I attended Microsoft PDC (Professional Developers Conference) in Los Angeles last week. I wanted to provide a quick recap of highlights from the show and cover some implications for hosting companies.
Implications for hosting companies.
· Microsoft is making a huge push for Azure, like their launch of BPOS two years ago this can be perceived as both an opportunity to partner and competitive threat for the hosting community.
· VS2010 and ASP.Net 4 are close to final release, hosting companies need to get products ready that support these tools as they are significant improvements over the current versions. I believe they will see significant early adoption.
Other observations.
· There were less hosting companies represented at PDC then in the past. Hosting.com, Amazon.com and MaximumASP all exhibited. I ran into a number of staff from DiscountASP who attended as well.
· In spite of what you hear about the economy, the show had strong attendance – unofficially over 8000 developers. Additionally, MS gave each attendee an Acer 1420p touch screen laptop. This was a brilliant marketing tactic, guaranteeing that most of these developers return next year and bring their friends.
· In addition to Azure Microsoft is making a big push with Silverlight 4, SharePoint2010 and App Fabric (a new set of tools enhance scalability).
About Stacy Griggs
Stacy Griggs is Sr. Director of Customer Experience for Cbeyond Cloud Services , previously Stacy was the Vice President of Sales for MaximumASP which was acquired by Cbeyond in 2011. Cbeyond (NASD-CBEY) is a publicly traded provider of telecommunication and cloud services, which has been recognized by Microsoft at its 2009 Worldwide Hosting Partner of the Year and 2010 Hyper-V Cloud Provider of the Year. Prior to Cbeyond Stacy held a series of positions at Hosting.com including Chief Sales Officer, Chief Service Officer and General Manager for their flagship Delaware data center.
Stacy has led several information technology services companies over the last 15 years. He was a Managing Director for KForce a $1 Billion publicly traded professional services firm. At KForce Stacy managed 5 business units that collectively generated $18 Million in revenue and had 140 employees. Prior to KForce Stacy was a Vice President and part-owner of Diamond Technologies, an 80 employee custom software development firm. Previously Stacy held management positions at TMP Worldwide, the University of Pennsylvania, and Humana.
Through his theWHIR blog, Stacy will touch upon sales and service in the Web hosting space, web hosting events, cloud computing and industry trends.
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