A year ago at the partner conference, Microsoft was pushing a similar specialisation plan for its partners. Have you seen a significant shift in your resellers in that direction?
Partner by partner, we're making an impact by creating business opportunity for our partners and, in turn, partners are betting their business with us. It's really encouraging to see partners betting big and succeeding. One example there is Interlink, which has more than doubled its revenue since they focused on partnering with us a few years ago.
Partners around the world are recognising the benefit of aligning by competency, and they're starting to see the competency-targeted readiness, sales and marketing tools work. Enrolment in the competencies is strong. Customers are finding the help they need by using the competencies in the Microsoft Partner Program to differentiate partners' areas of expertise. This differentiation also helps ensure that solutions partners receive the benefits, information, and business opportunities from Microsoft that are most valuable to them.
Microsoft has been dabbling in some new ventures that arguably have made the company somewhat less predictable for partners. For example, the company said in March that it was going to take over management of Energizer's internal IT functions, a job that Microsoft has not traditionally performed and its partners have. Why is Microsoft doing some of these things?
Let's be very clear here: Our core business is developing and delivering software. That said, our incubation project with Energizer should not surprise anyone. We have a responsibility to help drive cost and complexity out of our customers' environments and help them maximize the value of their IT investment. Energizer will not be the only one here in this pilot; there will be a few others, where we will mirror our own internal IT environment running the technology hand in hand as opposed to being a step removed. We're going to test this out and see where it takes us.
With the Internet serving increasingly as a means for businesses to learn about and purchase software, what is the long-term future for software resellers? How do you see their role evolving in the coming years?
Software resellers continue to provide value to customers across a broad range — some bring specific implementation or customisation skills; others bring a unique understanding of particular verticals or geographies, etc. The one commonality, though — and this is the crux of the matter — is that the partners who specialise are the ones who will thrive. I talked a lot about this at last year's partner conference, and I'll talk about it this year. As we go to market with our partners, we want to provide customers with the broadest ecosystem of products and services, and to do that, everyone involved needs to make choices about where to focus and add value.
Talkback
Betting on a single horse won't last you a life time. Something stockholders and customers should keep in mind when "their company" decides to go 100% head first into today's version of Microsoft's Partner Program.
Quote: "The one commonality, though — and this is the crux of the matter — is that the partners who specialise are the ones who will thrive."
Yeah, and overspecialise too much (how could you not once locked into that direction?) and you'll be dependant (which will not exactly help during negotiations) like never before. And being too dependant on something has a way on how you see the truth.
Also, Darwin figured out long ago what happens to overspecialized creatures once their environment (new strategic business tactics from Redmond HQ for example) changes too fast or too much.
In short, keep your options open. Always, with whoever you do business. Short term expectations of tremendous revenue and fortune are usually exactly that. Short term, short lived. Also be specially carefull not to get into a program that will slowly but surely claim all your resources and make you completely dependant that way.
Everyone knows how Microsoft treats their partners. Just look at Sendo. Microsoft will work with you, pat you on the head, tell you what a good job you're doing offer to look through all your code and technical specifications for you, then steal the lot and reproduce exactly the same thing themselves 2 weeks before you announce it. You'll then take them to court and get involved in a massively drawn-out court case that eventually bankrupts you, your company, your family and your friends. If you're very lucky, you may get out of them half of what you lost. But you'd have to be very very lucky.
Just say "no".