Speech Transcript – Sanjay Parthasarathy, Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2003

Remarks by Sanjay Parthasarathy, Corporate Vice President, Platform Strategy & Partner Group
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2003
New Orleans, Louisiana
October 7, 2003

SANJAY PARTHASARATHY: Morning. Let me add my thanks to all of you for your wonderful and much-needed support this last year for .NET, and I really do appreciate all of the solutions and the services that are being offered on .NET today.

I get to talk about what we’re doing to help the developer and to help you as partners build a business, building solutions on the Microsoft platform.

Now, it’s pretty hard being a developer these days. It’s pretty hard. Customers have become even more demanding, technology complexity is just increasing exponentially, and developers are having to do more and more with less and less. So it’s pretty hard being a developer.

About five years ago, we realized that there was a technology, or a set of technologies, if you will, called XML Web Services that really would change the rules of the game for the developer, change the rules of the game by taking the complexity out of integration using XML Web Services, change the rules of the game by putting information back into information technology using XML, and change the rules of the game by helping developers build a whole new class of applications that just weren’t possible before.

So we bet our company on it, and in 2000 we announced that we were betting on .NET. Now, many people thought we were crazy in 2000. Three years on, I think it’s clear that we have managed to change the rules of the platform game with XML and XML Web Services. We’ve managed to make life just that little bit simpler for the developer, and I think we’re delivering compelling value to CIOs and CEOs.

Now, the industry realizes this as well, the move to distributed computing using XML Web Services as a foundation, and is working furiously to get the standards around the XML stack built out. We’re also working together to make sure that the different implementations on different platforms are guaranteed to interop. And CIOs really value this shift to XML Web Services because it solves some of their major, major pain points.

Because of our leadership, because of Microsoft and our partners’ leadership in XML Web Services, we are at the table today every time a major platform a decision is being made in the enterprise. We’re at the table. That wasn’t true three years ago. And we’re winning because we’re delivering technology, we’re delivering products and we’re delivering solutions — with your help — that really take advantage of XML Web Services.

We’re in the game because .NET connects systems, devices, people and data using XML Web Services. And we’re winning because of integrated innovation that builds XML capability into the core of all our products, not just at the surface.

Now, integrated innovation begins with XML Web Services, but it doesn’t end there. It extends throughout the broadest developer platform there is in the world. The broadest developer platform starts with Windows Server and .NET, extends out to the Windows Server System, further out into Office and Microsoft Business Solutions and devices, all with one of programming model, which is called the .NET Framework.

We’re winning because of this end-to-end platform with a single consistent programming model, and this integrated innovation makes it easier for the developer and makes it quite productive for the developer and valuable for the enterprise.

In March of 2002 we released Visual Studio .NET. It’s been 18 months since then, and we’ve been amazed by the reception that this product has had in the market. There are over 2 1/2 million developers that use the tool today. There are 70 million copies of the Framework on desktops. And most incredibly, this product has the highest product satisfaction from developers, from anybody who has used a Microsoft product before: 96 percent of developers who use Visual Studio .NET are satisfied or very satisfied with the product.

Just this last quarter, in a quarterly survey that we do, random digit dialing developers, .NET usage overtook Java usage for the first time, and thank you to everyone out here who has helped in that effort. (Applause.)

A majority of the Fortune 100 enterprise customers are using .NET Framework applications today. There are over 250 public case studies of use of .NET and Web Services in these enterprises, and it is really picking up steam and momentum, not just at the edges of the enterprise, but in the core and mission-critical applications.

ISVs too are flocking to .NET. There are over 300 .NET-connected applications in the catalog, including from IBM. Over 2,500 ISVs have signed up to develop on Windows Server 2003 to develop applications on Windows Server 2003 in the last quarter.

And if you look at some of the largest enterprise apps, such as SAP and Siebel, their run rate on the Microsoft platform has increased in the last two quarters. So, we’re seeing quite a bit of momentum in the ISV space.

From services companies in this last year, last fiscal year, we’ve seen an average increase of about 3 percent worldwide of their share of the services business on the Microsoft platform, so that’s good momentum there as well.

So I think it’s clear that .NET and the Microsoft platform has good momentum in the marketplace since 2000 when we first announced .NET.

But why is this momentum out there? I think in addition to the TCO value proposition, a major reason has to be the developer community. We have managed, I think, to hit the sweet spot in terms of delivering value to the developer community, delivering value at the infrastructure level, by making it simpler to do integration using Web Services by focusing on TCO and the abilities, delivering value at the application level by accelerating productivity and improving performance of applications and at the knowledge level by helping developers deliver solutions that use a smart user experience to extend the reach and usage of the applications that they build.

And our current set of technologies in our roadmap really delivers on the core values to the developer by focusing on XML, on XML Web Services and the .NET Framework.

Let’s look at Windows Server 2003. Windows Server 2003 has XML capabilities, XML Web Services capabilities built in. It has the .NET Framework built-in. So, developers and customers don’t have to go out and spend tens of thousands of dollars per CPU to buy an application server.

Let’s take a look at SharePoint Portal Server 2003. In addition to being a regular portal server for HTML, it enables the developer to do aggregation and integration of XML Web Services and to deliver that not just using HTML at the presentation layer, but using high fidelity, smart clients if you will, such as Office, that allows the developer and the IT professional to do rich workflow and process management.

Office 2003 is also a wonderful citizen in this roadmap. By building deep support for XML and XML Web Services, Office serves to connect the business brain, if you will, of the users, the business decision-makers in the enterprise with the business body, which is the infrastructure.

And using Visual Studio Tools for Office, you now have the ability to use the .NET Framework to build solutions on top office in Word and in Excel using all of the different languages that the .NET Framework supports.

So today, using our current generation of products, you really can drive this value to your customers, to our customers at all three levels, at the infrastructure level, at the application level and at the knowledge level.

And I’d like to invite Kerry McGowne from my team to come up and show you a little bit of the work that some of our partners have done to take advantage of the current generation of products. Kerry?

KERRY MCGOWNE: Thank you, Sanjay.

A lot of our partners are already building, as you mentioned, on the Microsoft platform to provide great solutions and applications for their customers and I have a great example of that today. One of our partners, located in Vancouver, BC, a company called NGRAIN, which specializes in presenting 3D CAD images in desktop applications, was able to take Office 2003 and target that as a smart client and present that data in a great way.

Now, one of their biggest customers is the United States Department of Defense. The Defense Department actually has hundreds of thousands of assets deployed all around the globe today, things like jeeps, armored carriers and airplanes, that require the Department of Defense to keep them up and running and maintenance free as much as possible.

So, when an airplane goes out of service at any given time, it actually generates what’s called an AOG, an Airplane On Ground alert, which is very much like a 911 call to the airplane mechanic. And that mechanic has to get access to data very quickly so that they can get that airplane back in service as quickly as possible. Every AOG call can cost the Defense Department up to US$100,000 per hour that that plane is out of service.

So you can see here we actually have the data from one of the service bulletins in digital form. Now, normally if you would follow an airline mechanic around the airplane hanger, you would find a lot of bulletins that are sitting around on dollies and in manual form, and so they have to wade through service manuals from vendors and from the Defense Department and from the FAA. So having it in digital form is a great way to actually access this data.

Well, this document is actually much more powerful than it appears. We do have a 3D image here located within the document itself. And NGRAIN has actually embedded this document so that I as the user can go in and access the image and I can rotate that so that I can get a better view of the plane. In addition, I can use the zoom feature on the mouse here to zoom into the plane so I can get a closer view of what I actually need to take a look at.

Now, this particular AOG said that the left engine was the problem on this particular aircraft, so I’m going to actually go and take this airplane apart a little bit so I can actually get access to the part that I need. And I’ll double click on the engine itself. (Applause.)

Now, I’m separating the parts of the engine because I actually want to get to the heart of the problem here, because I suspect, as the mechanic, that it might be a problem with the nozzle itself.

So we’re going to click on what’s called the nozzle as a part of the engine, and I can get a better view of what this part actually looks like by pressing the Alt key and going out and taking a look at the database that’s available to me.

Now, you notice I’ve never left Microsoft Word as a smart client here. All this is being presented to me in the original document that I opened.

Now, I’m able to go out and actually get a better view using Web services. I can go out and tap the database where this additional information resides so that I can find out more information about what I need to do for this engine to get it back into service.

And you see in the research and reference pane off to the right, we’ve done just that. We’ve tapped the company database. And it gives me additional information, pricing information, who the manufacturer is, the quantity that’s available. Now, that may be an important data point because it may tell me whether I need to actually keep this airplane out of service or repair it. How many is on order, so I know how long it will take for me to actually get this.

But there is some other information here. Now, as an airline mechanic, I may have a lot of knowledge about this particular aircraft, but I may not have worked on this particular part, so I need additional information.

So I can go out and, again accessing it right in Microsoft Word, go out and get additional information by using Web services and look up the actual service procedure for fixing that plane.

Now, after reading this, as the airline mechanic, I still don’t have enough information, it’s been a long time since I’ve worked on this part. I would like to find out if there are other colleagues that have maybe done this same procedure in recent days or in recent weeks, and so I’m going to go out and using SharePoint Portal Services, look out at best practices.

So, we’ve actually used, again, Web services and we’ve done more than just actually presented the data, but actually built a business process for the Defense Department, so you can go out and access information in all kinds of different places.

And here I see that I do actually have some colleagues who have performed this procedure on this nozzle, and I can actually bring that into my knowledge base here.

Now, I have the information, I need to fix the engine. I need to take it one step further. I now know what to do. So I would like to actually order the part, because it can’t be repaired and I need to get it here on its way.

So in addition to having the information here, I can take it one step further and through business processes that have been built behind here using Web services, again I can go out and tap the inventory system to actually get this part on order and on the way so that I can get the aircraft back in service here.

So you can see that I’ve got the part up here. I now can place the order and if I were to tap the place order it will get that on the way. So if you have your American Express card ready, we can go ahead and get that on the way here.

One more thing that I might want to do here, so you can see that again I’ve never left Microsoft Word 2003. It’s a smart client. It’s presenting the data in a form that I can understand and that I’m familiar with. And we’re using Web services, we’re using Microsoft SharePoint to go get the information that I need to do my job, which means that there’s a ton of customer value being built here for the airline mechanic, who doesn’t have a lot of time and is under pressure to get that airplane back in the air.

There’s another set of people that might want information tomorrow morning, after they’ve seen the procedure that I’ve done on this plane to get it back in service, people like the purchasing department or the accounting department.

So again, using smart client capabilities in Web services, I can present this same information in a different form, and again populate a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet so that the purchasing department can see what other parts might need to be ordered at the same time as companion products.

So what NGRAIN has done here is they’ve taken Microsoft Office as a smart client, they’ve used Web services, they’ve used Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, to build the application and allowed the customer to actually get the part ordered and part delivered in fast time to solution in a very simple, presentable way.

In addition, I just want to mention, Sanjay, that the partner also experienced some real benefits here. Not only did the customer get real value out of this solution, but the partner was able to do this very quickly. They just started working with the Beta of Office 2003 in February of this year and Web services, so in a short six months they were able to build the solution and it’s ready for deployment as soon as Office 2003 ships. They were able to do it with a small number of developers, and they were able to use the breadth of the Microsoft platform to actually build out a great solution for the customer.

So as you can see, there’s a real opportunity for partners here today to use Office 2003 and the breadth of the Microsoft platform to actually build great solutions and applications for their customers.

SANJAY PARTHASARATHY: Thank you, Kerry.

KERRY MCGOWNE: Thank you. (Applause.)

SANJAY PARTHASARATHY: I’m incredibly excited about Office 2003 support for Web services and the .NET Framework, and I think it’s clear how you can start to deliver another layer of value to our customers using the benefits of the platform, which really focus on those three technologies: XML, XML Web services and the .NET Framework.

Now, I think the momentum is just starting. I think the momentum is just starting because this is the current generation of product and we have some incredible innovation that’s coming up in the Yukon wave that Paul talks about, especially focused on developers. Again, the three pillars are XML, XML Web services and the .NET Framework.

Take “Yukon” as an example. Yukon, which is the version of SQL Server. Well, Yukon will be a native XML store, so getting documents in and out as XML is going to be incredibly fast and incredibly easy.

Also, Yukon is going to use the .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime) as its programming environment, so you can write stored procedures in any of the .NET languages.

In addition to that, with the business intelligence services that present analysis and reporting services, developers can start to take advantage of those to integrate much tighter with SharePoint Portal Server, with Office 2003, so you have a seamless experience that leverages that consistent programming model across the entire breadth and length of the platform.

So that’s Yukon and I think it’s going to really add a whole new dimension to developers through XML and the .NET Framework.

With “Whidbey,” which is the next version of Visual Studio, we’re really focused on raising the bar in terms of performance and in terms of productivity. We’re making some modifications to Visual Basic, for example edit control will be back. We’re making some improvements, lots of improvements in ASP .NET. And the net result is going to be that you can write the code with the same functionality and the same performance with up to 70 percent less code. So, again, we’re going to raise the bar in terms of the value, in terms of performance and productivity to the developer with the next generation of Visual Studio.

Another exciting development in the Yukon timeframe is advanced Web services capability. Today, we all know there is basic Web services capability — XML, SOAP, UDDI and WSDL — but with this next wave you’re going to get Web services security, Web services reliable messaging, Web services transaction, so developers can really build enterprise-class integration solutions using just the XML Web services stack. So that’s an exciting thing to keep an eye out for.

“Jupiter,” which is our XML-based integration server, is another thing to keep an eye out for. It will have the largest number of connectors for enterprise applications and that will make it easier for developers to integrate with SAP, with Siebel, with PeopleSoft, with JD Edwards, whatever application is out there. But Jupiter also has an XML-based workflow engine, which was the foundation for the Web services business process language that we’re submitting out there with IBM.

Because of that XML-based process engine, you can start to do really rich workflow and process models within the enterprise and manage it and modify it and monitor it, and that’s another reason that Jupiter is very, very exciting.

Finally, you should keep an eye out for the Microsoft Business Framework, which will platformize foundation components of business applications such as currency objects, and make it available in a broad volume oriented way and in a way that Visual Studio developers can use it very, very easily. And again, with all of these five things in the next wave, we think we’re going to continue to add value to the developer community and drive value to the enterprise through solutions that these developers build.

But that’s not it. Three years out there is the “Longhorn” wave. Now, Longhorn is the biggest of all the waves that we’ve ever done at Microsoft, and there’s going to be a huge amount of innovation.

Later this month, we’re having the PDC (Professional Developers Conference) in LA. It starts on the 26th of October. We’re handing out Longhorn code to developers for the first time, and so we think that they’re going to be very excited. There’s been a great deal of excitement already. This is going to be the largest PDC ever. The subscription for the PDC has far exceeded our expectation. We’re probably going to have to shut down registration on Monday because it’s already starting to get over-subscribed. So this weekend is probably the only opportunity you have to send your developers to the PDC if they aren’t already going. So I’m very excited about the PDC because we get to share the Longhorn wave in great detail with the developer community.

So there’s good momentum, there’s good innovation coming up that is going to accelerate that momentum, and I think we’re winning against the competition because of some very fundamental ways in which we approach the platform. We look at the platform end-to-end and we want to make it simple, productive and reasonable for developers to take advantage of their skills across the entire length and breadth of that platform.

And we have a vision, we have a roadmap that isn’t just six months or 12 months. We have a vision and a roadmap that is three to five years long, and we’re sticking to it and we’re sharing it with the developer community so that they can plan for it, they can anticipate it, and they can build for it.

And I think in terms of the breadth of the developer community and the marketing and the sales engagement work that we do with our customers, our joint customers, I think we offer unprecedented value in terms of a market footprint that partners such as yourselves can take advantage of.

Finally, I’d like you to keep these five things in minds in terms of what you need to get done over the next year or so. The single-most important thing I think is to get your teams, your partners, to start developing the .NET Framework, manage code. It’s not only more productive by an order of magnitude, but it really improves the security of the application, and best of all, it gets you prepared for the Longhorn wave so that you can take advantage of the momentum around Longhorn and its companion products.

Web services I think is here. It’s a real winner, and if you’re not doing it already please make sure that you let your developers take advantage of this right away to do integration, to do interop both within applications as well as across platforms.

Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000 have great momentum in the marketplace, year over year unit gain and market share growth, and so you should be taking advantage of that, and I’m sure all of you are already doing that.

I want to emphasize this point on Office 2003 again. It’s not only an end user productivity and information tool; it is also a developer platform, as Kerry showed you, and there are some incredible things that you can do to deliver value to our customers today.

And then get ready for Yukon SQL Server because I think it’s going to change the rules again in the database business.

Thank you for your time, thank you for your support. It’s exciting times ahead and I look forward to your support in the next year as we have seen in the last year. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)