BT claims ‘first mover’ on Microsoft hosted apps

By being first to market with a hosted service offering that features Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Business Productivity Online Suite, BT (LSE: BT) expects to not only sell more services to its enterprise customers but also gain entry to a new set of large enterprise buyers worldwide, including in the US.

“We’re the only telecom corporation that has the ability to sell [Business Productivity Online Suite] directly, so we have a very unique advantage,” said Randy Schrock, vice president of corporate alliances, BT Americas. “We can connect legacy telecom and network services to the new Microsoft cloud computing strategy. We definitely want first-mover advantage – this isn’t level-three calculus. We have tried to lead in this space, we will continue to lead in this space – we would rather look forward than look back at what others are doing.”

The new Dedicated Business Productivity Online Suite will link BT’s MPLS network with the data centers where BPOS is hosted, offering Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Communications Online and Microsoft Office Live Meeting as hosted services.

“Hosted services and cloud computing is certainly all the rage, but for BT, being a hosted services company, this was a matter of finding an effective and comprehensive solution, so that we could look at the combination of Microsoft and BT and determine how does one plus one equal three,” Schrock said. The deal was about a year in the making as the two companies sought the best way to align their core competencies, he said.
Most enterprises won’t leap into cloud computing and abandon their premises-based deployments overnight, Schrock noted, which means BT will be offering to support hybrid solutions, in which some applications may be on premises, but others may be hosted.

“There are as many scenarios as we have customers,” Schrock said. For example, a company may use a premises-based Microsoft Exchange server for its headquarters email but choose to connect distributed sites and remote employees via a cloud-based service which is then federated with its internal operation, Schrock said.

“We can enable them to host the applications that make the most sense,” he said. “Microsoft’s long-term strategy is to sell through the partner ecosystem. We are working with the customer directly.”