It's Shakeup Time for Microsoft Partner Program

Anyway, such is the nature of Microsoft, a monster company constantly in the process of restructuring its various groups and divisions. Nothing stays the same for long in Redmond -- other than the Windows market share, maybe. Last month's org chart often has about as much value as last week's newspaper (that is to say, not much value). So, if you work for Microsoft and don't like your boss, wait a few months and you'll have a new one. And, more to the point for the folks reading this, if you're a Microsoft partner and you're less than thrilled with your current contacts in Redmond, hang on for a while -- they'll all change, too.

Of course, Microsoft goes to great lengths to keep its partners happy. Still, Partner Program leadership gets refreshed like personnel at other Microsoft divisions. And it turns out that another such leadership shuffle is "in the cards" (sorry) for this summer. Plus, Microsoft is planning to restructure the Partner Program itself and add some new initiatives. RCP Editor in Chief Scott Bekker has more -- lots more -- here.

To get the details about the reorganization, you'll have to click on the link above to Scott's story (and here it is again, for good measure), but we'll give you a few hints here from Scott himself as to what's going on:

• There's a new general manager of the Microsoft Partner Program
• Sherle Webb-Robins and Kati Hvidtfeldt will move out of the Worldwide Partner Group
• Partners will fall into one of three "engines": solution providers, ISVs and transactional partners
• A few executives will have explicit responsibility for Software Plus Services
• The new Worldwide Partner Leadership Team will aim to give Microsoft consistency across the channel

This also gives us a good opportunity to solicit your feedback on the Partner Program, something we're interested in hearing whether there's a reorg on or not. What do you think of changes in the program's leadership? How often do you deal with Redmond proper (as opposed to a field office), and how do leadership changes in the program affect you? And what do you think of Microsoft's policy of changing the makeup of its various groups and programs fairly frequently?

Talk to me about these things at [email protected]. We'll take your responses through next week and publish the best of them here next Friday. And if you want to talk amongst yourselves, don't forget the blog site -- where a new, updated, much better photo is coming soon!

Posted by Lee Pender on May 31, 20071 comments

Redmond Brings Tabletop Computing to the Surface

Are any partners out there involved in selling Surface? If so, tell me your story at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on May 31, 20070 comments

Feds Looking Into Google Deal...Because of Microsoft?

But that's not where the irony comes in. Oh, no. If we're to believe the little hints dropped here and there in the press, one of the main motivating factors behind the FTC's extended probe might very well have been a significant amount of complaining by...Microsoft.

That's right. The convicted monopolist and losing bidder for DoubleClick might have actually spurred the government to look into somebody else's potentially monopolistic practices. We have to say, though, that we don’t really see Microsoft’s point here (if it did complain to the feds), especially given that Redmond surely believes that its recent acquisition of aQuantive will set up some sort of competition for a Google-DoubleClick combo.

Or maybe it just shows how desperate Microsoft is to catch Google in online advertising, a market in which the relative newcomer from California has been eating Redmond's lunch. In any case, as much as we've defended Microsoft's business practices here in the past, it is pretty funny to hear the pickpocket complain about being robbed and see the cops spring into action -- metaphorically speaking, of course.

What's your take on Microsoft complaining about somebody else's potential antitrust violations? Drop me a line at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on May 30, 20071 comments

Google and Salesforce.com: Microsoft's Waterloo?

It was that invasion of Russia, followed by the famous double whammy in Belgium from Wellington's Brits and the Prussians (along with a bunch of other enemies), that finally sank the little emperor, who at least lent his name to a yummy French dessert and a spectacular cognac your editor purchased at a wine festival in Paris some years back. (Oh, and he wrote France's civil code, still the basis of French law today -- but we're more concerned with gastronomy here at RCPU.)

Well, we don't want to compare Microsoft to a brutal tyrant (really, we don't), but we see some similarities between Napoleon's downfall and the situation Microsoft is facing now with its Internet strategy (further explained, sort of, here). The parallels are hardly air-tight, but they're good enough for the Internet -- and if we could write about Lee Majors last week, you can surely allow us Napoleon this week. Right?

Let's keep this simple. Microsoft's $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive could -- just could -- turn out to be a little bit like Napoleon's ill-fated adventure in Russia. It's expensive and risky. It definitely represents a voyage into possibly hostile -- and still not terribly familiar -- territory of online advertising. At least, that's the way it is for Redmond. So there's that parallel drawn, however quickly.

And then there's this: Cooperation on the horizon between Google and Salesforce.com. Google is now freshly minted as a productivity-applications player and potential competitor to Microsoft, with Web-based applications that step into Microsoft Office's back yard. Salesforce.com is the company that's making waves in the market for customer relationship management applications with its pure Internet, software-as-a-service play. Some analysts are even talking merger here, which has us wondering if maybe, just maybe, we hear Wellington's men meeting up with the Prussians at Waterloo with their flexible, Web-based, inexpensive applications to deal the final blow to Microsoft's Windows-reliant, Office-dedicated, somewhat old-school Napoleon.

OK, probably not. At least not right now. The fact is that many IT folks quite like having control of their data, thank you very much, and aren't ready to ship it out completely to some vendor's server farms. Plus, there's a lot -- billions of dollars -- of investment in Microsoft sitting in corporate IT shops right now, and that's not going to go away any time soon.

Still, Microsoft doesn't seem entirely sure of its own strategy -- or that which it believes its partners should follow -- regarding Internet-based services, as demonstrated by the fact that Redmond has stuck the "Live" name on so many products that the moniker now seems largely meaningless and certainly doesn't evoke confidence or clarity. (By contrast, we know exactly what both Google and Salesforce.com offer in terms of Web services, and their messaging is crystal clear.)

Big, corporate America probably isn't ready to go all-Web, all the time. However, smaller businesses (where a lot of new revenues come from these days) will surely at least consider moving in that direction. Moves toward Web-based apps could get hastened even as Microsoft's core offerings -- Office and Windows, mainly -- move in exactly the wrong direction by getting fatter and more expensive.

The question now is whether Microsoft, big battleship that it has become, can execute well enough to catch Google on the sacred ground of online advertising and still hold off the charge of Google and Salesforce.com in Redmond's own apps back yard. Frankly, we're not sure that any company can do that, emperor or not. And while we're not sure that the battle is upon Redmond right now, we can hear the troops amassing in the distance. Where once the software industry's Napoleon put pressure on others, it now has to gear up to defend itself.

What impact do you think cooperation between Google and Salesforce.com would have on Microsoft? As a partner, what's your take on Microsoft's SaaS (or S+S) strategy? Talk to me at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on May 24, 20070 comments

Microsoft Mixes Messages on Patents

Meanwhile, Google, which runs lots and lots of open source software, is watching Microsoft's patent saber-ratting cautiously.

Posted by Lee Pender on May 22, 20070 comments

Will Vista Be Microsoft's Last 32-bit OS?

Posted by Lee Pender on May 22, 20070 comments

Cure Could Be Worse Than Disease for IE7

Posted by Lee Pender on May 22, 20070 comments

You Can't Get No Satisfaction: Readers on Microsoft's Low Rating

Let's just say that we touched a nerve. RCPU's inbox quickly filled with e-mails about dissatisfaction with Microsoft -- although not all of them were as angry as you might think. Here's the best of what we received, edited in some cases a bit for length. (And, lest you think we've lost our grammar skills, yes, the headline of this entry is an allusion to the classic Rolling Stones song. We hope you knew that already, though.)

Ken, whose thoughts fall more on the angry side, writes from Australia to say that if folks are dissatisfied with Microsoft, it might just be because Redmond has lost its focus on the "little guy" in terms of both partners and customers.

"I am a small business IT consultant in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. For 30 years now I have sold and serviced computers to the SOHO marketplace and have worked as a contractor for large businesses, as well. In that time, I have been happy and grateful to sell and service Microsoft products, but in recent years people like me have become less and less relevant to Microsoft and we are feeling the pinch.

"Clearly I cannot compete with IBM or the multinational IT big boys, and I am not even going to try. But Microsoft seems nowadays to ONLY care about them, and that ticks me off a lot -- as, although I am not a big player, I have been a regular unpaid representative of Microsoft/Intel products for 30-plus years and cannot even get the common courtesy of a return phone call or even e-mail replies nowadays. I provide feedback to Microsoft on beta products but my views as an end user and reseller are ALWAYS met with silence, giving me the perception I do not matter at all.

"Vista is a classic case in point -- it provides everything Microsoft wants but not much of what clients want. The PC has become more like a mainframe computer with all the inherent inflexibilities and associated costs; [Vista] suffers grossly from appallingly slow speed, software and driver incompatibilities and code bloat, and, in my opinion, it is a step backward from XP SP2.

"Office has features many of us will never use -- or ever understand why they are there to be used -- so it's a waste. Unfortunately, corporate greed means we may never get an operating system that is really tight, super-fast and reliable, as that might kill off the cash cow that is Microsoft.

"[We] little guys are now saying, tough luck, Microsoft. You won't support us; we are no longer supporting you. We are sticking with XP, refusing to sell or recommend Vista and no longer offering our time and interest for free. I think Microsoft underestimates and undervalues the impact we have on a lot of people, but eventually they will find out they are going to have to rethink the attitude and do a lot more to help us help them again."

Netfali chimes in, too, saying that Microsoft has become more about hype and product bloat than about quality:

"Rather than relying on the quality of their products and services to back up their sales, they have to create this excitement, which is by now starting to backfire. It is backfiring because customers are tired of it. It brings nothing but confusion and more spending because they know that by the turn of the corner there is a new product to replace what came out yesterday or to add to it. Rather than developing an overall strategy and spending enough time to develop a sound product, they act like high school kids with the eagerness to just be first and beat the competition. This, I think, adds to the perceived disconnection in their products. Not only does the customer have to buy item No. 1, but now they have to buy item 2 and 3 and, tomorrow, item No. 4, a new product altogether. [Microsoft] need[s] someone from a sound company to come in and teach them business basics."

Ian, employing something of a sarcastic (and entertaining) tone, noted that Redmond's technological goofs don't help, either:

"On a recent SBS 2003 R2 implementation (where I was upgrading from a mixture of legacy servers), WSUS caused the previously infrequently patched but running A-OK workstations to run like snails and be unusable for 20 minutes each morning.

"What a great idea -- an automatic security protection system that manifests itself in the worst denial of service the customer ever experienced! (After spending a great deal of time convincing them of the benefits, I must have forgotten to tell them about the added benefit of 100 percent CPU usage.)

"Great customer feel-good factor for a 20K upgrade. I am still struggling with a few workstations. Nice."

Not so nice, Ian. But Bob, on the somewhat softer, less angry side of things, says that the problem isn't so much with products as it is with activation, registration and a bunch of other stuff (although we sense that there are some problems with the products, as well):

"I believe Microsoft software is better than it has ever been. It is priced pretty decently and is a fair value for the money. Microsoft is less buggy than most business-class software. What the customers hate are all the processes that go with registration, activation, reactivation, multiple choices for the same product, reactivation, checking for authenticity over and over, failed reactivation, 30-minute waits on the phone to reactivate...you get the idea. The dissatisfaction isn't with the product; it's with everything that rides along with it. I understand Microsoft's need to protect its intellectual property, but it is costing multiple millions, if not billions, of dollars in lost productivity to businesses.

"Then there was Vista, the fastest-selling OS of all time [or so Redmond says --L.P.]. I don't know one person who likes it. The aggravation mentioned above is far worse; peripherals became obsolete, vendor drivers are buggy or nonexistent, the product is confusing and unfamiliar and the security is far too intrusive (see the associated Apple commercial). But, oh, how we love Office 2007. That's sweet! Everyone knows that someday they will find their way around the ribbon and be far more productive than ever before. No, I don't believe for one minute that the dissatisfaction with Microsoft is from the software. People think they are dissatisfied with the product when the product really isn't their issue."

For her part, Mary wants to help Redmond out of its customer-satisfaction jam by offering Microsoft a little gift:

"A book I brought back in 1998 called Great Customer Service was dusted off and put into position. I'm thinking my gift list is going to be long this year."

Apparently Redmond can use all the help it can get right now.

Many thanks to everybody who responded, and don't forget that you can continue this conversation here or by dropping me a line at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on May 22, 20070 comments

Microsoft's $6 Billion Ad Firm

Anyway, Majors' Col. Steve Austin character, who made that name famous long before it belonged to a certain "Stone Cold" wrestler, could do all sorts of amazing things with his tricked-out robobody. He paid the government back for the favor of rebuilding him by doing intelligence work and combating all sorts of terrifying threats to national security -- including, in one episode, Bigfoot. (This, of course, was before the phrase "the terrorists" meant anything -- but we digress again.)

It turns out that this "Six Million" metaphor has come back around again, and this time it's about an online advertising firm called aQuantive. Presumably aQuantive hasn't suffered a horrible accident and doesn't need to be rebuilt with bionic parts. But it has a few things in common with Lee Majors as Col. Steve Austin, starting with its price tag. Microsoft announced this week that it's buying aQuantive for an eerily similar sum, updated for inflation in 2007 -- $6 billion.

And just as the government made a major investment in Steve Austin's body, Microsoft is paying a huge premium to buy aQuantive. This deal, in fact, dwarfs the $3.1 billion buyout of DoubleClick by Google that upset Microsoft so much about a month ago.

We've been wondering here at RCPU just how serious Microsoft was about the online ad game -- and we had to ask some questions again earlier this week when 24/7 Real Media, another firm Microsoft had been rumored to be eyeing, went to another bidder. However, $6 billion big ones should answer anybody's questions about Redmond's commitment to catching up with Google. The question now is whether it's too little (or maybe too much), too late. After all, Google has a huge lead in search and online advertising over Microsoft, and unlike Redmond's highly diversified corporate profile, Internet stuff is what Google does -- and does very well.

For most partners, it's hard to see a direct entry into the online ad game, but anybody whose business relies on the corporate giant in Redmond should pay close attention to how and where Microsoft spends its money, especially a chunk of money this large. If Microsoft gets bogged down in an online ad game it can't win with an expensive acquisition it can't swallow, the fallout could affect the company's stock price and executive leadership -- and maybe even trickle down throughout its operations.

Then again, if the aQuantive acquisition works, it could be a cornerstone of a Microsoft Internet strategy that still seems a bit shaky for now and really needs to come together. Plus, Microsoft has a pretty darn good track record with acquisitions it's made in the past. Still, this is a watershed moment for Microsoft. The commitment is there; the money is there -- now it's time for Redmond to produce results.

Of course, to continue the metaphor, we shouldn't forget how Lee Majors fits into all this. Just as the government needed Col. Steve Austin to perform superhuman feats, Microsoft needs aQuantive to help it pull off a near-miracle and catch Google in the online ad game. Let's remember, though, what Lee Majors did after "The Six Million Dollar Man" ended its run -- he became "The Fall Guy."

Taking a fall and failing to catch rival Google isn't what Redmond plans with aQuantive, of course. No doubt, Redmond is hoping for something more like the "Promised Land" where Lee Majors spent an episode (OK, we're stretching here, but just go with it).

What's your take on Microsoft's big acquisition? How do you see it affecting you as a partner? Can you get the theme song from "The Fall Guy" out of your head? I can't. Enlighten me at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on May 18, 20070 comments

Is SAP Making a Deal With "the Devil"?

SAP's motivation for doing this appears to be to keep database giant Oracle and its line of enterprise apps, which compete with those of SAP, at bay. SAP also has a nice product with Microsoft called Duet that ties the familiar Office front-end to SAP's considerable back-end. So, by being buddy-buddy with Microsoft, SAP covers two of its main weaknesses -- database integration and front-end accessibility. All of that sounds pragmatic enough, right?

Well, here's where the context part comes into play. Anybody who has been paying even the faintest attention to the ERP market knows that Microsoft has major ambitions in it along with a complicated -- and increasingly competitive and contentious -- relationship with SAP. All of this, then, leaves us wondering whether SAP has made a deal with its own personal little devil in Redmond (as opposed to a more universal devil, which we don't consider Microsoft to be) in the name of driving a stake into Oracle's heart.

After all, Microsoft plans to attack the ERP market the way it has attacked many of the other markets it now owns -- by preaching native integration of its own applications. Just to spell things out, that means that Microsoft is ready to send its partners to customers with the message that Dynamics, its ERP offering, is simpler (in a good way), cheaper and better (and certainly better integrated) top to bottom than what SAP or Oracle can offer.

And what better way for Microsoft to boost the two quantities it lacks in ERP -- credibility and experience -- than by working closely with the longtime market leader? The pitch almost sells itself: "If you like SAP's enterprise wares with our database and front-end, just imagine how much you'll like cheaper, simpler, easier-to-maintain and more tightly integrated Dynamics playing nicely with your all-Microsoft implementation. Let's get you started switching over now..."

Now, your editor has had considerable experience writing about SAP over the last 10 years or so. We're quite sure that the folks in Walldorf (Germany, where SAP's headquarters are located) know that they're playing with fire. So how do the folks at SAP propose to not get burned?

And here are some other things to ponder. Does Walldorf see any threat to their gigantic market share from Microsoft on the horizon? Do they not believe that Redmond can execute on its ambitious, but still largely nascent, ERP strategy? Does Oracle -- a bigger threat to SAP right now than Microsoft -- just look like the most important dragon to slay?

We suspect that, in part, the answer to those last three questions is "Yes." However, if that's the case, SAP had better know what it's doing. Dynamics is no Windows Live Search or Zune. It's a serious set of business applications from a company that has a hefty presence of its own in the enterprise. The folks in Walldorf have a pretty impressive ERP empire going, but the road is littered with such deals. It's why, we suspect, "the devil" term is used in the first place.

What do you think of SAP's cooperation with Microsoft? How soon do you see Dynamics seriously competing with SAP and Oracle? Let me know at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on May 17, 20070 comments

Gates: Vista Is Fastest-Selling OS Ever

Of course, Vista's success is all in the eye of the beholder. Some interested parties are more impressed than others.

Oh, and while we're talking about what Gates has been talking about, he confirmed this week that Longhorn Server will indeed be called Windows Server 2008, in a completely unsurprising continuation of Microsoft's mundane (but, we guess, effective) naming policy.

Posted by Lee Pender on May 16, 20072 comments

Microsoft: To Spend and Not To Spend

Big spending all in one place would buck the trend that Microsoft has set of late -- buying up smaller players and glomming their applications into the Microsoft stack. (Of course, it's not as though Microsoft hasn't tried to dump lots of money into one acquisition lately -- remember DoubleClick?) Furthermore, Ballmer's talk of pumping up S+S with a major buyout has the overtones of an executive who is maybe just a bit desperate to piece together a strategy in an area in which Microsoft is not at the forefront. Of course, any company with tens of billions of dollars in the bank and a chokehold on the markets for operating systems and productivity suites can't be all that desperate. Still, Ballmer's dropping hints -- will dollars follow?

If they do, they'll be dedicated to S+S, or at least not spent on enterprise applications such as business intelligence. Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, said this week that Redmond plans to build, not buy, business applications. That, of course, is a bit of an odd statement, given that Microsoft announced a BI-related acquisition (albeit a small one) just this week. It's even more odd considering that Microsoft Dynamics, the company's enterprise resource planning offering, is really just a package consisting of four different suites that Microsoft purchased over the last few years by buying other vendors' solutions.

We'll take Raikes' comments to mean that Microsoft won't be spending any more money on business apps than it already has. Clearly Redmond seems more confident in its business offerings than in its S+S wares -- and probably for good reason. In any case, Ballmer seems ready to open the vault and perhaps redirect the course of the whole industry the way Microsoft has done in the past.

If you were Steve Ballmer, how would you spend Microsoft's money? Let me know at [email protected].

And speaking of S+S, SaaS and lots of other unusual acronyms, Mike weighed in this week in Microsoft's Web-apps strategy. We edited this one a tad for length, but we liked it a lot:

"The good news for Microsoft is that the world is in a migration. Most of us use Windows and Office and are not leaving the womb (or tomb) any time soon. As new software, with new delivery models, is introduced, we consider it, and if it makes sense, incorporate it into our daily routine. I don't think individuals are any different than large corporations.

"I have made investments in real dollars to buy Microsoft software (and lots of other companies' software, too) and invested significant time in learning Microsoft products over the last 17 years. I'm not going to throw that away overnight. Just because Google has a Web-based spreadsheet, that doesn't compel me to switch to it when the one I'm using is working just fine. Like they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

"Ten years from now, Microsoft will be around; it'll be an $80 billion company, and will have figured out how to monetize the Web and include partners in the process. But the model won't look the same as it does today. The revenue is likely to be recurring, maybe based on usage, and we will pay more for the same functionality than we do today. That's happened with television (cable), communications (cell phones) and that's the way it will be with software.

"Microsoft and Ray Ozzie have time and they know it. Their problem is that the sizzle is gone -- Google, Salesforce.com and others have taken away the franchise that they owned for almost 15 years. That hurts the stock price, makes recruiting talent more difficult and it makes playing the game a lot more difficult. In other industries, investors are ecstatic to own a company that has 25 percent net margins, is throwing off cash faster than they can invest it and growing predictably. Microsoft's problem is that that is not what it, or the market, is used to. Google will run into the same problem in five to 10 years, maybe sooner. Then the next big thing will get all of the attention.

"I think Microsoft and Ray are right on track. Keep the faith, experiment, react when necessary and everything will be just fine."

Posted by Lee Pender on May 11, 20070 comments