A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM In The Azure Box?

PLM In The Azure Box?
olegshilovitsky
olegshilovitsky
19 July, 2010 | 2 min for reading

My new website and blog is BeyondPLM. The original post is here.

If you listened to the news stream from Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference last week, you probably had a chance to get some information about future Microsoft Cloud Strategy.My attention was caught by the following announcement related to Microsoft Azure Appliance.

Microsoft has announced that it will sell Azure appliances to its considerably larger customers. A select few technology giants, along with online shopping portal eBay, have bought Microsoft-specified, pre-configured “cloud-in-a-box” appliances designed to let them run Microsoft’s Platform as a Service (PaaS)offering from their own premises.

If you are not familiar with what is Microsoft Azure, take a look on the following video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwpC_ylXmf8]

The announcement about Azure Appliance seems to me interesting. The Microsoft’s strategy reminded me some old PDM slogans: In-A-Box. I think, future Azure Appliance can become a silver bullet for today’s PLM vendors looking how to make a complex PLM platform delivery to their big OEM customers. I can see the following key advantages of this solution for customers, PLM vendors and Microsoft:

1. It solves the problem of cloud services, security and privacy.

2. It provides complete platform delivery and cut cost and complexity of installation and configuration.

3. It presents interests of Microsoft and major PLM players to make their enterprise level deliveries.

What is the reaction of PLM vendors? One announcement from Siemens PLM already came from Microsoft WPC. It would be very interesting to see on the reaction of other PLM players as well as a customer’s reaction.

Where is my conclusion? Microsoft Azure Appliance was probably a missing link in the overall Microsoft Cloud Strategies. It will allow to enterprise software providers catch up on cloud world and stay in the comfort zone of Microsoft’s infrastructure. So, life is good? Almost… Large enterprise OEMs have a tendency to make a significant customization and adjustments to PLM solutions. How all these things will be delivered in the Azure-box? A good question…

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
26 January, 2014

Differentiation. Competitive advantage. Value sales. I’m sure you’ve heard these buzzwords many times. Competition is part of everyday business life....

27 January, 2014

CAD/PDM integration is a very important topic. It is a piece of software that helps to establish a connection between...

8 May, 2019

Data is a new oil. Nobody is surprised when you say it these days. My previous company Inforbix was collecting...

2 October, 2014

I’m learning a lot these days about IoT. The amount of connected devices around us is growing and it raises...

28 January, 2014

Engineering and Manufacturing software requires some learning. I hope even biggest promoters of to make “single button PLM application” would...

17 August, 2019

Earlier this week, I published my Only Aras? article. Check this out. No doubt, Aras made a very impressive journey...

16 July, 2009

I’ve been reading amazing post by Larry Cheng about learning. “Look back 3–5 years from today and ask yourself if...

13 July, 2012

I learned something interesting today from solidedging blog – Yes Gertrude, PLM World has a Dress Code, by Dave Ault....

7 February, 2012

I want to talk about Part Numbers. Yes, Part Numbers, again… My previous blog – Part Numbering and the future...

Blogroll

To the top