Hosted Microsoft

InformationWeek's article "Coming From Microsoft: 'Hosted Everything' " doesn't come as surprising after this year's PDC and a conversation Mary and I had with Orlando Ayala (MS VP Small and Medium Solutions and Partner Group) a couple of weeks ago... They're seriosuly looking at how they offer services to the SME market place. While tools like the Centro version of Windows server (think of it as Small Business Server for medium-sized businesses) and the Dynamics approach to business applications, there's a lot to be said for exposing platform components as hosted services - especially when you take into account the role of the Windows Workflow Foundation and Indigo - after all, most SMEs don't have full time IT staff, so how can you hope to have them use Axapta or even Biztalk? SOA for medium businesses is going to require hosted components - but components that can be remixed. Microsoft's history of a relationship with the channel and ISVs make me think that it will provide tools that can be adapted to work the way your business works, rather than the other way around...