Software+Services != Software as a Service

Some days ago I was earing Schwegler at a conference here in Lisbon talking about Software+Services. Let's start with Microsoft's definition of Software+Services:

Microsoft’s “Software+Services” vision combines the best of hosted and on-premise software to deliver compelling experiences for our customers. It’s about giving customers a choice and having integration across multiple devices and delivery methods to build flexible and optimized solutions for all customers. We call this approach ‘software + services.’

More powerful devices, expanding data storage capacity on devices and in massive data centers (“the cloud”), and the growing ubiquity of broadband networks have given rise to a new generation of software that resides on the Internet, is downloaded quickly when it’s needed, and is consumed directly within a Web browser.

Today, by combining elements of these Internet services with client and/or server software, we can deliver solutions that provide new capabilities and deliver new levels of utility, convenience, and flexibility. This “software plus services” approach offers an ideal balance between… the ubiquity and connectivity the Internet provides, and the rich interactivity and high performance provided by software that runs on a device with a powerful processor.

A good example is the Exchange experience, in which users can access email, contacts, and calendar on the PC through Outlook, in the browser through Outlook Web Access, on the phone through Outlook Mobile, and in the case of Exchange 2007, via voice through Outlook Voice Access, all of which are synchronized on the back end. And from a delivery perspective, Exchange can be deployed on-premise, hosted by a partner or hosted by Microsoft as a service.

This is really not completely new. Last year, at TechEd Europe, Clemens Vasters and Steve Schwartz did a great series where these models were discussed with another tags.

The new thing here is the high emphasis over this model, and the constant fear of the cloud. The "the future will not exist solely over the cloud" message. Microsoft depends heavily on the desktop model to perform, and is sometimes afraid of defections to the cloud (Google Apps and SaaS in general) and probably even to OpenOffice. Some other times Microsoft seems to be afraid of being reduced to VM usage over Parallels on Mac OS X. And that won't happen for the time being, as Apple just cannot understand the enterprise people.

And naturally, as I've mentioned earlier, Microsoft as nothing to be worried about. Instead of trying so desperately to push Office, which is a product good enough to sell by itself, Microsoft should lower Office prices. Instead of trying to push Windows only smart clients, Microsoft should extend their offering over Mac OS and Linux - and yes, Silverlight is a great start. On the CLR/DLR and ASP.NET they are definitely on the right track. As they have done with Vista, where Microsoft chose security and reliability over features.

Let me end with:

• Not everything that glows is gold.
  
• There are times where desktop application do make sense.
• Just love the transparent connected/disconnected model experienced in Outlook. It's a peaty we cannot have that kind of experience over the net - could you pleeeeeeeease copy Google Gears?