QBO: 1.5 M subscribers (up 25,000 from the April quarter) – 80% of QBO subscribers are new users, more than 600,000 of these users are linked to accountants, competitor Xero claims 717,000 subs globally with 62,000 of those in the US (March 2016)
http://bobscottsinsights.com/4904-qbo-passes-1-5m-subscribers
Dreamforce – San Francisco, CA:
- Tuesday, October 4, 2016–Friday, October 7, 2016
- $1,799 ( 160,000 – last year registration link )
- Free expo (only – no food/housing/entertainment) available for Thurs/Fri. link
- Sponsors: Microsoft (Innovation), Sage (Platinum), Intacct (Gold) – Entertainment U2 on Tuesday PM
- Speakers: Melinda Gates (Gates Foundation), Tony Robbins (Robbins Companies/Motivational), Billie Jean King (Sports Legend)
50th Episode tweet:
https://twitter.com/EPSWPodcast/status/765312547784388609
WPC 2016 Highlights (via Peter Wolf)
General WPC comments
- Very well done show – you don’t see many partner-only shows of this size
- Lots of energy and excitement
- Venue was great. Food was great.
- Tons of content – focused on a wide variety of partners and roles within organizations.
- Great speakers and subject matter experts – doing sessions, at the booths, at breakouts, available to talk with.
- Lots of networking opportunities – plenty of breakout networking sessions so smaller groups could interact with peers
- Connect meeting slots – added to the energy – people coming together to meet in shared space to discuss partnering opportunities
- Business was getting done – not just talk about things
- Large amount of people – still ran in to people travelling in the same circles – regional areas, certain booths, certain networking events – pulled people and businesses with common interests together
- The biggest downside was there was too much to take in – couldn’t do it all.
Satya Keynote
- I think Satya is a decent speaker – energized, passionate without seeming manic (not mentioning any names), and seems to have a clear vision
- You get the sense that he knows what is going on and is a key architect for the vision and execution.
- Overall I think the current direction is strong. Microsoft has a clear vision for the cloud and are establishing different pillars to help them reach that vision. Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365 – these will all help drive value for customers and sales for Microsoft and Microsoft partners.
- https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/wpc/wpc-2016-vision-keynotes
Holo Lens
- This is just crazy, cool, game changing stuff
- I feel like this is when spreadsheets and personal PCs were first introduced. A few people really get where it’s going but the rest of us should be prepared to be shocked by what comes next with this technology.
- You can present information in real time and overlay the real world. Imagine walking through a museum and seeing more details popping up. Or reading a book and getting additional information about a passage or a list of characters if you are like me and can’t always keep track of who’s who half way through a book. Or taking a tour of a city and getting historical facts – or current news. Or going through a store and seeing best prices, promos, additional information like reviews, etc about products.
- I can imagine a world where people don’t carry computers – they carry holo lens visors – game system, phone system, business system, information system
- 59:00 mark in Satya keynote
Microsoft Flow – automation and workflows across applications
- This is interesting stuff. Good complement to PowerBI which provides analytics across multiple products.
- Is it just a super charged If This Then That replacement? (https://ifttt.com/)
- How will it all work and how will it play with existing workflow and automation pieces in the various products?
- Need to find out more about this.
- https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/
Trade show floor
- Laid out very nicely – lots of great vendors and booth space arranged in a high energy pattern
- Regional areas for people to hang out and meet and hear about regional parties and opportunities
- Again – business was being done. I’m sure the perspective might be different depending on which vendor you ask but I saw a lot of constant activity throughout the show floor during the conference.
Dynamics 365
- Strengths: integration, solution centric vs point solution centric
- My own experience is that the integration concepts have power and interest people
- Time will tell: how do customers actually buy? How will partners sell?
- Around 14:00 mark in Satya keynote
Appsource – third party ISV marketplace
- Seems well put together – they already have products in the catalog
- Again – time will tell on this. Will customers find this? What about related services for the more complex add-ons?
PC World article on Dynamics 365: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3092270/microsofts-new-dynamics-365-will-bundle-erp-and-crm-in-the-cloud.html
Microsoft just delayed a key part of its secret weapon in the cloud wars with Amazon and Google
http://www.businessinsider.com/wpc-2016-microsoft-azure-stack-changes-2016-7
Link to resources for people that couldn’t make it:
https://resources.wpc.microsoft.com/session-resources.html
Other related stories:
https://blog.sbsgroupusa.com/2016/08/03/wpc-2016-the-dynamics-channel-gets-slapped-in-the-head/
http://www.dynamicsbusiness.co.uk/2016/07/qa-on-dynamics365.html
https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/
