The conclusion to my interview with Michael van Dijken and John Zanni, both from Microsoft.

David: If you can change one thing about the Hosting Industry, what would it be?

Michael: That is a great question. If I could change one thing about the Hosting Industry?. If I could change one thing about the Hosting Industry I would want to see every Hoster running a predominately Windows environment.

David: Why did I know that was coming?

Everyone laughs for a considerable amount of time actually.

Michael: I am not somebody who likes to give the expected answer, but really if you were listening to what John was saying, with the management tools we have at system center with the fact that Windows Server 2008 has a killer virtualization platform in Hyper-V, has a killer Web site platform in IIS 7 really reaches across the aisle, if you like, into the open source community by enabling PHP applications natively and really can get very close to allowing Hosters to run a homogenous environment which would save a lot of money. I think, honestly, it would be great for Hosters to look very seriously at doing that.

David: What about you John?

John: Along the same line; so the way I would put it is, I would love every Hoster to be part of the Microsoft Partner Program because our products have so significantly progressed since four years ago. The first time I was here and I think that many Hosters because they haven?t looked into our products are missing out on opportunity where they could be growing their business that their just not taking advantage of. And if the joined MSPP and started playing with the new wave of products that have come out ranging from Windows Server 2008 to SilverLight they would find that the potential for growth is huge. They?d get very excited about it.

David: All right. Last question, has there ever been a question that you wish an interviewer would ask you but never has?

Michael: Has there ever been a question? Hmm Hmm There probably are a lot of great ones but I can?t think of any right now. You know if I am thinking this context, if I was you I would probably be wondering more about Hyper-V and why is it so significant why are we jazzed about for the hosting industry. That would be where I would be? How about you?

John: I have one that ties to a little bit to Serguei?s said yesterday. How are we different then the other big players in this market, like Google? Yahoo? And the answer is that we built our company on the partnering system. Over 90% of our revenue comes through partner?s ?

Michael: 96%.

John: 96%. And we are the only ones who even though we will have our own and have our Microsoft Hosting Services we know that we are going to build an ecosystem and take our existing ecosystem with us into this new software services world. No one else can do that.

David: That?s a good question and a good answer. Is there anything else you guys would like to say?

John: You had good questions.

David: Yeah, I try. Thank you both for chatting with me.

Michael: Thank you David.

John: Yes, thank you for the opportunity.

We might be done with Microsoft, but we have more interviews to go! Until then Happy Hosting all.