Five months from now, Windows Server 2008, code-named Longhorn’s Worldwide Launch, will happen, but already partners and the ecosystem of Microsoft India have started celebrating. There is a lot of excitement among the channel partners and the ecosystem about this new product in India. At the same time, Microsoft India is making everything possible to enable a smooth transition of this new product to the customer’s environment.
Pallavi Kathuria, Director, Server Business Group, Microsoft India, apprises’VARIndia about their plans and preparedness to make it acceptable among the customers and the ecosystem easily. She says, “Coming March 2008, not only is the release schedule of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or Longhorn, but also it is the schedule of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (database server) and Microsoft Visual Server 2008 launch.” She adds, “This will be different from other launches in many respects that we have seen till now. This launch will be all about IT professionals and developers. So, we will be putting the IT professions on the centre, wherein IT professionals will be telling about their stories how they use Microsoft technologies and platforms to be different from the normal people and to be hero in their workplaces. It will be a lot about customer awareness, excitement and partners’ readiness.” The worldwide launch is scheduled to be on the 27th of February, 2008. Though Microsoft India has not set the time for launch, but it will be in early March in three cities and then there will be launches in the tier-II cities.
According to Pallavi, the biggest effort and focus of the company is on the readiness of both the partners and the customers. There are still five months for the product to come out, but the company has already started offering training programmes for the partners in the form of e-learning, online courses, etc. The company has also opened labs for the partners, wherein they are invited to play around with the products.
Besides, Microsoft has engaged a certain set of customers who are called rapid deployment customers, including Infosys and Cognizant Technologies, to adopt the technology before it hits the market and offer their recommendations. Towards this kind of deployment, Microsoft’s consulting arm and channel partners are also involved. The objective is quite clear. One, the customers can understand the new technology and, two, the partners, who are involved in deployment, get the opportunity of experiencing the new environment before the full-fledged product comes to the market. For the partners, it solves two purposes – it trains them before the product comes and establishes the credibility of the new product.
Pallavi adds, “Microsoft will pursue a lot of training programmes till the full-fledged launch of Windows Server 2008 and after the launch also we will continue to provide training to the partners.” To be more precise, all the partners including the value-added partners and ISV partners will get trainings in terms of transition from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008. Similarly, there will be training programmes for the OEMs and System Builder channel.
Pallavi maintains that the new server and tool will create opportunities for the partners to earn good revenue. According to her, every dollar Microsoft earns from Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, it enables the ecosystem to earn US$18. It will also open up a lot of opportunities for the technical personnel and sales force.
As x86 hardware platforms are becoming more mainstream and majority of worldwide servers running on windows, with the new server technologies from Microsoft, it enables new scenarios like virtualization, enhanced security, branch office services, etc. It also opens service opportunity for the partners that they did not have before. Now, they can offer terminal services, branch office services, service around virtualization, etc.
Having been asked as to what was the need of Windows Server 2008 at all, she answered convincingly, “Our customers wanted the product sooner.” The customers wanted virtualization, which was not there with the previous versions. However, the fact is that virtualization technology has been there in the industry for a long time. But the advantage of Windows Server 2008 is that it becomes easy to deploy and use virtualization technology. The customers can now really consolidate their servers. And, secondly, the third-party virtualization technology is not part of the operating system. Rather, it sits on the top of operating system, which is also expensive. Pallavi adds,”“Our customers are spending a lot of dollars for the third-party virtualization machines. And, it does not do what an operating system does.”
The other feature, which makes this new Server OS distinct, is remote infrastructure optimization. Today, there are a lot of risks of putting everything at one place. Distributive computing is the order of the day. It means there is a need for local set of branches, which connect to the centralized system. In this scenario, Windows server 2008 provides read only domain controller, which disallows any tampering of the database. It is easier to operate a server around branch with network access protection. For example, a rogue user, who is supposed not to access the network, the server disallows him from all the applications and gives him limited read access, and not write access. Secondly, Windows Server 2008 is a full-fledged Web-enabled application server. So, one does not require a separate Web server. One can host web sites externally and manage them. There are a whole host of enhancement features in this OS, which makes it very robust as well. There have been a lot of kernel-level security integrations, which make it very secure as well. So, the foundation of this operating system is very solid. Pallavi maintains, “The key pillars of this operating system are security, web- enablement capability and solid foundation.”
Almost 99 per cent of the Microsoft business comes through the channel partners, whose number is approximately 3,500. And, these partners are controlled by its three national distributors, i.e. Ingram Micro, Redington and eSys Information Technology.
Finally…
As Windows Server enjoys in excess of 70-per cent share in the Indian IT market, the new version of OS – Longhorn – will not have much of resistance from the customers. It will be up to the vendor as to how it can help the customers to make the transition smooth in a cost-effective manner. However, it is believed that Microsoft already has Software Assurance Programme running to tackle issues like this.
Microsoft is also taking well care of the SMBs as it is bringing out a new server product for SMBs by the code name Centro. It will be a collection of all the products that an SMB customer requires, including Windows Server, SQL Server, Mail Server, Security, Management Tools, etc. It will come in two boxes and is expected to be launched five months from the Longhorn’s launch
