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
The new channel business model has little room for salespeople who are not also technology pros.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- August 19, 2013
The International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners has always been a useful resource, but it became invaluable after Microsoft flipped the switch on the Microsoft Partner Network. Howard explains how.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- August 08, 2013
As Howard finds at this year's CompTIA partner convention, yes, there's still a channel. But there's also something else.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- July 31, 2013
In which Howard draws a link between a series of unfortunate Microsoft Surface-related events.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- July 25, 2013
Are PAMs going away? Is a major partner executive leaving? As usual, there were plenty of rumors floating around this year's Worldwide Partner Conference floor -- some more well-founded than others. Howard separates fact from fiction.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- July 18, 2013
Navigating the Worldwide Partner Conference can be a major undertaking. Microsoft offers its WPC Connect tool as a way to manage meetings and keep track of sessions. Problem: Navigating the WPC Connect tool can also be a major undertaking.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- June 28, 2013
Step aside, "cloud." "Hybrid" is the latest tech buzzword to lack a clear definition -- and in today's BYOD era, that's an issue.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- June 26, 2013
The only way to provide quality services across the Microsoft stack would be to partner with other Microsoft partners.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- June 12, 2013
Selling cloud service subscriptions isn't a bad strategy -- as long as you use them to set the stage for sales of your own suite of services.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- April 15, 2013
For channel partners, joining a community is essential to making their voices heard by the larger organizations they are partners with. But given the wide variety of communities in the channel, it can be a challenge for partners to know which ones suit them best.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- March 01, 2013
As the recent ConnectWise conference demonstrated, the channel hasn't been made obsolete -- it's just gotten more evolved.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- December 12, 2012
Microsoft threw another wrench in the effort to define cloud computing when it ushered in its Cloud OS era with Windows Server 2012. But for partners, the new definition means that for once, they won't have to change as much as they thought.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- November 29, 2012
In reducing its ranks of partner-facing support personnel, Microsoft may be taking some pointers from the president of Howard's old company: "If you've got enough people to do the job, you have too many people."
- By Howard M. Cohen
- October 17, 2012
Doomsayers are blaming cloud computing for the theoretical demise of the channel, but from Howard's point of view, it's all FUD.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- September 12, 2012
Some people might look at the "new" Microsoft and say it's less personal, more corporate. Those people would be wrong.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- August 22, 2012
What does Microsoft's Jon Roskill think is driving the most profound change in the partner channel?
- By Howard M. Cohen
- July 11, 2012
There's only one "thought-processor" tool that has helped me develop perhaps thousands of different kinds of projects.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- June 05, 2012
What changes with the cloud is very simple. Instead of just hardware and software, we now integrate hardware, software and services. So why don't many partner companies believe in it?
- By Howard M. Cohen
- May 02, 2012
It might be a tired cliche but it also happens to be true: You can't -- and you probably don't want to even try -- to be all things to all people.
- By Howard M. Cohen
- April 25, 2012