Just before the opening of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2010, R “Ray” Wang, founding partner of Altimeter Group, published a very interesting and lengthy article about Azure, highlighting its architecture and the inherent benefits and risks for Microsoft partners.
Benefits
- Faster deployment times and client adoption
- Greater pool of development resources
- Recurring revenue streams
- Improved TCO and margin for differentiated IP
- Opportunity to break out of the Microsoft client base
- Lower application lifecycle costs
Risks
- Potential loss of account control to Microsoft
- Increased competition for development resources
- Shift to volume business
- Decline in upfront profit and revenue collection
- Accelerated globalization and market competition
- Increased self-hosting and integration costs
Wang also reports an interesting detail about the Microsoft strategy for Azure:
Many executives from the Redmond, WA, software giant have publicly stated that 90% of its development will be focused on the Cloud by 2012.