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Microsoft's U.S. Partner Org Reorged

It's July, and here in the States that means barbecues, fireworks, parades and...adjustments in the Microsoft channel org chart. This time, Robert Deshaies and Cindy Bates will both be vice presidents, responsible for managing different aspects of the U.S. partner organization.

As of July 1, Deshaies is vice president of U.S. Partner Business Development & Sales. According to a new bio sheet, he is "responsible for growing the capacity, performance and satisfaction of Microsoft's nationally managed partners," which include National System Integrators, ISVs, distributors, Value-Added Distributors, Large Account Resellers and Certified Partner Learning Solutions vendors. It's primarily a lateral move from his former role as vice president of the U.S. Partner Group, a post he picked up from Margo Day in the executive shuffle of two years ago. It also appears to play to his strengths as a manager and recruiter of strategic partners in the Microsoft revenue mix.

For Bates, it's a step up from her former title as general manager of Microsoft's U.S. Small Business Group, which she has built over the last four years. Bates is now vice president of Partner Strategy, Marketing & Programs. Her role is defined as "enabling and supporting Microsoft's expanding partner ecosystems with an emphasis on driving partner profitability and satisfaction."

To explain the move, a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in an e-mail, "With our deep partner model, it's important for us to engage with newer partner types (e.g., Web agencies and nontraditional partners) to work with customers and deliver new innovative solutions. This has caused our U.S. partner organization to triple in size over the past two years from 140K to 500K partners."

We hope to have more details here later this week about what Deshaies and Bates will have in store for Microsoft channel partners. We'd also like to hear more about what kind of companies Microsoft is talking about with those 500,000 U.S. partners.

Posted by Scott Bekker on July 07, 2008


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