are now getting more and more credit for their initiatives around openness, interoperability and standards. I believe that it is the recent years of efforts from Microsoft that makes the EU Commission trusting Micosoft more and being able to find common ground.

This is of course great news for Microsoft partners but also for consumers.

Regards, Per

Exchange 2010 - it's undramatic!

I have recently had many conversations around Exchange 2010 and to me it looks like this is very undramatic.

Many customer are already emotionally ready to deploy! It looks like even if the product has only been around for just a few weeks - customer are now in the middle of deploying it in their minds!

I wonder what has happened?

Looks like Windows 7 have really paved the way for customers being ripe for upgrade without being afraid!

Regards, Per

On my way to EPS in Cannes

Hi all,

 

Leaving the wonderful Autumn in Stockholm for a few hectic days in Cannes is a joy every year. The Microsoft Executive Partnering Summit takes place in mid October and since a few years Cannes is the venue.

 

I look forward to discuss how we can jointly drive commercial software in Europe. Sadly there any many initiatives of confusion that are around banning commercial software from the public sector. It was refreshing last week when I hosted meetings with 20 SMEs in Brussels where we had the opportunity to speak to the European Commission and to hear that the view around favoring Open Source is not necessarily the Commission’s view but perhaps only the view of some bureaucrats and European MEPs. On Wednesday in Cannes I will run a session around this with my friend Ray Pinto and we hope to have beautiful discussion with Europe’s top Microsoft partners.

 

I also look forward to discuss how to drive IDE’s business. Right now we are extremely successful winning new customers around our Software-plus-Services offerings. This year we have grown much faster than last year and we are becoming a very solid Scandinavian provider of both on-premise and in the cloud solutions with a wonderful ServiceDesk to back it up.

 

Last but not least In hope to be able to discuss Partnering Maturity Model. It is amazing to see how important this model is becoming and it makes me proud to see how it is being picked up by the Microsoft partner eco-system in rapid pace.

 

I must also admit that Cannes provides very pleasant surroundings for these type of discussions. After all it is a little bit warmer than it is in Stockholm during October. And meeting friends is always great.

 

 

 

Regards, Per

Everyone wants Cloud Computing

It is amazing that now everyone wants Cloud Compouting!

IDE (where I am CEO) and other hosting providers tell the same story- that customers that were reluctant 1 year ago have now made the mental shift and are really revisiting Cloud Computing and see it as a 'no-brainer'!

The hardest part is that the customer might find himsef with a few employees that he need to make redundant but he should be less afraid of that as we can all see that unemployment is going down. And we all know that there is always job opportunities for the ones with right skillset.

One of my customers said that moving to IDE's Cloud Computing made him not only save 43% of his IT budget but more important - he could refocus his IT dept so that they are focusing more on applications and processes. Clod Computing is a great way for the CIO and his IT dept to climb the value chain!

I bet that saving 43% was also welcome and made him look like a hero! :-)

Regards, Per

EU to probe Oracle’s $7.4bn Sun deal

The small to medium software community that build on Java have breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing Brussels will give the deal greater scrutiny.   I am happy to see Commissioner Kroes was not intimidated by either Larry Ellison’s confident predictions about a quick approval, or the US Department of Justice’s quick decision to give the deal a pass. 

 

EU-based companies who are building on the Java software development platform are concerned of this technology being dominated by one company and will be hoping that the European Commission has the spine to approve the deal conditional to commitments by Oracle to maintain the openness and transparency to the Java Community and to promise to keep license fees for Java technologies fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory. 

 

 

Regards, Per 

Windows 7 is picking up momentum!

Everywhere I go, both visiting customers and partners, I hear positive things about Windows 7.

 

Never has a new operating system been so warmly embraced right from start.

 

We have already started to see large implementations and customers that were hesitant about Windows Vista are now thinking about planning early deployment. I have also met several customers that have halted their Vista deployments and are instead focusing on Win 7.

 

This is great news for us in the partner eco-system! People tell me that their is a recession going on and positive things like Windows 7 will transform in partners being more profitable and potentially better employers.

 

Now we must all 'eat our own dog food' and deploy Win 7 in our own companies so that we express confidendence when we meet our customers!

 

Time to deploy! Time to serve our customers! It is time for Windows 7!

 

 

Regards, Per

Winner Microsoft PARTNER OF THE YEAR 2009

I now see that the Partner of the Year Award that my company IDE won this Summer in New Orleans is really becoming the differentiating factor! (also MSFT PressPass)

Old customers come forward and say that this is well deserved and whenever we are pitching new accounts this is what makes it so much easier!

And it feels good that the whole company, every single staff member, is part of this magic award! It is very much a team effort and it have taken IDE long time to reach this level!

On a personal note I must say that is was great getting a big hand of applause from 10,000 people on the main stage at the Worldwide Partner Conference was not bad! It made my day! :-)

Thank you Steve, thank you Kevin and thank you Allison! This award means the world!

Regards, Per

Binging together with Yahoo!

The search deal just announced by Microsoft and Yahoo! is great news for the internet.  

 

Users, advertisers and publishers alike will all win.  It can only lead to greater choice, better value, and more innovation. 

 

The deal, under which Microsoft’s Bing will power search on both Microsoft and Yahoo! sites, will create a real alternative to Google, which is currently overwhelmingly dominant in search and search advertising, commanding some 90% of searches in Europe alone. 

 

The Microsoft/Yahoo! deal will create the scale necessary to more effectively compete with Google’s super dominance.  It will attract more users to the combined platform; and those users will enjoy more relevant ads and better search results.  More users means more advertisers, and more advertisers means even more relevant ad results -- a self-reinforcing “virtuous” cycle where users and advertisers alike are big beneficiaries.  

 

Similarly, web publishers will have an alternative to Google that has the necessary scale to be attractive for their search syndication deals.  The new platform will be able to offer web publishers more competitive bids for their search syndication. 

 

Finally, and importantly, “search” itself will also win in the form of greater innovation -- Bing is already a breakthrough in innovative features, but the additional push that the deal will give to development and refinement of the search algorithms and other drivers of the platform will deliver even more rapid advances.  Searches will only become more relevant and useful.  

 

 

 

Regards, Per