Users anxious to get their hands on Microsoft's much anticipated Azure Stack cloud software will have to remain anxious a while longer.
The company has pushed back delivery of the software -- which offers both infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service capabilities, as well as the ability to blend and manage legacy applications with distributed applications from a single location -- to mid-2017. When Microsoft debuted the product at its Ignite conference in May 2015, it promised delivery by the end of this year.
But Microsoft still had more disappointing news for some users.
The company is changing the way it will distribute the software. Originally, Microsoft said customers could deploy Azure Stack on any server hardware of their choosing. Instead, the company now plans to deliver the software integrated with servers only from Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Lenovo; although, officials said they will "broaden the ecosystems of supported systems ... based on customer feedback."
Reaction to the changes from users and analysts was swift and mostly harsh.
"For Azure [IT shops], this is the most important piece of software released so far, so it is disappointing news," said a solutions architect with a large, Houston-based technical services company. "Giving competitors like Amazon another half-year to respond is not a good thing. The users I deal with daily won't like the idea of being forced into getting [Azure Stack] from just three vendors."
Azure Stack was meant to be the quick supply of users aboard with Azure -- to be effective across different, existing on-premises hardware, or even use it even where Microsoft doesn't always have a data center in proximity. But building it independently turned out to be harder than Microsoft anticipated, and also this new distribution strategy for Azure Stack represents the largest change in go-to-market strategy in Satya Nadella's two-plus-year tenure as CEO, said Holger Mueller, vp and principal analyst at Constellation Research Inc., operating out of Cupertino, Calif.
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"I guess the partners needed to have more money, and Microsoft realized they are unable to resell Microsoft without partners," Mueller said.
Microsoft would have easily sidestepped the strong user objections to receiving the product through just three server hardware vendors simply by offering it a software-only product, said Carl Brooks, an analyst working together with the cloud transformation research team at 451 Research.
"I hardly understand the rationale of locking it as a result of hardware," he explained. "They would have offered it just software and told users, 'You are stored on your own for hardware.' That would happen to be just as impactful for Dell, HPE and Lenovo, and in addition provided users with choice -- I mean, it's not 2002 anymore."
Giving Microsoft the slimmest good thing about the doubt, Brooks added you'll be able Microsoft's decision to supply the offering with server hardware would have been requested by users who, many times, don't have enough available and trained staff to install and implement the software program.
"Some would have demanded it be possible delivered inside a box using a bow on the top in order to make it worth their while," he was quoted saying.
For Microsoft's part, it's choosing to supply Azure Stack to be a turnkey system dependant on customers' willingness "to downside customization with the infrastructure layer to achieve a faster time for it to value," along with placing a priority on "an end-to-end solution that 'just works,'" based on a blog post by Mike Neil, Microsoft's corporate second in command of enterprise cloud.
"We will leverage our deep example of both cloud and enterprise data center environments to optimize the purchaser experience," he wrote. "Predictability of system infrastructure enables Microsoft to more quickly deliver innovation from Azure to Azure Stack."
The decisions round the delay and hardware choices come as IBM and Oracle build-up their own offerings that offer the same stack from the cloud additionally, on premises. That means Azure could take winner from being later to advertise, especially mainly because it seeks to flourish its cloud revenues even though the migration of Office 365 levels off, Mueller said.
That said, the issue shouldn't be too dramatic, since businesses that are all-in with public cloud were never going to hang on for it anyway, Mueller said. And because Azure Stack is geared toward more conservative IT shops, this delay won't change their plans -- and in some cases could be a welcome opportunity to hold off on creating any major changes.
"Microsoft-minded customers and CIOs do not believe in quarters," Mueller said.
Timing is necessary for a product as strategically crucial as Azure Stack, and because of the formidable competitors Microsoft must face, including Amazon, said Al Gillen, group v . p . of enterprise infrastructure at IDC.
"Every month counts with such as this, [and] it's disappointing to find out Microsoft push against eachother," Gillen said. Nevertheless, he explained he thinks it's better value for users to possess Azure Stack delivered for an integrated turnkey appliance from partners, "although it will have some who prefer to pick their particular hardware."
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