By Mikko Linnamäki, Co-Founder, Dovecot
WPC15, the Microsoft World-Wide Partner Conference has been a great event for Dovecot and Open-Xchange. Here on the ground in Florida we’ve had some very productive conversations, seen new technology innovations (my favourite is HoloLens), that might shake up the way we all work, and heard from fellow Microsoft partners about their game-changing strategy transformation that Microsoft has been undertaking. It’s been very refreshing.
Who would have thought that Microsoft would openly embrace the iPhone in their keynote presentations on front of 15.000 people? It is great that Microsoft has accepted the market dynamics and that they are listening to their customers and partners.
Mark Hill, Vice President of Open Source Strategy and Sales at Microsoft, in the middle, hands over the Microsoft Open Source Partner 2015 Award to Mikko Linnamäki (right) and Maurice Hofmann (left).
Yesterday we received a nice acknowledgement from Microsoft as they selected Dovecot as “Open Source Partner of the Year 2015”– for our work in offering Dovecot Mail as a Service via the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
This is especially cool because Dovecot is running on Linux Operating Systems, yet on Azure Cloud. This commitment of Microsoft to Linux, like the support for the iPhone, shows that Microsoft is adapting to the world around it, – and they have to – to be successful in the new world.
It’s also perhaps an unexpected twist in the Dovecot and Open-Xchange story for some. You may have seen a few weeks’ ago that I blogged about why open source advocates like ourselves are partnering with Microsoft. I said then – and maintain now – that although Microsoft might compete with OX App Suite in some cases, there are several opportunities for us to collaborate for the benefit of customers and future business transformation. Email is one of those ways.
We estimate that despite the growth of social media messaging the sustained popularity of email means mail storage needs at ISPs is still growing at 40 per cent per year. Using Azure, we’re able to help our customers meet that storage capacity demand while decreasing operational costs. And many more of our customers want to use the cloud to do the same, so we offer Dovecot Mail as a Service on the Azure platform. The economics just add up. Using Azure, we can offer cloud-based email for $1 per managed mailbox.
I’ve said in the past that the Azure platform is a remarkable strategic component of Microsoft’s future, and a display of openness from the company – and having seen what I’ve seen here over the last few days, I believe that now more than ever.
If you’re at WPC, then do come say hi to me and members of the Dovecot team at the Open Source Booth – we’d love to give you a demo.
Rock on,
Mikko
