Category Archives: Microsoft

LinkedIn, M&A, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Office 365, Social media

Microsoft commits to $26bn LinkedIn purchase in social media play

social mediaMicrosoft has made a play to enter the social market after announcing it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion.

The announcement will create one of the largest cloud acquisitions this year, with LinkedIn shares jumping 47% following the news. During the same period Microsoft shares dropped 3%, possibly indicating some scepticism in the market.

“This deal brings together the world’s leading professional cloud with the world’s leading professional network,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft in a note to employees. “I have been learning about LinkedIn for some time while also reflecting on how networks can truly differentiate cloud services.”

Microsoft does already play a role within the social media market, but more from the perspective of providing tools for online advertisers and media agencies. Although the LinkedIn purchase is almost 50% above market value, it could be seen as a much safer play than attempting to crack the social market organically. Google and Apple have seemingly learnt this lesson the harder way, launching Google+ and iTunes Ping respectively, neither of which seemed to have gathered much momentum.

Advertising revenues may be attractive to executives at Microsoft, the move could fall into the wider strategy of being the all-encompassing enterprise IT vendor. Research from JPMorgan highlighted Microsoft is valued as the most important vendor in the IT space due to the broad range of offerings. While others specialize in individual areas, Microsoft has created its position as the ‘one-stop-shop’ enterprise IT vendor. The acquisition of the ‘enterprise social media network’ could fill a whole in the portfolio, building on the theme of collaboration.

“We are in pursuit of a common mission centred on empowering people and organizations,” said Nadella in a note to employees. “Along with the new growth in our Office 365 commercial and Dynamics businesses this deal is key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes.

“Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world. It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professional’s information in LinkedIn’s public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics. This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you’re trying to complete.”

While the two companies could be seen as complimentary, it would appear a combination of the two would create a total addressable market (TAM) of $315 billion. According to a joint slide-deck shared by the team, LinkedIn has a TAM of $115 billion where as Microsoft can account for $200 billion. The team believe by joining forces and further diversifying the offering, this number can be further increased through differentiated experiences.

LinkedIn is billed as the largest professional social network globally, and has been growing steadily to 433 million members in recent years. The team have introduced a number of new features in recent months which it credits for increased engagement levels as well as membership numbers. Over the last 12 months the team at LinkedIn launched a new version of its mobile app, acquired online learning platform Lynda.com and launched a Recruiter product for its enterprise customers.

The number of social media users worldwide is estimated at 2.22 billion, with Facebook controlling the largest share at 1.59 billion. Judging the market value of social on the whole gives widely varied results, though Facebook did announce revenues for Q1 of $5.4 billion, a 52% year-on-year growth. The company now claims to have 3 million active advertisers on Facebook and over 200,000 on Instagram.

While the news will dominate technology headlines, there will still be some questions surrounding the integration of LinkedIn into the wider Microsoft portfolio. Office was a prominent character in Nadella’s email to employees, though whether this means LinkedIn will be incorporated into Office proposition has not been stated. For some, the role of social in the workplace is still unclear.

Following the completion of the deal which is expected by the close of the year, Jeff Weiner will remain LinkedIn CEO, reporting into Nadella.

Cisco, HPE, hybrid cloud, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Private Cloud, Public Cloud

Microsoft, HPE and Cisco take top-spot for infrastructure vendors

male and female during the run of the marathon raceMicrosoft, HPE and Cisco have been named as three of the leading names in the cloud industry by Synergy Research as the firm wraps up the winners and losers for the first quarter.

While the cloud infrastructure market has been growing consistently at an average rate of 20% year-on-year, 2016 Q1 was estimated at 13%, though this was to be expected following peak sales during the latter stages of 2015. Microsoft led the way for cloud infrastructure software, whereas HPE led the private cloud hardware market segment, and Cisco led the public cloud hardware segment.

“With spend on cloud services growing by over 50% per year and spend on SaaS growing by over 30%, there is little surprise that cloud operator capex continues to drive strong growth in public cloud infrastructure,” said Jeremy Duke, Synergy Research Group’s Chief Analyst. “But on the enterprise data centre side too we continue to see a big swing towards spend on private cloud infrastructure as companies seek to benefit from more flexible and agile IT technology. The transition to cloud still has a long way to go.”

For the last eight quarters total spend on data centre infrastructure has been running at an average of $29 billion, with HPE controlling the largest share of cloud infrastructure hardware and software over the course of 2015. Cloud deployments or shipments of systems that are cloud enabled now account for well over half of the total data centre infrastructure market.

cloud leaders

augmented reality, Consumer Tech, Microsoft, Mixed Reality, News & Analysis, virtual reality

Microsoft opens up mixed reality platform to partners and competitors

Virtual RealityMicrosoft has announced it is opening up its Windows Holographic platform to partners, in an effort to drive forward its vision of mixed reality.

The vision of Window Holographic, the platform which currently powers the Microsoft HoloLens offering, is to create a platform where various different devices and experiences can create a hybrid reality environment, merging the physical and virtual worlds. Devices struggle to integrate currently due to the number of different user interfaces, interaction models, input methods, peripherals and applications. Microsoft is hoping Window Holographic can be the answer to this challenge, despite the fact a number of the devices would be in direct competition with Microsoft HoloLens.

While Microsoft is not the only company to have developed a virtual reality headset, it is one of the very few who have built support for mixed reality into their OS. In opening up the idea is to give developers the freedom to create virtual reality experiences which can operate on a broader range of devices, including smartphone-based systems such as Google Cardboard or expensive PC-tethered headsets such as Oculus Rift. Once the VR and AR evolution branches out into social media and other outlets, there will be a requirement for a common language.

“Imagine wearing a VR device and seeing your physical hands as you manipulate an object, working on the scanned 3-D image of a real object, or bringing a real-life holographic representation of another person into your virtual world so you can collaborate,” the company said on its blog. “In this world, devices can spatially map your environment wherever you are; manipulating digital content is as easy and natural as it is in the real world.”

The platform will offer a holographic shell and user interface, perception APIs, and Xbox Live services. The team are now collaborating with a number of organizations including Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, HTC, Acer, ASUS, Dell, Falcon Northwest, HP, Lenovo and MSI to create a hardware ecosystem which will support the virtual reality experience.

The mixed reality market is expected to be an area of healthy growth during the next few years, with industrial applications one of the most lucrative areas. The market itself is estimated to be valued in the region of $450 million by 2020, though the consumer market is expected to be slightly constrained by various factors including price, battery life and image latency.

“With Windows 10, we’ve been on an incredible journey with our partners, and today we usher in the next frontier of computing – mixed reality,” said Terry Myerson, EVP of Windows and Devices.

Artificial intelligence, cyber security, Enterprise IT, Machine learning, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, News & Analysis

Microsoft launches VC to drive inorganic growth

Microsoft To Layoff 18,000Microsoft has announced the launch of Microsoft Ventures, a new capitalist venture arm to engage start-ups and entrepreneurs in areas which the business does not currently operate.

Speaking on the official Microsoft blog, Nagraj Kashyap Corporate VP for the ventures business, highlighted the launch was in line with objectives to identify start-ups which can inspire the next technology evolution, as opposed to supporting the current portfolio and business objectives.

“In Microsoft’s history of engaging with and supporting start-ups, we’ve done a lot of investing, but not a lot of early stage,” said Kashyap. “Because we would often invest alongside commercial deals, we were not a part of the early industry conversations on disruptive technology trends. With a formalized venture fund, Microsoft now has a seat at the table.”

Technology acquisition has become an intense game in recent months, as a host of tech giants have built new business units to identify potential acquisitions. While this might not be considered an unusual business activity, the trends of innovation through acquisition as opposed to organic growth have seemingly becoming more prominent. Earlier this month, HP announced the launch of its own VC business unit, which could be perceived as a means for the business to diversify its portfolio, entering new markets. These new markets could lead to direct competition with HPE.

Microsoft has a history of creating initiatives to aide and invest in start-ups, having launched the Microsoft Accelerator program, which provides tools, technology and consulting, though this unit will aim to sit between the Accelerator and the function which oversees major acquisitions. Initially the team will have a presence in San Francisco New York City and Tel Aviv, and will also look to expand to additional countries in the future.

“Given that the move to the cloud remains the single largest priority for the industry, identifying the bleeding-edge companies who complement and leverage the transition to the cloud is key to our investment thesis,” said Kashyap.

“Companies developing product and services that complement Azure infrastructure, building new business SaaS applications, promoting more personal computing by enriching the Windows and HoloLens ecosystems, new disruptive enterprise, consumer productivity, and communication products around Office 365 are interesting areas from an investment perspective.”

Aside from technologies which can aide the company’s core capabilities, the team will also be responsible for investigating disruptions in more horizontal axis. Security and machine learning were two areas which were identified by Kashyap on the blog. “Our view is outward into the market — we focus on the inorganic growth of Microsoft, looking at where we can provide a step function, versus incremental progress.”

Azure, Citrix, data protection, Enterprise IT, enterprise mobility, Microsoft, News & Analysis

Citrix and Microsoft team up to tackle enterprise mobility

Silhouette Businessman Holding PuzzleCitrix has expanded its partnership with Microsoft as the team aim to capitalize on flexible working and enterprise mobility trends.

Speaking at Citrix Synergy in Las Vegas, CEO Kirill Tatarinov outlined objectives to meet the needs of the modern workforce with application and desktop virtualisation in the cloud, network delivery and enterprise mobility management. Citrix has selected Azure as the preferred and strategic cloud for its future roadmap and the team will work to develop new integrations between Citrix XenMobile, NetScaler and the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite, to improve efficiency and data security.

“Companies of all sizes across all industries around the world have an amazing opportunity to embrace digital transformation and empower their people to work productively from anywhere at any time,” said Kirill Tatarinov, CEO of Citrix. “Our customers are asking Citrix and Microsoft to work closer together to help them fully leverage innovations like Windows 10, Office 365 and Azure. This enhanced partnership ensures we can be more agile in responding to our customers’ needs and help them accelerate the move to digital business.”

As part of the partnership, the team will aim to accelerate the deployment of Windows 10 Enterprise within their customer’s organisations. Citrix customers can use AppDNA to aid migration to Windows10 by providing application lifecycle management tools to discover and resolve application compatibility issues, the team claims.

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Citrix NetScaler will integrate with EMS to provide virtual private network capabilities for more secure, identity-based access to on-premises applications on Microsoft Intune-managed devices. Citrix will also offer customers who have purchased Windows Software Assurance on a per-user basis the option to host their Windows 10 Enterprise Current Branch for Business images on Azure through its XenDesktop VDI solution, which the team claim is a first in the industry.

“Our relationship with Citrix has always been founded on the commitment to making our mutual customers successful by empowering their people to be more productive,” said Scott Guthrie, EVP of Cloud and Enterprise at Microsoft. “By selecting Azure as its preferred and strategic cloud, Citrix is helping companies mobilise their workforces to succeed in today’s highly competitive, disruptive and global business environment.”

Azure, Microsoft, partnership, SAP, SAP HANA

SAP and Microsoft expand partnership

SAPPHIRE now

SAP CEO Bill McDermott (Left) and Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft (Right) speaking at SAPPhire Now in Orlando

Microsoft and SAP have extended a long-standing partnership to deliver broad support for the SAP HANA platform on Microsoft Azure.

The extended partnership will focus on greater integration between the two portfolios to simplify work-through integrations between Microsoft Office 365 and cloud solutions from SAP. The new team also claim the combined proposition will provide enhanced management and security for custom SAP Fiori apps.

The announcement builds on a previous relationship which was debuted in 2014, allowing SAP customers to build HANA applications in the Microsoft cloud platform, taking advantage of public cloud scalable resources, though the new partnership now incorporates more of the Azure security and management capabilities.

“This partnership is perhaps one of the broadest things we’ve done together,” said Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft. “Take the cloud. We’ve taken the best of SAP and the best of our hyper-scale cloud. It means SAP certifications are now certified on Azure, HANA is certified on Azure and S/4 HANA is certified on Azure.

We’ve taken our hyper-scale cloud and made it real for customers. Every application which SAP run is now compatible with Office 635 meaning we now have seamless integration. This recipe is going to accelerate the growth which our customers seek, by combining two product portfolios which are customers probably already use.”

As part of the new agreement, there will be a new deployment option for SAP HANA on the Azure cloud. The updates will certify SAP HANA to run development, test and production workloads on Microsoft Azure, including SAP S/4HANA, and will enable customers to run larger and more demanding workloads than previously possible. New integrations will also enable customers to combine Office 365 features (including communications, collaboration, calendar etc.) with SAP cloud-based applications including Concur, SAP Fieldglass and SAP SuccessFactors.

New developments which can be expected towards the latter end of the year also include the ability to deploy custom mobile hybrid SAP Fiori apps on SAP HANA Cloud Platform with an open standards plug-in framework, which will enable Microsoft Intune capabilities to be embedded within the app itself. The team believe these integrations will be available in Q3.

“We believe the IT industry will be shaped by breakthrough partnerships that unlock new productivity for customers beyond the boundaries of traditional platforms and applications,” said SAP CEO Bill McDermott. “SAP and Microsoft are working together to create an end-user experience built on unprecedented insight, convenience and agility. The certification of Microsoft Azure infrastructure services for SAP HANA along with the new integration between Microsoft Office 365 and cloud solutions from SAP are emblematic of this major paradigm shift for the enterprise.

The news follows another partnership announcement from SAP with Apple made in recent weeks. Apple has made multiple moves over the last 24 months to improve its position in the enterprise IT space, partnering with Cisco last year, to optimise iOS device performance across Cisco’s suite of enterprise communications services, and IBM in 2014, bringing IBM’s strengths in big data and analytics to Apple devices.

AWS, GE, Intel, Internet of Things, IoT, Microsoft, News & Analysis

IoT revenues grow to $6.7bn in Q4 2015

Development projectA new study from Technology Business Research (TBR) has found IoT’s revenues have grown to $6.7 billion over the course of Q4.

The research, which focused on the industry’s largest IoT players, including AWS, GE, Google, Intel and Microsoft amongst others, highlighted strong year-on-year growth as tier one vendors aim to drive profits in a relatively open marketplace. A lack of competition, high-profits and immature regulations/standards, are driving IoT up the priority list for tier one vendors currently.

“Effectively, every type of IT and operational technology (OT) vendor will have a stake in the growing commercial IoT market, as IoT solutions will drive increased use of diverse IT and OT products and services,” said TBR Devices and IoT Analyst Dan Callahan. “In addition to building interest in established IT products, commercial IoT will create growth in specialized business consulting, hardware, network, development, management and security components.

“IT and OT vendors that are quick to capture IoT opportunities within their current customer base, and attract new ones through developer programs and investing in growing mindshare, will enjoy additional, immediate, revenue opportunities.”

The ongoing adoption of cloud computing and the increasing pressure to capitalize on the growing amount of data available to organizations, were highlighted as drivers for the adoption of the technology, as customers aim to increase operational efficiency and the effectiveness of the decision making process. TBR believes the 21 benchmarked companies are gaining an advantage in the attractive IoT market due mainly to minimized competition. A lack of standards and security concerns around the technology has set a high barrier to entry for tech companies, though there is a healthy value chain in which smaller organizations can capitalize.

North America is seen as the leading region to integrate IoT and develop an early adopter community, accounting for just over 40% of the activity. APAC and CALA represented 24.8% and 5.5% of the market, respectively, whereas EMEA accounted for the majority of the remainder.

Azure, Enterprise IT, Managed services, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Rackspace

Rackspace extends Azure Fanatical Support footprint to Europe

Europe At Golden Sunrise - View From SpaceRackspace has announced the unlimited availability launch of its Fanatical Support services for Microsoft Azure customers in the UK, Benelux and DACH regions, as well as two new service levels, Navigator and Aviator.

The Fanatical Support was previously available in US markets, though the expansion puts the Azure service in line with its other offerings, such as for Amazon Web Services. The Navigator service offers access to tools and automation, whereas Aviator does the same, and goes further to offer a fully-managed Azure experience, providing increased man-hours, custom architecture design and all-year support, as well as performing environment build and deployment activities.

“It’s been nearly a year since Rackspace announced Fanatical Support for Microsoft Azure, which we launched to assist customers who want to run IaaS workloads on the powerful Azure cloud, but prefer not to architect, secure and operate them first-hand,” said Jeff DeVerter, Chief Technologist for Microsoft Technology at Rackspace.

“Our launch of this offering marked an important expansion of our strategy to offer the world’s best expertise and service on industry-leading technologies, and is a natural progression of our 14-year relationship with Microsoft.”

As part of the announcement, the confirmed Help for Heroes would be one of the first UK organizations to utilize the new offering. The company has been utilizing the Azure platform for some time now, as a means to counter website downtime during periods of high traffic volume during fundraising campaigns.

“Being able to scale up quickly is important, but so is scaling down during times that are quieter,” said Charles Bikhazi, Head of Application Services at Help for Heroes. “As with any charity, we’re always looking to make cost savings where possible and that’s exactly what this solution has delivered. Now, we only pay for infrastructure that’s actually being used which ensures that costs don’t spiral out of control. The new offering gives us access to this much needed scalability and resilience without the burden of having to run the platform ourselves.”

Azure, Internet of Things Telecoms, M&A, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Solair

Microsoft grows Azure IoT offerings with Solair purchase

Microsoft To Layoff 18,000Microsoft has acquired IoT platform provider Solair in a bid to bolster its Internet of Things division, writes Telecoms.com.

The acquisition will see Solair integrate with the Azure IoT business within Microsoft, a move which Microsoft says will continue to enhance its IoT offering for enterprise consumers. While it wasn’t forthcoming with in-depth details, suggesting that more specifics are in the offing, Microsoft did highlight some of the areas in which Solair already has its solutions in live deployment.

Solair is already integrated into the Azure cloud, and provides IoT gateways and platforms to both connect and monitor IoTdevices and processes, coupled with customisable management software. According to Sam George, Partner Director for Microsoft’s Azure IoT division, Solair has proven success in developing and deploying industrial IoT services, about which there exists quite a lot of excitement at Microsoft.

“Solair’s IoT customization and deployment solutions, built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, are engineered to help businesses in any industry utilize IoT to run more efficiently and profitably,” he said. “For example, Solair has brought the power of IoT to the Rancilio Group’s full line of espresso machines, allowing the Italian manufacturer to remotely monitor machines resulting in greater efficiency across the supply chain. Using the power of cloud-based data and analytics, Solair has helped the Rancilio Group reduce costs and increase revenue.

The cost of the acquisition to Microsoft is yet to be disclosed, although George did suggest further information and details of the deal are to be release in the not-too-distant future.

acquisition, Azure, Internet of Things, IoT, Microsoft, News & Analysis, Solair

Microsoft adds more software capabilities to Azure IoT suite

AzureMicrosoft has announced the acquisition of Solair, an Italian IoT software company which currently operates in the manufacturing, retail, food & beverage and transportation industries.

Solair software, which runs on the Microsoft Azure platform, focuses on helping customers improve efficiently and profitably of their IoT initiatives. The acquisition continues Microsoft’s ambitions in the IoT market segment, delivering a more complete solution, as opposed to simply the Azure IoT platform.

“The integration of Solair’s technology into the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite will continue to enhance our complete IoT offering for the enterprise,” Sam George, Partner Director, Azure IoT at Microsoft. “We’ll have more specifics to share about how Solair is helping us build the intelligent cloud in the future. In the meantime, I’d like to reiterate my welcome to the Solair team.”

Solair has been in operation for five years now, and boasts a healthy number of customers including Rancilio Group, where it enabled a connected coffee machine maintenance strategy, and Minerva Omega where it created a remote maintenance and service strategy for the food processing group. Financial details of the acquisition were not released, and Microsoft did not release any specific details of how the business will be integrated into the overall Azure IoT suite.

“From the very start, our mission has been to help customers quickly and easily gain access to the huge benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT),” Tom Davis CEO at Solair. “By building our solutions based on real customer requirements that allow them to gain real value, I’m confident that Solair’s technology and talent will be able to make an important contribution to Microsoft’s Azure IoT Suite and Microsoft’s broader IoT ambitions.”

Microsoft has seemingly been on a mission to bolster its position in the IoT market, both organically and through industry acquisitions. At Build 2016, the team launched Azure Service Fabric and new IoT starter kits, as well as previews of new services to serverless compute for event-driven solutions, Azure Functions, and Power BI Embedded which allows developers to embed reports and visualizations in any application.