#wpc2013

appgenco zu Gast bei diesjähriger Microsoft Partner Conference in Houston – Cloud Computing und App-Programmierung wichtige Trendthemen

Köln, Juli 2013. Vom 9. bis zum 11. Juli fanden auch in diesem Jahr wieder die wichtigsten Microsoft Partnerunternehmen zusammen, um die Gelegenheit zum Ideen- und Gedankenaustausch zu nutzen. Mit von der Partie bei der Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference im US-amerikanischen Houston waren 14.000 Unternehmensvertreter aus der ganzen Welt – aus Deutschland unter anderen: die Kölner IT-Informationsmanagement-Spezialisten von appgenco, die im Dialog mit anderen MS-Partnern neue Business-Ansätze für das kommende Geschäftsjahr diskutierten.

Cloud Computing und App-Entwicklung wichtige Themen in Houston Im Mittelpunkt der Konferenz: neue Entwicklungen im Cloud Computing. So wurde beispielsweise die Zusammenlegung der Cloud Programme Accelerate und Essentials ebenso thematisiert wie die Neuordnung der Cloud-Plattform Windows Azure, die künftig in verwandte Kompetenzen einfließen wird. Neben der Veränderungen im Cloud-Umfeld wurden zudem in einem weiteren klassischen appgenco-Geschäftsbereich wichtige Neuerungen vorgestellt. So wird über die Anwendung „User Experience Design“ ein besserer Support für Windows App Entwickler gewährleistet. Auf diese Weise können zukünftig Windows-8-Apps intuitiver und userfreundlicher auf den Weg gebracht werden.

„Aus meiner Sicht hat Houston vor allem vier Trends in der Entwicklung von Microsoft-Partnerprogrammen deutlich herausgestellt: den Ausbau von Cloud Computing-Lösungen, die Weiterentwicklung von mobilen Devices, die Sammlung und Verarbeitung von großen Datenbanken sowie Informationsmanagement zwischen Businesspartnern über speziell dafür entwickelte soziale Netzwerke. Damit liegen wir mit unserem Dienstleistungsspektrum also absolut in diesen Trends. Die präsentierten Neuerungen helfen uns dabei, unsere Kundenlösungen noch innovativer zu gestalten. Die Teilnahme an der Konferenz in Houston und die dortigen Gespräche mit anderen Partnern haben uns in diesem Kontext ein weiteres Stück vorangebracht,“ so Reza Piroozram, einer der Gründer und CEO von appgenco.

  Über appgenco appgenco ist die Kooperation dreier erfolgreicher Marken im IT-Business Bereich: contentteam, Widgetlabs und CloudAngels. Der Fokus der Dienstleistung liegt auf dem Informationsmanagement für große Konzerne und mittelständische Unternehmen. Die Organisation des Austausches von Informationen wird dabei vor dem Hintergrund der sich verändernden IT-Landschaft hin zu mobiler Nutzung sowie des daraus resultierenden CloudComputing vorangetrieben. Unternehmenssitz ist Köln. appgenco greift auf die Expertise und Erfahrung der beteiligten Marken zurück. Diese reicht von Kunden aus der Telekommunikation-Branche wie Vodafone über Energiedienstleister wie E.ON bis hin zu Versicherern wie AachenMünchener.

Unternehmenskontakt: appgenco Im Mediapark 6a 50670 Köln Tel.: 0221 454-4140 E-Mail: [email protected] http://appgenco.com

After a long trip, a nice introduction partly hosted by Microsoft Netherlands and most importantly a good night’s sleep, the Microsoft World Partner Conference 2013 in Houston USA (WPC) kicks off with the vision key notes.

Imagine 16,000 people attending a conference and they all want to attend the vision key note session. There is only one option left, it has to be organized in a sports stadium! This morning it feels like we are going to a pop concert.

Jon Roskill, Microsoft Vice President of Worldwide Partner Group, briefly explains today’s agenda and shortly after that announces Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft on stage.

Steve Ballmer starts with a big thank you to the partners. The partners have managed to grow the Microsoft partner revenue by 6% in a 650 billion dollar market.

Next on his agenda is talking about the transformation from a traditional software company to a devices-and-services company and the 4 trends underpinning this transformation:

·         Cloud

Office365 and Azure. Microsoft really is the only company offering a public (Azure) and a private (Cloud).

·         Big data

90% of all the worlds data has been created the last 2 years! So data shall have to start thinking for its own, more intelligent, fast and effective. Organizations need to mix and match private data (think SharePoint) and public data (think Bing).

·         Social

Social Media is now and is also the future. Internal and external communication and more collaboration can only be achieved through using social media in a powerful and highly effective way.  Microsoft offers the tools and programs to do so.

·         Mobile

A unified working experience that what it is about. Steve Ballmer has a lot of believe in two-in-ones, use your tablet the one hour, and your pc the next! Microsoft announces it will continue to support non Microsoft devices such as an Android- and IPhone.

  Other highlights from the key note speaker session

Windows CMO and CFO Tami Reller shared with the audience that Windows 8 has been sold on more than 100 million devices and with 80 billion hours of use.

Listening to what customers and partners shared with Microsoft, exactly one year after releasing Windows 8 the next version called 8.1 there will be a RTM for OEM partners in late August.

Another interesting fact is that Office365 is currently the fastest growing product of Microsoft and possibly will be become the fastest growing product ever released! Some interesting facts on Office365:

1 in 4 enterprise customers already use Office365Over

75% of all implementation are done with the help of a partner;

Partners will continue to be in the lead.

Tami also announced extension of the Office365 open program.

Microsoft researched that only 20% of all tablets sold are currently being used for business purposes. Windows 8 on a tablet is changing this, but the upcoming Windows 8.1 will only accelerate it. It is expected that more and more business execs will use a tablet to perform their work.

Jensen Harris, the Director of Program Management of the Windows User Experience Team, demonstrates all the nice new features the Windows 8.1 has to offer.

Features called MiraCast and Sweeping are to us the most impressive improvements showcased. MiraCast lets you almost swipe a video from your surface to your TV. Sweeping is an addition to the mail app. This gives you the possibility to automatically delete (Sweep) all newsletter-mails, except for the latest one the one you do want to read!

Two areas were interesting for business owners:

Windows 8.1 has been designed to better fit 8” tablets;

Windows 8.1 can boot up in desktop mode! Making the transition from traditional Windows easier. Windows XP will only be supported for another 273 more days!

After Jensen Harris we saw a nice showcase of current and upcoming Office365 products, including a very brief preview of the Dynamics CRM app. The demo demonstrated that as a user you are using multiple applications but it doesn’t feel that way:

In-app function in Excel à SharePoint à Dynamics CRM à Netbreeze;

No singing-in 4 times because the Active Directory integration is on Azure!

Lync (business) and Skype (personal) will also be integrated together.

Actually the last demonstration of a new feature called Power BI for Office365 was the most energetic showcase we saw on day 1.

Amir Netz showed us some awesome functionalities about a subject that is normally considered very boring: Big Data!

Power BI is a suite of 4 products: PowerPivot, Power View, Power Query and Power Maps. All of these products make use of internal data (think SharePoint, CRM) and external data from different sources like Bing, Facebook etc. to create beautiful consolidated charts and reports.

Amir was literally jumping to show his tour of data on music of the last 40 years. He used the feature Power Maps for this!

The conclusion here is that Power BI makes BI a self-service feature instead of creating a special report that takes 40 hours to build, what a win!

The overall feeling at the end of the key note sessions is surrounding the 4 key pillars mentioned earlier in this blog, Microsoft focuses on:

Selling a platform rather than just one product;

Updating user interfaces with Windows 8.1;

Unified user experience across multiple devices, take a picture and its available on the desktop pc and also TV;

  Dynamics & Dynamics CRM at the conference center

After the vision key notes we headed back to the conference center. After quite a disappointing session on the vision of Dynamics (the roadmap we know by now and the talk was about customer success stories not about vision!) we attended a session by Fred Studer & Reuben Kripner.

This session was completely focused on Dynamics CRM. Fred and Reuben discussed the roadmap and changes in detail. The session also focused on success stories like Metro Bank and the Irish Tourism board. At the end of the session Ruben showed us the new Dynamics CRM 2013 version. The entire interface has changed, no more ribbons, no more pop-ups! Now it is possible to create a process for any entity, including custom entities. Reuben`s example of the baby entity and his acceptance process of that was just brilliant!

Fred Studer closed the meeting by explaining the licensing changes from Microsoft for both on-premise and online. The options are now the same for online as for on-premise. For detailed information check this blog from Microsoft: http://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/crmconnection/archive/2013/07/08/introducing-a-more-flexible-and-personal-way-to-buy-microsoft-dynamics-crm-online.aspx#.UdwHdfnry2k

And these slides:

    The final session of the day was also from Reuben Kripner. This session was focused on social. He sees a big opportunity for partners to specialize consultants in the social area: define strategy, make plans, define expected results etc.

Reuben explained the existing social applications of Microsoft:

Outlook connector, this has been redefined in Outlook 2013 and integrates to for instance LinkedIn.

Yammer, including yammer for external networks. Engage your partners on your own Yammer page!

SharePoint collaboration tools

Netbreeze; Netbreeze screens the web on sentiment about certain words or brands you setup when configuring this application. Netbreeze can be configured to screen different languages and can create beautiful and insightful reports!

Reuben ended the meeting by showing us the Netbreeze application. He also announced the roadmap of Microsoft when it comes to Netbreeze and Dynamics CRM.  

For example, when a person tweets a `positive` email this will automatically create a lead. Or when a person complains about a product the tweet will be put in a CRM queue and customer services can follow up.

Here is a screenshot of the Netbreeze application.

So day 1 has ended and we are looking forward to day 2! Keep following our blog & Twitter for more live updates.

Happy tracking,

Ryan Martin & Pieter de Wit

@ryandarbymartin