Microsoft attempts to appease its channel while moving forward with services

Network World's senior editor John Fontana sent in a guest blog for Microsoft Subnet today. He writes: I am here at Microsoft for a day of meetings with various people in the organization. It's a day for IDG editors and here is a glance at what we are hearing. COO Kevin Turner was up first and laid out the four commercial trends most important for Microsoft now: virtualization, software plus services, unified communications and collaboration. Turner said Microsoft will invest $7 billion in R&D this year, but did not break it down based on the prevailing trends.

He also said that he will use July's Partner Conference to explain how Microsoft will work with partners to sell services. Again, he would not give details, but clearly Microsoft is working through partners' concerns that the software giant is stepping on their business. Turner said just as Microsoft is adapting to the changing market, partners also have to adapt. He said Microsoft wants to help in that transition and is sensitive to the nervousness in the partner community. On another topic, he would not comment on whether Microsoft is developing a hosted development platform.

See also:

Will Microsoft Software plus Services Be Partner Friendly?
Getting Ready For Hyper-V
Microsoft, IBM commit to unified communications interoperability test
Google One Ups Microsoft Again-Google App Engine

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