WHIR editor in chief Liam Eagle recently had the opportunity to sit down with Microsoft’s general manager for worldwide software plus services in the communications sector, John Zanni, to shoot an interview segment for WHIR TV.
The discussion ranges through a couple of topics that are pretty central to the overall message that Microsoft, as a vendor, is delivering to the hosting business as a group.
One of those matters is Microsoft’s efforts to highlight, for hosting partners, what it considers to be a big opportunity in the area of delivering hosted services to small and medium-sized businesses. For Microsoft, this means, among other things, software being provided as a service.
He also discusses the overall move toward IT service being delivered from the cloud, and how that is affecting the development of and design of products at Microsoft, as well as its strategies around the delivery of services, and partnership.
Finally, he discusses how Microsoft goes about providing certain of its partners with support and strategic advice, including his often-repeated assertion that hosts ought to be seen by their customers as a “trusted advisor,” not simply as a hosting provider.
