This article was written by Anthony Koochew, Founder & CEO of Azured in Australia. Anthony is an Architect with over 10 years of experience helping clients realise the most value from Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and EMS. You can read the original post, and more from Anthony and the team over in Australia.
Microsoft traditionally had left security to its partners and as someone who has been involved in the Microsoft stack for almost 20 years, I’ve been in an interesting position, watching their approach transform and change in line with business conditions.
But this isn’t the first time Microsoft has evolved their position.
When Hyper-V, Microsoft’s 'free' enterprise-grade hypervisor, was initially released, the product was only used by the most die hard of Microsoft organisations (read: bundled within their Enterprise Agreement) and cost-conscious small businesses. It seemed to be years behind the clear market leader at the time, VMware.
At the time I knew of only a handful of big customers that had taken the plunge into Hyper-V (with its management friend, VMM) and I would only hear of problems emanating from their support teams, citing; a lack of functionality, “undocumented features” and an absence of those quality-of-life features we had taken for granted from VMWare. Simply stated, the early days of Hyper-V were troubled.
Yet, Hyper-V persevered, with Microsoft’s development team putting in the work over the years to overcome the seemingly insurmountable challenge that lay in front of them. Work that would later form the foundation for Azure’s hypervisor layer and a staple for businesses running on-premises virtualised workloads.
With an aggressive pricing strategy (free) and a slow but steady iterative cycle, the immature product eventually narrowed the gap between its market leading bigger brother. Today the differences between the big players have narrowed with Hyper-V providing the majority of what an average customer needs, minus the premium price of the market leader; a tough proposition to resist.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” Nicholas Klein
So, why do I tell this story?
Because I see an all too familiar parallel with Microsoft’s security story. The quiet development of services (with a focus on identity and reporting), building upon Microsoft’s existing capability within Mobile Device Management (MDM) and recognising their position in most organisations as the binding glue between services (Azure AD and ADDS).
A quiet development that would see Microsoft’s outward view of security evolve as it moved from security being an optional bolt-on (EM+S) to an intrinsic part of their service (Microsoft 365).
Coupled with the billions of investment they put into their ongoing security efforts, it became relatively easy to see why Microsoft had become an “overnight success” within the field and has the established security providers more than a little bit uncomfortable.
But here is why I think Microsoft’s security story is going to be successful for the average punter: Microsoft’s journey will mirror your own.
Microsoft has targeted the average organisation, not just the Fortune 500 or the big four banks. It’s developed its offering for everyone, no matter how small, with a service that grows with you, allowing you to chose what works, discard what doesn’t and all the while providing bigger businesses with what they need.
And they did this by solving the problems you’re going to face, and doing it at a price that will get your attention. That’s why Microsoft’s Security offering not only will work, but why it IS working.