Posts Tagged ‘small business’

Microsoft BizSpark

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

Wow, so less than a week after my last post commented on how Google Apps was a good alternative for startups such as Dayak, Microsoft announces a new initiative called BizSpark.

BizSpark is an innovative new program that unites Startups with entrepreneurial and technology resources in a global community with a common goal of supporting and accelerating the success of a new generation of high-potential Startups.

This certainly mixes things up for startups but I don’t believe this changes much for a SMB. For a startup you know have access to Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Sharepoint and Microsoft Development and Server software for 3 years for a mere $100 up front fee. If you have someone that can administer the various products, it would be hard pressed for a startup to not try to qualify for this offering –

http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/d/4/4d41081a-d8d9-407a-9bae-5127e6e931ca/BizSpark%20Startup%20Program%20Guide.pdf

Does this make me think about moving Dayak to Microsoft products and trying to qualify Dayak? No, the minimal administration needs and no hardware benefit of Google Apps is still a compelling reason for Dayak to remain with our current setup. Could we make a switch later? Sure, anything is possible but a big unknown is how difficult it is to get approved.

Outside of the internal use of Microsoft’s offering, there is a more compelling reason to use Microsoft for development and production environment. By deferring the cost of Microsoft Server products, this initiative offers a startup enough runway to validate their business model without incurring the heavy upfront cost of software licensing. This may prove useful to many startups.

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