Office 365 or bust: Satya Nadella bangs drum for all-cloud future at Partners 016
Dynamics 365 is obviously the hard sell here, too
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella offered a quick update on his growing vision for an IoT-connected world at today's Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2016 keynote, championing the Internet of Things as Microsoft's next target, and stressing that a connected future was just as much a possibility for SMBs as for larger companies.
Nadella talked of a need to "build up predictive power inside operations, so every organisation is intelligent".
"Every customer of ours now isn't just looking to use digital tech, but is using digital tech of their own, and that's the opportunity," added Nadella.
"You may think all this is just for large businesses, [or] just Silicon Valley start-ups," he continued, [but] when you look ahead, you see that every place there is today operating expense there are increasing levels of automation, drive for productivity and drive for efficiency."
And efficiency, the Microsoft CEO reminded delegates, is opportunity for digital products and services "for all of you".
Nadella talked the usual IoT-fuelled euphoria about "every sensor in the world" to be connected, whether "serving large or small businesses".
It seemed like Nadella might be warming up to talk about Microsoft's still slightly baffling $26bn acquisition of LinkedIn - which many have wondered will see integration into products such as Office to connect typed subjects with career contacts - but instead Nadella took the opportunity to connect up the "tremendous progress" Microsoft feels it's made with Office 365 and the fact "everything [is] represented in the cloud, exposed in the cloud" with Dynamics 365; the cloud version of Microsoft's CRM system that was unveiled last week.
"We're building out this platform with what Microsoft has always done - a platform approach", he enthused before namechecking Power BI and automated task manager Microsoft Flow as a combination of products that "have the ability to reduce the cost and bring together business applications that speak directly to the business transformation".
"That's the new way to frame what's happening with Office 365 and Dynamics 365 - the opportunity it provides for everyone here," said Nadella.
Although the question, "Are you plugging everything into Cortana?" was a step too far even for the most lovestruck Microsoft fan-exec.
What Nadella didn't talk about, of course, was how a Microsoft that exists entirely in the cloud will better facilitate the damage wrought by even minor Office 365 outages, such as the well-remembered cataclysm of December 2015 which brought many European businesses close to a standstill.
Nevertheless, as a natural evolution of "Mobile first, cloud first," Nadella still seems to be hitting all the right notes with Microsoft customers, and isn't gibbering half as much as his predecessor Steve Ballmer when faced with such lofty concepts as invisible computers and millions of sensors on the earth.