I’m sitting in the audience at Microsoft’s Venture Capital Summit in Mountain View, the annual get-together for VCs interested in Microsoft’s view of emerging technologies. Before Steve Ballmer talks this afternoon, I see there are several Software-as-a-Service sessions lined up. Good stuff - the topic is certainly in demand and there is a lot of curiosity about what Microsoft is doing. But what surprises me is how few of the folks I’ve talked to this morning know how we already equip startups to build apps on the Microsoft platform. Maybe this shouldn’t be the company’s best-kept secret.
Service provider licenses for hosted applications are readily available and are quite competitive against other supported software alternatives. The company’s MSDN subscriptions are an incredible deal for product development. There is a lot of technical guidance free for download. Now, I admit that smaller organizations, especially startups, don’t have the bandwidth to navigate through Microsoft to find all this out. Having an example to follow makes it easier. Having 20 examples is even better.
To that end, the Emerging Business Team is looking for select VC-backed startups who are building out SaaS offerings. Microsoft will help out with architectural guidance and support, then make sure people hear about the company’s new service. Interested? If you’re a VC and have a company in your portfolio that sounds like a great candidate, send a note to SaaSMS@microsoft.com to get more details. Microsoft has a great story to tell here, but it’s time to turn up the volume so people hear about it.
