Microsoft deepens push for cloud computing

MANILA, Philippines - Microsoft’s celebration of its 15th year in the Philippines came at the heels of major announcements globally, including the launch of its new mobile operating system Windows Phone 7 and its Microsoft Office 2011.

Earlier, Internet Explorer 9 was released on beta. And later, it disclosed that its search engine Bing was integrating with Facebook.

The swirl of tech news on the consumer front is revolving as ever with buzz. It’s relatively quieter on the enterprise side as Microsoft executives from the regional and global office flew in town for the CIO summit 2010, reaffirming, among others, Microsoft’s push and continued commitment to cloud computing.

Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International, said in a press briefing at the sidelines of the summit and a few hours before the glitzy anniversary celebration at the Marriott Hotel that as the company looks ahead in the next 20 years to come, it believes it has a unique opportunity to provide continuous cloud services to every person in every business.

“What will enable that is the huge capacity of computing power that we’ve created as a company in Asia, America and Europe. We’ve developed a very strong knowhow and knowledge in the consumer space for the last 15 years. Think about Hotmail, Windows Live, Bing and Messenger. We are already serving billions of people around the world in the consumer cloud,” he said.

Opportunities

In evolving its offering to the cloud for enterprises, Courtois said Microsoft sees a number segments and opportunities both in the global space and the Philippine market, one of which is the small and medium businesses that have difficulties getting IT specialists in maintaining hardware and software updates.

When you offer IT as a service, local providers could run IT for small businesses that will subscribe to the service, he said. A company running Exchange as a backbone e-mail, for example, would be interested in moving that to the private cloud operated by a third party if it would mean lower cost of ownership, as well as added flexibility and scalability.

“What you find today available from Microsoft is the most comprehensive platform serving the needs of consumers, IT people and businesses. And we do that in three ways. One is we offer software as an infrastructure in our server products like Windows server and in the cloud, we have SQL Server Azure,” he said.

“We have also made available the most advanced development application platform called the Windows Azure where developers in the Philippines or elsewhere in the world can host the navigation on the Microsoft cloud and sell their applications to anyone in the world. The third element we’ve made available and will be to the Philippines in the coming year is what the industry calls the software services or applications services, which in this case are productivity applications — e-mail, Exchange online, video and live office meetings online. This is what we’ve called the productivity online suites that we’ve launched a year ago globally,” he added.

Courtois disclosed that there are over 40 million paid business users who are already using the services either in the public Microsoft cloud or using exactly the same technology as a hosted service.

Growing interest

John Bessey, managing director of Microsoft Philippines, said that this early there are already a number of businesses that have expressed deep interest in Microsoft’s cloud services.

“Customers were asking: how do I do a better job of running the IT infrastructure, the new technologies?” he said. It is also interesting to know, he added, that a significant number of multinational companies are already using it in the country.

Courtois affirmed the unique position of the Philippines as host to many global companies that are already subscribed to Microsoft’s global cloud service.

“They are the early adopters of the service, but for the others, it would probably take years, depending on the application, depending on the service, or the needs of the industry. You will see a different pace but at the end of the day, many different companies will move to the cloud for important reasons as cost,” he said.

Most companies, he said, do not want to incur upfront payment for infrastructure. Another plus factor is that the cost of cloud services is predictable. You don’t have to pay for the entire infrastructure; you just pay for what you need. Moreover, cloud services can scale up easily and adjust to great spikes in demand.

It is true, he said, that there are some concerns regarding security but at the end of the day, businesses go to providers whom they trust. Microsoft has the more sophisticated security processors that can go as far as the so-called seven line of defense. And that means the whole spectrum of security.

“We’ve been doing the cloud for consumers and consumers are very sensitive to security. They don’t want their e-mail to be read by anyone else. If you move that to the business level, there are of course additional requirements. We keep working very hard on those requirements for the cloud to be a trusted environment,” he said.

On-premise solutions

With its very definite push for cloud computing, how does the company see its on-premise solutions?

“We will be the provider of software plus services, meaning that we will continue to develop on-premise software such as Windows 7,” he said.

However, the company will also continuously find ways to collaborate online and provide services for the enterprise with technologies as virtualization.

“The partnerships we’ve launched in the industry globally which is based in the cloud phenomenon will enable us to provide applications and services on three screens — the small screens (the phones), the medium-sized screens (the PCs, netbooks, laptops, tablets), and the large screen (the TV sets or browser-based environment for people sharing),” he added.

Would the cloud be the next battlefield for tech giants? It remains to be seen but as Microsoft sees it on its 15th year in the Philippines, it’s really about innovation and creating jobs for the economy.

“There is not a huge number of Microsoft employees in the Philippines but the way we have an impact on the economy in many parts of the world is consistent with the huge number of products we have in every country. And when you count the number of people involved in the ecosystem, there was a study done before that says there were 85,000 people in the Philippines working in IT organizations whose jobs are all about Microsoft technologies,” he said.

These people were not on Microsoft payroll, he stressed, but their job is to deploy solution or write software based on Microsoft technologies and that is a huge impact in indirectly creating allied businesses and providing solutions.