Microsoft's hotly anticipated augmented reality platform HoloLens is no longer an invite-only affair.
In conjunction with the release Tuesday of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft moved beyond its initial four-month program of shipping HoloLenses to select developer and commercial partners and opened the not-yet-production-ready devices to North American buyers.
"We've fulfilled the orders for our first waves of developers, and today I'm pleased to announce that we're expanding the program, making HoloLens Development Edition available to all developers and business customers in the United States and Canada," wrote Alex Kipman, technical fellow in the Windows and Devices Group at Microsoft, in a blog post.
The Microsoft HoloLens Developers Edition is on sale in the U.S. online store for $3,000, a price that includes the goggle headset, a clicker, a carrying case, a charger and cable, a microfiber cloth, nose pads and an overhead strap. Customers are allowed to buy up to five HoloLens devices and are warned that it's for developers only, non-refundable and not intended for use by children under 13.
The intention of the broader release is to encourage development and commercial partners to begin creating the killer apps that will make the devices widely appealing once they reach the commercial release stage.
Kipman also announced the release of a HoloLens Commercial Suite, which includes a limited demo/showcase mode, Mobile Device Management for HoloLens, integration with Azure Active Directory for credentials, controlled OS updates to the devices through Windows Update for Business, BitLocker data encryption and secure boot, and the ability to connect to networks using a HoloLens either remotely via a VPN or wirelessly with Wi-Fi credentials.
Posted by Scott Bekker on August 03, 20160 comments
If anyone should know how Microsoft partners could make themselves fit into VMware's channel, it's Ross Brown.
For a while the No. 2 channel executive during the Allison Watson and Jon Roskill eras of the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN), Brown has spent the last year as VMware's channel chief.
On Monday, Brown and VMware rolled out some enhancements to the VMware Advantage+ channel program that could make VMware more appealing for more Microsoft partners to work with.
Asked what he thought more Microsoft partners should know about the opportunities in partnering with VMware, as well, Brown encouraged them to "embrace both instead of either or. Most customers are in heterogeneous environments."
Brown pointed out that in some areas, VMware and Microsoft already have strong communities of joint partners. "We have a great relationship through VMware AirWatch with the Windows 10 team," he said. AirWatch was an exhibitor at the recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), an event from which VMware used to be excluded. "We're a great driver of the RDS [Remote Desktop Services] CALs for VMware Horizon."
Author's Note: An earlier version of this story included a quotation about the relative volume of Microsoft RDS CALs that VMware and Citrix are driving. The statement triggered a flurry of e-mails from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware executives that aren't really relevant to the main point of this post, but merit a deeper dive at a later date. Stay tuned.
At the vendor-to-vendor level, the companies' mutual interests aren't always recognized, however. Although he sees Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft's public cloud teams as very forward-looking in terms of cooperating with other vendors like VMware, there can still be resistance at an institutional level within Microsoft to working with, or having partners work with, VMware. "They often try to put people in friend or foe categories," Brown said.
That said, Brown contends there are more opportunities now for Microsoft partners to extend and expand their solutions with VMware than there used to be.
"We're multidimensional. Generally there are more areas of cooperation as opposed to competition between us. Azure is scaling out, and VMware NSX customers want to extend [their deployments] into those clouds," he said.
"We have a great relationship through VMware AirWatch with the Windows 10 team."
Ross Brown, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partner Organization, VMware
Brown joined VMware with an assignment to help VMware navigate the sales execution transition from a company that sold primarily vSphere to one that also sells AirWatch, Horizon, Workspace ONE, vRealize, NSX, VSAN, vCloud Air and vCloud NFV.
"It illustrates the transition we're going through from a product that's largely bought, and where customers know what they want and they can get it through transactional channels, to a product that has to be sold," he said.
VMware needs the channel more than ever now to help customers understand how they can benefit from the broader portfolio, according to Brown. NSX, for example, "is conceptually mind-bending for people," he said. "You not only have to understand vSphere but the OSI model from Layer 2 all the way through the application session. You can create networks where every node on the network is its own segment to protect against privilege escalation. The current model is perimeter defense with firewalls everywhere. NSX operates like a hotel where every room has its own key."
The main change introduced on Monday is increased up-front product margins for Advantage+ partners to a maximum of 30 percent, compared to a previous limit of 10 percent. Additionally, VMware is streamlining the validation of deal registration, cutting out any human involvement in most cases to reduce delays and improve predictability for partners.
"We're moving to a model where instead of the approval being held by sales, it's very simple -- if we don't know about the deal, it will get approved. At the beginning of the sales cycle, you will know if you're getting the margin," Brown said.
Delays in approvals and the limitation on the top-tier margin made it difficult for partners to justify committing to selling VMware's full portfolio. "Now partners can go and hunt with confidence without worrying about whether they're going to get paid or not," Brown said.
Even for Microsoft partners on the fence about getting involved with VMware yet, the company is worth watching. Brown described the Aug. 1 announcements as a first rev of changes to VMware's partner program that will start coming every six months.
Posted by Scott Bekker on August 01, 20160 comments
Internal Use Rights (IUR) have consistently been one of the most valuable elements of the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) for partners, and Microsoft is doubling down on the benefit in the fiscal year that just started.
"We're providing more access to free software and services via Internal Use Rights (IUR). In fact, we're doubling our investment in free software, cloud services, and platforms for our partners over the next year, giving you the tools needed to build innovative solutions on top of Microsoft technologies," Microsoft's top channel executive, Gavriella Schuster, said last week in a blog post from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC).
Schuster's brief description in the blog post only scratched the surface of the expansion of IUR that began on July 1.
When the benefit consists of a kind of "funny money" -- free licenses and subscriptions from the company that makes them for the internal use of their partners -- what does doubling the investment mean? In this case, it appears to be more than an internal accounting trick for crediting licenses that are given to partners as part of their Gold Competency, Silver Competency or Action Pack subscription fees.
"Our investments involve adding new cloud-related products to the program, building the new IUR platform in the Partner Center and improving the partner experience and technology so partners can utilize IUR easier and better," said a Microsoft spokesperson in a follow-up interview by e-mail.
Examples of new cloud-related products Microsoft plans to launch into the IUR program for select competency partners include a new Dynamics CRM Online Enterprise, Dynamics Employee Self Service, Dynamics CRM Online non-production instances, and Skype for Business PSTN Conferencing.
The IUR seat limits for Gold, Silver and the Action Pack will not change. The original MPN structure called for Gold to provide enough licenses to support a 100-employee partner organization, for Silver to support a 25-employee partner, and for Action Pack to support a 10-user partner.
Schuster's focus during her mainstage keynote at WPC and in an interview with RCP prior to the keynote was on Azure IUR, which are measured differently than other IUR because a seats-based approach doesn't fit. Azure-based IUR, a staple of the Cloud Platform competency, are meted out by Azure resource consumption.
In the just-completed Microsoft FY16, Cloud Platform partners with a Silver Competency got $6,000/year worth of Azure bulk credits and Gold Competency got $12,000. That was twice the amount of bulk credits that Cloud Platform partners got in FY15.
"I want to help you build more robust and innovative cloud solutions. So this year, we are doubling our Cloud Platform Internal Use Rights for you," Schuster said during her keynote at WPC last week. However, the spokesperson confirmed that those caps aren't changing from the $6,000 Silver/$12,000 Gold thresholds, which took effect midway through this last fiscal year. According to the spokesperson, Schuster's keynote comments referred to the broader doubling of investments in IUR, not to any change in the Cloud Platform competency benefits.
Even if details of the IUR expansion are still in flux, it's clear that Microsoft continues to recognize the strategic value to partners and to itself of IUR. Partners save on their internal IT infrastructure, get all their employees familiar with products across the stack that they might not otherwise use or be able to afford, get the ability to demo solutions, and are able to more affordably perform internal development and testing. The end result, according to Schuster's blog, is a win-win for Microsoft and its partners: "When partners use IURs, their deals are approximately three times larger."
In another IU development at WPC, SkyKick Co-CEO and Co-Founder Evan Richman said Microsoft and SkyKick will continue offering two of SkyKick's cloud-related products to partners through the Microsoft IUR benefit. The programs allow partners to use the SkyKick Migration Suite to move up to 500 seats of their business to Office 365 and grant them a perpetual use license for SkyKick Cloud Backup, which backs up Office 365 and OneDrive data to the Azure cloud.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 21, 20160 comments
Security vendor Sophos on Tuesday released an update of its mature encryption product focused on making encryption more of a no-brainer for midmarket customers who are interested in securing their files but have felt boxed-out of the technology by the difficulty of implementation.
"We're reimagining how encryption needs to work to become widely adopted, versus just being used in enterprises," said Marty Ward, vice president of product marketing at Sophos, in an interview.
The release of Sophos SafeGuard Encryption 8 takes what had been a file and disk encryption product and adds two key elements -- encryption of files by default and the extension of the encryption functionality for a customer to mobile devices, specifically iOS and Android.
"People used to have to classify data, decide how to encrypt it and then train all the users on how to use it. That seemed like a lot of work," Ward said. "Our focus is on simplicity and automation."
A 100 percent channel company, Sophos has an end user sweet spot of organizations with between 100 and 5,000 users, a customer demographic that the company's own research shows is growing more interested in encryption technologies, Ward said.
Sophos SafeGuard consists of a management server for management of encryption keys, a management console that IT uses to administer the product, agents for Windows and Mac laptops and PCs, and an app for iPhones and Android devices.
The intention of the new functionality is that any file that's created by a customer will be encrypted by default. It can be shared among employees, who are able to open the file if the Sophos software verifies that the user, the application and the device all check out and do not appear to be under any sort of active malware threat.
Sharing files outside of the organization can either be done by first decrypting the file, which is a logged event, or by creating a password for the file that will allow the file to be opened.
"It's a great opportunity for channel partners because what they can go in and do now is [say], 'This is not just a sale of encryption but it's tied in with mobile,'" Ward said.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 19, 20160 comments
- See our full WPC 2016 coverage here.
Microsoft will add 250 technical people to its field organization over the next year to help partners develop their cloud businesses.
"I want to help you build new cloud and hybrid practices on our advanced workloads, so we're investing more technical resources in the field, cloud architects, to help you build those new practices," said Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, during a keynote last week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC).
The types of workloads the new field resources will specialize in will include Power BI and data analytics, Schuster said in an interview with RCP.
"That brings our total people in the field dedicated to partner success, so people who are 'partner somethings' in the field, to 3,500. It's a pretty big investment," Schuster said.
The 250 new employees in Microsoft's fiscal year 2017, which runs from this month through June 2018, represent almost an 8 percent bump in partner-focused field staffing by Microsoft.
Schuster said the new employees will not be focused on particular customer segments, such as SMB or enterprise.
"What they're supposed to do, and the way that we'll govern them, is based on those partners they think have the highest potential in the market. It's not based on which customer sets are they going to go after. It's more about their solution and how they can help them build their solution and how invested that partner is in building that practice," Schuster said.
"If you get a great repeatable practice going with SMB customers or CTM customers, you can really outperform an enterprise partner. Or if you get some really great horizontal solution in the enterprise, you could outperform everybody. They're going to just be evaluating who do I think has the highest potential in the market to drive consumption," she said.
Also at WPC, Schuster unveiled a new marketing logo for Microsoft partners with Gold competencies that includes the Microsoft logo (see below).
"Part of our intention is to make it obvious to our customers who our best partners are, who our gold partners are, and so for the first time ever we're coupling the Microsoft logo to the Gold Partner brand. If you earn Gold, you've earned the right to have the Microsoft logo on your card," Schuster said. "You have to also share what your competencies are so the customer can get to the level of detail that you're good at the thing [they're] looking for."
Barb Levisay contributed to this report.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 18, 20160 comments
RCP analyzed the Worldwide Partner Conference session catalog to help partners get the most out of the show or to track it from the office. For more on WPC 2016, visit our event page here.
These are the buzzwords that have graduated, at least in terms of Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) sessions and Microsoft commitment and focus, to full-fledged partner opportunities with concrete tools, processes and guidance behind them.
1. IoT: The number of sessions about Internet of Things (IoT) opportunities seems substantially higher than a year ago, with many of them focused on nuts-and-bolts concerns like the capabilities of the Azure IoT Suite.
2. Power BI: The business intelligence-focused cloud service is on the verge of being a theme this year, with sessions on leveraging it on its own, with Dynamics CRM Online, with Salesforce.com and with ERP products, among others.
3. Power Apps: Microsoft's platform for building and deploying custom line-of-business applications is the star of several sessions this time.
4. Azure Stack: The ability for customers to run Azure on-premises was delivered in rough form a few years ago. But the new Azure Stack has much better parity with Microsoft's public cloud offering, leading to new partner opportunities.
5. Cortana Intelligence Suite: Intermingled with machine learning and many other Microsoft technologies, the Cortana Intelligence Suite is a backdrop of many case study-style presentations, as Microsoft moves to ramp up channel understanding of the capabilities.
6. StorSimple: Microsoft bought StorSimple in 2012 and released the Azure StorSimple virtual appliance to complement the physical appliance in 2014. This year, Microsoft is reaching out more aggressively to its channel with sessions designed to both introduce the StorSimple product and provide partnering details.
7. Cloud Platform Immersion Program: The Immersion programs are sales tools that are similar to the old Microsoft Experience Center (MEC) demos that Microsoft's field would often help partners use to give customers a full-stack experience to move a sale to close. Microsoft is running dozens of availabilities at the WPC for partners to get familiar with what a Cloud Platform Immersion Program demo would look like for their customers. Some of the available setups involve SQL Server 2016, Cortana Intelligence Suite, IoT, Enterprise Mobility Suite, System Center 2012 R2, Azure, StorSimple and Office 365.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 11, 20160 comments
RCP analyzed the Worldwide Partner Conference session catalog to help partners get the most out of the show or to track it from the office. For more on WPC 2016, visit our event page here.
Several columnists and regular contributors to Redmond Channel Partner magazine are presenting this week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto.
RCP Blogger, Columnist and Contributor Barb Levisay
• US05 - Connect to your customers through modern marketing
Tuesday, 2:30-3:30 p.m., North 104B (session repeats Wednesday, 4-5 p.m., in North 104C)
Speakers: Barb Levisay, Diane Golshan, Diana Ishak
"Your company's brand matters, and having a clear, actionable marketing plan for positioning your company with customers and for strategic partnerships is essential. In this panel discussion about modern marketing for U.S. partners, we share the tools, resources, and best practices for your partner business."
RCP Columnist Mike Harvath
• Are you growing to buy, or growing to sell your business?
Monday, 1-2 p.m., MPN Theater
Speakers: Mike Harvath, CEO; Reed Warren, VP
"This session will focus on your motivations for growing your business, and what you should do to optimize your business to acquire a complementary product or services firm and/or sell your business."
• Build, buy and/or sell your business. How to navigate this crazy market?
Wednesday 1-2 p.m., North 206EF
Speakers: Mike Harvath, CEO; Reed Warren, VP
"This session will focus on why the market highly values successful cloud services businesses, and how to become a top quartile cloud company."
• How to make your cloud services business a top quartile profit performer, and grow like crazy
Wednesday, 4-5 p.m., North 206EF
Speakers: Mike Harvath, CEO; Reed Warren, VP
This session is another look from a slightly different angle on why the market highly values successful cloud services businesses, and how to become a top quartile cloud company.
RCP Contributor Eric Rabinowitz
• Customer Experience: The new competitive differentiator
Monday, 4-5 p.m., South 709
Speakers: Eric Rabinowitz, Jennifer Tomlinson, Ray Meiring, Nate Kristy
"Learn how to build compelling personal conversations with your prospects and customers across the buying journey. Hear tips from savvy partners who have cracked the code on customer engagement."
RCP Contributor Jeff Hilton
• Step it up: Use partner mashups to increase revenues
Tuesday, 1-1:30 p.m., Community Hub Theater
Speaker: Jeff Hilton
"According to IDC, cloud partners sell $5.87 of their own offerings for every $1 of Microsoft. That's a nice multiplier! Don't have these offerings? Take solutions from other partners, and do a mashup of products and services to create perfect solutions for your target market. That sounds super easy, but before you jump in, you'll want to ask and answer some very important questions."
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 11, 20160 comments
RCP analyzed the Worldwide Partner Conference session catalog to help partners get the most out of the show or to track it from the office. For more on WPC 2016, visit our event page here.
A cheat sheet for terms you might be hearing from Microsoft for the first time at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC).
1. Madeira: It's billed as a project for small companies that have grown beyond simple financial tools but who haven't gotten to the point where they need full-fledged ERP systems.
2. Blockchain: Best known as the underpinning of Bitcoin, Microsoft has a surprisingly deep and wide commitment to blockchain for a number of applications. Blockchain is also referred to as the distributed ledger platform.
3. Microsoft Flow: This is a service for automating workflow across Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products.
4. ASfP: Short for Advanced Support for Partners, ASfP is the newest partner support option, and it lives between MPN Technical Services and Premier Support. There's also a summer promotion to save $2,500 on the first year of ASfP.
5. Skip: A mobile checkout technology, Skip allows customers to walk in to a store, scan an item, pay and walk out. "Can an Uber-like experience revitalize retail?" the session description asks.
6. Windows SMB: This isn't exactly a buzzword; it's more like a placeholder for news, as we're not sure what it's called. The session title is "Completing the Stack: New Partner-Managed Service Opportunities for SMBs with Windows." The description reads, "In this session we share details of a NEW Windows offering that has been designed specifically for SMBs and partners with managed service offerings. This new offering will enable simpler access to core security and management features of the Windows operating system for SMBs with more complex IT requirements and sophisticated security needs."
7. Proximity Software: This is an interesting subset of the Internet of Things (IoT). A longer name is beacon-based proximity software and the purpose is to retrofit physical spaces for the digital age.
8. R: The language of machine learning, which stands in here for machine learning generally, and both topics will be popping up all over the WPC.
9. HoloLens: The virtual augmentation headgear is still science-fictiony as Microsoft continues to refine the prototypes to get them ready for their first commercial release. HoloLens is sure to be the hot selfie opportunity at the WPC. Having a picture taken with a HoloLens on your head at a Microsoft event is now as obligatory as proof you were there as getting a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
10. Windows as a Service: Microsoft confusingly called its new way of building, deploying and servicing its OS Windows as a Service. People assume that Windows as a Service means Microsoft is delivering Windows the way many customers say they want it -- in a SaaS model. Now Microsoft has had to go back and explain to partners, who can then explain to customers, that it's something different.
11. DevOps: Several sessions are dedicated to explaining the basics and benefits of the DevOps mindset to the broad partner community.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 08, 20160 comments
RCP analyzed the Worldwide Partner Conference session
catalog to help partners get the
most out of the show or to track it from the office. For more on WPC 2016, visit our event page here.
There will always be surprises at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). Otherwise, what would be the point of attending? (Oh, yeah, the networking.) Anyway, here are a few major themes you can expect to hear a lot about.
1. Building the Intelligent Cloud: A few years ago, it might have been worth calling out Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online, Microsoft Azure or hybrid cloud as themes. Now, those technologies form the backdrop against which the majority of the sessions are set. Look at almost every session description and it deals with the Microsoft cloud stack in some way.
Other technology themes spanning much of the session content, according to a Microsoft spokesperson, include "Reinventing Productivity and Business Processes," "Creating More Personal Computing" and "Digital Transformation."
2. Partner Profitability: Dozens of sessions involve advice, panel discussions and case studies of the ways partners are structuring their businesses to maximize profitability, particularly around the cloud.
3. New Buyer: While we only found one session covering this topic, it's been a recurring talking point out of Microsoft of late. The idea is that as cloud applications become quicker to set up and require, or seem to require, less integration, the IT department no longer has sole ownership of technology spending.
4. M&A: Several sessions at the WPC cover mergers and acquisitions, growth strategies with an exit strategy in mind, and related topics. It's not just Microsoft providing this content. The appetite for M&A sessions is exploding across various vendors' partner conferences.
5. Meet the New Channel Chief: At Microsoft, the channel chief tends to go by the official title of corporate vice president (CVP) of the Worldwide Partner Group (WPG). Gavriella Schuster was named to that role in late June after former channel chief Phil Sorgen moved into a CVP job within the U.S. Enterprise & Partner Group.
Expect some introductions to Schuster at the conference, although she's a familiar figure to partners, having delivered keynotes at the last two WPCs.
In the meantime, Schuster provided her own brief preview of the themes for WPC in an e-mailed statement to RCP: "Meeting with partners throughout the year is one of the highlights of my job, but WPC is really something special and I look forward to it each year. This year I'm personally excited for the opportunity to thank our partners, and to talk with them about what they can do right now to grow their business, and share how Microsoft is investing to connect our partners with customers."
6. LinkedIn Deal: Microsoft's blockbuster deal to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 billion has a lot of implications for partners. It might not be discussed from the main stage, but it will definitely be a topic of conversation in the hallways and around lunch tables.
7. SharePoint: Microsoft unveiled major updates to SharePoint in recent months, and there's a lot of unpacking of partner opportunity to do in the WPC sessions this year.
8. Skype for Business: A lot of sessions cover Microsoft's unified communications offering, a good signal of the strategic importance of the platform for Microsoft in fiscal year 2017.
9. Cloud Solution Provider (CSP): The 2015 WPC was the debutante ball for Microsoft's CSP program. While there may be less hype, there are a lot more specifics on CSP coming at the 2016 WPC, including roadmap sessions, details on integrating CSP with a Microsoft practice and educational sessions from Microsoft's CSP distribution partners.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 07, 20160 comments
RCP analyzed the Worldwide Partner Conference session
catalog to help partners get the
most out of the show or to track it from the office. For more on WPC 2016, visit our event page here.
Some call it coopetition, others call the companies involved frenemies. In any case, they're the tech giants that fight each other in some areas and work together in other ways.
1. Oracle: Some things never change. Microsoft may have taken away the "enemies list" that doesn't allow certain competitors to attend the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). But with SQL Server 2016 hitting the market, there's still a session in the WPC catalog about Oracle compete opportunities.
2. AWS: Amazon Web Services doesn't get mentioned by name. But when it comes to a session titled, "Five Success Principles To Compete and Win in IaaS/PaaS Public Cloud," who else would they be talking about?
3. Red Hat: Shifting gears from compete to cooperate, Microsoft has several sessions dedicated to strategic alliance vendors. One is open source OS heavyweight Red Hat Inc. Among several sessions, one includes a lot of detail about how partners can leverage the Microsoft-Red Hat alliance.
4. Docker: A few sessions cover Azure Container Services and third-party technologies that work in those containers, such as Docker.
5. Salesforce: In a very specific session, Microsoft is pointing partners to the opportunities in using Power BI with Salesforce.com in order to set up a dashboard that exposes a data warehouse on Azure and Power BI reports on behalf of customers. The same Power BI capabilities are featured in a parallel session involving Dynamics CRM instead of Salesforce.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 07, 20160 comments
Rackspace announced it has become a 2-Tier distributor in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program on Thursday.
The rare designation means that companies in the Rackspace Partner Network will be able to resell or refer Office 365 and Microsoft Azure to customers.
Microsoft's CSP program has three main levels: 1-Tier, 2-Tier distributors and 2-Tier resellers. The 1-Tier partners get to sell Microsoft cloud products directly to customers in their own services bundles, handling billing and support themselves. Until Thursday, Rackspace had been a 1-Tier partner.
The 2-Tier distributors are a more elite group that sit between Microsoft and the customer-facing 2-Tier reseller partner. The 2-Tier reseller buys the Office 365 or Azure service from the 2-Tier distributor on the customer's behalf or, in some cases, refers the sale to the 2-Tier distributor. Details vary depending on the 2-Tier distributor's program.
Already operating as 2-Tier distributors in the United States are App River, Ingram Micro, Intermedia, SherWeb, Synnex and Tech Data. Worldwide there were nearly three dozen last year, although Rackspace says fewer than 10 hosting providers globally offer the entire Microsoft cloud suite.
The Rackspace arrangement, formally called the Rackspace Reseller and Referral Program for Fanatical Support for Azure and Office 365, will offer the 5-time Microsoft Hosting Partner of the Year's signature "Fanatical Support" as part of the offering. Other features of the CSP offering that Rackspace's 2,800 resellers can leverage include customer migration and deployment assistance, support escalations, a dedicated reseller program team and sales/marketing support.
Both Office 365 and Azure will be available to Rackspace's U.S. partners, while an Azure-only version will be offered in other geographies.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 07, 20160 comments
RCP analyzed the Worldwide Partner Conference session
catalog to help partners get the
most out of the show or to track it from the office. For more on WPC 2016, visit our event page here.
These Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) sessions are unlikely to transform anyone's business, but
they promise to be entertaining, thought-provoking or both.
1. Trust and the Microsoft Cloud: A year ago Microsoft's top lawyer Brad Smith made his first WPC appearance with a well-received talk about the company's attempts to balance government investigatory requests with customers' privacy expectations. Microsoft is taking the topic further this year with a session on the Microsoft Trusted and National Cloud offerings.
2. #cloudready: A few sessions about "Building a #cloudready Business" (hashtag Microsoft's) require partners to do some homework first. An online cloud self-assessment tool takes 15 minutes and will give attendees some baseline information for the discussion.
3. Partner-to-Partner (P2P) Challenges/Solutions: The cloud tool isn't the only self-assessment tool prepared for the WPC. Microsoft also created a P2P Assessment app for partners to download ahead of the session. The exercise is supposed to help partners step through a P2P Maturity Model. In addition to the assessment-based sessions, Microsoft is also holding sessions encouraging partners to expand into the CRM Online business by teaming up with Dynamics partners.
4. The Dogfood Sessions: Microsoft IT will run several sessions at the WPC explaining how Microsoft's self-described first, best customer uses the company's technologies.
5. Enabling the Journey to Cloud: Julia White, who leads product management of the Microsoft Cloud Platform, will outline the theoretical progression customers could make across Microsoft's stack from on-premises to hybrid to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Platform as a Service (PaaS).
6. The Future of Technology: A Microsoft Distinguished Engineer, James Whittaker, will walk attendees through the history of technology to arrive at "some startling predictions" about Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT), according to the session description.
7. Security Trends: Microsoft Chief Information Security
Officer Bret Arsenault is providing an overview of the threats keeping CISOs like himself awake at night, along with a discussion of solutions to help manage those problems.
8. What's Next for Windows 10 Mobile: Anyone looking for specifics in Microsoft's muddy mobile strategy might find a few details in this session. Interestingly, amid many sessions on Microsoft devices, at least one session includes a mention of the Lumia line of smartphones.
9. Pop Culture: A couple of fun session titles could signal good sessions. One is "Business Lessons from the Grateful Dead." The other is "Kirk vs. Spock: How To Make 25th Century Decisions."
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 06, 20160 comments