Our Microsoft EA is up this summer. We have started doing a review of our EA agreement, and I am looking to cut it back or eliminate it. Here are my motivations:
- It is the largest single line item in my IT budget, making it a prime target
- We tend to upgrade to the latest and greatest stuff because we own the rights to it. I want to do fewer upgrades moving forward, as we spend a huge amount of time upgrading stuff that could be better spent adding new value to the business
- Speaking of adding value, compared to my cloud apps, the pace of innovation is snail like. For example, we recently finished an Exchange upgrade to 2010. Combined with Office 2010, this gave us maybe half a dozen new features that are visible to our user community. Six features every three years, and you have to spend a few man-months of effort to take advantage of them. Shame on me. By contrast, SalesForce gives my users about 20 cool new features every four months! And I don’t have to do anything, they are just there. GoodData gives me new stuff at least monthly, if not sooner. Bottom line; the pace of innovation in the cloud is just orders of magnitude faster than what we get from MS (and our other tradition software)
- Microsoft makes the whole thing just too damned hard. The “Product Use Rights” document (PUR) is 138 pages. Really. Only the Government could make it harder
I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff, but you get the idea. I am even likely to take us to Gmail (from Exchange) later this year. After all, Google has given their users nearly 200 enhancements to messaging in the last year or so. I think I would rather be on that train than run over by it.
And for anyone is having trouble sleeping, here is a link to the MS PUR http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/product-licensing.aspx, and the 26 page document that explains it J
Solved this problem 6 years ago. Driving about 20 new features per 4 months using Agile and Scrum. And delivering traditional Microsoft ERP apps using a push installer from the Cloud to the customers file server (private cloud).
ReplyDeleteProblem was Microsoft kept on doing huge 3 year releases (plus random service packs) and let Salesforce and others carry away the mind share.
Well understand your decision.
Sounds like you aren't using Lync with your Exchange 2010 implementation. Add that and ditch your phone system and you'll have a lot less angst about the MS direction.
ReplyDeleteI avoided doing an EA with MS for 7 years, but finally did a new EA in 2010 because of the rich UC capabilities. My colleagues love it. The Lync hooks to Sharepoint, Exchange, and the Office suite are excellent. And while I'm also a fan of SFDC, I sure do like having the spectre of MS CRM online out there as a viable option.
Dan - I would love to hear your thoughts/predictions on how smoothly the transition to Gmail would be. I'm hearing from a lot of IT directors that are leaning in that direction.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments. I'll certainly post updates as we dig deeper on the possibility of a move to gmail.
ReplyDeleteSince we are a division of a larger company that is a UC vendor, MS UC is off the table for us, and given my current views and focus on pace of innovation, I doubt they would be high on my list in any case.