Microsoft sees ISPCon as ‘window’ of opportunity

(Telephony) Microsoft is using this week’s Spring ISPCon in Baltimore as a back door to reaching Web hosters with its Windows 2000 software.

“We want to show that Windows 2000 is really gaining momentum as the best platform,” said Pascal Martin, group manager for ISP in Microsoft’s Network Service Providers [NSP] group. “It’s not an overnight kind of thing; it’s a thing that you have to go back again and again and again.”

The show’s focus are ISPs, which would not use Microsoft’s server-based software, Martin admitted. Nevertheless, Microsoft is targeting that audience to influence his customers, the Web hosts.

“You could ask if the ISPs have an influence over what the customers buy or not. For fairly simple sites, in fact, they do,” Martin said. “The hoster is, at the same time, an influencer, but it’s primarily a channel that is delivering a service that the customer requests.”

Thus, Microsoft’s role is “to make sure that the channel is ready to deliver to the customer,” Martin said. “Our customer will want more and more services. They want database services, clustering, load balancing, back-up.”

Since Microsoft’s software delivers these features, Martin is using the conference to make a point to ISPs that his software, in their host’s server, is a plus.

“The long-term architecture from Microsoft will help ISPs and ASPs … by enabling the creation of very sophisticated services that will be hosted on the Web,” he said. “That will create a lot of demand for the folks who will host those services.”

Thus, Microsoft has a presence at a show that isn’t focused on its customers, the Web hosters. Nevertheless, as an end-around, Martin sees ISPCon as a way to demonstrate the opportunities available on a Windows-based platform.

“The demand for the service by the hosters will be generated because there are a very large number of applications out there and those will be totally software-based,” he said. “Small hosters have no time to waste. If they install the platform and put it on line, it’s because it’s useful for them.”