Local channel partners are upbeat about new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella taking the reins at the company.
Among the partners CRN spoke to, opinions were unanimously positive about Microsoft's future under Nadella, with local partners praising the vendor's channel program, the decision to appoint Nadella, Gates' move into an advisory role, as well as Microsoft's future in the enterprise cloud market.
Philip Patelis, managing director of Sydney-based XCentral, said: "[Satya Nadella] has been criticised for having not run a company, but at the end of the day, he's been running a $20 billion business if I'm not mistaken.
"I know analysts and the stock exchange wanted someone external. But I think having someone internal is a strength. The fact he's coming internally, he'll be able to hold himself technically. I think that's been the challenge for people coming to Microsoft – trying to deal with the technology side of the company. And he's been so involved with cloud; that's where the market is. That's a real strength for Microsoft."
In Patelis' view, Microsoft's challenge under Nadella will be to tighten integration of its software platform across different devices. "I think they're doing everything right, but I think that where Nadella will have his work cut out.
"If Microsoft can deliver their tablets with functionality of desktop, that's a very strong market position," he said.
"At the moment it's a bit disparate. They don't want to have disparate APIs across the platform. You want the app stores to work across everything. If a developer develops for Windows 8, you want that to work to across Windows Phone and Surface Pro."
He pointed to Microsoft Office as a particular example where there is room to improve Microsoft's tablet strategy. "If you're using Word on the desktop, you want to have that same feel on tablet devices. At the moment, it's a bit cut down," he argued.
"Windows 9 is rumoured to have a lot more common feel across all devices – a common interface. At the moment, if you use Windows 8 or Windows Phone, it's starting to join but it's not quite joining."
The fight against AWS
Also upbeat about Microsoft's future under Nadella is Graeme Strange CEO of Readify, a gold Microsoft partner and its Application Development Partner of the Year.
Strange said Microsoft 's key challenge will be growing market share in the cloud space. Despite the greater market share held by competitors such as AWS, he argued there is still "plenty of market out there" for Microsoft.
"They have missed a lot of early adopters, that's very true. But they don't have to take market back off Amazon; what they have to do is make sure they win the enterprise market as organisations adopt cloud.
"The market is there for the taking. It's the execution. If you've got the products and the partner programs, if you've got reach, it really comes down to execution if you're going to win this space or not."
Strange pointed to the arrival of local data centres as one development that will grow Microsoft's share in the cloud market in Australia. "Certainly in this country, part of the issue has been not having a data centre for Azure. That's changing with NextDC. I think that's going to make a difference if we're talking about this particular region."
If the partners spoken to by CRN this morning are any indication, there's also a still a lot of goodwill towards Gates within the channel.
"Microsoft's heritage is in software," Strange said. "I know that they talk about being a devices and service company but having Bill on this advisory board now and a lot more of his time dedicated to helping out, I think that's really powerful."
The news that Gates will spend more time in an advisory role was also welcomed by Andy Neumann, managing director of Melbourne-based Microsoft partner OBS.
"I like the idea of Nadella and Gates as a combination," he said. "Gates is the heart and soul of Microsoft from the early days. I'm sure it will be viewed very favourably by the Microsoft folks."
Neumann also spoke highly of Nadella, saying the new CEO left an impression when he toured here several years ago.
"Nadella was in Australia a few years ago. We met with him. He was extremely personable, intelligent guy. I think having someone that really understands wide-ranging aspects of the business from Xbox to servers and tools will be of great benefit."
Despite criticisms from overseas about cuts to Microsoft's online incentives for partners, Neumann argues Microsoft has "one of be the best channel programs out there".
"We haven’t really been affected by [changes to incentives] around Office 365. If you look at some of the other partner programs of large organisations, Microsoft still has the broadest and attractive one and from a management perspective. Here in Australia they have a great partner management team.
"We have a high touch as opposed to some of the other partner programs. We get the ear of them a reasonable amount. I imagine there's probably smaller partners or larger partners that aren't that well engaged with Microsoft," added Neumann.
While today's appointment of a new CEO was welcomed by Paul Humphrey at IT provider CSW-IT, he said Microsoft needed to be "more personal" with the channel.
"[The opportunity] is to simplify the engagement with the channel – don’t be so process-orientated. Because you’re a large global organisation, be more personal with the channel, be less regimented, less corporatised," Humphrey said.
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