Nadella: Trust has to be earned every day
Microsoft CEO uses Inspire keynote to cover the importance of building trusted relationships
Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella chose to use his keynote slot at the firm's Inspire partner event to underline the importance of trust.
His comments were framed in the context of a discussion about how partners should work with customers but it would be hard not to take it as a nod to the importance of the vendor's decision to reverse proposed changes around internal use rights policies to protect its relationships with resellers.
"You can't claim trust, you have to earn it every day," was a comment that drew a loud round of applause from the partner audience.
He said that trust emerged from taking a consistent approach and it would be making sure it made the right decisions.
"We want to make sure we are fully aligned with success of partner and customers at all times," he said.
Overall the theme of the keynote was around the untapped potential that the channel could exploit as more devices were connected to the cloud and data rates continued to explode.
Nadella said that there would be 50bn devices connected by 2030 and pointed out that 90% of all data being used had been created in the last two years.
"That’s the explosion of compute and data and that's what's leading to us building out Azure as the world's computer," he said.
He added that by 2030 10% of total GDP will be tech spend, compared to just 5% currently and the opportunities did not stop there.
"The real opportunity is that other 90% of GDP that's all going to be digitally driven and software driven," he said.
Having gone into Inspire with channel petitions and anger mounting over the decision to restrict internal use rights of its software the U-turn and clear explanations from the vendor’s channel executives seemed to have repaired some of the damage.
Nadella took to the stage yesterday afternoon greeted with a rapturous welcome indicating that the channel remains supportive of his leadership. Talking about how it could work with partners to empower the lives of the 7bn people who live on earth showed he continues to have a big vision for the role the company can play.
