The 12 benefits and risks of embracing Azure for Microsoft partners

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.