Here are some things that I thought were noteworthy from Microsoft\u2019s Worldwide Partner Conference 2015 in Orlando this week. Keep reading even if you don\u2019t work for a Microsoft partner, because this stuff affects anyone working in the Microsoft world.<\/p>\n
These may be paraphrases because I wasn\u2019t taking precise notes.<\/p>\n
Not it\u2019s not, when on the phone (the most mature version) it\u2019s only supported in 10 countries. You can make it work internationally by screwing up your regional settings. This is what we call The Curse of Zune.<\/p>\n
The Microsoft employee that said this live on a keynote stage was summarily executed backstage. Holy crap on a cracker!<\/p>\n
See The Curse of Zune. I’ll care when Cortana is relevant.<\/p>\n
Uh, no. It\u2019ll help the USA at first, and then a max of 10 countries. Don\u2019t believe me? Check out \u2026 I dunno \u2026 history.<\/p>\n
Apparently, this is why 12,000+ Microsoft partners flew to Orlando this week, according to Terry Myerson. Strange, because Sea Otters are native to the Pacific coast.<\/p>\n
My reaction to Bryan Roper\u2019s Windows 10 demo. OK, he\u2019s Cuban-American and not cajun, but that\u2019s what I thought (and tweeted) at the time. Best demo of Windows 10 I\u2019ve seen yet, and LOVED the energy. The hat beats the hair, easily. We need more Roper in keynotes.<\/p>\n
This is huge news. It means nothing to most people, but for the last 3 years my employers have said \u201csorry, we can\u2019t sell that\u201d over and over and over. To finally open the sluice gates through the channel to business, Microsoft\u2019s new $1 billion business could double or treble in a year.<\/p>\n
Seriously, Microsoft, trim those keynotes down to 2 hours. Down \u2026 to \u2026 two \u2026 hours. Oh my!<\/p>\n
Nice timing – I\u2019m due an upgrade from my provider. Me wanty Continuum.<\/p>\n
Again, means nothing to most of you, but this opens up a joint syndication channel to end customers via the channel. It\u2019ll simplify purchasing, and force big changes in the channel too.<\/p>\n
This is badly needed. Two reasons I hear from partners that use DropBox with customers instead:<\/p>\n
Wowzas! South Korea is rumoured<\/a>, though Finland<\/a> was too. India<\/a> is to come online with 2 regions before the end of this year.\u00a0 Canada is getting two in 2016<\/a> (Toronto and Quebec City).<\/p>\n Competencies are the incentive-based expertises that partners must qualify to achieve. One measure has been amount of associated licensing sold to the partner\u2019s customers. This is changing, as it it internally with Microsoft\u2019s sales people, from monetary value to adoption. This is to counter \u201cshadow sales\u201d of cloud services that are more like sneaky discounted inclusions in volume licensing deals rather than requested purchases.<\/p>\n Start camping out for your sessions now. The reviews that I heard of of the last WPC in Toronto were horrific – big crowds, tiny rooms, and few people able to attend sessions.<\/p>\n Keeping up is my job. It\u2019s impossible for one person to keep up. Either have a team of subject matter experts that have time allocated to do this, or get serious about attending regular tech updates. And this isn\u2019t just Azure, it\u2019s EVERYTHING Microsoft from 2 years ago onwards.<\/p>\n Microsoft COO Kevin Turner told this to partner sales people, account managers, owners and Microsoft subsidiaries, many of which have drained away technical roles over the last 5 years. Fact is, folks, Azure is a technical sale. No solution design, no pricing, no sale. Please move on.<\/p>\n Satya Nadella agrees with me. If Continuum-capable flagship Windows phones can be put into the hands of enterprise users with Office 365, then we have a game changer. But Microsoft needs to fix the channel. Their fascination with telecoms companies ha crippled the phone. Even Apple is selling unlocked phones via distribution now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here are some things that I thought were noteworthy from Microsoft\u2019s Worldwide Partner Conference 2015 in Orlando this week. Keep reading even if you don\u2019t work for a Microsoft partner, because this stuff affects anyone working in the Microsoft world. These may be paraphrases because I wasn\u2019t taking precise notes. \u201cCortana is everyone\u2019s assistant\u201d Not … Continue reading “Some Thoughts & Comments From WPC 2015”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[170,176,180,185,81,136,114],"class_list":["post-18718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-azure","tag-eventnotes","tag-hardware","tag-microsoft","tag-office-365","tag-windows-10","tag-windows-phone"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/s31-519x260.png","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18718"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18723,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18718\/revisions\/18723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cMicrosoft cloud partner competencies shifting to adoption instead of sales\u201d<\/h3>\n
\u201cWPC 2016 will be in Toronto\u201d<\/h3>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to have technical people dedicated to keeping up with Azure\u201d<\/h3>\n
\u201cWe’ve got to become more technical”<\/h3>\n
\u201cContinuum is my favourite feature of Windows 10\u201d<\/h3>\n