Will the last one out please turn off the Server?

Let me tell you what today was like for me.

I spent four hours hours signing quotes and executing contracts while watching keynotes. Amid all the fire and brimstone that is my take on my largest vendors direction, I still sat there in my office marketing up the solutions, partners and technology that powers it.

Big fear in the partner community is that the changes mean the death of SBS. While I don’t have a leg to stand on in making an argument since I had to make the call on what to cut from our offerings in the ever growing solution portfolio – and effectively dropped an axe on SBS 2008 – I will offer you the details that lead up to our shift in direction. We ran a survey, we asked, and I have a neverending stream of email (vlad@vladville.com) from people asking if OWN can pull ___ off. My top requests are:

1. Will iPhone sync with Exchange?
2. We need a longer more stable LiveArchive $@%#%
3. We need to clean up our data center and cut our power bill – vmware or can you colo?
4. Blackberry. Please!! Pretty please!!!
5. Our server ___ is dying and I need to move on it pronto but my budget is in the dumps.

It is not really important what is on the list. It’s clear to see that mobility and virtualization are taking over from the traditional server/desktop deployment. What is important is what is not on the list.

What we are not seeing, and what is traditionally a big ticket item, is SQL. Chalk that up to SQL 2005 variants removing size limits and bringing price functionality lower. Also count in the rise in MySQL in the SMB market, nearly all the apps we’re asked to research integrate with it.

We are not seeing massive infrastructure investments – 2007 was all about SharePoint, all about Unified Communications and VoIP systems, all about trying to add some more intelligence to the system.

Naturally, I’m supposed to throw EBS and all of the above under the bus? Right?

Not quite. You see, IT budgets get tight and the fundamentals still get the funding while the more exotic stuff waits for a better day or gets a prolonged deployment cycle. So do the math – regardless the size, everyone has an IT budget. It’s either deep in the annual business plan or at the bottom of your pockets. You’ll only spend so much.

We made a gamble that we can prolong the deployment cycle and support cycle of EBS if we continued to market it as the solution to the core of the network that is already operational.

Nobody likes to fix it if it ain’t broken but something about NT4 file servers and 2000 domain controllers is suspect to even most frugal of CIO/COOs.

Right now I am at a decision point on which route we take. We already know that Exchange/SharePoint is the second tier product, our security offerings with ExchangeDefender and something that rhymes with OutDevil are primary go-to-markets, and complex infrastructure and projects a distant third if there is a commitment to it.

Professionally, I view managed services as a commoditization force, one not quite embraced by my target market. So I’m trying to find the happy middle, between long term infrastructure clients and moving everything else to hosting because I can do better than what they have now.

So please stop the drama with the unplugging and dead on arrival – it’s apparent you’ve never seen the product when you lead into the conversation with that decision. They have a long future in the marketplace. Who will provide it and at what cost, that remains to be seen. Guess it’s up to us.

To sum it up:

Infrastructure = investment = affected negatively by economic downturn.

Hosting = service = enhanced by the economic downturn due to reduced costs, no committments, ability to downsize on demand.

Death? Not by a long shot. Challenging given the circumstances? Yup.