The first day of this prestigious event started off a bit chaotic, with a huge queue at the Canadian Conference Centre. No wonder, after all Microsoft was welcoming 16.000 of their partners from all around the world. Fortunately, we managed to arrive just in time for the keynotes, something you wouldn’t like to miss! The first day went as expected, a lot of announcements, knowledge sharing and introductions, all of that presented in unique circumstances starting with Cirque du Soleil, the opening by John Roskill and continued with, as always, a convincing Steve Ballmer.
Entering New Era with Steve
Epic Year: Xbox, Halo 4, Skype, Win Phone, Azure IAAS, Office 365, Windows 8, Windows 2012, Dynamics…WOW! #mspartnernl
— Nico van Veen (@nicovanv1) July 9, 2012
After all of the introduction, the audience was amused by Steve Ballmer. The CEO started with sharing the most positive news, that include the 13% profit growth last year and 10% growth in the area of cloud migrations in the Partners’ group. To add to the gold pool, also Skype reached 250 million users monthly while Office concluded in over a billion users world wide.
Being already inspired by the numbers we got down to brass tacks and Steve Ballmer together with Kurt DelBene discussed the cloud opportunities. As it turns out Microsoft decided to return the billing relationship for Office 365 back to the Partners. Office 365 Open will return full control over the clients to the Microsoft Partners, out of whom the most active will earn more just by selling Office 365.
Integrated and interactive
From the Cloud we went straight to the communication within and outside organizations. We learned all there’s to know about the Yammer acquisition. The interesting thing is that Microsoft is now working on the integration of the business collaboration tools, Yammer, Sharepoint, Lync and Skype. Does it mean we are about to meet a game changer in the office communication? I’m definitely looking forward that!
Windows 8 climbing the success ladder
#Windows8 RTM 1st week of August, general availability late October #wpc12
— Peter Horsten (@PetersOpinion) July 9, 2012
Although a lot consider metro style as “forced” it may actually change the way developers build their apps. Thus, it’s really a convenient user interface, which according to Microsoft has an unlimited potential to offer. Well, what we know now is that Windows 8 is on track for release to manufacturers during first week of August and we can expect it to be available until the end of October in 231 markets in 109 languages.
Something new for those billion users
Office 15 combined with Windows 8 made Steve Ballmer fall in love again …. #wpc12
— Peter Horsten (@PetersOpinion) July 9, 2012
We can already start getting unused to the Office 2010 and start preparing for release early next year: Office 15. That’s the first time in history we are welcoming such a multichannel software release including desktop, server and cloud solutions all at the same time. Sounds like a great experience according to Ballmer.
Perceptive Pixel and Microsoft to accelerate market revolution
Steve Ballmer announces Perceptive Pixel will be acquired by Microsoft #wpc12
— Peter Horsten (@PetersOpinion) July 9, 2012
The Announcement of the day was definitely the Perceptive Pixel take-over by Microsoft. The company responsible for the development of of a giant touch screen just was just incorporated into Microsoft structures, which according to Microsoft will lead to the appearance of powerful Windows 8-based PCs. Seems like a revolution to me.
The first day concluded with what we’ve expected. The support in cloud solution sales and the most important announcements. As Partners we are free to look forward to great growth figures for Microsoft!
Are you at WPC12? What are your impressions after the Day 1?
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