Our former Microsoft field rep shares some insights about how Microsoft operates and what's behind the company's attitudes toward its partners and employees.
- By M.S. Partner
- April 23, 2014
The new CEO's mantra of "mobile- and cloud-first" has some uncomfortable implications for partners -- one of them being the possibility of competition from Microsoft itself.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- April 21, 2014
A few months into the new era in Redmond under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft's board could be gearing up for some serious conflict.
- By Scott Bekker
- April 09, 2014
The next few months could prove to be the most trying for all but the largest of Microsoft's partners.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- March 26, 2014
Understanding Microsoft's scorecard system is one way to figure out what partner deals Microsoft's sales reps currently value the most.
- By M.S. Partner
- March 24, 2014
With Microsoft's aging e-mail server set to lose extended support on April 8, organizations have a host of options -- both on-premises and in the cloud -- to migrate to.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- March 12, 2014
A little more warning would've been nice.
- By Scott Bekker
- February 12, 2014
Microsoft has a history of changing tacks in its partner strategy, for good and sometimes for ill. Its partners should take care not to get left behind.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- January 09, 2014
A quick primer on how Microsoft's field salespeople are compensated -- and how you can make that knowledge work for you as a partner.
- By M.S. Partner
- December 12, 2013
Few dispute that SharePoint in the cloud is the future. The challenge for partners and customers is determining the best path to get there.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- December 10, 2013
All successful salespeople are socially well connected within their communities.
- By Ken Thoreson
- December 03, 2013
It doesn't matter who succeeds Steve Ballmer; Microsoft has thrown too much money at his "Devices and Services" vision to abandon it with the changing of the guard.
- By Scott Bekker
- November 12, 2013
A business leader's legacy is more than just the state of the company when they leave -- it's also how well the stage has been set for the company to succeed in the future.
- By Mike Harvath
- October 28, 2013
Meet David Willis, who in the wake of the recent partner executive reshuffling now runs Microsoft's U.S. Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partners organization.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- October 23, 2013
The outgoing Microsoft CEO gave his "all in" cloud mandate over three years ago, but entrenched players like Amazon Web Services and Google have left Microsoft fighting to secure a foothold for its own cloud services.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- October 16, 2013
The upper levels of Microsoft's org chart have been a hive of activity in recent months, from CEO Steve Ballmer's retirement announcement to an executive shakeup in the channel group. RCP's October issue goes behind the changes -- what they are, and what they mean for partners.
- By Scott Bekker
- October 01, 2013
According to this former Microsoft field rep, there is no magical lead fountain -- getting leads from Microsoft is a multi-step process.
- By M.S. Partner
- September 30, 2013
CRM applications promise a lot, but often fail to deliver. And that's a bad deal for sales managers.
- By Ken Thoreson
- September 23, 2013
The recent revelations about the depth of the NSA's surveillance program are dragging old questions about cloud privacy back to the forefront.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- September 17, 2013
How do you differentiate yourself from the competition? If the answer is your "commitment to customer satisfaction," you'd better examine how truthful that is.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- September 12, 2013