It has officially been announced and their beta site is up if you want to check it out:
http://www.mosbeta.com/Welcome.aspx
I read a fantastic article by Joe Panettieri on MPS Mentor today, he does a good job staying on top of important MSP happenings, and it does a great job summarizing the long term perspective MSPs should have about this announcement: “Partners that complain about Microsoft entering SaaS market may be short-sighted, MSPmentor believes.”
http://www.mspmentor.net/2008/03/03/microsofts-big-software-as-a-service-move/
While we will be in direct completion with Microsoft in many ways there is still a large role for the trusted advisor sitting between the customer and the big utility providers like Microsoft and other large tools and software providers.
Most small business clients will not want to deal directly with the big software and tools providers. They will be looking for us to aggregate the best in breed services into an easy to digest, purchase, and manage solution for them.
Microsoft also still realizes the power and value of the channel – I know that if I told my top 100 customers Microsoft was no longer needed 98 of them would say “OK you know my business goals and objectives tell me how this new technology help me better accomplish them and let’s get to work.” This is why Microsoft is spending so much time convincing the channel that we can still be partners with them as they change their model.
http://www.microsoft.com/online/partner.mspx
Microsoft is not and will never be the trusted advisor to small businesses. Because of this it is important to keep what Joe said in mind about being short sighted and to develop offerings that allow you to plug in the best in breed SaaS offering on the back end. Ultimately your clients don’t care if it is hosted Sharepoint or some other competitive SaaS solution as long as it is easy to purchase, manage, and use. The challenge will be for Microsoft’s solutions to become the best available – time can only tell if they have a prayer of keeping up with Google and a myriad of other nimble competitors in this arena.
JC
