Softcat Hosting Day

Had an interesting day at the Softcat Hosting Summit at the Barbican in London yesterday. Was great to catch up with familiar faces and some 7global alumni.

There were some first rate presentations from the likes of Microsoft, Citrix, VMware and others, principally on the subject of The Cloud and the many things that means.

Microsoft (predictably) got a right royal kicking over the recent slash in BPOS pricing. There was a storm of outrage, only partially assuaged by the assurance that Microsoft is 'listening' and will be 'looking at' corresponding SPLA pricing.

I actually think what they're doing is inevitable but they've communicated very badly with partners who feel extremely threatened by this (and I actually don't count 7global in this). The message is "move up the stack, as the vanilla stuff will be swallowed up. If not by Microsoft then someone else." Adapt or die is the message- true, but obviously there's more work to be done on how this is communicated.

The Azure messages from Microsoft are very woolly. You need to tighten that up, chaps.

I must say, despite persuasive presentations from VMware and Citrix, Microsoft's Dynamic Data Center piece was by far the most together and coherent. They've got the full story and they make it easy. They've got the pricing right on this. Pulled it out of the bag in the end guys.