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Laura Ipsen: Worldwide Partner Conference 2012 Day 2 Keynote
July 10, 2012
Remarks by Laura Ipsen, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Toronto, Canada
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector Laura Ipsen.
(Applause.)
LAURA IPSEN: Good morning, everyone. It's great to be here for my first WPC. And I would like to give a special callout to our public sector partners. Where are you guys? Let's give you a clap.
(Applause.)
Thank you so much for the work that you do. It's simply incredible and having huge impact on the way governments are working in the future. You know, three weeks ago I was in Russia, and I had a chance to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and an opportunity to speak with many of the government leaders around critical issues ranging from education, healthcare, public safety, and the environment. And they talked about the role of information technology to transform the economy.
Whether it was the Minister of Education from New Zealand to the head of the Dutch Police, the issues really aren't that much different from governments; it's really about how they do more with less, and we're helping governments in these times of austerity and budget cuts to do more with less so that they can compete around jobs and competition for innovation and investment. But I think it's also an important time that governments can do new with less, and that's really what our suite of products and technologies are doing today.
So, you know, in these times of global economic uncertainty, government leaders, whether they're heads of state or mayors, are having to make really tough choices. They're making choices about jobs. They're making choices about policies and regulations that shape the future of our industry. And I think it's a great opportunity for us to get engaged in those conversations, because what governments do today are going to have a huge impact on our business tomorrow. And by listening and learning, and working with all of our partners, we can really act on the strength that we have to have a real impact for a better tomorrow.
You know, internally it's something that we call our national plan, and our national plan initiative is something really exciting that I want to share with all of you. We've made it a priority for every Microsoft leader, our country's leads around the world, to shape a national plan to align with the national agendas of government. We have over 80 of these plans in all of these countries, and it's really about taking a coordinated and local approach to work on the top initiatives in a country. And by working together, we really believe that we can elevate the conversation with leaders, strengthen our strategic relationships, and have a positive policy and regulatory impact on the environment in which we do business.
You know, some people would say, “Hey, maybe these national plans are about philanthropy,” and I want to let you know that it goes well beyond corporate social responsibility. It's really a critical tool for all of us to secure our business health, not just for Microsoft, but for all of our partners.
The other thing that governments are really focused on, as we all know, is about economic growth. It's a top priority. And our ecosystem, I believe, is really critical and it's the engine for the future innovation and growth. We're doing two amazing things around the world, working with many of our partners; first is the Microsoft innovation centers. We have over 100 centers globally, which are really the sounding board for your great ideas and transform those ideas into fantastic products for our customers.
The other one is our BizSpark Initiative. We're working with thousands of our partners to connect software startups with incubators, investors, and even government agencies. And since 2008, we've helped over 45,000 companies in 100 countries around the world. And it means expanding access to our schools and technologies, creating mentorship programs, and building local networks. And what it really means is helping entrepreneurs get off the ground.
I noticed there was a study by Gartner that over the next five years over 90 percent of all jobs are going to have to have some sort of ITP skills. And if this is true, we're really going to have to change the way that we educate in the future, and create ubiquitous digital literacy. Our vision for education is about anytime, anywhere learning. And with 24,000 of our global education partners, we are really realizing that vision.
One of the most powerful initiatives that we have is our Partners in Learning Program. We are with all of you. We've trained over 10 million teachers in eight years, and engaged over 30,000 schools, and countless numbers of students. What's really cool about this is it's about a social network for teachers, for teachers to exchange their best ideas, whether it's in Australia, or here in Canada. And it's not just about teaching technologies, but it's about using technology to teach students in better ways.
You know, you heard yesterday that we've doubled our footprint for Office 365 for education and government. It's really exciting. But we also made a fantastically bold move; we took price off the table, and we made Office 365 free for students, teachers, and administrators. Great job. (Applause.) Thank you.
Let me tell you what that means, just in the last few days, we've won and deployed three-and-a-half million seats, and we've closed over 20 million seats. One of the really incredible deals that we had we announced at the Vatican with four-and-a-half million seats with the Catholic International Education Office. Now, what is also exciting is that we're going to move the 120 million seats of Live@edu customers onto Office 365. Great job by the team.
(Applause.)
Now, I can't think of a better way for all of our partners and all of you to have the best education platform to attach your solutions and services, and I know as we do this we can win big in education.
Now, it's not just about education; there are other societal challenges that are really shaping the global economy. And one of the most challenging ones is around healthcare. It really is a challenge, but it's also a great opportunity. We're using our technology to transform healthcare. What we've done is to build an open source architecture called our Connected Health Framework, which enables 27,000 of our healthcare partners to grow and to create a new market and a digital market around healthcare.
One of the partners that we're working with from Portugal named Ongoing (ph) is using Azure and cloud to connect over 200 hospitals, and a million patient records. What does this mean? It means that there's new access to data, new analytics, new types of monitoring, and we're enabling the Government of Rio not just to save money on healthcare, but to significantly transform the quality of healthcare as well.
I think one of the biggest challenges with healthcare, though, is there's significant policy and regulatory issues that make it really tough in this business. I've talked with a lot of our partners, and I want to let you know that those issues around privacy, and security, around medical records, and confidential data is one area where I believe we have the best products, create the best solutions and services with our partners in healthcare.
I think a lot of us are watching events in countries like Brazil, and as we all know, Brazil is going to host both the World Cup and the Olympics. So public safety is a huge issue for the country. Now, having traveled there, I think transportation is another critical one, getting around that they're going to have to deal with. We're working with a great partner there called Adento (ph) using cutting edge security solutions around situational awareness, location-based mobile solutions and visual recognition solutions using Kinect. It's just a fantastic way to demonstrate how Kinect is transforming not just how we're doing gaming, but education, security, and many other areas.
And the impact of this for our partners is the solution has been so compelling that we built it as a permanent demo in one of our Microsoft innovation centers. What does that mean for our partners? It means great exposure. It means that they're able to influence governments in different ways. And it's meant a transformation and increased business for their long-term potential.
So, why is Microsoft and our ecosystem the best partners for government? I think fundamentally it's about our business model. Our model is about putting people first. While other industry players put people and their information to work for them, at Microsoft we put our technology to work for people. It's really the foundation for which we go to market, and I think it's one of the most sustainable ways that we ensure a healthy and robust ecosystem for our partners to grow and become successful.
And we all know there's a lot of competition. But, I think our business model is the one that's going to win. It's about investing in people, innovation, and intellectual property. We invest over $9 billion in R&D annually. That's more than any other company in the world, and it means that we're building the best product for our customers, enabling you to build the best solutions and services to deploy around the world.
In contrast, there's two other business models. One is the Amazon model, which is a low-cost retail model, and the other one is the ad-sponsored model Google. Those models aren't around putting people first. We believe that our business model is best for our customers, our partners, and it's truly going to drive the future of innovation and long-term sustainable growth.
I'm not here to be the product expert, but I can tell you one of the biggest differentiators that we have is around privacy and security of our product. We've made these issues a top priority at Microsoft for all of our products. We've made it a priority to comply with government regulations where others, quite frankly, don't. Whether it's the EU Model Clause, building to ISO 20001, written notification for breech, these are the issues that we pay attention to, because it makes a difference for all of you as our partners and our customers.
At the end of the day, we're not reading Hotmail to target ads; we're not using e-mail and business documents in Office 365 to target and sell to advertisers either. But, what we do do is offer the best-in-class privacy protection with Internet Explorer. And what I think is really exciting is in IE 10 and Windows 8 we're going to have the first and only browser with Do Not Track privacy protection turned on by default.
You know, while we may live in uncertain times, in particular in the economy, one thing is really certain; we're embarking on a new era here at Microsoft, and together we can help entire countries achieve their goals. And if we do it right, I think we can have a real impact for a better tomorrow, not only globally, but locally. And I think it also means that we can have great wins with all of our partners together. Let me show you a little bit more of what I'm talking about.
(Video segment.)
I want to thank all the partners that participated in that video and made a real difference. Now, I know that we're a company of action items, so I wanted to share if you're sitting there thinking about the national plan and what partners can do; there are really three things that you can do. First, engage with your local Microsoft team for details on their national plan and the opportunities that you have to connect with all of them. Quite frankly, if they don't have a plan, please give me a call personally.
Second, make your cause Microsoft's cause. We have a great software donation program that matches donations to nonprofits that are empowering youth. So, please participate in that program. I know you've had a lot of information on that. Finally, let's tell our story together by leveraging our marketing and PR and events, so that we can highlight your great solutions and services. I believe that together we can make a real impact for a better tomorrow.
Thank you.
Read More: Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2012
- What’s Next: Steve Clayton Demos Future — and Some of the Present — at WPC.July 11, 2012
- Microsoft Announces New Cloud Opportunities for Partners.July 10, 2012
- Mastering Complexity: Global Partners Choose the Microsoft Dynamics Platform.July 10, 2012
- Microsoft Sees Big Opportunities for Partners With Upcoming Wave of New Products and Services.July 09, 2012
- New Partner Program Enhancements for Microsoft Dynamics Partners Designed to Promote Growth and Maximize Profitability.July 09, 2012
Microsoft Announces New Cloud Opportunities for Partners
July 10, 2012
New guidance, training and programs for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Azure unveiled at Worldwide Partner Conference.
TORONTO — July 10, 2012 — During the second day of Microsoft Corp.’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), top executives from the company announced new training, tools and other programs that enable partners to deliver compelling new cloud services to their customers. Satya Nadella, president of the Server and Tools Business, announced a community technology preview (CTP) of new technologies that enable hosting service providers to use their Windows Server data centers to deliver capabilities consistent with services running in Windows Azure. In addition, he announced a new program that gives partners guidance, training and software tools to help customers transition from VMware’s virtual infrastructure to Microsoft’s cloud.
“We’ve taken everything that we’ve learned from running data centers and services at a global scale to usher in the new era of the cloud OS,” Nadella said. “Microsoft offers partners modern yet familiar technology to meet customer demand on their path to the cloud.”
With the new CTP, hosting service providers can offer customers turnkey cloud services, including high-scale websites and virtual machine hosting with an extensible self-service portal experience. These capabilities, which run on Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft System Center 2012, will offer hosting providers some of the same experiences and services recently announced by Windows Azure. Go Daddy, the largest global Web hoster, is piloting these new capabilities to deliver new cloud services for customers.
“Customers view Go Daddy as an IT partner with which they can grow,” said Scott Brown, vice president of Product Development – Hosting at Go Daddy. “These new capabilities give customers a seamless path to expanding their online presence. In addition, the improved site performance, scalability and availability all lead to a more enjoyable experience for our customers and their visitors.”
In addition, the new program announced on stage, Switch to Hyper-V, will allow partners to grow their virtualization, private and hybrid cloud computing practices while also helping customers improve IT agility at a lower cost with Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure.
Already, partners are making significant progress in helping their customers with this transition. Microsoft Gold Certified Partner FyrSoft recently helped Iowa-based Pella Corp. migrate nearly 100 percent of its VMware infrastructure — nearly 700 VMware virtual machines — to Hyper-V, moving the company beyond virtualization to a private cloud solution. With the Microsoft private cloud, Pella has evolved its business while reducing IT costs and improving efficiencies. Server and Tools Business Corporate Vice President Takeshi Numoto further details partner opportunities in the era of the cloud OS on a blog published today, and more information can be found here.
In addition, in a keynote that further reinforced how Microsoft is working with its partners to transform businesses throughout the world, Microsoft Business Solutions President Kirill Tatarinov highlighted the incredible opportunity in the year ahead for partners focused on selling business solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics.
“Microsoft brings together technologies in a way that no other company can match,” Tatarinov said. “Microsoft Dynamics takes full advantage of the amazing innovations Microsoft is delivering, and we’re actively supporting our partners in developing and delivering a complete, modern, flexible and cloud-based business solution to grow their businesses. There’s never been a better moment to be a Microsoft Dynamics partner.”
With a renewed focus on building enterprise partnerships, Microsoft announced new global independent software vendors that are choosing or extending their solutions across Microsoft Dynamics. Companies such as Campus Management Corp., Cenium Inc., Cincom Systems Inc., PROS Pricing and Technosoft that are industry leaders in their markets are embracing the Microsoft Dynamics solutions to expand their offerings and in some cases as the core foundation on which to build their unique industry-focused solutions. For instance, global hospitality and hotel solution organization Cenium is extending its Microsoft Dynamics-based business offerings in areas such as property management, procurement, human resources and point of sale; and Campus Management, a leading provider of enterprise software solutions for higher education, is planning to expand global reach by leveraging Microsoft Dynamics AX and providing institutions of any size or complexity more choices when it comes to student information systems and enterprise resource planning solutions.
Other keynotes included the following news and momentum updates from Microsoft senior executives:
• Thom Gruhler, corporate vice president of Windows Phone Marketing, took the stage to demo Windows Phone 8 and highlight that Windows Phone is now a true extension of the Windows that 1 billion users worldwide know and use today.
• Laura Ipsen, corporate vice president of Worldwide Public Sector, provided an overview of Microsoft’s National Plan and citizenship efforts, including empowering youth and driving societal change through the proliferation of Microsoft technology.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.
Read More: Kirill Tatarinov, Satya Nadella, Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2012, Industry Partner
- What’s Next: Steve Clayton Demos Future — and Some of the Present — at WPC.July 11, 2012
- Microsoft Announces New Cloud Opportunities for Partners.July 10, 2012
- Mastering Complexity: Global Partners Choose the Microsoft Dynamics Platform.July 10, 2012
- Microsoft Sees Big Opportunities for Partners With Upcoming Wave of New Products and Services.July 09, 2012
- New Partner Program Enhancements for Microsoft Dynamics Partners Designed to Promote Growth and Maximize Profitability.July 09, 2012
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