Deskless worker is Microsofts branding for their hosted Exchange and Sharepoint programs in their software + services play.
I have written about Microsoft’s software + service programs in the past and today everyone out there has written something about todays new anouncement. The best two blogs I have found on the subject are listed at the end of this post.
I think the most interesting part of the program is the pricing model built to encourage you and I (the channel) to continue selling their services even though we will lose a large portion of service revenue that comes from installing their products on site for clients. If you take this view on losing revenue rather than adapting your service and offerings to capture new revenue you will end up left in the dust.
I am a big beliver in recurring revenue which they are going to share with us but still believe that smart providers will build value added services on top of implementing these products for clients in order to have continued success in the future. I am not worried about clients going direct to Microsoft and cutting a company like Everon out of the picture because they will just be a piece of the solutions and services I aggregate and provide to my clients. (Mike has written about this move to utility computing and the role of the aggregators in past posts).
The power of being an MSP is owning the relationship, let me say that again, the power of being a MSP is owning the relationship. We all need to focus in on value added service for the small business, such as CTO programs, rather than the focus of turning the screws to install and manage technology.
Our customers demand to know that we have vetted the best vendors out there and are providing them the best strategic investments for their business. Becase we understand their business and are experts in what we do they quickly come to believe we are an indispensable part of their team.
So whether we are building services around Microsoft, Amazon, Google or any of the other large SasS players out there we need to be thinking about what’s next for our business and how we fit into the SaaS picture.
Best posts for catching up on today’s announcements:
Best post I have found for a simple overview of Microsoft’s Deskless worker.
Best post for staying ahead or at least on top of MS news as it is released about this program.
JC
