Over the years Microsoft has announced hundreds of partnerships that dissolved into nothingness over time. At its Worldwide Partner Conference last month, the company used the stage to deliver new information about Azure Stack – its hybrid cloud technology. This new information quickly irked customers. Customer had been waiting for this hybrid cloud offering so they could architect a way to connect their current infrastructure to the cloud. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s new direction communicated that only through the purchase of special partner hardware from either Dell, HPE, or Lenovo would customers be able to implement this new solution. And, even then, the ability to seamlessly meld on-premises and cloud operations wouldn’t be available until later in 2017.
As has been the case with many partner derived efforts, Microsoft pushes forward, customers push back, and then eventually things get to where it needs to be. And, I believe that’s what will happen here. Customers are upset that Azure Stack will not run on their own systems as originally promised.
Some of the customer comments from the original WPC announcement…
Absolute wrong decision from Microsoft. So you have alienated droves of partners, including major hardware vendors making the transition to the cloud. I am sorry we have wasted that much time waiting on Azure Stack. OpenStack here we come.
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We are a bit disappointed in this move. We utilize very specific hardware capable of leveraging our high-density datacenter environment to help lower costs and greatly improve datacenter efficiency. To now abandon all of that research and experience to utilize vendors that we currently have no relationship with in order to get access to Azure Stack in our own datacenter is probably something that will have us considering other options.
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This is not the way (HW lock-in) to make MAS successful
In the following 11 minute or so video, Microsoft attempts to further explain (justify) its position on the strategy, but it’s simply not enough.
I fully expect this partnership to go the way of so many before it. Microsoft will need to open up this solution to all customers before its successful.
Want to dig deep into Azure Stack? IT/Dev Connections 2016 is your best bet. You can choose to attend a mega-conference this year, but really all you get is the same high level overview you can get from reading the Microsoft executive and marketing blogs. No, if you want real details about the technology, check out these Azure Stack related session at IT/Dev Connections 2016:
· From the trenches – Hyper-V in the real world
· Microsoft Azure Stack – Building the next-generation private cloud
· Microsoft Azure Stack | Resource Providers in a Nutshell
Like what you see? There’s more. Check out IT/Dev Connections 2016!
IT/Dev Connections runs from October 10-13, 2016 at the ARIA Resort in Las Vegas: http://www.itdevconnections.com
