July 2009 - Posts

• Microsoft WPC 2009 – Day 4 - The Future of the User Interface

  Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC09) wrapped up today. I have to say that two things came across loud and clear in the conference: 1. Microsoft is respectful of their Partners and is following through on their business plan to work with their channel to drive business (money) into both the Partner and their pockets, and 2. That Microsoft is in it to win. I have been to most of the WPC events over the past 10 years and I cannot remember a year where their competitive drive was stronger. More importantly, to win - they know they need to focus on Partners and they need to focus on strong product design. The following slide I think does a great job of showing Microsoft's commitment to succeeding with Partners and also the size and momentum that they bring to bear on the market.   I want to comment more on product design, but first I have to tell you that today I did something I have not done in years. Today I wrote a program. It has been a few years since I actually sat down and coded and debugged a program. I went to the Hands-On Lab for Windows Mobile and wrote an actual application that runs on Windows Mobile. It was a shipping and tracking application complete with a map that lights up where the package is during transit. Now, I am not saying that FedEx needs to be watching out any time soon, but I have to say – it was pretty good! There was a script to follow in the lab, but as a long-time programmer at heart I did add my own little touches to the user interface to make it easier to use. The user experience has been something that has always been something I have taken a great deal of interest in…which brings me to my next and closing comments for the conference.  Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher Microsoft Research (who also gave a key note address yesterday) gave an hour long presentation on The Future of UX: Looking Back 10 Years into the Future. An hour was simply not enough for me. Bill is a professional User Experience (UX) design expert and what I Iike most of all is his passion for the user experience, that he wants to improve Microsoft’s products – and above all of that – that Microsoft see the value in his input. On that note, Bill outlined for us the research group in the last two years. It has gone from 1 research fellow to 10 and Microsoft has hired UX designers at a rate of 1.5 times the rate that they are hiring technologists. Bill outlined past UX successes from the Kodak camera to the mouse to multi-touch technology. He also stressed that success lies in the combination of technology, design and business. It is the combination of the three that produces the generally accepted successes that we know today. I like that Microsoft understands that they need to design technologies and products that have the user experience as a basic design tenant. I further like that they (seem) to understand that it is then the Partners that apply those technologies and products to reach end users. We all need to pick up our game and think about the entire user experience and not build solutions that are just “good enough”.   Posted Jul 16 2009, 10:23 PM by wanderson with 1 comment(s) Filed under: WPC09, Predictions, Microsoft, User Experience

• Microsoft WPC 2009 – Day 3 - Allison Watson's A List

  The third day of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference had one of my favourite sessions - one I look forward to every year. Allison Watson presents her "A" List. This is a list of the best and brightest as chosen by her (or I would presume her staff), predicting what technology will shape our future. In years gone by this has included noteworthy new technologies such as flexible screens used as household newspapers, the Microsoft Surface product, new compression and graphics display technologies and Microsoft Auto. Imagine Cup - this is an annual award in the form of a challenge to students from around the world to do something with technology (each year is different). This year there was more than 300,000 students registered and 59,000 students from 149 countries competed. The theme this year was: "Imagine a world where technology helps solve the world's toughest problems." Windows Mobile - really this was just giving the mobile market and product line the nod it deserves. Mobile is here to stay and will play a key part in defining how we work and play in the future (starting now). Microsoft Surface - this was an update from two years ago (Surface was curiously missing from the "A" List last year). This year, Allison showed off the HealthVault application on Surface. It was a really cool application because it was a great example of using technology to make people's lives easier. For example, part of the demo had the doctor discussing what medicine the patient was taking and they were able to look at pictures of the pills. If you have ever had to take a lot of medicine - the names don't make a lot of sense but you can recognize them. Advanced Communications - okay - I am drawing a blank on this one. I think it had to do with Office Communications Server. I was taking notes during the presentation but because the ones before and after this one were so interesting to me I did not have a chance to jot down what this was and now I forget. If anyone knows - leave me a comment. J The Future of Productivity - this was easily the highlight of the entire "A" list. Bob Muglia came out to talk about what productivity will look like in the future and how each of these concepts is already being worked on in some way. The video is 5:45 and is really worth watching. Realizing the Future - this was a great way of ending the "A" List. It was presented by a Research Fellow for Microsoft (sorry - I missed his name). He walked us through how they plan for 20 years in the future. He gave examples of technical advances that are becoming productized like thin screens that are allowing smaller and smaller products (Zune and TV screens) and the technology behind Microsoft Surface. Although the "A" List was great - I think it was missing some of the cutting edge ideas like robotics and immersive or full-sense interfaces like Microsoft Natal. There was one other session I attended today that deserves a little recognition. Stuart Crawford gave a presentation on Social Media 101 - Defining and Understanding How to Connect with Your Clients and Colleagues Using the Latest Technologies. He covered all the usual suspects from Twitter to LinkedIn and explained what each is good for and why we need it. Most importantly of all, he showed how this change is happening how and will become the "norm" whether we are prepared for it or not. He had a couple of great video to show also that I was not able to find on YouTube - if anyone has their URLs, please leave them in a comment.   Posted Jul 15 2009, 10:37 PM by wanderson with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Microsoft WPC, WPC09, Predictions

• Microsoft WPC 2009 – Day 2 – Azure and Office 14

  The second day of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is over and it was another good day. The day was kicked off by Bob Muglia, president of the Server and Tools Business, announcing the business and partner model for the company's Windows Azure platform - Microsoft's answer to how Windows will operate as a cloud computing operating system. He also discussed how Microsoft will enable partners to generate new revenue opportunities through the development of innovative cloud services. Basically, Microsoft has laid out a plan for how they and their partners will continue to succeed in this new world of SaaS computing.  I attended several sessions on Windows Azure and SQL Azure and was impressed with Microsoft's vision and execution plan. Steve Ballmer gave another great talk on where Microsoft is going - headlined by their new Bing announcement - which is their newly launched Search engine and advertising model. After the Yahoo! purchase of last year fell through - we are now seeing plan B. By all accounts, it is looking good. Chris Caposella gave a great talk on where Office and Office Services are going. I really think that this is something that although a little advanced for the average worker today sets the stage for how we will do document authoring and team collaboration in the not too distant future. I think Office 14 - to be known as Office 2010 - will be a great release. They have taken feedback on the ribbon and improved it as well as rolled it out across more applications. They have also done a great job of integrating team based and social media.   Posted Jul 14 2009, 10:50 PM by wanderson with 2 comment(s) Filed under: WPC09

• Microsoft WPC 2009 Day 1 – Microsoft Announces the Importance of the Customer – and Means It!

  The first day of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is over and it was a frenzied day. Microsoft knows how to put on a good conference. There were great key note presentations, a LOT of breakout sessions to dive down into the details of too many topics to count and a lot of Creole hospitality and food. The people of New Orleans are very nice. To give you an idea of how big this conference is, there are more than 9,000 attendees from more than 125 customers. In the lead off key note by Allison Watson, Microsoft outlined 3 key success points of companies during an economic situation like the one we are in now: Company Vision, a Belief in themselves and Marketing that Vision, and the ability to Sell. Okay - no real secrets there. To Microsoft's credit though, they followed that up with something I did think was worth noting. They clearly wanted to send a message that Microsoft is not going to stay the same company we have come to know. They showed lively "commercials", a fresh young approach to their marketing and most importantly of all they stressed that "people" come first in their product design and marketing. They used the phrase "Life Maximizers" to describe the kind of customer that is beginning to make up a large part of the buying market. They described this as someone that values their work life balance - but also mixes their lives. They do work during their personal lives and personal things during their work time.  This is something I firmly believe. Not surprisingly - Mobile makes a big part of this message. In the following picture they are making the point that the market is at an inflection point.   The combination of price (getting lower), technology (the devices and infrastructure can now deliver what people demand), and the user experience (something people actually like using - not just the cutting edge or techno-geeks but the majority of people). On the last point they stressed the user experience that is required to reach these users and of course couldn't resist from dropping the IDC stats that there are more than 1.3 Billion cell phone users in the world today and a predicted 400-500 Million Smartphone users by 2012. Knowing that Microsoft values the Mobile market this much also validates Maximizer's emphasis in the Mobile CRM market. Some of the main announcements Microsoft made include: Windows 7 to be released to customer this September Office 14 to be released as an early preview shortly, followed by a general Beta later this year Windows Phone - the new name for the Windows Mobile 6.5 release - and the statement that they are taking a more active role in defining the brand that users will see The newly revamped Partner Network - a version 2.0 of the Partner Program They surpassed Michael Jackson as the most active Twitter conversation   Posted Jul 13 2009, 10:05 PM by wanderson with 6 comment(s) Filed under: 2009 CRM Predictions, Smartphone, economy, Microsoft WPC, WPC09

• Microsoft WPC 2009 in New Orleans

  I am here at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in New Orleans. Microsoft holds the conference in a different city each year and announced last year that they would be bringing this huge event to New Orleans in 2009 to help support the city as it rebuilds from Katrina. I'm looking forward to seeing New Orleans and their lively city culture, and the conference planners are not missing any opportunities - starting off at the registration desk with this great live band.   This is an annual conference and is Microsoft's key event to showcase their new products, go-to-market strategy and generally outline their business strategy to their business partners. This year is likely to be an interesting conference as Microsoft is at a cross roads for both market and product events. Microsoft is feeling market pressure like maybe never before from Google and the move towards SaaS. Microsoft answered a couple of years ago with their Software + Services and has been selling it to their partners ever since. They have moved some of their products into the cloud, but their main money makers remain an on-premise solution - mainly Windows and Office. Which brings me to their second event - product. They are currently readying the next version of Windows and Office for general release. Add to this mobility - something they have been doing since the late 90s but have still failed capture the market dominance they have in Windows and Web. There is a lot of talk from Microsoft and the usual rumor mill about when or even if Microsoft can capture this market. I will be watching Microsoft's key note addresses and breakout sessions to find out what their messages will be and will write about them in my blog - so check back and see what Microsoft is announcing. Posted Jul 12 2009, 08:52 PM by wanderson with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Microsoft WPC, WPC09

• How to Motivate Smartphone and Application Adoption from the IT Side

  eWeek today published an article I wrote on getting Smartphones adopted by getting the IT team onside. In it, I address the concerns an IT team faces in adopting Smartphones into their infrastructure - and how to plan a roadmap and avoid common pitfalls. I broke the article into 5 key steps: 1. Set device management policies to ensure security 2. Use browser-based applications for occasional users 3. Use device-side applications for power users 4. Monitor returns and then consolidate plans 5. Build the business case If you are starting to see rogue devices such as iPhones and BlackBerries being brought into your organization that are not part of your officially supported IT infrastructure, you should know that this actually presents a great opportunity for you and your company. Take advantage of your employees' willingness to use their Smartphones to increase the adoption and usage of line of business (LOB) applications such as CRM and sales force automation (SFA)-which traditionally have not achieved 100 percent user adoption. Check out the entire article at: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/How-to-Motivate-Smartphone-and-Application-Adoption-from-the-IT-Side/ Posted Jul 06 2009, 05:15 PM by wanderson with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Smartphone, BlackBerry, iPhone, CRM