Is selling public cloud enough, what about hybrid-cloud?

Everywhere you look cloud is something that needs to be considered. My dad, who still has an ancient laptop (6 years old), can barely run Chrome, brought up on our last call that he needed to get into “the Cloud” to protect his important data. The way he brought it up was with such seriousness that it took me a minute to realise what he was actually saying, for most of us in tech this doesn’t seem so serious, we just go research the options and figure out the best company to go with. To him though this is a big decision, something he feels that he will have to “live” with. This sparked a long conversation about companies and products from a consumer level for him to look at. Which by the way, like most of our tech purchase discussions, ended with me saying, “Right Dad I will go and figure out what the best options are and give you some ideas of what you should go for.” Afterwards I sat and thought about the conversation and realised, what would he have done if I wasn’t a geek? What do other people and their parents do if they don’t really understand this tech age we are in? If it is confusing for consumers to understand and then try and decide what is out there for Cloud products, what is like for those trying to make decisions for the business where the product sets are exponentially larger and more complex?

Our partners are facing this hurdle when talking to their prospects in the industry. They find that in today’s ever changing marketplace they need to cover a larger range of solutions beyond their specialities. For example, selling just public cloud is great, but what about when your competitor goes in and talks about a hybrid approach and has a managed service wrapper, all of sudden that customer you had could be gone.

This year at WPC15, Microsoft is going to be highlighting the Hybrid approach, and how it is the way forward with them. Do you currently have an answer to when your customer asks about hybrid? Do you even know where to start to build it into your offerings? You are not alone, many of Microsoft’s Partners have focused on a single or a select few of Microsoft’s technologies, but that is increasingly becoming not enough for Microsoft or for the end users.

Cube52 and I will be at WPC this year talking to new prospective partners about expanding their offerings, so swing by the UK lounge. Because it is truer now more than ever that your company has to be about the customer, and not about specific products. Otherwise you may go to work tomorrow and have no one to talk to.