Steve Ballmer: Chief Executive Therapist
On Tuesday, Microsoft laid out a
partner
compensation model for Software Plus Services. From the minute it was announced,
the company has been eagerly attempting to
reassure
partners that not only will S+S not mean a business disaster for them or
direct competition with Microsoft, but in fact will represent an opportunity.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took up the theme of partner reassurance in his
keynote speech on Wednesday. "Even as we're driving that business model
forward to new approaches, we see it as fundamentally critical that our partners
are in it with us and involved with us," Ballmer said.
"This world of S+S is not a world for our partners that should
be scary or problematic. If you know Exchange, you know Exchange. Those skills
will translate into the world of Software Plus Services," he added. "Same
thing with Dynamics, SQL Server, directory."
He also assured partners that they have a little time. "This isn't going
to happen overnight in the enterprise world. It's not like our customers are
going to wake up tomorrow morning and say, 'Hey, look, we all want to abandon
server implementations and move to the cloud.'"
Instead, Ballmer said, there will be a mix of server implementations and cloud
computing going forward. "The consumer market might race to be cloud-based.
The enterprise world is going to be a mix for awhile," he said.
But he used an example to illustrate that the way some partners do business
will have to change. "Even as the business model changes, for us, the notion
of partnering with all of you remains fundamental. We build from the present.
I'm not going to tell you the world of the future looks the same as the world
of today," Ballmer said. "Fifteen years ago, there were partners who
made their living integrating the TCP/IP stack into Windows. But, we'll build
from the present. We'll bring along your capabilities [and] your skills...United
all of us stand, divided we fall."
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 09, 2008