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JamesNT
Moderator
USA
3150 Posts
Status: offline |
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jeffm_mvp
Here To Stay
USA
294 Posts
Status: offline |
 Posted - 07/05/2012 : 6:38:30 PM
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Indeed, it's a sober day for a lot of people.
Jeff Middleton SBS-MVP |
SBSmigration.com |
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JamesNT
Moderator
USA
3150 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/05/2012 : 7:30:54 PM
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If I were an MVP like you, Jeff, with all the work you have put into making SBS a better product, then upon hearing news like that I would be anything but sober.
JamesNT |
James Summerlin
www.jamessummerlin.com |
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wobble_wobble
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
Ireland
4517 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/05/2012 : 7:39:55 PM
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I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.
Have a little anchor for the office and shove all your pay us for your services into the MS Network that is less than 30ms from you.
When do MS start selling networking to back it up.
Now what fruit are they looking to look like? |
Joe
After everything that has happened during the month of Jan 07, I do believe that pigs fly backwards!
http://whatismyv6.com/ |
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jeffm_mvp
Here To Stay
USA
294 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/06/2012 : 09:52:22 AM
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MVPs have a declared passion for a particular product or technology, but that doesn't make it bigger than life as compared to anyone who as a consultant or channel partner had the same commitment to that product. Honestly, I empathize with the SBS-centric partners who will have to sort out their new business plan and adapt their customers.
SBS always interested me as a product because of the leverage it provides to do more than a baseline server, and then choosing how to empower the business that is using it. My interest in it as an MVP was based upon understanding the market and the technology of the SBS design, and getting a chance to help people to get a better product. Eventually this lead to my starting SBSmigration.com as a way to get things done that I couldn't get the MS Dev team to do.
As it is, my investment in SBSmigration.com has already expanded in recent years to address more of the "center of the market" than the center of SBS product. For some time in the days of SBS 2003, the SBS Dev team would playfully joke with the SBS MVPs that "there's only 40 people in the world using ISA on SBS, and you are all sitting here now." It funny even if it wasn't true, but it emphasized that if you ask the opinions of experts you can easy get an expert's skew in the answer.
At least half the SBS servers ever deployed were never used as more than a file server. They were just badly managed and eventually were wiped and replaced by a *nix box or a Windows Server or even a Windows/Exchange full product because so many consultants were clueless of the value they had in front of them.
I was able to build SBSmigration.com up to meet the expectations of a lot of people who wanted more than they could get out of the box from MS, and I will continue to do that with SBS 2011, as well as with the standard products of Windows and Exchange and whatever else is in the mix going forward.
Yes, it's a disappointment to me to see the end of SBS because I think it's been an important nexus, a substantial glue for a community of IT Pros of a certain scale. It will be more difficult to find these folks in the future. I have some plans to address that issue as well.
Jeff Middleton SBS-MVP |
SBSmigration.com |
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JamesNT
Moderator
USA
3150 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/06/2012 : 10:11:53 AM
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quote:
As it is, my investment in SBSmigration.com has already expanded in recent years to address more of the "center of the market" than the center of SBS product. For some time in the days of SBS 2003, the SBS Dev team would playfully joke with the SBS MVPs that "there's only 40 people in the world using ISA on SBS, and you are all sitting here now." It funny even if it wasn't true, but it emphasized that if you ask the opinions of experts you can easy get an expert's skew in the answer.
It's good to know you have already expanded beyond the world of SBS. It would seem you are well prepared for the future. As for ISA on SBS 2003, almost every deployment I made of that product used ISA as the firewall. And, yes, I got into many arguments with many other. . . people. . . as to whether ISA was a true firewall or not. I'm sure you remember this thread: http://www.minasi.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24733&SearchTerms=isa
quote:
At least half the SBS servers ever deployed were never used as more than a file server. They were just badly managed and eventually were wiped and replaced by a *nix box or a Windows Server or even a Windows/Exchange full product because so many consultants were clueless of the value they had in front of them.
This is unfortunate, but entirely true. I have seen quite a few SBS's hamstringed in many a horrific fashion. You are quite correct that quite a few consultants had no idea what they were doing with SBS. And I got into a nasty argument with one who practically screamed at me that the SBS wizards were crap and that manual configuration was the way to go. I could not convince him otherwise despite all the problems he was having with his SBS boxen.
quote:
Yes, it's a disappointment to me to see the end of SBS because I think it's been an important nexus, a substantial glue for a community of IT Pros of a certain scale. It will be more difficult to find these folks in the future. I have some plans to address that issue as well.
And I look forward to seeing your future plans. You have always impressed me with your ideas and work ethic. I think this entire situation will most likely just be a mild-to-moderate transition for you as opposed to the shear disaster it will be for others.
JamesNT |
James Summerlin
www.jamessummerlin.com |
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jeffm_mvp
Here To Stay
USA
294 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/06/2012 : 10:30:30 AM
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James, I appreciate the kind words.
At the IT Pro Conference 2012 last month, I announced the preview of the SBSmigration.com Global Partners Resource Portal. That's a mouthful, and so the logic is that I announce ITproExperts.com as the home of our new partner program. Once we go live with this site (it's locked down now but has the homepage accessible as preview), we will be showing the expansion of services and benefits of the partner program. In a sense it will have the same SBSmigration.com concepts, but wrapped around a more broad concept of "who are our customers and what sort of solutions would they like to see" based upon similar inspiration to what SBSmigration.com established as the seed of value.
I'll be communicating more about this directly to our customer contact list, and from the site itself.
SBSmigration.com isn't going anywhere, in fact, its going to become more focused on the SBS-specific needs while allowing all of the other brand and business concepts I have been developing over the years to gain a more well defined audience as "all IT Pros" rather than all SBS enthusiasts.
The launch of this partner program, this new site, this expansion of branding is all stuff that has been 2-3 years in process. This isn't really a reaction to yesterday's announcement, rather the logical progression of my seeing the center of the marketplace I serve as not really SBS-centric going forward, a vision I had 4-5 year back.
The introduction of solutions for the different platforms we show as SBS Platforms, Exchange/Windows Platforms, and Windows Only platforms was just peeling back the curtain slightly for what the IT Pro Experts opportunity was intended to fulfill. The partner program is the path into that solution set coming online.
For those who noted the adjustment in "first purchase" customer pricing back in April, that was part of the same process of positioning IT Pro Experts as a higher value opportunity for our loyal customers. I've actually been on pause to go forward with IT Pro Experts for about a month. Literally, the programmers finished the site a month ago before the conference, but I decided it would be better to let Microsoft get it's "news" on the street first so that it would be easier for people to understand what the landscape looks like going forward, and therefore where the value in IT Pro Experts really should be interpreted in that context.
As always, I'll be interested in your feedback.
Jeff Middleton SBS-MVP |
SBSmigration.com |
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joe_elway
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
Ireland
7396 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/06/2012 : 2:31:53 PM
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I work for a distributor that sells MSFT licensing and most of our customers sell in the SBS space. I know for certain that Office365 will win over only a certain % of them. They will look for onsite alternatives to Exchange. What is the preferred alternative? I used to do some stuff with MDaemon but that was quite a while ago. I just took a look. It's come along quite a bit.
For those of you working with SBS, what will your strategy be? |
Aidan Finn
MCSE, MVP (Virtual Machine)
IT Blog: http://www.aidanfinn.com
My Photography: http://www.aidanfinnphoto.com/
Books: WS2012 Hyper-V Installation & Config Guide, MSFT Private Cloud Computing
Twitter: http://twitter.com/joe_elway |
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anthony
Moderator
USA
2373 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/07/2012 : 10:50:43 AM
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While I feel for guys that use SBS as the center of their business, if we are really honest - this has been coming for years. I remember when 2011 came out, reviewers were already saying, "Is this the last SBS?" because even as far back as a year ago, the writing was on the wall. I started a consulting business back in 2008, and I went to Jeff's SBS conference in NOLA that year, and even back then, there was a shift to cloud services and managed services. Since I was coming from the corporate world - I found myself plunged into a world I knew nothing about. But I saw that week, that selling SBS and charging by the hour was going away.
Jeff, that conference probably saved me more heartache than I can imagine. It was the best money I spent in the entire time I owned my business. It was an incredible value, and the takeaways I got literally changed the direction of my business from that week forward. I was thankful I had only been in business for about 6 months when I went. Because the day I got back, I completely changed my entire business model (and even changed the name of my company). So Jeff; thank you for your great work!
Even though I have now sold the business almost a year ago, I only sold ONE Small Business Server in 3 years (which was in 2008). To my customers, it was just NOT a compelling solution anymore. I even got to the point where I was happy when I was up against other consultants proposing SBS, because I knew that it only increased my chances of getting the deal because I was offering a better solution for much less up front cash.
So as with any technology, the space has evolved. As technology professionals, we evolve with it or we eventually are not in this business anymore. I am being faced with this issue now back in the corporate world. I too am now playing catchup now in my professional life.
The company I work for just yesterday let one of our IT guys go because he could not adapt to our fast paced environment. You either learn and evolve, or you end up looking for another job. SBS is just another victim of this evolution right? |
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jeffm_mvp
Here To Stay
USA
294 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/07/2012 : 12:00:51 PM
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Anthony,
Thank you for sharing that story, it makes my day, really it does. After 5 years of doing the IT Pro Conference, I'm very proud of what we accomplished each year in putting forth provocative, relevant, and forward looking discussions. The conference and the content has been frequently misunderstood, perhaps mis-slotted is a better term, by those who "hear about the event" but don't attend it.
As I've said a few times in the last several days, my main frustration with the path that MS has chosen is not that killing SBS is a flawed decision as a product choice, but to not provide continuity for their channel to share in an opportunity forward to accomplish the transition of the industry partners is myopically bad thinking. MS is turning it's back on lots of partners, lots of ISVs, lots of OEMs, lots of businesses with specific ideas about what they will and will not do in running their own businesses.
I think the partners have to evolve, but I think it was a mistake by MS to plan for them all to evolve outside of an MS bubble focused entirely on the Office 365 business model.
Our local paper in New Orleans has been determined to stop doing daily printing this fall, go to three days a week, because the publisher that owns 20+ papers had decided to go digital as their focus. But you look at the crap website of NOLA.COM they run, and nobody is going to use it. It sucks. It's not good for online reading much less as a replacement for an actual paper in your hand. They could be forgiven to make that decision and give themselves 1-2 year to get the format and presentation right, to bring their local customers into the new vision. But instead, they are chopping off the legs of their customers without giving them the option that they want or a better option than that.
Once our paper stops daily publication, I would bet it will die in 15 months. That's because once it becomes an online publication, its got to be better than all the other online options for delivery of that kind of content, and NOLA.COM is not going to cut it.
Likewise, I'm not convinced that Microsoft can hold onto massive customer bases online once there's all the other options to compete with and you no longer have the major investments to "buy the product", you are just monthly leasing it. It's too easy to walk away to a new option.
Of course, if MS has your data and makes it hard to let go, then the MS reputation will be even worse and nobody will want to sign up with them. The reason that banks work on making themselves look like they are study and trusted is because the want you to give them your money.
Microsoft is starting from a really deep hole on trust in the industry, and in its partner channel for small business. Invigorating the channel to be unhappy with Microsoft wasn't a smart move.
Jeff Middleton SBS-MVP |
SBSmigration.com |
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anthony
Moderator
USA
2373 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/07/2012 : 2:40:47 PM
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I could not agree more Steve. I was told long ago that people will almost ALWAYS take the path of least resistance. I'm pretty sure I've said that many times here on this forum too. But it's true. Microsoft is no longer the path of least resistance. They make things overly difficult in many cases. I think my last post from this thread sums up where I'm at with Microsoft right now:
http://web2.minasi.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=39293 |
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nickw
Sadly oft-gone father of two
Ireland
5404 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07/24/2012 : 08:08:37 AM
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I have drafted about 3 versions of a blogpost about this ridiculous situation that Microsoft have chosen to implement, from what I can tell, against the request of the Microsoft Partners...
But what's new right? Balmer made it clear... It's cloud Partners of your OUT! Its the right thing for Microsoft as a company to do this, and I have no real issue with SBS being moved into a new cut down version called Essentials but I have one major issue with it...
25 Users.
THIS is my pain point. Essentials 2012 needs to be up to 75 users, end of story. Then this gives me the ability to upsell my SBS userbase to Essentials, AND migrate them to Office 365.
Surely this is the idea?
Anyway, that's about all you'll here from me on the subject... here on my blog :)
Nick |
Nick Whittome
Minasi Forums Administrator | Microsoft Small Business Server MVP | IT Support Ireland
Mark's Main Site | Forum FAQ | Forum Main RSS Feed | Active Users | My Blog| Twitter!
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SBS 2011 to be the LAST SBS
