J Bentley Radcliff

Sunday was the end of the World Cup so Microsoft decided to play off the theme with videos of fans in the pubs singing OLAY, OLAY, OLAY but instead sang O Cloud, O Cloud, O Cloud, not exactly your bonding IBM theme song. Just to be clear this is a partner conference full of people who buy Microsoft products and resell them in their markets. And the cloud SCARES THE CRAP OUT OF THEM. What came across loud and clear is that Microsoft is not going to miss this round of IT transformation. Steve Ballmer gave the keynote and reiterated the key dimensions of the cloud, something that he spoke about back in March but for most of the partners this was brand new. Later I found out from a group of Microsoft executives that Microsoft has mandated that 90% of its products be cloud-focused by the end of the year. They felt that they had reached 70% by the conference, a lot of it ... (more)