The world has changed and Microsoft is changing with it.
Contrary to popular belief Microsoft is longer is Microsoft the money grabbing beast it used to be.
It’s easy for companies to try to exploit new revenue streams and to gain investor support but this isn’t about new markets, this is about reducing existing market share or presenting better value in markets that provide a healthy revenue stream for Microsoft.
Microsoft are pro-actively cutting existing revenue streams to aid education, I am involved in this and although it damages our profitability it does increase our ability and potential to provide a better service at a lower price.
Live @ Edu is a perfect example of this. We purchase thousands of pounds/dollars worth of Microsoft Exchange licenses each month and then resell those on to schools through a service called Primary Email. The introduction of Live at Edu means we can still sell Primary Email but instead of using our own hosting and having to pay Microsoft for Licenses, Microsoft cover it all, how nice is that?!
Live at Edu is a free service but because we have worked in Primary schools providing email for so long we are able to offer the 5% extra that makes a big difference to how a school efficiently uses email. Eventually Microsoft will figure this out and push us entirely out of the market and that is fine, but until that point it give us a great opportunity to offer a great service at a ridiculously low price!
Question is.. How does the Microsoft Exchange team feel about this? Knowing Microsoft I think they will feel somewhat vulnerable and the thought of merging the Exchange team with the Office team could make for some uncomfortable conversations..
In reality.. Imagine you were payed £20k to do your job then your boss said we can’t pay you any more AND you have to work for free.. But in 10 years time your £20k will be £50k. I hope this is sustainable for Microsoft, I’m pretty sure it will be and their business model/plan will be widely adopted in other emerging and stale markets.
Finally it is worth saying that past experiences means that we do treat Microsoft with the same treatment we treat other companies growing at the rate of a steroid infused tuma. With a very, very, very large pole, muzzle and a poached salmon and rocket sandwich.
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Except that Live Edu is more limited than hosted Exchange, so when it comes to doing anything particularly fancy you still want your own server. Live Edu in my view is really just a reactionary move against Google Apps.
Alice, Live at Edu isn’t “that” limited. It is slightly limited but with full powershell access and with lots of resources available we can accomplish 95% of what primary/school email can do.
If you haven’t played with it in the last few months you should. Microsoft have been working hard to make it a more flexible experience.
OK, that doesn’t really match up to what I’d had explained to me – so yes I’ll take a proper look some time. The complaint I’d seen was that you can’t filter mail using regexes, which was just one of the limitations they were struggling with.