The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

So yes, I’m alive. I’ve been buried in financials and project planning as we both have some huge announcements this fall as well as stuff that will come down early next year. But more on that later, I’m really writing the post to address the many comments I’ve gotten over the past few days that I can only judge from scrolling through the subject lines.

Yeah, how about that?

Many of you are interested in the commentary that was generated from the last two posts. What amazes me is the magnitude of people that are willing to ask in private but don’t want to comment in public or even on Facebook or Twitter.

I’ve blogged about this a billion times and am not about to make it a billion and one. What your religious belief towards the change and progress of technology happens to be is irrelevant. Over the course of building a business you make investments and hope that new ventures mature faster than the currently mature business lines die off.

Office 365

I don’t really have the time to celebrate Office 365 going down. Everything goes down.

What I find quite surprising is that there are folks out there celebrating this yet another outage as the reason their obsolete business model stands a chance. It doesn’t. You see, every time a client chooses cloud they choose not to buy a server from you which eliminates your highest margin product and your highest project generator.

The adoption of new, more affordable technology will not stop just because it sucks.

I know it defies common sense but the technology evolution to the cloud will not be stopped because of a few outages. I look at some of these hypocritical arguments all the time and about the only thing I can explain them away with is that the folks arguing either have no experience or a very short memory span. It was not that long ago that we dealt with tiny hard drives, BSODs, failing backup jobs, failing antivirus updates that brought the network to a crawl, broken service packs that interrupted services, migration paths so broken they required books worth of hacks to get done and Windows services getting pwned left and right with 0 day exploits.

Your clients made it through all that and they paid a heck of a lot more than a few bucks per user per month.

It’s OK to admit you don’t know how to make money with the cloud or that it’s going to require scale and a different level of marketing and promotion. But if it was easy everyone would be doing it and that’s why we have OnForce and Geek Squad.

Don’t let cynicism and complacency hold you back from taking advantage of the biggest opportunity you have to grow your client base. The days of a few clients making a good paycheck are over, time to get serious and spread your wings.

But what the heck, maybe Apple, Microsoft, HP, Dell and Google are all wrong and the cloud thing will fail. Right now – statistically – that is not what’s happening. Within ExchangeDefender, the cloud is whipping on-premise by a margin of 14-1.

Look at the opportunity this way – if you really like shifting boxes, maybe the cloud offering will introduce you to folks that will need a hardware refresh.

Office 365 to Partners: “Lower your shields and surrender your clients. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

There, I saved you an hour and a trip to Los Angeles for Microsoft WPC.

Several years ago when Microsoft first announced their cloud ambitions they briefed the press using the term co-ownership. Under this new concept, Microsoft and the Microsoft Partner (ie, you) would co-own the client: Microsoft would service, bill, support and well.. do everything – you would get a 6% commission for nodding when the client asked if the product would fit their needs. Effectively, it was a license to kill the Microsoft Infrastructure Partner.

If you didn’t tune in to the Office 365 launch here is the summary:

The eulogy was delivered by Ballmer himself who no fewer than 14 times repeated that Office 365 is something you don’t need an IT department or an IT person to do. The message to the partner base was clearer than ever:

There is an opportunity to build a business around migrating clients from their old “need IT help” solution into the Microsoft cloud. Then climb on in and close down the lid.

Take it on and it will be your last IT project ever. This is the end of you.

The Start of YOU

The introduction to this post isn’t meant to smear Microsoft or shine a negative light on their business model, frankly this is the best option they have and in my humble opinion the correct one. It’s also nothing new. The world of technology is turning towards services – you don’t get to pad a cell phone bill with a 100% margin. Unless your clients are unusually bad at math – you don’t get to lease them hardware at an insane margin or the kind of interest rate that required the act of congress to limit banks from charging. You don’t get to build an enterprise network in a small business and make them pay Fortune 500 fees for running their IT. We have all built our businesses on that but there are two problems with it:

1. The pool of stupid people is shrinking. Ten years ago you needed an associate degree in MIS to send and print an email. Now your grandma does it from her phone.

2. The number of options and alternatives is growing. Ten years ago you had to build a network and you had a choice of one telco provider. Today you have at least four and that’s just in your pocket. And you don’t need to read an O’Reilly book to get to the Internet, you can go to a Verizon store.

Don’t take it personal, Microsoft didn’t build this coffin for you. Microsoft built it for Google Apps. Google Apps on the other hand built it to support their search business. The string of .com’s and Web 2.0’s and giant telco and media and entertainment companies that benefited from connectivity that we all wanted and we all willingly paid for.. for the simple human need for a sense of belonging (in geek terms: connectivity).

For all intents and purposes, this is a good thing. It’s time to accept it and move on – don’t sit there asking for Microsoft to let you bill the client, don’t sit there and blame them for excluding you from their products and most of all – don’t wait for someone else to solve the problem that isn’t theirs.

But some of you can’t let go of Microsoft. Here are Top 10 reasons why Microsoft should not allow partners into Office 365:

1. Control of experience: This isn’t a matter of controlling the billing, it’s a matter of controlling the experience. Microsoft is responsible for the promotion, sale, support and upselling the clients through their system.
2. Upselling: Microsoft has not been extremely successful with it’s partner base loyalty beyond what they built: Office and Windows. If Microsoft pulls off #1 well it stands to reason that it’s other properties will do much better without partners trying to pull the client towards the solution they get most margin on. (Hint: Notice how many times you saw Windows Phone yesterday?)
3. Cross Selling: Microsoft is more than Office 365. It has always had the ambition of becoming everything to everyone but it has always had partners that stood in their way – from infrastructure to hardware to service provider – everyone always wanted their logo there. If Office 360 works out, it would be easier to position hardware, services, consulting and more.
4. Ground Rules: In the traditional network, IT department calls the shots. In Office 360, Microsoft does. Their terms. Their rules. Their features. Their network maintenance levels. By removing intermediaries, things become much simpler.
5. Patents, Patents, Patents: Microsoft is the richest software company on the planet and thereby the biggest target of patent lawsuits. When you’re playing in an open market you have to step on some toes to gain share – when you police the ocean (Office 365) you can easily keep others out.
6. Revenue Flexibility: With Microsoft controlling the billing and the client, they can control the price and the offering. Microsoft’s entire business model is built on multiple revenue streams off the same code base. With ultimate control comes the ability to tier the cloud and make even more money as companies get bigger.
7. Migration non-interference: Microsoft’s name is on the bill – it’s who you call when you have a question or need advice. Microsoft will never sell a migration from Office 365 to IBM’s hosted Lotus Notes solution.
8. Identity: Remember Microsoft Hailstorm? By having complete control of the client they have complete control of each licensed seat’s identity: One that extends to their Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, etc. At this point features become irrelevant: You’re more likely to buy something that fits than something that looks cool or fits the business model a little better.
9. Simplicity: Microsoft beat Apple by being open and allowing everyone that could write drivers to use their system. By locking out partners here Microsoft becomes that trusted advisor: Recommending apps, solutions, implementations and even suggesting your vacation. They don’t have to fight their way past the IT department to roll out ActiveX controls or the next technology they want to.
10. Borg: The collective has not been growing. Look at Microsoft’s 10 year stock chart and you can see why people are starting to demand Ballmers head and why so many in the Microsoft’s leadership have been sacked. Cloud bet is huge and partner resistence is futile – Microsoft wants to own SMB computing. At 90% they pretty much fulfilled Bill Gates vision of every computer running a Microsoft OS – but for the price to climb to fulfill Steve Ballmers vision of maximized shareholder value – everyone must be assimilated.

You’ve got the same story over at Google. So go ahead channel, resell Microsoft and Google – I dare you!

Of course, things are only this simple if we ignore the reality.

The Reality

Picture is worth a thousand words:

You see, the Google & Microsoft & Apple vision only holds up in their marketing.

In the real world where most computers are s#@(, applications are written in India and business owners are cheap trying to save $100 on their Internet connection the same day they have to decide if they want to drop $8,000 for the Dayona seats in their Ferrari (don’t hate, I told you this stuff was gonna happen in 2007) the computing experience tends to suck.

Yet, millions and millions of people bought an iPhone despite the fact it’s the most locked down solution and just about the only phone whose worst feature is it’s ability to place a phone call.

The point here is that there are years upon years of profitable IT business to be done if you stop focusing on what everyone else is doing and start thinking about what you can do.

Now to all my Microsoft friends and their managers that got this forwarded to them, here is your problem.

Your partner base feels they brought you to this point and that you’re being outright rude to lock us out of your success because we’ve been abused as your customer service department for years. For us, the argument is more emotional than it is factual. You’re dumping us and telling us that you’re gonna marry our best friend at the same time that you’re asking us to pay for your honeymoon trip in Tahiti.

Now that we all understand each other, let me say something that I’ve been saying for years.

The Start of YOU

Let’s face it friends, we’ve had it easy for years. Microsoft spent billions of dollars in marketing and making our clients want the solutions they were building. All we had to do is set it up and hope it doesn’t blow up at 9AM. Which it did. Again and again. But things got better.

As big of an opportunity as Microsoft sees in the cloud, I see an even bigger one for each and every one of us. What you sell now is not Microsoft or Windows or Android.

Now you’re selling you.

The focal point is no longer the solution. No longer the price. No longer the business card with the trail of software vendors and certifications nobody but IT staff has ever heard of. The focal point is you.

“I’m going to get you everything you need. If you don’t like it, I’ll bring you something else. The point is, you’re paying me so you don’t have to do it yourself. And my time costs a heck of a lot less than yours and I’m going to make sure it stays that way.”

In the Fortune 500 marketing, Microsoft is fighting with Google who is fighting with Apple who is fighting with Samsung and they are all fighting for a market dominance 10 years from now.

My name is Vlad and I’m here to help you build your cloud business today, the same way I do for over 20,000 other IT businesses. Go here. Then email me at vlad@ownwebnow.com. We let you control the billing, the solution, the features, the implementation and if you’re insane enough – the maintenance cycle itself. It’s the cloud on your terms on your brand and your price. We just take on the responsibility to keep it up, back you with an SLA, financial and legal liability and one more thing – We’ve been doing it for 14 years.

It’s time we all thank Microsoft for a great ride and amazing software and solutions. But now it’s time we take it from here ourselves and accept that partnerships don’t last forever and business is a game of strategy and opportunity – and in my unbiased and humble opinion – I’ve got one.

Who loves ya baby?

Something totally awesome and cool just happened. We launched a product at 9 PM, published a bug hotline, did a live switch in a live environment… and the line didn’t ring once in 6 hours that I’ve been sitting next to it.

What a difference working in a mature company.

I personally still have flashes of what it was like in the early days. Launching something and then having to roll it back because it wasn’t tested – launching bits and pieces of stuff as it’s ready while holding others back. Launching and having to roll back or launching and having it crawl because of insufficient testing or resources or (as I’m so often reminded) Vlad’s if evals of doom.

Few of us ever really envision a multimillion user application. I sure didn’t.

When I first wrote ExchangeDefender, I wrote it for a single server.

Then when I got big, I had to rewrite pieces of it so it can support the second server. Then came two different networks/sites. Then load balancing across networks.

Then.. now.

I really didn’t think in 2001 that we’d be in business of killing SPAM in 2011. And we aren’t. When you look at your typical SPAM filtering business, if they haven’t sold out to someone yet they are struggling.

If you aren’t using the SPAM filtering that comes with your firewall, mail server, Outlook or anything in between, you can get it for 35 cents at www.cloudblock.com and you don’t have to deal with the partner program, calling people and as I’m told – even reading the manual.

This seventh release of ExchangeDefender is all about the user experience and all about what users are actually asking for. The biggest and most important piece that you should invest in is the compliance archiving. Yet, statistically you’re not likely to do it even if the law requires you to – because users don’t want it the decision makers aren’t pushed for it internally the nagging issue of demand typically outpaces the stuff that’s necessary. To put it bluntly:

You’re more likely to buy stuff that you want than the stuff that you need but don’t necessarily want.

That is how we design ExchangeDefender. As you’ve seen over the last year we built a solid encryption product, large file web sharing product and a web filtering product.

Could we have done the same thing that everyone else in the industry has done – outsource it? Sure, but then it wouldn’t be free to you and we wouldn’t have the growth curve we’ve experienced over the past year either.

We build stuff our clients want.

When we do that, we don’t have to worry about selling it. Sure, it’s not perfect, but that’s what keeps all of us employed, right?

One More Insight

Those of you that work with us and actually take the time to talk to me either over the phone or at the events know how long the new UI and API had to be held back to allow folks that wrote applications on top of my 10 years of ExchangeDefender HTML.

I feel like this ginormous rock of pressure has been lifted off my shoulders and I can finally act on all the crazy drawings and ideas I’ve had for the product.

Email is the cornerstone of just about everything you do on the Internet. It’s your address. It’s used for invoices, subscriptions, receipts, registrations, confirmations, notifications, etc. You are not now nor will you ever going to have someone send you a password reminder via Twitter. Or your invoice via Facebook. Email, both in commercial and personal use, will continue to be key. But most of your development around email is about locating stuff – it’s all about the search. Honestly, biggest problems with email aren’t associated with discovery (locating stuff), they are in the distribution and organization. At least that’s my bet.

I hope ExchangeDefender 7 makes many of you that have worked with us for years lots and lots of money. For me, I’m just glad to see it grow up.

Last week of 2010. Things are slow, nobody is working, there is snow outside, it’s a week after Christmas and.. I dunno, insert your excuse for not wanting to work but this is possibly the only week on the calendar when that kind of attitude is acceptable.  “It’s Christmas, It’s New Years, It’s time you should spend with family!” Yeah, that argument only flies if you actively try to avoid your family 51 weeks of the year. 

But here is a little secret to the last week of December.

While seemingly everyone is slowing down, the important people in business are working harder than ever. They are enjoying their disruption free days where they can go over plans, close the quarter, review budgets and get some last minute things done to make it a successful year.

Here is the reality that is hard to swallow for many:

Winners count days till 2011.

Losers count days left in 2010.

It’s a slight difference. One group is trying to get as much time in 2010 to get things done while the other group is counting down the days, minutes and seconds left in 2010 like they are serving a prison sentence.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret..

You know all those people that you couldn’t reach the entire year – because they are busy working? Or on vacations? Yeah, those folks are in the office right now. Nobody dares run a marketing campaign the last half of December – not because they don’t think they’ll reach the boss but because they know that the secretary is out.

Consider this fact: My phone rings more during the last week of December than it does during the entire remainder of the month.

Why?

Well, because the first few weeks are spent on getting things together, cleaning things up, office parties, festivities, etc. You know what happens in January – taxes, audits, new processes, new forms and yes – fulfillment of what was sold the last week of December.

So if people had social obligations leading up to Christmas and they need to get deals done in tax year 2010, when are they going to make those deals? Forget about January, that’s a year away. Now is the time to pick up the phone and make that call. Think things are slow now and you can’t reach anyone – wait till January comes around and everyone is stuck in day long meetings, policy changes, new systems and other technical problems that come up after the holidays.

January 1st, 2011, New Years Resolutions, etc… they only matter to the IRS. And you can bet they are working overtime. Here is a little illustration of everything that’s wrong with the American work ethic, stolen from LifeHacker:

Let me break it down for you – 2 out of 5 workers don’t like their jobs. So when there is an opportunity to slack, you can count on them not to show up for work. They’ll be back next week – along with everyone else – wondering why they aren’t given more money / control / responsibility.

You don’t set yourself apart being marginally better than all the other lemmings. You set yourself apart by doing stuff that nobody else is doing. You don’t just get money / control / responsibility – you earn it by showing people you work for that they can trust you with it because you’ll work as hard as they have to give you your job.

Look, everyone wants to be the boss. Except me. I’d rather lay on the couch naked watching pr0n and eating M&Ms. You want their job? Find out what they are doing and do it better.

Yeah, I know.

I don’t care either. I don’t have much to say about it good or bad.

I think Microsoft signed the death certificate on this with it’s bravado – if you’re spending 90% of your R&D on the cloud, why should a small business invest in purchasing your on-premise OS? Sure there are plenty of reasons but should leave plenty of people uneasy about it.

Another point of interest – it feels a lot like EBS launch did. Most people don’t care, those that do think it’s awesome. It simplifies management and it’s a perfect fit for the organization that is looking just for it. We all remember how that movie ended.

However, there is something worth discussing here. Obviously, SBS XXXX will never quite die because Microsoft needs to give something to Dell and HP to sell on entry level servers – not because they particularly want to but because they don’t want to lose it to Linux.

So 3 years out – what is the best selling version of SBS 2011: Aurora/Essentials or Standard or Premium? Common sense out the window – if Microsoft is really “all in” on the cloud deal how does it change your projection?

P.S. I know it sounds like I’m beating a dead horse here and I feel bad writing this post and even mentioning Microsoft mobility in any way. Microsoft though does spend an ungodly amount of money on marketing and I hope this perspective offers another point of view before you base your business on something that Microsoft believes has 10% chance of survival in their future based on their commitment to all things cloudy – can’t have it both ways.

Slightly belated Thanksgiving post, with the new kid there is little sleep and even less blogging time. But I wanted to share something personal with you. Most of you have gotten the horror pleasure of watching me try to grow up on this blog. At least professionally. To be honest with you, most of my life revolves around my work and what I actually do – not out of necessity but out of drive and passion. I can’t imagine doing anything other than what I’m doing now.

I have a wonderful family, I’ve built a great company, I have a lot of friends and I’ve been successful in a lot of stuff. It just hasn’t quite hit me because I don’t think (or strive) about the stuff but this year it did. In a moment of true jackassery. Yes, it’s a word.

I was in London last month. I snapped the following photo of setting my Rolex to the Big Ben during an evening trip downtown.

It was not that long ago that I would have killed just to go to London again and see the sights. To be able to do so.. is amazing. To be able to not even realize how good I have it.. For that, I’m truly thankful.

Thank you for following Vladville and I wish you all the same luck I’ve had through the years in your life.

I’ve had a few days off waiting for our second child to show up and it’s allowed me a lot of time to reflect on a very busy year and business decisions that lead us to where we are now. As every business owner I have my share of regrets and opportunities, I remember exactly when the big decisions were made and how.. yet one thing sticks out:

I made it personal.

So much of me is a part of this business.

So much of my staff is personally vested in the success that we have enjoyed. Many of them put in far more than your usual 40 hours a week and very few of them have “what’s in it for me, when is my exit strategy coming?” attitude that is so frequent among corporate worker bee.

How? Well, we have a few rules.

1. Customer is not always right: Nobody ever gets to yell at or abuse you.

Ok, so maybe it’s just one rule but it’s a huge message of confidence I have in the people that make OWN execution possible. My dear friend Karl Palachuk once told me: “We don’t work with ***holes.” and I’m ashamed to admit that at the time we worked with a lot of them. It’s that typical small business hustler mentality, we appreciated every single dollar we earned even if it took us three dollars to earn it and we went home beaten down.

In my time as a business owner I’ve had some insane people find their way into the revenue stream. I’ve had folks who would not talk to women about business. I’ve had abusive clients who would scream, curse, yell and try to crush the people into violating a corporate policy for their own benefit. I’ve personally dealt with many people unqualified to hold a keyboard trying to argue with me over the functionality of the software I wrote. Death threats, rape threats and lottery claims. It’s built a thick skin.

One thing remains. This is a people business and it’s a personal one. My people, from top to bottom, love what they do and they know who they work for: our partners. And you can feel the energy and the push that comes when we add a feature, fix a problem, hear about a great deal our partners pulled off and how our work actually matters.

When you work with assholes, it works in exactly the opposite direction. People are deflated, they run out of the office without even saying a word, lots of cursing and the sound of heads banging on the desk.

There is a huge amount of business out there.

Earning every penny should not come at the cost of being abused.

Think about it. It’s the people business. It’s not a @#% business..

Greetings from beautiful Southern California and Mickey Mouse!

Here is what I want you to think about: What does the technology landscape look like without you?

Dream. Think. Share. vlad@vladville.com

Most people that read Vladville are in IT industry at some level (service providers, consultants, SPFs, LARs, VARs, MSPs) and our industry is rapidly consolidating more of us out of a job. How do you see the landscape of technology in a company when you’re out of the picture.

What does IT look like without you?

Who pays the technology bills and whats billable?

Who renews the service contracts?

Who buys the contract and what does the contract cover?

That should get you started.

Get creative. It’s the subject of the 2nd Vladville newsletter! Email me your responses please.

P.S. I don’t care what your thoughts are if you’re still employed – it’s a given that the IT support teams will never go completely extinct. This is not what this is about. What I’m curious is what everyone thinks is the next major area of consolidation and how we can make revenues if we are no longer in the picture – the service doesn’t disappear, but the serviceman will. So how do we get paid in a world where we don’t exist?

Please share / blog / tweet and ask your peers. 

This week I started a formal process of removing myself from all the critical technical roles I once held at Own Web Now. These days I’m pretty much an “enterprise architect” around here which means I only help point people in the right direction and explain all the broken stuff and hackery that went on behind the scenes when we didn’t know any better. You know the deal “let’s just get it going, we’ll make it look nice later”; except later never comes.

So that’s the why.

Now for the How:

1. I have a flat text file on my desktop called “Act of Vlad.txt” 
2. Every time someone asks me about a certain process/configuration/setting I document the question and the quick answer as I provide it.
3. I rank each request in order of severity (the extent to which the process is broken multiplied by the likelyhood that this will come up again)
4. Every time I have a spare hour to watch TV I pull the file up and look at the top case.
5. I knock out the issue I picked in #4, one at a time.

When I fly I like to organize, sort and group these issues and try to find better ways of dealing with the legacy stuff in a better way. Some things are better merged to other systems, others have long ago been simplified by other stuff or outright removed from any sense of purpose and should be eliminated.

The only challenge in this process is to understand how you got here. I had to make some shortcuts to get to where I’m at, and a part of this process is to smooth things out now that I have a lot of resources. The key here is to focus on explaining how and why and resist the urge to just “fix” something because the reality is that there is far more broken stuff that is interconnected in very strange ways in all the ways the things were built in the first place, and you’re better off just educating your staff than fixing the problems you can see while leaving everyone else in the dark. This is in part why I bought the iPad – so I can focus on the braindump and mentoring, not to fix the problems I’ve caused in the first place.

For what it works, the “humble cake” doesn’t taste very well

I’m on my way back from Dallas, reading the Wall Street Journal and my tears are just pouring all over the place for a little company called Porsche. Perhaps you’ve heard of them: they don’t make a single car under $46,000 and majority of their models cost six figures with the recently discontinued top model (Carrera GT) starting at $440,000. American.

The company is complaining that the new EPA requirements for fuel efficiency and pollution control would disproportionately hurt them, and I quote WSJ here:

“It’s not that we can’t do it, it’s that we lose competitiveness.” – Bernd Harling, Porsche

Now, if obscenely overpriced cars aren’t enough to jerk a tear out of you, also consider that Porsche routinely closes their production plants for nearly 2 months in the summer for vacations.

I think I have a suggestion on something that would help your competitiveness: earn yo keep. If selling overpriced cars and being lazy isn’t enough, the excuse is “we could do it, but it’s easier to just complain instead.”

The History

Most of these high performance automobile companies (Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini) were founded by amazingly competitive and hard working people who not only wanted to be the best but also didn’t back away from a challenge. As the legend goes, Ferruccio Lamborgini went to complain to Enzo Ferrari about his (Ferrari) car being a piece of track junk (too loud) to which Enzo politely explained that a simple peasant farmer simply couldn’t appreciate the engineering and luxury of a Ferrari.

When you’re in the industry with a ton of innovation and competitiveness, you simply don’t get to be lazy or say “no.”; When you do, you lose a client. Or your job.

The reality of the modern business is no different than when these companies were started around the middle of last century. What has changed for those companies is the priority: it’s all about the money.

When absolutely all that counts is the bottom line, your income, your pay, and you’re willing to let your products or output fall apart because it’s not worth it to you, it’s simply the end of the road.

The alternative: do your best, every day, try to bring the best to the table and believe me, you will get compensated and you will be competitive.