Midmarket IT Pros more familiar with EBS 2008 than Hyper-V in a recent study

Midmarket IT Pros are more familiar with EBS 2008 than Hyper-V in the U.S. and China.  These midmarket IT Pros were interviewed as part of a Microsoft Dynamics study published internal to Microsoft in December 2008.  These findings are decent, considering EBS's time in market, marketing budget & resources (Where are EBS robot ads?) and interest in virtualization.  Since more than 1/3 of the IT Pros interviewed were outside of EBS's total addressable market, EBS would have surpassed Hyper-V and other Microsoft products in more geographies if IT Pros interviewed were limited to EBS's addressable market.  While IT Pros may be familiar, this study did not measure IT Pros' perception of EBS, e.g. unique business value, Administration Console, lower total cost of ownership, increased productivity (IT Pro and end-user), 300-pages of best practices, etc.

Low budget EBS v1 of IT 24-7

EBS v1 mod 1 IT 24-7 with a tattoo

Messaging Guidance and Analysis

If you are a Microsoft employee, I posted valuable EBS messaging information on my internal blog.  A recent study in the U.S., U.K. and Germany verifies IT Pro pain points, but also includes an unexpected takeaway.

MS Partners may find some of this information valuable for business development, so if you are interested, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary.  They should be able to provide you relevant, releasable information.   If there is enough interest, I may provide worldwide partner information.

Windows Server 2008 in EBS. "Windows Server 2008 is everything that IT buyers asked for"

 

Windows Server 2008: Windows also rises

While Vista crashed and burned, Microsoft's new server OS became the upgrade Windows shops can't refuse

By Doug Dineley

December 26, 2008

"The advances beyond Windows Server 2003 seem too numerous to count."

IT investment in productivity lagging reductions in capital costs

In response to the economic indicators and/or loss of revenue, some companies first started cutting capital expenses, then operating expenses including employees.  While budgets are reviewed constantly, budgets are typically reallocated upon reducing operating expenses to maintain productivity and revenue with reduced resources.  Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) can assist businesses in both reducing capital costs by reducing server count, reducing operating expense (IT MRO), and increasing productivity of the IT staff and more importantly end-users.  Trends in IT sales will be interesting over the next couple of months to see if there is an upsurge in investment following the unfortunate recent lay-offs.  Hopefully, the market reads about our business value, including our customer evidence from around the world, and at least evaluates Windows EBS when reducing costs and increasing productivity.  Microsoft subsidiaries around the world are gathering additional local evidence.

I have internally posted a presentation with relevant evidence that discuss how EBS can help your business significantly lower costs and increase productivity.  This presentation speaks directly to the measurable business benefits of EBS, no fluff.  If you are a Partner, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary for the presentation.  If not, please contact your local partner and request the presentation.

Happy Holidays

I will be working throughout this holiday season, taking a couple of days off here and there.  Wishing you a safe and peaceful holiday season.

Case Study released on 15DEC08

I understand many markets desire local case studies, but I suspect you can translate a majority of the business value across the world.  The challenge for any market and business is to decide on the ROI for their specific market, their segment and individual business; however, the reduced costs and increase productivity should translate to any market.  Microsoft subsidiaries are working on local case studies around the world.

Touchstone Behavioral Health is a nonprofit organization that provides a range of youth behavioral health services, including anger management, crisis intervention, psychiatric evaluations, support groups, and parenting classes. The Glendale, Arizona–based organization has six sites throughout Arizona and employs 180 people.

EBS provided the following benefits to Touchstone Behavioral Health:

• Core business value
• Up to 5,000 More Client Hours Annually
• New End-user Services

• Lower TCO
• IT Work Reduction of 30 Hours Weekly
• Lower Licensing and Energy Costs (Green IT)
• Enhanced Reliability and Security
• IT Infrastructure Supporting Growth

Read the details of the case study here.

Upgrade from SBS, Windows Server 2008 and Exchange 2007

Solutions Pathway provides additional discounts/credits for current SBS, Windows Server 2008 and Exchange 2007.  If you are looking to lower your Total Cost of Ownership with EBS and/or expecting to outgrow the 75 limit user limit for SBS, check out the additional discounts you may qualify for.  The site has a lot of information, possibly too much, so please contact your Microsoft partner with questions.   Microsoft Partners have a different portal.

 

On a side note, some people want all EBS information available on the EBS site, I mean ALL, while others want an easy to read overview that provides them enough information to decide to investigate further with a Microsoft Partner.  What do you think?  Not enough information on www.microsoft.com/ebs?  Too much?  There is a survey to the right.