Bob Kelly, a 21-year Microsoft vet who left that company in September to start as a managing partner with Seattle’s Ignition Partners this coming January, shared some of his views with us during a recent, wide-ranging interview.
He helped build both Windows Server and Microsoft Azure from the ground up, most recently serving as Microsoft’s corporate VP for the Cloud + Enterprise Business development and strategy team. So he offers a unique point of view on Seattle, Microsoft and cloud computing.
GeekWire: What are your impressions of Amazon Web Services as a competitor to Azure?
Kelly: You’ve got to give Amazon an incredible amount of respect for what it’s done. It’s a Harvard case study for what can happen in software. Its thesis is so different from Microsoft’s. The way it approaches the market is bringing commodity retail thinking to everything. Computing as a utility to companies — that’s the mentality AWS takes, and it’s a unique worldview. We’ll see if it makes it over the next set of hurdles.
Microsoft’s view has always been more of a solutions orientation. It aims to offer end-to-end productivity. Amazon is mostly oriented toward developers: you open a console and you have a series of technical options to build something. It’s a builder’s orientation, as opposed to an end-user’s solutions orientation.
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Here’s an analogy: It’s like the difference between Linux and open software and Windows and apps that run on it. Linux and open source are for people who like to be tinkering with the engine. Microsoft tends to build the car and say “Don’t worry about the engine.” Microsoft is always thinking about the complete solution, as opposed to just bits and bobs. I’m not being critical of AWS. There are lots of developers who want the control knobs. Microsoft has always tried to be more complete in its thinking with respect to solutions, not just knobs.
GeekWire: How is Seattle positioned to compete in terms of cloud?
Kelly: Seattle is the cloud. That’s the amazing thing about Seattle. There’s no other city in the world that has the technical agenda Seattle has. It’s reflected not just in Microsoft and Amazon but in the fact that Tableau’s here, Google’s here, Facebook’s here — every one of the major players is putting an outpost here. That’s a testament not just to the centrality of cloud here but to the talent pool Seattle represents.
Are there some areas within cloud computing where Seattle excels or lags?
Kelly: Consumer is probably not the forte of Seattle, but enterprise software clearly is.
GeekWire: What traits will you seek out in companies and entrepreneurs to invest in at Ignition?
Kelly: There’s both art and science to that, especially since Ignition is usually a Series A investor. It always comes down to three things: the team, the product, and the market. If you have a great team and a great product but a bad market, you will fail. If you have a good team, a good product and a good market, you’ve got a shot. If you have a great team, a great product and a great market, that’s category-making. That’s what we’re looking for. But those are hard to find. You take a leap of faith with a company’s founders, see the world as they see it, help them, coach them, grow them, get into the foxhole with them.
GeekWire: Do any characters or situations from literature have an echo in your business life?
Kelly: I think of Alice in Wonderland and being on the other side of the looking glass. That’s what founders do. They see the world from the other side of the looking glass. In my new role, I have to be willing to jump through the looking glass, too, and I’m really looking forward to that.
