The Voice of Innovation

Miami 311: Built on Windows Azure

2010-03-09T23:29:00Z

I'll have another post on Voices for Innovation later this week, but I wanted to share a piece that appeared last week on Port 25 about Miami's new 311 system, which was rapidly built and deployed on Windows Azure. Here's the piece:

Miami 311: Built on Windows Azure

by Stuart McKee

It's no understatement to say that governments today are stressed to deliver more with much less. One difference with the private sector is the government's ‘inverse' relationship to the economy - the ‘worse' it gets, the more demand for services rises ... tax revenues go down, while demand on the system goes up.

State and local governments are really feeling the impact of the recession and are losing valuable resources. Many of the "easy" cuts have already been made, and tough decisions like layoffs, delayed projects, and reduced services are being implemented across the country. Yet even in this somewhat grim picture, there are people finding ways to improve government, providing services 24 hour a day, more efficiently and with greater impact.

As Microsoft's National Technology Officer for U.S. State and Local government's, I get the unique opportunity to work with a broad array of our customers, and see some of the creative approaches they are taking to solving very hard problems. So when I see someone doing it well, it really sticks with me

Last week, Microsoft hosted our annual Public Sector CIO Summit. More than 300 CIO's from across the US federal, state, local, and education leaders spent two days learning and listening to one other and discussing how Microsoft's technology strategy and roadmap helps them solve hard problems. There were several great stories, but there is one in particular I want to call out.

Like a number of cities, the City of Miami had implemented a 311 system. It started out as a phone based system allowing Miami's residents to report non-emergency issues around the City. Citizens could dial 311 to report issues such as potholes, street light outages, or missed trash pickup.

Of course those same citizens wanted to know that progress was being made, and started calling the call center to inquire about their issues. Since this can decrease efficiency, the city took a big step and decided to put it all online. Now, people can view the status of the request and monitor the progress of the request resolution. In addition, citizens have full visibility into the progress of other issues being resolved around the city.

Here's the really stunning part. The City of Miami, two people actually, was able to build a new system in less than eight days over the holidays, with no up-front costs - from inception to running. By deploying it in the cloud, they not only sped up development, but eliminated the need for costly infrastructure.

The solution takes advantage of virtually unlimited storage and processing power, provides the ability to quickly address service requests and implement updates even during peak times such as hurricane season. If things change, the City can bring the solution on site or move to a physical facility, all based on need and cost-effectiveness.

As a result, residents logging on to Miami 311 can see on average 4,500 issues in progress - not represented as a ‘list', but located on a map in relation to other projects in their neighborhood . A simple click on the map allows them to easily drill down to more and more specific details if they want.

In short, they have turned what used to be represented by a meaningless list of data into useful information, and created actionable and consumable knowledge that is relevant to the citizens of Miami. For Miami, their ‘service call to the city' becomes an interactive process they can follow - and the City has a new tool to manage and deliver outcomes.

Anyone who has ever built a public facing, enterprise-level application, knows how spectacular that is. Everyone who wonders how their government is doing can appreciate the value.

When the city made the move to the web, they chose tools they knew and software they trust. The Microsoft Windows Azure cloud platform made it easy to do, and they used both Bing mapping and Silverlight to build a user friendly front end.

They took advantage of the technology roadmap we have built, which lets them decide what belongs in the cloud and what belongs on premise - in effect, they put our annual $9-billion R&D investment to work for citizens of Miami, right now.

No delay. Lower costs. Great use of existing talent. Better citizen services. Fantastic.

Our customers have made decisions about how their enterprise technology infrastructure needs to meet their business requirements. We've built the platform that helps them deliver on those choices across a broad set of technologies, and not just those that have our name on it.

In fact, our customers get to choose which data center their data lives in; the technology they want to write applications to access that data; and the developer tools they use to write the code. The Microsoft cloud today supports open source technologies such as Eclipse, PHP, Ruby, Python and PERL running on the Microsoft Windows Azure platform in our data centers.

In doing so, our customers have choice and avoid the problem of creating a new silo of complexity. Instead, they are able to extend their on-premises environment to fit their goals in ways they are comfortable with. Turns out, it is OK to use a broad range of technologies, including Open Source software, with Microsoft solutions.

Now, something that is really cool: Miami is making their solution available to other jurisdictions (no surprise, most cities deal with similar challenges). I can't wait to see what the next iteration of contributions will be, as more thought leaders across the country engage.

Miami really is taking a lead, in very hard circumstances, and we're proud that our technology is part of that solution. But, as I said, it's about people solving problems.

Healthcare Reform Endgame, Health IT Moves Forward

2010-03-05T16:54:00Z

On Wednesday, President Obama promised to do "everything in my power" to get a healthcare bill passed -- and he has been pressing congressional leaders to move forward. In spite of hosting a bipartisan healthcare summit last week, the President seems willing to proceed with little or no GOP support. Still, it may still be a few weeks before we see action -- or the end of the initiative for now. If you want to participate in the debate, there is still time to write your elected officials. (VFI also has some tips for effective communications with lawmakers.)

Even while the public policy process grinds along, innovations and initiatives in health IT are moving steadily forward. The big Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference wrapped up yesterday in Atlanta. In a keynote, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal said he expects to see broad use of electronic health records (EHRs) in the coming years. Certification rules for health IT are now being developed. (A synopsis of the announcement can be found here, and the actual 184-page Notice for Proposed Rulemaking can be found here.) ChannelWeb offered a good round-up of large vendor announcements at HIMSS, including offerings from Verizon, Avaya, Microsoft, and others. Microsoft announced the availability of HealthVault Community Connect. This new technology is already incorporated into My Family Health Portrait, an online tool from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). You can read more about this technology and its value for health providers, patients, government agencies, and IT partners in this post on FutureFed, the Microsoft Federal Blog.

Remember, you can follow VFI on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vfiorg. I've eased back on my tweets, but I'm at http://twitter.com/techdel.

Steve Ballmer Speaks About the Cloud

2010-03-04T20:59:00Z

Earlier today, Steve Ballmer spoke at the University of Washington on the topic, "The Cloud: Exciting New Possibilities." We've embedded a video of the speech below. But first, a few key points and some resources.

Ballmer called the cloud, "The bet for our company," echoing Bill Gates's statement about .NET some years ago. But the cloud isn't just a bet about the future, as Ballmer made clear. The cloud is here now -- in Windows Azure and other services, as well as in offerings from competitors and services from partners. The video includes a great demonstration of Bing Maps, which helps visualize the value that can emerge from cloud-based data aggregation, analysis, and presentation.

Of special note for Voices of Innovation members, Ballmer said that we have an "imperfect regulatory environment," but this environment should not be a barrier to moving forward.

You can learn more at the main Microsoft Cloud Services site and at the Cloud News Center. Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Technology Strategy and Policy Daniel Reed also writes a thought-provoking blog, "Cloud Seeding: Stimulating Discovery and Innovation," which provides some context for Ballmer's speech. And now here's the video...

Competition Authorities and Search (from Microsoft on the Issues)

2010-03-01T19:09:00Z

Last week on Microsoft on the Issues, Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner posted an important blog about the growing regulatory scrutiny of Google. Microsoft, Heiner writes, would certainly say "that leading firms should not be punished for their success." He goes on to say that Microsoft's "concerns relate only to Google practices that tend to lock in business partners and content (like Google Books) and exclude competitors, thereby undermining competition more broadly. Ultimately the competition law agencies will have to decide whether or not Google’s practices should be seen as illegal."

We have reposted Dave Heiner's blog in its entirety below.

Competition Authorities and Search

By Dave Heiner
Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft

Government competition agencies are increasingly focused on Google’s growing power in search and online advertising. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission have all determined that Google is dominant in certain markets, including search advertising. In late 2008 the DOJ was prepared to go to court to block Google’s attempt to partner with its largest search rival, Yahoo!. Last year the DOJ told a federal court that Google’s book search plan is anticompetitive in several respects. (One big problem is that Google would help itself to essentially exclusive rights to tens of millions of books—effectively locking out everyone else.) Last week the DOJ reiterated that view in court, even after Google had an opportunity to address the DOJ’s concerns. This week came news that the European Commission is investigating various aspects of Google’s conduct, including claims of retaliation, exclusivity and manipulation of search results to disadvantage rivals. The European Commission is likely to treat these cases quite seriously, given that Google’s share of search and search advertising is north of 95% in many European countries.

Google’s public response to this growing regulatory concern has been to point elsewhere—at Microsoft. Google is telling reporters that antitrust concerns about search are not real because some of the complaints come from one of its last remaining search competitors.

It’s worth asking whether Google’s response really addresses the concerns that have been raised. Complaints in competition law cases usually come from competitors. (Believe me, I know: I’ve been chief competition counsel at Microsoft since 1994, so I’ve seen plenty of competitor complaints. Novell, when current Google CEO Eric Schmidt was at the helm, was never hesitant about complaining to regulators about Microsoft. Google hasn’t been shy about raising antitrust concerns about Microsoft in the last few years, either.) This is the way that competition law agencies function: They look to competitors in the first instance to understand how particular markets operate, the practices of dominant firms and the competitive significance of those practices.

Of course, as we have always said, it is vitally important that competition law authorities also listen to and assess the views of customers, business partners and everyone else affected by a dominant player’s business practices. Ultimately what’s important is not who is complaining, but whether or not the challenged practices are anticompetitive.

In this instance, there has been no shortage of affected voices. A quick Internet search will surface the growing concerns that have been raised by upstart innovators such as Ciao (owned by Microsoft), Foundem and ejustice.fr, as well as from industry groups such as the Federation of German Newspaper Publishers and The Association of German Magazine Publishers. Publishers, advertisers, advertising agencies and others want to see real competition in search and online advertising. As Google’s power has grown in recent years, we’ve increasingly heard complaints from a range of firms—large and small—about a wide variety of Google business practices. Some of the complaints just reflect aggressive business stances taken by Google. Some reflect the secrecy with which Google operates in many areas. Some appear to raise serious antitrust issues. As you might expect, many concerned companies have come to us and asked us for our reaction and even for advice. When their antitrust concerns appear to be substantial, we suggest that firms talk to the competition law agencies. (Complaining to Microsoft won’t do much good.)

As reflected in the news earlier this week, firms voicing these complaints have started to meet with competition law agencies, confidentially. (Firms – especially smaller companies – are often reluctant to voice their antitrust concerns publicly because they feel that they must continue to do business with Google and do not want to jeopardize their relationship with them.) Over the past few months Microsoft, too, has met with the DOJ and the European Commission. The subject of our meetings has been the competition law review, now completed, of the search partnership between Yahoo! and Microsoft. As you might expect, the competition officials asked us a lot of questions about competition with Google—since that is the focus of the partnership. We told them what we know about how Google is doing business. A lot of that entails explaining the search advertising business, which is complex. Some of that inevitably gets into Google practices that may be harming publishers, advertisers and competition in search and online advertising.

All of this is quite important because search is so central to how people navigate the Internet, and because advertising is the main monetization mechanism for a wide range of Web sites and Web services. Both search and online advertising are increasingly controlled by a single firm, Google. That can be a problem because Google’s business is helped along by significant network effects (just like the PC operating system business). Search engine algorithms “learn” by observing how users interact with search results. Google’s algorithms learn less common search terms better than others because many more people are conducting searches on these terms on Google.

These and other network effects make it hard for competing search engines to catch up. Microsoft’s well-received Bing search engine is addressing this challenge by offering innovations in areas that are less dependent on volume. But Bing needs to gain volume too, in order to increase the relevance of search results for less common search terms. That is why Microsoft and Yahoo! are combining their search volumes. And that is why we are concerned about Google business practices that tend to lock in publishers and advertisers and make it harder for Microsoft to gain search volume.

Microsoft would obviously be among the first to say that leading firms should not be punished for their success. Nor should firms be punished just because a particular business practice may harm a rival—competition on the merits can do that, too. That is a position that Microsoft has long espoused, and we’re sticking to it. Our concerns relate only to Google practices that tend to lock in business partners and content (like Google Books) and exclude competitors, thereby undermining competition more broadly. Ultimately the competition law agencies will have to decide whether or not Google’s practices should be seen as illegal.

Ask Author Joel Kotkin a Question, Get a Chance to Win a Signed Book

2010-02-25T16:17:00Z

In our last blog post, we featured a video segment from noted business writer Joel Kotkin, who has just published a new book, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. In his book, Kotkin argues that the U.S. is well positioned for the future because it is the only advanced country with a large growing population, has the second largest energy resource base in the world, and possesses a resilient economic system. He forecasts great opportunities for technology, telecommunications, and micro-businesses.

Kotkin currently writes the “New Geographer” column for Forbes and previously penned the monthly “Grass Roots Business” column for the New York Times. His work also appears in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the Washington Post, Inc., and other publications.

At a recent visit to Microsoft, Kotkin agreed to answer questions from VFI members. Just fill in the form below to submit your question and you will be entered into a drawing to win a signed copy of The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.

If you’re not a member, it’s free and easy to sign up by clicking here. Contest rules can be found here.

Futurist, Author, and Small Business Authority Joel Kotkin Talks With VFI

2010-02-23T17:02:00Z

We are always looking to bring new, compelling content to the Voices for Innovation community. From time to time, relevant, thought-provoking speakers visit Microsoft—from authors to elected officials to Nobel laureates. We now have the opportunity to bring some of these guests to VFI through video appearances and other special activities.

For our first guest, we welcome Joel Kotkin, a well-recognized and respected authority on global, economic, political, and social trends. He is the author of the new book The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. He summarizes his positive outlook for the U.S. in the video segment below. You can also download Joel's PowerPoint presentaion here (it may take a moment to download).

You can learn more about Joel Kotkin and his views on demographics, urban affairs, the economy, and other topics at http://www.joelkotkin.com/.

In the next Voice of Innovation blog post, VFI members will have a chance to ask Joel Kotkin a question and win a signed copy of his new book. (If you’re not a member, it’s free and easy to sign up by clicking here.)

VFI Healthcare Policy and Health IT Poll Results

2010-02-22T21:16:00Z

Today, the White House published to its website its proposal for healthcare reform in advance of a public bipartisan healthcare policy meeting on Thursday, February 25; at the website you can also view a page highlighting Republican ideas included in the proposal. While this initiative is focused on healthcare, it is notable that it attempts to exemplify some of the principles of open government: e.g., the proposal is readily available for review on the website; the policy meeting on Thursday will be public and streamed live at WhiteHouse.gov.

Over the last two months, Voices for Innovation conducted a brief survey of member views about healthcare reform policies and health IT. Interestingly, the VFI community was very evenly divided on healthcare reform, but strongly supportive of technology neutrality, privacy, and security for health IT solutions. For complete results, including full questions, click here. Here is a shortened breakdown of results:

Healthcare Reform Issues

	VFI Members Supporting
Statement supporting health plan public option	55%
Statement opposing health plan public option	45%
Statement supporting new requirements on businesses	50%
Statement opposing new requirements on businesses	50%
Statement supporting surtax on high-income	49%
Statement opposing surtax on high-income	51%

Health IT Policy

	Strongly Disagree	Disagree Somewhat	Neutral	Agree Somewhat	Strongly Agree
Health IT solutions should be interoperable	0%	0%	10%	28%	62%
Tech neutral procurement rules	0%	1%	8%	25%	66%
Data privacy and security are critical requirements	1%	3%	1%	14%	81%
Incentives for healthcare providers to adopt IT	5%	3%	16%	23%	53%

Allison Watson: Momentum Keeps Growing for Microsoft Online Services

2010-02-18T11:30:00Z

The following is re-posted from the Redmond View blog by Allison Watson, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft.

Momentum Keeps Growing for Microsoft Online Services

Welcome to my first Redmond View blog post. I’m also getting set up on Facebook and Twitter so I can get your feedback and chat with you about what’s going on in the marketplace and in your business. Today’s subject is Microsoft Online Services, and the momentum we’re seeing from customers and partners. People are starting to make money and transform their businesses. It’s an area where I’d love to get your feedback.

Microsoft Online Services is comprised of multiple individual projects including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, Office Communications Online, CRM Online and with the new launch of Microsoft Office Wave 14, a series of products under the Office family as well. These offerings are packaged in a suite called Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) that is available for small business customers with one to five seats, as well as our largest enterprise customers.

We already have over a million seats running BPOS today, and over 450 million seats of our consumer-based Online Services as well. Interest is growing daily, and it’s important that you’re a part of the dialogue. We are providing tools and resources to help you understand the business opportunity, but it’s important that you internalize our offerings in your unique business requirements, and then give us feedback about what you need to capture the opportunity.

A lot of partners are asking me, “How do I make money in this deal?” It depends on whether you’re a reseller partner, an ISV partner, or an integrated partner. Based on all the deals we’ve done to date, we’re hearing that the average partner opportunity is about $167 a seat. That includes partner referral fees, the initial setup and migration fees, as well as factoring in some of your managed service fees. That’s a pretty big opportunity.

There are four key tools that partners are using to help build their businesses with Microsoft Online Services:

The first is the profitability modeling tool. Partners using it tell me it really helps them understand the revenue impact and the cost impact to their businesses to make the shift.

The second exciting feature is the partner link tool. This tool allows partners to embed direct quoting and trial capability into their outbound working efforts to their customers. Last month, we had so much excitement around this tool that we had over a thousand quotes generated, resulting in over 500 deals from partners.

The third tool is co-branded billing that allows you, the partner, and Microsoft to have names front and center on bills so that you maintain your partner relationship with the customer, a top-requested feature.

And finally, there’s a commerce dashboard you can use to understand how your sales and trials are going, and follow up with the customers that you have in your pipeline so that you can achieve your revenue objectives.

Partners become even more convinced about the value of BPOS for their businesses when they move their own business onto BPOS. So whether you’re large or small, we encourage you to take advantage of the internal use rights offered. You have up to 250 seats available for internal use as long as you’re committed to selling two customer deals per year. Every partner I’ve spoken to that has done it is raving about the benefits.

Additionally, as you may have heard in the press, Windows Azure has become available commercially in the marketplace. It’s an important time for you in the business of development, custom integration, and line of business to get involved with the cloud-based platform in the sky, and Microsoft Windows Azure is a great opportunity. It’s time for you to learn it, try it, and use it for yourself and your customers, and to take advantage of the benefits that are available through the Microsoft Partner Network.

Please catch up with me on Twitter, Facebook, and here on my blog. I encourage you to post comments below to let me know what’s going on in your market. I look forward to hearing from you.

***

You can also view a video of Allison Watson discussing this development on the Partner Network Featured Videos site.

Phones and Software Everywhere! Mobile World Congress

2010-02-17T17:09:00Z

There is still one day left at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, but it's already been a doozy. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer introduced the Windows Phone 7 Series, which garnered a lot of favorable press. The specs and fuller developer/partner story will be released next month at MIX. Google CEO Eric Schmidt also delivered a keynote, where he acknowledged candidly that he believes Google's future is in the enterprise.

The big picture story at MWC is no surprise: in mobile, there is a lot of innovation, a lot of competition, a lot of platforms, a lot of opportunities -- and arguably a fair amount of fragmentation. Being early, building an ecosystem, enabling developers are all critical to a platform's success: witness RIM and the iPhone. But looking forward, to stay in the game, technologies for mobile must enable cross-platform development, support interoperability, and provide powerful tool sets.

In this regard, the Windows platform -- mobile and beyond -- will provide enormous opportunities for Microsoft partners and other developers, and flexibility for consumer and enterprise users. The demo Windows 7 Phones look flashy and have a very friendly user interface -- both great. And the Windows Phone will have greater independence -- if so desired (i.e., you choose) -- from the PC. It is also important to remember that Windows Phones (and other mobile devices) will benefit from a new generation of software -- for instance, the pieces of the cloud computing Azure platform -- that is emerging now as well. The actual mobile devices on display at MWC might arguably be the tip of the iceberg: the rest of the iceberg is made up of server and cloud software, development tools, app stores, partner ecosystems, and so on.

Bing, Silverlight, OGDI, and Azure at the Olympic Games

2010-02-11T17:30:00Z

NBC online will once again be using Silverlight for video streaming of the Olympics. And Bing has a new tool for finding out information about athletes. Nick Eaton highlights these technologies on the Seattle PI's Microsoft Blog.

But other Microsoft technologies -- notably Windows Azure and the Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) framework -- are also being put into service for the Olympics, particularly for spectators, athletes, and personnel who are making the trip to Vancouver, BC, Canada, and the nearby mountains. Here are links and descriptions to six of the apps, which are worth checking out to see the potential of these new Microsoft technologies:

Vancouver Parking – helps plan and find the best parking spot for visiting Vancouver http://www.vanpark2010.ca
MapWay - a way to find City of Vancouver facilities and Olympic events - http://Mapway.cloudapp.net
Free Finders – helps you to find free events and services in Vancouver with Facebook connection - http://Freefinders.cloudapp.net
MoBuddy – enables you to hookup with friends and visitors during Olympics to plan and share experiences through mobile social networking including Facebook http://Mobuddy.cloudapp.net
eVanTivitY – enables you to find City and social events and add-in user-defined data-feeds http://Evantivity.cloudapp.net
WeHelp – provides interactive mapping of Vancouver City facilities integrated with Twitter (and this has a mobile iPhone client!) http://bit.ly/nitobiopendata

Safer Internet Day... and IE8

2010-02-09T19:33:00Z

Today is Safer Internet Day. This is a European-led initiative, with activities taking place in 60 countries. Julie Inman Grant, Microsoft Director of Privacy and Internet Safety Outreach, blogs about the event on Microsoft on the Issues. You can also find a wealth of policy-related info on computer privacy, Internet safety, and security at this link.

Safer Internet Day is primarily focused on consumers, and this year's theme -- "Think B4U Post" -- seems especially aimed at a younger, heavily texting, social networking tech user. For Microsoft partners and technology professionals in general, Safer Internet Day, also provides a good occasion to reach out to customers to discuss Internet security. IT personnel generally understand that system security requires ongoing activities, such as updating and patching software, monitoring systems, and so on. Unfortunately, rank-and-file, non-tech-oriented employees may not get this message, might ignore security policies, and could be surfing to a compromised website right now.

One simple step is to confirm that customers have upgraded PCs to Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). For consumers, Microsoft made the upgrade to IE8 part of its update cycle, but some businesses have not implemented the change. Remember that IE6 is now nearly 10 years old: it predates social networking, RSS, heavy media downloading, and so on. For the enterprise, IE8 is highly manageable and configurable. It also provides robust anti-malware and anti-phishing technologies, eclipsing Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari, according to recent studies conducted by NSS Labs (Malware Report, Phishing Report).

No single action or technology can ensure online security and safety. In the end, building and maintaining a safe Internet requires the combination of innovative technologies, user education, and a positive public policy framework.

Does Technological Innovation Drive Economic Growth?

2010-02-02T12:58:00Z

I read a couple of articles this morning about the reported adoption of Win 7. One talks about how small and medium sized businesses are increasing their rates of adoption, in fact citing a 20 percent increase in the number of SMBs planning to speed up their adoption rates. And the other reports that it took Win 7 just three months to hit the same level of adoption that it took Windows Vista a year to reach.

Both of these reports are boosts to independent and small to medium sized technology companies around the world because they indicate that their revenue streams will have an upward direction in 2010 - and that is indeed welcome news.

When we look at the macro scale, such reports demonstrate that tech innovation does drive economic growth, starting in the tech sector and then extending to other sectors that use technology to increase productivity, bring new products to market, and so forth. Last summer, IDC released a series of reports on the economic impact of Win 7; you can read the forecast for your region here. On a global scale, IDC estimates the following for Win 7:

By the end of 2010, more than 7 million IT professionals worldwide in the IT industry and at IT using organizations will be working with Window 7, or 19% of the global IT workforce. The 350,000-plus IT companies that produce, sell, or distribute products or services running on Windows 7 will employ 3 million; another 4 million will be employed at IT-using firms.
By the end of 2010, Microsoft partners will sell more than $320 billion in products and services revolving around Windows 7.

IDC ends the report by saying that "In the midst of an economic crisis, with most governments seeking economic stimulus to grow their economies, the launch of a major new operating system should be considered good news, a stimulus package in its own right."

The recent news stories seem to support that conclusion. Do you share that outlook - are you finding that customers are planning to adopt Win 7 more rapidly than you expected? I'd be interested in your thoughts.

We'll talk again in the future.

SFS

Azure Launches, Focuses on Interoperability

2010-02-01T22:24:00Z

Today, Windows Azure (and SQL Azure), Microsoft's cloud computing platform, became available in 21 countries. Of note, Microsoft focused its product announcement and outreach on interoperability. There are a few key points, but what seems especially important is that any innovation and business opportunities built on Azure absolutely depend on interoperability -- interoperability with other applications, platforms, development frameworks, and other clouds.

The second point of note is that achieving interoperability takes concerted effort: collaboration with other IT vendors, development of multiple SDKs, wide standard and protocol support.

To learn more about what is really a pretty great Microsoft story, check out the feature article, "Microsoft Brings Cloud Interoperability Down to Earth," which has been getting a lot of attention today on the Twittersphere. (And you can follow VFI on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vfiorg.)

What I Heard for Tech Business in the State of the Union Speech

2010-01-29T18:21:00Z

The State of the Union speech is its own special genre. Presidents aim to deliver the right tone and right messages for a range of audiences. Sometimes the messages are direct, and sometimes they are more subtle. Often, these speeches are long on ideas and vision, and a little thinner on specifics. And so President Obama's speech followed this track, for the most part. That said, though, there were kernels to be applauded by the IT sector and small businesses.

First, I would note that Microsoft U.S. NTO Stuart McKee in his VFI blog post earlier this week said at the top of his list, he would be listening for the President to address the credit crunch for small businesses. Well, one of the first policy proposals in the speech was "to take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat." Clearly, this issue is on the President's radar.

For technology more specifically, the President highlighted the need to invest in "American innovation," and he specifically called out energy. Clearly IT has a role here, along with advances in materials science. The President also recognized that to create and fill tech jobs over the long haul, we need to redouble commitments to education. He called for community college support and also said that our educational system needs to "inspire[] students to excel in math and science." The President clearly understands the importance of technology to our economy, and now we will have to see how this understanding is put into policy action.

Finallly, in this quick summary, I wanted to note that the President said "we need to export more of our goods." He set a goal of doubling exports in five years. In many ways, the IT industry has been an important part of American exports, even as our nation imports many consumer products. This eye toward fair and free trade is important for technology. It means not only growing exports organically, but creating the need for legitimate products by reducing IP theft through software piracy. It also means enabling U.S. innovations to compete abroad on reasonable criteria such as cost, functionality, security, and so on. Let's keep an eye on how public policies promote exports and appropriately protect American products abroad.

Any other responses to the State of the Union speech?

What I’ll Be Listening for in the State of the Union Address

2010-01-26T19:42:00Z

Tomorrow, President Obama will travel 1.2 miles from the White House to the U.S. Capitol to deliver his State of the Union address to Congress and the American people.

If I could give the President one piece of advice in advance, it would be to read New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s recent op-ed, “More (Steve) Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.” And since I’m a PC, I would’ve suggested the title, “More (Bill) Gateways for Jobs, Jobs, Jobs”: the economic ecosystem generated by Microsoft over the last 30 years now includes more than 640,000 partner companies, supporting millions of jobs, and transforming the lives of billions of people. (For more information about the economic role of IT and Microsoft, see the VFI blog post, “New Study Charts Role of IT in Global Economic Recovery.”)

Friedman argues that the President should make 2010 the “year of innovation,” and he should begin by adopting policies that support start-up businesses. (For example, VFI members might be particularly interested in Microsoft’s BizSpark program.)

With Friedman’s concerns echoing my own, I will be listening to the President to touch on the following topics during his State of the Union address:

The Ongoing Credit Crunch—I continue to hear Microsoft Partners talk about the challenges their businesses have getting credit. What will the President propose to free up credit for small and medium-sized businesses?
Jobs—U.S. unemployment remains high. A recent U.S. Department of Labor report showed an uptick in jobs offered by IT services firms, and public policies should support this trend. What will the President propose that will promote IT investment, education, and training?
Open Government—Although the data.gov effort represents an interesting start, mountains of data alone are not enough. Citizens are already buried in data. Government CIOs and CTOs have a fiduciary responsibility to organize the data and provide meaningful information. Applauding the number of data feeds is the digital equivalent of measuring success by the pounds of paper printed. Will the President talk about how government will actually use technology to organize data, make informed decisions, and create transparency that citizens can understand?
Healthcare Reform—Healthcare reform is in jeopardy, but IT will clearly play a role in improving healthcare, whether legislation is passed or not. Will the President look to the private sector, including the IT industry, in place of a policy initiative?
Internet Freedom—Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a stirring speech about the importance of Internet freedom. Will President Obama reinforce this position during his State of the Union address?

President Obama may not directly discuss the technology sector or IT policy, but technology will have some role to play in virtually every issue he raises. And I’ll be listening. I encourage VFI members to tune in as well.

Please return to Voices for Innovation for follow-up commentary in the days following the State of the Union address.