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The hills were alive with the sound of Microsoft ISVs

Thu, 2009-07-30 12:58 — Greg O'Connor

Ahhhh.  New Orleans in July.  When crawfish jump into the pan to get out of the heat. Yet all things Microsoft head there for the Worldwide Partners conference. And, as I said before, when you have the cure for what ails the Microsoft ISV, you go too. So we did. I have to say the crowd did seem to be 3 parts Microsoft employees to 1 part partner, but at around 6,000 attendees, that still leaves a goodly number of folks who want what AppZero has.

AppZero software can and does slash the time it takes to get software up and running for proof of concepts (POC) on customer sites and in the cloud. From days to hours or minutes. (I detailed the game-changing value AppZero brings to ISV POC work in general in my last blog: Cloud + POC = 'Obvious' ISV Revenue Growth. But Microsoft ISVs have very specific, additional considerations.)

Microsoft just entered its fiscal 2010 with big plans for its new year. Starting with the roll-out of Windows 7, the company plans to launch Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Exchange 2010, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Azure. Have I forgotten anything? Probably.

In addition to slogging through economically feisty waters doing their day to day business, Microsoft ISVs will be furiously investigating and evaluating the 'what' and 'when' of incorporating these releases into their offerings. Then they'll be busy doing the work, making the sales calls, and - as spring follows winter - jumping into a new round of POC engagements as their customers say "show me".

There is so much work to be done just to stay current, never mind competitive. This is the time for ISVs to conserve and leverage their technical talent. And the fact is that any time an SE spends installing or configuring an ISV's POC is wasted time - zero revenue and zero constructive productivity.

But, you say, "It has to be done." What has to be done? POCs? Absolutely. Days and hours getting it up and running? Absolutely not. Installing once into an AppZero VAA, gives you instant proof of concept (POC) with no installation or configuration. Repeatable, predictable, lightning fast.

The math is indisputable. The Microsoft partners got it.

The only question that came up was, "Can't we do this in a virtual appliance (VA)/virtual machine (VM)?" Fair question. Our datacenter customers run VAAs in VMs all the time. But, if you're an ISV who is looking to simplify distributing your application to your prospects and customers, the VA/VM approach comes with some baggage. You will have licensing issues if you send your application off, complete with pieces of an MS OS. Issues you won't have using AppZero's VAA approach.

Bonus: If you also want to deliver your application to a cloud environment, that same VAA works unchanged. The ISVs we talked with liked the idea of having only one delivery container for customer premise (virtual or physical) and cloud. Less complexity. And when the POC succeeds, don't you want to harvest the work your folks have done with a smooth transition to production? Check. Check. Check.

You know, when you have paradigm-shifting technology in your go-to-market portfolio, you tend to think big ... complex ... market-making ... But the Microsoft ISVs have a real, straight-forward problem that AppZero just solves - without changing the world. Without even changing the business model. What it does change, is that it smashes pre-existing economics of doing 'business as usual'. AppZero makes easy and elegant POCs. Simple.

Microsoft earnings report math = “ixnay on erversay” application virtualization

Wed, 2009-06-24 14:43 — Greg O'Connor

Microsoft math drives Microsoft marketing. (Cue shareholder applause...).

But you don't need calculus to see why - despite public nods to the need for server-side application virtualization -- Microsoft will not be moving in that direction any time soon. Let's start with their April demo of a server side application virtualization product that is without name or estimated timeline for departure from the lab.

The use case shows a gold master application image running on a Windows 2003 server:

  • The application is, in effect, "lifted up"
  • The OS is upgraded from SV1 to SV2
  • The application is returned to its place on top of the OS
  • The application and the OS live happily ever after simplifying the life cycles of both OS and applications in the data center, saving money on numerous fronts, and bringing nice role clarity between system administration and application professionals.

First, let me point out that Microsoft has adopted the same approach to server-side application virtualization that AppZero pioneered - the decoupling of an application from the OS. Why? Because - for reasons I will gladly address in a follow-on blog - it's the only approach that is practical for movement across a network to any server (physical or virtual) in datacenters and across clouds.

Mary-Jo Foley noted in her April 14th All About Microsoft zdnet post that Microsoft had pointed to an article that says, "If Microsoft releases Application Virtualization for Windows Server, it's not killing its Hyper-V strategy; it's implicitly suggesting to use hardware virtualization for OS delivery and application virtualization for services delivery." Well, there you have Microsoft singing AppZero's theme song.

Exactly.

That same post quotes a Microsoft Group Product Manager who said, "It (app virtualization for servers) is an area of interest to Microsoft customers. One of the key benefits is a significant reduction of server OS images. [emphasis mine] Instead of having an image for each instance of a server application, you'll just have one golden image for each OS you're using. If you need to patch that OS, you only do it to one image instead of all the images that have that OS."

My point.

Microsoft's model of one machine (physical or virtual) that runs --> one OS that runs --> one application with --> one set of application support infrastructure (anti-virus, system, and application management ...) forces the enterprise customer to buy a copy of a Windows OS for each application instance. The Microsoft yippee factor only goes up in the server virtualization world where virtual machines (VM) can be spun out so quickly that there are more OS instances than ever before. VM sprawl is an opportunity, not a problem in the Microsoft economy.

Not so with AppZero's current (and Microsoft's far-distant) approach to server application virtualization. The decoupling of application from OS effectively isolates applications from one another so that one OS can support 2, 3, 4, 5 ... applications. When you do the math, there's a big drop in the Microsoft yippee factor - with a corresponding surge in enterprise $$$$ savings.

Accelerating the marketing impact of this simple math is Microsoft's Q3 2009 earnings report in which only the Servers and Tools division posted significant revenue or income growth (7% and 24% respectively). By contrast, the Windows Client division saw revenue fall by 16% and income decline by 19% year-over-year. In a situation that eWeek called, "a stunning turnabout", the Server and Tools division's annuity-based revenue now exceeds that of the OEM-heavy, transactional Windows Client division.

License slashing server-side application virtualization technology from Microsoft? If you're really busy, call a third grader to do the math.

Pigs in Flight: Microsoft’s plan for virtualizing server-side applications

Fri, 2009-05-29 11:19 — Greg O'Connor

Bottom line first: Microsoft has absolutely no incentive to move a revenue-slashing technology out of its labs at all - never mind quickly.

Virtualization of server-side applications that decouples an application from the OS (which Microsoft demoed from its development lab and which AppZero does today for real customers in the real world) drastically cuts the $$$$$s expended for OS-s and support infrastructure.

Q:What about this cost-savings value proposition is attractive to our pals in Redmond?
A: Absolutely nothing.

Q: Are they lying when they say that this capability is under development?
A: No reason to do that.

Q:When will it be released?
A: No plan to do that. At least none that are announced.

The most logical scenario is that the lab elves are indeed scurrying around developing just the capability that they demoed. (Not to be repetitive, but exactly the capability that AppZero offers today.) And that Microsoft will let the fledgling product fly when the inevitable public demand ... well ... demands it.

And I do believe that public demand for server-side application virtualization is inevitable because:

  • Virtualization is not a fad - It is the IT version of common sense
  • Client-side application virtualization is well accepted and proven to save bundles of $$$s. But of the many players in this space, to date, none have addressed the complexity of server apps.
  • Server-side applications can not sit on the sidelines of virtualization
  • In the move to cloud computing, enterprises will not do a wholesale discard of current applications, so they'll need a way to cloud-enable or retro-fit those apps (In fact, Gartner anticipates that companies will do just that - move existing applications to the cloud with as little modification as possible, rather than rearchitect and rewrite.)
  • Windows server applications are not a rare occurrence in the IT landscape. So there must be a way to virtualize them for movement to the cloud and in the data center without violating licenses ...Oh, wait a second ... there is a way - it's AppZero (I crack myself up.)

We're doing really well for lots of reasons. But believe me, feeding our shareholders takes more than our being a Gartner Cool Vendor in Cloud Computing (cool though that is.) Right now, the virtualization of server-side applications is early market. I'm in a position to know. So there is really no pressure on Microsoft to come out with this technology and no shame in not having what no one else but a nifty company called AppZero has to date.

Microsoft... when their lips are moving.

Mon, 2009-05-18 06:49 — Greg O'Connor

Microsoft application virtualization for servers?  I wish. But I'm not holding my breath.  Let me explain the wishing and the breathing parts by starting with the latest buzz.

It started when Mary-Jo Foley, freelance Microsoft blogger extrodinaire, outed the gentle giant's plans to move ahead with application virtualization for servers in her April 14th post.  She'd ferreted out movement in this direction from a job posting that offered the opportunity to join the App-V team to "bring the revolutionary Application Virtualization technology to a new market - the datacenter."

In response to her pointed inquiries, Mary-Jo was told (roughly) the following:

  • No product announcements in the "forseeable future"
  • Application virtualization for servers is an area of interest to Microsoft customers
  • "If Microsoft releases Application Virtualization for Windows Server, it's not killing its Hyper-V strategy: it's implicitly suggesting to use hardware virtualization for OS delivery and application virtualization for services delivery." (emphasis is mine)

Amen.  You go girl.

I was pretty excited about Microsoft's entry into this space.  Why?  Because any time Redmond pees on the 4 corners of a market, that space is immediately validated.  And server-side application virtualization is AppZero's claim to fame.  We do Windows - and we do it now.

So I jubilantly commented on Mary-Jo's blog saying:

Why wait?

Why wait for the boys in Redmond? They have been talking about this for a long time.

You want to save money?

Simplify the data center?

Move sever base application to the cloud?

With no code changes?

Go with AppZero it is available now.

May 8th, Mary-Jo returned to the topic observing that Microsoft had demoed the Softricity-derived App-V running on a server.  Interesting points in this blog include:

  • App-V for server "won't be here for a good while, but it'll cause big ripples in the traditional way you deploy server applications in your infrastructure of the future." (Matt McSpirit, Microsoft virtualization blogger) You think? (Greg O'Connor, CEO AppZero)
  • App-V is a client product only available to customers who license Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) under software assurance.
  • There is no publicly available time line for the server version (and where will it live?)

I've already covered the wish part of my opening.  Why am I not holding my breath?  Because I don't believe Microsoft will do server side application virtualization any time soon.  And I don't look all that good in blue.

I'll share my reasoning in a later blog.  In the meantime - keep up the good work fellow bloggers.

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