FD Insights Issue 4 | Page 38

Virtualisation & Cloud A new path to high-margin solutions and services Don’t miss out on a major opportunity in virtualisation and cloud services! Virtualisation and cloud services are projected to grow FAST. With worldwide small and midsize business (SMB) spending on server virtualisation reaching $1.2 billion in 2012 and predicted annual growth of 18.1%, it’s an attractive business for any partner1. SMB spending on cloud-based services is also exploding, with predicted growth of 24% per year2. Microsoft continues to enrich our products’ capabilities with the goal of providing solutions that make customers more productive at a lower cost. This also helps make your business more profitable, as the money customers save on software frees up more budget for your high-margin services. Here are three great examples of how you can actively participate in this opportunity by delivering solutions and services built on virtualisation and cloud technologies. 3 Key Partner Opportunities in Virtualisation & Cloud Server Consolidation Disaster Recovery A 83% of SMBs say reducing hardware costs is a key motivator to virtualize3. With a complete virtualisation platform built-in, Windows Server 2012 can help customers maximize server utilization—saving them money and freeing up budget for more services. It also helps minimize the pain associated with upgrade, because virtualisation makes it easy to move workloads to new servers with no downtime. 40% of businesses hit by disaster never reopen4. Yet historically the cost of disaster recovery solutions has put them out of reach for SMBs. Now you can make disaster recovery attainable for SMBs and generate a new ongoing revenue stream. Deliver disaster recovery as a hosted solution or as a cloud-based service using technology included in Windows Server 2012. Scalable Storage With the explosion of data in the workplace, many SMBs need the scalability of a Storage Area Network (SAN) but can’t afford the price. With Storage Spaces, included in Windows Server 2012, you can deliver the rich functionality of a SAN at a fraction of the upfront cost. Then you can continue to earn revenue helping your customers scale their storage over time as their businesses grow. 34% of SMBs will invest in virtualisation technologies over the next 12 months. – Spiceworks 5