Microsoft Touts Cloud Interest in Biz Sectors

Microsoft will continue its drive to modernize the way it does business…with business.  Eduardo Kassner, Microsoft’s Worldwide Director of Cloud Solution Architecture and Barry Briggs, former CTO of Microsoft IT, will lead a webinar designed to encourage businesses to make the leap to the cloud next week.

In a post by James Staten, Chief Strategist of Microsoft’s Cloud + Enterprise sector, the company boasts of strong interest from IT leaders.  Microsoft offers a free e-book, titled ‘Enterprise Cloud Strategy’ to help guide business leaders.  Staten points out more than 50,000 people have downloaded the guide since it was made available a few months ago.

“The cloud is a journey which includes the use of SaaS (Software as a Service) applications such as Office365, migration of on-premises applications to the cloud, and utilization of cloud services to bring entirely new kinds of functionality such as machine learning and big data and many others to improve your business.” Said Staten.

It is a significant undertaking for Microsoft to convince IT managers to make the switch.  Corporations are notorious for hesitation when it comes to upgrades.  But there are indications that Microsoft efforts are having an impact.

Earlier this week, Facebook announced it was adopting pieces of Office 365.  CIO Tim Campos went so far as to say “Microsoft got cool again.”  High praise for office applications.  Microsoft has also tried to make the service more attractive by offering a number of pricing options.

Among the topics covered in the webinar:

• Which applications should take advantage of their SaaS equivalents
• How to prioritize the migration of your portfolio
• How to assign accountabilities and governance during the migration process
• How to report on and measure success

To register for Wednesday’s webinar here. The event gets underway July 20th at 12:00pm EDT.