Microsoft Adds Ultimate Services
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News Analysis. Microsoft sure loves "ultimate." There's Office 2007 Ultimate and Windows Vista Ultimate and, starting today, Services Premier Ultimate. |
[Editor's Note: This post has been updated with analyst comments.]
How, ah, ultimate is the new services option? Charlie DeJong, general manager of Microsoft Premium Support Services, described the new service as the "top of line premier support offering...it's our high-end support for our enterprise customers who are looking for a support relationship with Microsoft."
Microsoft offers three types of support services:
- Reactive, which is more of a one-size-fits-all phone support service.
- Service Delivery Management, where a dedicated technical expert provides services.
- Proactive, which are pre-packaged support services. Premier offerings fall into this category.
"The core objective of Premier Ultimate is to help customers identify and correct technical and operational problem areas up front in order to lessen the risk of future problem scenarios," Dwight Davis, an Ovum senior analyst, writes in a report due for publication tomorrow.
Premiere subscribers tend to be Microsoft's largest customers, but some mid-size businesses also obtain the services. All three services types are included in Premier Ultimate with a "couple of different twists," Charlie said. He explained:
"At the front end of the discussions with our customers, we're defining a clear road map of proactive services that will address the pain points in their IT environment; and on the assumption that they contractually agree to consume those services, we give them an important quid quo pro, which is that they can get essentially unlimited problem resolution services. In other words if they consume the road map of proactive services that they and we have agreed to, then when things do get along they can call the tech support lines."
The benefit to customers: "They don't need to worry about consuming hours on those reactive incidents," Charlie claimed. "Essentially, Ultimate becomes a one-fix price support offering, and the result is that it really eliminates a lot of administration, changes the focus from managing hours and incidents to managing their strategic priorities to the customer."
Dwight explained Microsoft reasoning behind and customer approach to Premier Ultimate:
"In part because of its exposure to unlimited support calls, Microsoft is initially offering Premier Ultimate to customers with which it has an established support history. To arrive at a proposed cost for each Premier Ultimate contract, Microsoft works with customers individually to assess their support history, the health of their current IT configurations and processes, and their desired IT and business objectives. Microsoft then offers a Premier Ultimate program and fee designed to address the specific needs and objectives of the customer."
"Given the customized nature of Premier Ultimate engagements and fees, Microsoft hasn't released any pricing guidance for its new services offering other than to make it clear that most customers will pay a premium above the current Premier Plus costs," Dwight wrote.
Charlie did give me a range, but no specifics. "The pricing varies very dramatically from company to company," he explained. "You could have a relatively small company with a Premier contract as low as $12,000 and you could have at the very high end a Premier contract that's worth several million dollars." The amounts would be for annual payments.
I'm not familiar enough with the services offerings to affirm whether or not his claims are true. I can say that from past experience, Microsoft claims of improved management generally prove false. The consistent pattern over the years is increased complexity rather than greater simplicity, often with cost benefits favoring Microsoft rather than the customer. This has been particularly true for volume licensing.
If you're an IT manager using, considering or rejecting Microsoft support services, please offer your perspective in the comments or by e-mail.
Charlie said that Premier Ultimate would "dramatically change the relationship with our customers to a partnership level where we're jointly interested in the ultimate success of the customer and achieving a healthy IT environment." That I believe, although I can't say whether that "dramatically" would mean something better for many or even most customers.
I can say this: Microsoft services are doing well. In fiscal 2008 fourth quarter, Microsoft saw its consulting and support services increase 29 percent year over year to $593 million. The gains aren't surprising, given releases this year of Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V and the imminent widespread release of SQL Server 2008. That's without considering Exchange 2007, Office 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007 deployments. Given the sheer number of server-based products, segmented solutions such as business intelligence or unified communication and Microsoft hosted server software services, the emphasis on proactive services is sensible.
Way I see it, Microsoft offers direct services at some risk of antagonizing some partners. Microsoft competes with some of them. "We have a partner strategy that varies depending on the service that we're offering," Charlie said. Microsoft consulting offers prepackaged service products for partners, for example.
But in support services, "our strategy tends to be less partner-centric and more Microsoft-centric, because we do believe that we can offer the best support offering for our customers." That said, Microsoft does offer "partner programs within the Premier family."
However, "on balance we tend to take our Premier offerings direct to market, as opposed to our consulting services which are moving more through our partner channel," Charlie emphasized.
I pose the question of potential channel conflict to Microsoft Watch readers. If you are a Microsoft partner, please share in comments or by e-mail your view of the services opportunities around Microsoft products.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com].
Comments (11)
Re: Microsoft's love of the word "Ultimate".
As in, because Microsoft is trying to force people away from XP and toward Vista, perhaps they would have more accurately used the label:
"Windows Vista Ultimatum"
Posted by Philosopher | August 18, 2008 12:43 PM
So far in consumer minds, MS's use of "ultimate" equals "ripoff". Not a smart branding move.
Posted by geo | August 18, 2008 1:37 PM
Have to agree with the comments by Philosopher and geo about Ultimate. Remember the Ultimate additions/extras, or whatever they were called for the Vista Ultimate version? A true ripoff.
Speaking of M$ ripoffs and just shoddy bad products, there is the ultimate bad engineered M$ product, and its not Vista, which is a close second.
A crumbling tower: Sony lays siege to the 360's weak spots
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080817-microsoft.html
Quotes from the link; "Whether or not Microsoft has fixed its Red Ring of Death problem, the fact remains that most gamers think the hardware is untrustworthy. You hear about it in the forums, in the game stores, from even casual gamers... everyone either has had systems go bad or they know someone who has. The PlayStation, on the other hand, is damn near rock-solid.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is sticking with expensive, proprietary drives. It's a situation made more frustrating by the fact that, without large, standard drives, Microsoft can't begin to match Sony's efforts at releasing full games through its online portal.
There is also the fact that Sony's online offerings are free.
There is also the fact that Sony has the Blu-ray drive
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There is still debate on the web as to whether or not M$ has fully fixed the red ring of death problems for its Xbox360 series, not to mention the scratched disk problems. Also the fact that M$ gambles on the loser Toshiba HD-DVD drives did not help with the Xbox360. It looks like M$ pulled in its (short)horns on investing money in the Xbox360 as it was preparing to buy Yahoo at that time, and this is another reason for the failure of the Xbox360 which is losing steam now.
Posted by chips | August 18, 2008 1:49 PM
An interesting question from a blog that begs to be anwsered;
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=256
"Why would anyone choose Windows over Linux?
* There’s far less risk for viruses and malware.
* It’s free.
* Applications are free.
* It’s far more flexible.
* It has multiple routes for support.
* It is improving at a far faster rate than Windows.
* Bugs and security holes are patched much quicker.
I realize the pat answers will appear:
* No games.
* No Linux version of application X.
But do those really satisfy the question when the average user is not a gamer or uses an application outside of the usual fare?
In my seriously biased opinion, I think this question is answered with a simple conspiracy theory: Microsoft is doing everything it can to keep the public blind to Linux"
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This should give the M$ shills sometime to comment about rather than the ultimate mess for which they have none.
Posted by chips | August 18, 2008 2:02 PM
@chips:
Your lists of pros and cons are very accurate, regardless of what the emotionally charged religious zealots claim.
@all:
And to further expound on the two cons that chips presented, but in order of importance:
* No Linux version of application X.
Yes, this is true, but it's been steadily improving. Office applications are pretty much on par with what most people need, but serious video production is sorely lacking and professional photo editing is just not there either.
But what most people forget is that Adobe Photoshop ran on Unix (Silicon Graphics Irix, to be precise) long before it ran on Windows. So, sure, Linux is playing catch-up in the application arena. But so has everything before it. And the Linux world's pace of advancement is very strong.
* No games
And to this, I respond with a big "So What???". While India and China advance at a breath-taking rate, what is #1 on the minds of legions of US computer users? Games! Well, play on! But as you perfect your ability to play games and neglect your ability to create value and wealth, don't suddenly wake up in an economic panic and expect your favorite rock-star politician to save you from yourselves.
Posted by Philosopher | August 18, 2008 2:32 PM
@Philosopher :
Its not actually "my list," its from the blog link.
* No Linux version of application X.
* No games
My comment is that there is almost always a linux app that is free. Again, many "windose" apps and or games, will run with Wine , Crossover, or Cedega installed in Linux. Its at the point that there are most likely more windows apps that will run with Wine and Crossover in Linux, than would work with the very incompatible Vista. As far as games, really if you look at all the free games in the Debian repo's, that can be installed with synaptic package manager (in most distro's) you will find a lot of them. Plus you can always find even more just coming out at The Linux Game Tome at happypenguin.org
Of course, most windose programs will run inside of a Virtual Machine type program running XP in Linux, again free except for the old XP licence and the cost of the windose program.
distrowatch.com it will set you free and get the monkeyboy off your back and out of your wallet.
Posted by chips | August 18, 2008 3:07 PM
@chips:
Your last sentence pretty much says it all: Linux is about freedom... the freedom to use, to innovate, and to share.
As a side point, one thing to consider about Vista specifically and Microsoft in general is that a lot of the incompatibility is due to Microsoft' migration away from the Win32 APIs and toward the WPF (windows presentation facility). From a technological point of view, this is a good thing. As with the bug fixes in Windows 3.1 that broke applications compatible with Windows 3.0, it's a necessary evolution in function and performance. Unfortunately, Wine and its commercial counterpart are based on the Win32 API and will become increasingly obsolete as WPF progresses. Perhaps a WPF-based counterpart to Wine will emerge, but Wine itself is tied to the Win32 APIs.
However, it's not just about technology, but it's also about freedom. Microsoft has long provided a secure source of income for lots of folks. We hear loudly and clearly on this blog's comments from those most threatened by talk of freedom. But it is said, those who value security over freedom deserve neither security nor freedom.
Those of us who value freedom are called subversive, anticompetitive, zealots, freetards. Those who buy into the Microsoft world are right in using those labels. Just as Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and others were right in viewing freedom and open thought as evils to be crushed. Because freedom is a serious and deadly threat to oppression.
Posted by Philosopher | August 18, 2008 3:24 PM
ULTIMATE FAILURE
Posted by DOUGman | August 19, 2008 12:49 PM
@Philosopher:
lol
@geo:
lol
@DOUGman:
lol
Posted by puppet | August 20, 2008 9:13 PM
Interesting comments but what does it have to do with the topic of this article?
If you want spend the time to get linux up and running and find compatible apps and use the boards to support yourselves Rock On.
Most of us just don't have the time.
Running games on Wine? OMG
Support contracts tend to be very complicated and for customers that value support this greatly simplifes how we do business with our customers.
The breadth and depth of what are customers are doing with our technology is truly amazing, but support linked directly to our product teams is the best way to provide what is needed and give the info the product teams need to evaluate their performance and get it right for us.
It's easy with a company of our size to have a weak spot so we have to step up the service beyond what is normally expected.
Yep I wish the gadgets would have shipped for Vista Ultimate but Bitlocker, built in DVR support, meeting space are pretty great features. HD Movie Maker, and DVD Maker work reasonably well and got most of my old family tapes out of the closet and now accessable.
Posted by MSGuy | August 20, 2008 9:54 PM
I've had a relationship with Microsoft Premier Services for serveral years - as a Premier customer as well as a Premier employee. I've seen Microsoft change over those years - from a company that tries to grow and change for the better to a downright corrupt and greedy company. I've seen them sell services to customers that Microsoft refuses to deliver (and Microsoft kept the money.) I've even been reprimanded for refusing to sell a specific service for a product that the customer didn't even have!
The type of support that customers get entirely depends on their Technical Account Manager, not on Microsoft management. A great TAM is proactive and focuses on the relationship. From what I see in the "Premier Ultimate" offering - there's nothing really new - except bigger costs to the customer without the corresponding benefits.
Posted by exmsft | February 21, 2009 6:19 PM