As Apple got ready to roll out the iPad 2, RCPmag.com ran a story on "23 Intriguing iPad Apps for Microsoft Partners." For the April print issue of Redmond Channel Partner magazine, we expanded that list to 47 apps, with new entries in the categories of Microsoft Office Integration, Integration with Microsoft Servers and Remote Desktop. We also added an entire category called Heterogeneous Kit. If you read the original version and just want to see the 24 newly added apps, look for the items numbered in red.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 04, 20110 comments
One of the thorniest decisions Microsoft partners face this year is how to slot their companies into the newly changed structure of the Microsoft Partner Network. Companies that have been Gold Certified Partners for years must decide in 2011 which competency or competencies they'll focus on. Even with that decision made, they must then choose whether to pursue that competency to the gold level or to the silver level, or forego the competencies altogether and concentrate on just being a Small Business Specialist or Action Pack subscriber.
In the Redmond Channel Partner magazine annual reader survey this year, we asked partners what they're going to do. We gave readers a lot of options. Would they pursue one gold competency, multiple gold competencies, one silver competency, multiple silver competencies or a mix of gold and silver competencies? They also had the chance to select concentrating primarily on being a Small Business Specialist, a Subscriber or a Communities/QuickStarts member. Some partners admitted they weren't sure yet, and a few said they'll drop out of Microsoft's program.
By breaking out the answers into three charts depending on whether a reader started as a Gold Certified Partner, Certified Partner or Registered Member under the old Microsoft Partner Program, we give you a way to benchmark your MPN decisions against your peers.
Check out the results on these questions, and many, many others in the RCP Reader Survey here.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 31, 20110 comments
Count me among the skeptics on the recent IDC forecast that puts Windows Phone's market share in second place in 2015 behind Google Android. The market research firm basically transferred Nokia's Symbian market share now to Microsoft later. I know IDC's job is to quantify the unquantifiable (and I think it does it as responsibly as possible), but the smartphone market is moving way, way too fast and too unpredictably for anyone to make worthwhile forecasts even three months out, let alone for 2015.
A Microsoft blog post this week emphasized the only kinds of numbers that are worth much right now: current data. In a post called "A Year Later -- The Windows Phone 7 Numbers That Matter," Brandon Watson put the focus on developers. That's the right place to concentrate efforts for now, and developers have been Microsoft's main focus in many of the company's successful efforts in the past.
The top line number is the overall apps available for Windows Phone 7. Watson says Microsoft is up to 11,500 -- that's 1,500 above the count of 10,000 that Microsoft provided two weeks earlier, and 2,500 better than the unofficial count the Business Insider blog provided at the beginning of March. Microsoft has a long way to go to reach the 350,000 apps that Business Insider listed for the Apple iPhone and the 250,000 for Google's Android, but the momentum is strong.
Of course, as commenters noted in my last post on this topic, the crap-to-killer app ratio in the Apple and Google stores can be pretty high. Watson attempted to address this question in his blog by focusing on a few other numbers. He noted that 7,500 of the Microsoft apps are paid apps and that 44 percent of those offer a trial version.
Redmond also appears to be rallying its substantial developer army behind the Windows Phone flag, according to some other numbers from Watson. He said there have been 1.5 million downloads of the Windows Phone Developer Tools and that there are 36,000 developers who have paid to join Microsoft's AppHub community of Windows Phone developers.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 31, 20110 comments
- Keep updated with the latest WPC news at RCP's WPC 2011 page here.
We blogged on Monday that although registration for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference was underway, session information was a little behind schedule. Since then, Microsoft has posted details on 48 sessions coming to WPC in July.
That's probably less than a quarter of the total number of sessions that will be held, but a few sessions are already catching our attention. In no particular order, here are 11 interesting sessions on the schedule for WPC '11 in Los Angeles.
1. "Deep Dive: Crescent"
Crescent is a new BI interactive visualization tool for business users. Live data linked through PowerPoint in a feature called Storyboarding? Pretty cool.
2. "Deep Dive: The Value of SQL Server Denali in Large Accounts"
Interesting topic. Better still, the session description promises: "Several demos and no marketing."
3. "Scaling Your Database in the Cloud: SQL Azure"
According to the description, the session will look at real-world situations and cover tuning for experience and performance. Time permitting, the session may also touch on SQL Azure's new reporting capabilities.
4.-7. "Seizing the Business Mobility Opportunity with Windows Phone"
An introductory class in the Windows Phone track, Microsoft is expecting the session to be so popular that they've scheduled it twice. This is one of many sessions on Windows Phone already on the agenda. Other interesting titles include "Grow Your SharePoint and Exchange Business with Windows Phone" and "The 5 Things You Need to Know about Developing Successful Windows Phone Solutions." One called "Best Practices to Take to Market and Monetize Your Windows Phone Solution" might be heavily attended by Microsoft employees, given the company's relaxed moonlighting rules.
8. "Industry: Disrupt, Compete and Succeed by Enabling LoB Solutions and Applications in the Cloud with Windows Azure!"
For some partners, "disrupt" is a scary word. For others, it's an exciting word. Both groups might want to hit this session.
9. "IW: Delivering the Future of Productivity to Your Customers with Microsoft Office 365"
Looks like a good entry-level session for partners who haven't started selling Microsoft's cloud offerings yet (which would be most partners).
10. "Server & Tools: Making it Rain with Clouds"
The topic is partner profitability with full cloud solutions on Microsoft's infrastructure products, System Center and private cloud. The session description adds: "We'll explore the benefits of obtaining a Gold competency in Cloud or Virtualization." There is no Cloud competency, yet. Typo or leak?
11. "IW: Introducing Microsoft Lync"
A U.S. Partner track course on the follow-on product to Microsoft Office Communications Server.
Check out Microsoft's initial session list at Digital WPC.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 29, 20110 comments
The Microsoft high-value promotion that returns up to 68 percent of first-year Business Productivity Online Suite revenues to U.S. partners got an extension for most of April.
MicrosoftSMB tweeted Monday, "The deadline for [Microsoft's] Business Productivity Online Services reward has been extended to 4/18!" The BPOS Customer Rewards Offer had been scheduled to expire April 1.
This is the deal I highlighted here earlier this month that gives customers subsidy checks made out to their favorite Microsoft partners for hardware, software or services. The check is for half the value of a first-year BPOS subscription of 5 to 25 seats (between $300 and $1,500). If the partner is also the partner of record earning 18 percent first-year BPOS margins, that's a 68 percent margin from Microsoft for the year. The deal also applies to Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and deskless editions of the products.
Microsoft posted subsidy details here.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 29, 20110 comments
A new analyst report shows a rebound in merger and acquisition activity among tech vendors in 2010, providing a fuller picture of the backdrop to much of the dealmaking among solution providers last year.
In its "2010 Tech M&A Analysis Report" released this week, IDC analysts identified 1,900 M&A deals worth over $200 billion in the information and communications technology sector.
According to IDC, application-related areas accounted for the majority of last year's deals. IDC identified 586 deals in enterprise applications and 421 deals in Internet applications. Another big area was the infrastructure segment with 219 deals. High-profile deals included Intel's $7.7 billion acquisition of McAfee and SAP's $5.8 billion acquisition of Sybase.
"The renewed confidence accompanying the recovery in IT spending helped to make 2010 a turnaround year for technology M&A activity," said IDC analyst Dan Yachin in a statement. "Looking ahead, IDC expects 2011 to be another active year as companies make strategic investments in a variety of critical areas, such as converged infrastructure, mobile content, service creation and enablement, data analytics (and the supporting infrastructure), and pervasive computing."
IDC's assessment of the overall market fits with the recent activity among Microsoft partner companies. In an in-depth article "Consolidation in the Microsoft Channel," RCP identified some of the biggest deals among Microsoft partners in 2010. Those included Aspect Software-Quilogy, Avtex-Inetium-Convergent, Avanade-Ascentium, ClearPointe-Do IT Smarter, Heartland Technology Solutions-CNS, Tallan-twentysix New York, Avnet-Bell Micro, Open Text-Burntsand, Perficient-speakTECH and Atos Origin-Siemens.
While Microsoft partners have been active, Microsoft itself hasn't ramped up acquisition activity to pre-recession levels.
In its news release about the study, IDC wrote, "The most active companies on the M&A landscape were Google, which made 27 deals in 2010, followed by AOL and Facebook with 9 deals each. Among the major IT vendors, Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Oracle, and VMware all displayed a renewed appetite for acquisitions."
Microsoft is notably absent from that list. According to the Acquisition History section of Microsoft's Investor Relations Web site, the company made only three acquisitions last year: Sentillion in February, AVIcode in October and Canesta in November. The company's page for 2011 acquisitions is blank.
By comparison, Microsoft acquired six companies in 2009, and 16 in 2008 up through late August when the financial meltdown brought dealmaking to a screeching halt.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 29, 20110 comments
Even as early-bird registration is off to an apparently fast start, the specifics for the keynotes and sessions in the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference are relatively sparse.
Microsoft is currently promising keynotes from CEO Steve Ballmer, COO Kevin Turner and Jon Roskill, corporate vice president of the Worldwide Partner Group. Ballmer and Turner are regular keynoters at WPC. Roskill stepped into Allison Watson's role during WPC last year, both as Microsoft's worldwide channel chief and as a combination keynoter and master of ceremonies for the week-long show.
Details of when the three executives will speak this year aren't yet listed on the Microsoft's Digital WPC site. The agenda currently has open slots for what Microsoft calls Vision Keynotes from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. each day on Monday, July 11; Tuesday, July 12; and Wednesday, July 13.
There are usually other speakers during the Vision Keynotes, as well, although Microsoft will have to look further to fill the spots. Three of five other keynotes from 2010 have either left or are leaving the company. Last year, partners heard keynotes from Brad Brooks, Stephen Elop, Andy Lees, Bob Muglia and Tami Reller. Elop left to take the reins at Nokia, Brooks joined Juniper Networks and Muglia is leaving Microsoft this summer.
Information on the WPC sessions, during which partners get the product roadmap and business best practice information that present a core part of the value of WPC, is slightly delayed, according to the WPC site. Microsoft had planned to post session descriptions on March 23 when early-bird registration went live, but the site information had still not been posted this morning. Microsoft also doesn't have information posted yet about what hands-on labs will be offered.
Nonetheless, most partners tell us they get more value out of the networking opportunities at WPC with peers, vendors and Microsoft partner account managers and other employees than from the content itself. A delay in content descriptions doesn't seem to be hampering early registrations.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is providing a detailed listing of more than two dozen tracks it will offer this year for partners.
Solution tracks include application platform, business productivity 2010, server and cloud, Microsoft Dynamics, Windows Phone and Windows: Accelerating Revenue Opportunities for Partner.
Business model tracks are developers, distributor, hosting infrastructure, ISV, LAR, learning solutions, OEM, reseller, system integrator/solution partner, software asset management, telco/managed services, and Web developer.
Customer segment and industries tracks include communications sector, enterprise partner, industry partner, public sector, and small- and midsize-business partner.
Professional development tracks cover business leadership, marketing, sales and innovation/design.
Microsoft is also offering a regional track for U.S. partners.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 28, 20110 comments
- Keep updated with the latest WPC news at RCP's WPC 2011 page here.
Interest in the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference was so strong when early-bird registration began last week that the spike in activity caused problems on Microsoft's registration page.
"We are currently experiencing high registration volumes and are actively addressing the issues. We will publish an updated news item as soon as these issues have been resolved. Thank you for your patience and we look forward to seeing you in LA this July," Microsoft wrote on the WPC event blog on March 23, the day early-bird registration opened. The problem was fixed about 45 minutes later, according to a subsequent post. Neither post explained the problems.
As of Sunday, Microsoft said 1,460 attendees had registered for WPC, which runs from July 10 to 14 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Early-bird registration runs through April 25 and costs $1,695, a $300 discount from the standard partner registration price.
Microsoft has high hopes for attendance in 2011. According to a brochure for potential sponsors and exhibitors, the projected audience for the international show is 13,000 partners, along with 2,000 press, industry analysts and Microsoft team members.
Microsoft is telling potential exhibitors that the show should draw about 65 percent of its attendees from overseas and 35 percent from the United States. That international/U.S. ratio would be higher than in the past. Pie charts elsewhere in the exhibitor brochure show about 48 percent of attendees came from the United States in 2010, when Microsoft held the event in Washington, D.C.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 28, 20110 comments
Microsoft is making an all-out effort to attract managed services providers to its new cloud-based Windows Intune platform, commissioning best practice guidance for partners from IDC and integrating with both major professional services automation platforms.
One of the big questions around Windows Intune was how serious Microsoft was about the MSP market. MSPs have never really had a specific landing place in the Microsoft Partner Network. Microsoft toyed with providing MSP tools in the past with a special version of System Center, but later backed away from that product. Even with Windows Intune, the MSP play seemed like an afterthought to a product intended for in-house IT departments, with Microsoft only adding the critical multi-account console in the Beta 2 release in July.
But with the Windows Intune launch last week at the Microsoft Management Summit, Microsoft showed it has been thinking carefully about what MSPs need to succeed with the tool.
"Based on partner requests, we have released guidance on how to integrate Windows Intune with commonly used professional software automation (PSA) tools like Autotask and ConnectWise," wrote Gavriella Schuster on the Windows for your Business Blog in the Windows Intune availability announcement.
In its own announcement of integration, ConnectWise called Windows Intune a remote management and monitoring service, which puts Microsoft in a category with tools from Kaseya, Level Platforms, N-Able, Zenith Infotech and others.
The integration with ConnectWise creates an integrated workflow for problem alerting, tracking, remediation and some billing, according to ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini.
"We expect partners using Windows Intune to manage and maintain complicated PC infrastructures will realize greater efficiency, productivity and profitability thanks to this integration," Bellini said in a statement. "MSPs have been early adopters of cloud computing, and Microsoft is to be commended for developing another RMM tool for the ConnectWise community."
Windows Intune is also "Ready-For-Autotask," which that East Greenbush, N.Y.-based vendor defines as "third-party products that integrate with, and add value to, the Autotask platform."
"It's important that VARs, MSPs and other technology solutions providers have options when selecting the tools they use to service their clients," Autotask CEO Mark Cattini said in a statement about Intune. "As the cloud-based IT business management platform of choice, and to better serve our users, Autotask is committed to supporting all vendors in the IT services ecosystem that wish to integrate with our platform."
In a blog entry, Microsoft global channel chief Jon Roskill made the case that Intune pads Microsoft's entire cloud portfolio for partners. "Joining Office 365, Windows Azure and Dynamics CRM Online, Windows Intune brings expanded protection to customers and new cloud revenue opportunities to partners," Roskill wrote. Office 365 is the successor to the Business Productivity Online Suite, and is expected to go live this summer.
One Seattle-based early adopter partner with a substantial Microsoft cloud practice is finding Intune to be a "great addition" to its services business. In a video case study for Microsoft, Aaron Nettles, CEO of Vorsite Corp., said, "For Vorsite, I think the more products that are moved to the cloud, the larger our service revenue will be, especially around the managed side."
Vorsite recently emerged in a leaked list as one of the top 10 Microsoft partners in the United States in terms of BPOS customer deployments. In the video, Nettles said Vorsite has migrated 90 customers and about 4,000 seats to the Microsoft cloud.
"I think Intune will finally give a compelling story to a lot of service businesses that are sitting on the fence and waiting for the revenue stream or for the business model to kind of play out. I think Intune will finally give them a compelling reason to move their practices to the cloud," Nettles said.
Another partner who is seeing that opportunity is Steve Hall, CEO of District Computers in Washington, D.C. A beta tester for both Intune and its integration with ConnectWise, Hall said Intune gives partners a way to reach formerly unreachable end users. "It's a very affordable management solution that end users can embrace because it's coming from Microsoft [and] being managed by a partner," Hall said in a statement. Windows Intune costs about $11 per user per month for desktop management and security features and Windows 7 Enterprise upgrade rights. For an extra $1 per user per month, organizations can get access to the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, which is normally reserved for Software Assurance customers.
Hall was one of a dozen partners in North America and Europe that IDC channel analyst Darren Bibby interviewed for the 17-page, Microsoft-sponsored whitepaper, "The Windows Intune Partner Opportunity: A Blueprint for Success." According to Bibby, nearly all partners interviewed for the project had a positive attitude about Intune.
"New opportunities include opening PC management to new markets, including smaller businesses that could not previously afford PC management; increasing deal size, particularly for businesses with large numbers of noncorporate attached PCs; and removing barriers to sales and adoption of PC management services," Bibby writes. "Further, included offerings like Windows 7 Enterprise upgrade rights and optional Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) upgrade rights provide additional areas of opportunity. In fact, the partners who were able to venture an estimate projected that Windows Intune would help them grow their PC management businesses by an average of 19 percent over the first full year of operations."
Some questions remain, and the IDC whitepaper lays out several. One is Microsoft's direct billing approach, where partners receive partner-of-record fees, but the customer gets the bill directly from Microsoft. While it's potentially a huge issue for MSPs, Microsoft executives are trying to deal with the issue across the company's portfolio of cloud offerings and some sort of fix is widely anticipated after the Office 365 launch. Other questions Bibby raises from his partner interviews are about Microsoft's ongoing commitment to improving the MSP-focused product and questions about the relatively limited number of internal use rights Microsoft gives partners to try out Intune compared to its other cloud products.
The billing issue aside, these questions seem secondary. The main question is whether Microsoft is for real in the MSP market. The moves Microsoft has made since this summer suggest strongly that the answer is yes.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 28, 20110 comments
Every Microsoft partner knows that there's a multiplier around Microsoft revenues that winds up in partners' pockets. It's why there's a Microsoft channel, or why any vendor has a channel.
How much that ecosystem is worth is anyone's guess. Microsoft makes a college try at quantifying it every year or so with the help of market researchers at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC.
Most years, the figure comes in at around $8 or $9 depending on the Microsoft product, with some going to hardware OEMs, some going for add-on software, and some going for deployment and solution services.
During an online partner forum this month, Jon Roskill, Microsoft's corporate vice president of the Worldwide Partner Group, engaged in the parlor game of projecting that ecosystem multiplier out against the global economy.
Crediting IDC, Roskill said, "One of the most interesting points for me is for every $1 of Microsoft software that is sold, partners make an $8.70 multiplier on top of that. So when you multiply the $8.70 out by the $65-roughly-billion Microsoft does, you wind up in the $580 billion range. The thing that I think is kind of amusing about that is if you put it on the world GDP stack rank," Roskill said.
According to a list of countries by GDP on Wikipedia, which sources the 2010 list by the IMF, that puts the Microsoft partner ecosystem between No. 18 Indonesia ($695 billion) and No. 19 Switzerland ($522 billion).
Said Roskill, "So collectively our ecosystem is significant."
Within that ecosystem, IDC provided a breakout by partner type in a whitepaper released by Microsoft today (PDF). IDC estimated that the average partner ecosystem revenues for each $1 of Microsoft revenues was $8.70 in 2009, but it varied by partner type. Here's how IDC broke out revenues by different partner types:
- Product-oriented partners such as ISVs or IHVs made $4.09,
- Services-oriented partners such as systems integrators or hosters made $2.44,
- Value-added partners made $2.30,
- Logistics-oriented partners such as large account resellers made $2.70 and
- Retail logistics partners such as large electronics stores made $2.93.
Meanwhile, IDC's $580 billion estimate for the size of the Microsoft partner ecosystem applies to 2010. The market research firm expects the figure could rise to about $800 billion in the next few years. In a statement, IDC analyst Darren Bibby said, "The Microsoft ecosystem has achieved impressive results and has a very bright future."
(Ed's Note: For more news from the Microsoft Partner Network Interactive Leadership Forum, click here.)
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 24, 20110 comments
Vanity Fair, which does some of the best general-interest, magazine-length journalism in the country, published an exhaustive 11-page article for its April issue on Stuxnet.
Author Michael Joseph Gross nails the central issue when he concludes that Stuxnet is "something new under the sun." Although some critics accuse Gross of breathlessness in his declaration that "Stuxnet is the Hiroshima of cyber-war," the statement seems warranted. It's fairly obvious that Gross isn't arguing that Stuxnet threatens Armageddon the way the uranium bomb on Hiroshima did in 1945. A sympathetic reading is that Stuxnet represents the point when something previously theoretical or only lab-tested is unleashed in pursuit of national aims and changes future geopolitical calculations.
In leading up to that conclusion, Gross does a solid job of showing how the murky intent behind Stuxnet appears to have put Western governments in conflict. Even as evidence emerges that points strongly to the United States and Israel as the sources of the complex code that probably targeted the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, the apparent desire for plausible deniability put many U.S. allies in a state of relative panic in the early days of Stuxnet's discovery. Not knowing what the code did or who it came from gave other Western governments reason to be concerned about their infrastructure.
Gross provides interesting character sketches for some of the key players, including Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, and Frank Rieger of Berlin's Chaos Computer Club. Although, for what it's worth, one character so sketched is quite unhappy with his portrayal: Ralph Langner, a key figure in the drama of unwinding Stuxnet.
When I wrote about Stuxnet in September, I argued that Microsoft partners' best hope is that Microsoft wasn't so shockingly short-sighted as to allow itself to be involved. Should governments and businesses outside the United States become convinced that Microsoft is willing to collaborate with U.S. intelligence agencies to coordinate attacks, Microsoft's international operating system business could disintegrate awfully quickly.
In that light, Gross had an inflammatory statement from Kaspersky, who is quoted as saying, "We are coming to the very dangerous zone. The next step, if we are speaking in this way, if we are discussing this in this way, the next step is that there were a call from Washington to Seattle to help with the source code."
Given the extremely odd phrasing of that quote, and given Langner's complaints about his treatment by the writer, I suspect that Kaspersky was being led out onto a long ledge of hypotheticals by Gross.
The more important aspect of what Gross accomplishes in the article is a relatively detailed timeline from the quiet damage Stuxnet began inflicting in the summer of 2009 to its discovery by an obscure security firm in Belarus in June 2010 up through the developments of recent months.
Even better is the fuller picture this narrative approach to the story allows Gross to draw of the multi-faceted Stuxnet attack. As researchers understand it, Stuxnet originally infected computers at an Iranian nuclear facility via a witting or unwitting contractor with a USB stick. Contained on the USB drive was a rootkit dropper and a heavily encrypted injector. The components hid themselves as soon as they got to the host, apparently so effectively that it took more than a year for vigilant security researchers to even get wind of the package. The code exploited an unprecedented four zero-day Windows flaws. Zero-day vulnerabilities are so valuable that a single vulnerability can command up to $100,000 on the black market, according to the article. Another new element: Stuxnet used a stolen digital signature from Realtek to conceal itself.
A few details highlight the full-spectrum nature of the attack. While the worm's sophisticated coding made it highly self-sufficient, it had ongoing assistance from somewhere. At least three variants were released -- in summer 2009, in March 2010 and in April 2010. The worms phoned home to command and control servers in Denmark and Malaysia. Once the digital signature from Realtek was detected, Stuxnet's creators had another stolen digital signature from JMicron ready to replace it. On a day in July 2010 when Stuxnet's existence became widely known, someone launched a distributed denial-of-service attack on a Web site for an important global mailing list about industrial control security. Then there are the November bombing assassinations of two nuclear scientists in Iran, which have been speculatively linked to the Stuxnet project.
Back to the code itself, Gross makes a strong case for government involvement in citing security researchers who believe they've found the programming styles of at least 30 different programmers and estimate the project took at least six months of coding work. The code targeted programmable logic controllers or PLCs, the little boxes that run industrial processes from spinning uranium centrifuges to filling Oreo cookies. Stuxnet was coded to seek industrial control software from Siemens of Germany and a particular configuration of frequency converter drives (for controlling centrifuges) made by Fararo Paya of Iran and Vacon of Finland. Those specific targets show the combination in the code of digital work (think NSA writing the weaponized worm) and human intelligence (think CIA or Mossad providing the details of Natanz' infrastructure). Finally, the Vanity Fair article makes a compelling argument that Stuxnet shows evidence of bureaucratic lawyering in the limit of infections to three systems and a self-destruct date of June 24, 2012.
Despite some questions about the reporting, the whole article is well worth a read as a fairly nuanced narrative of what's known and what's widely suspected to this point about one of the most significant events yet in cyber espionage.
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 22, 20111 comments
Partners that are slow out of the gate on selling the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services can take heart from a recently leaked set of Microsoft data.
Joe Panettieri of Talkin' Cloud published what he described as a Microsoft-generated list of the top 10 U.S. channel partners by BPOS deals deployed. He said the list came from sources close to Microsoft.
The number of deals is relatively low for a product that's been out since 2009, although Joe mentions that some of the deals involve tens of thousands of seats. Still, it indicates that while the hype around cloud is high, the number of deals among even the most aggressive partners shows that the market isn't anywhere near saturated.
According to Talkin' Cloud, the top partners are CDW LLC with 390 customers, LiveOffice with 125, StrategicSaaS LLC with 95, MessageOps with 85, Cloud Strategies LLC with 75, Software House International with 70, SoftChoice with 70, Vorsite Corp. with 70, Dell with 65 and Champion Solutions Group with 65. Microsoft declined to comment.
The list makes sense in terms of companies represented. CDW as a direct-market reseller is one of the biggest U.S. sellers by volume across the Microsoft product portfolio. LiveOffice, Strategic SaaS and Cloud Strategies are all companies Microsoft pointed RCP to in July in an article we ran about cloud pioneers. Software House International, SoftChoice and Dell are all large account resellers for Microsoft.
It's also in line with requirements in Microsoft's U.S. Cloud Champions Club, a U.S. program to provide incentives and benefits for selling BPOS. There's a minimum number of deals that partners have to close for each of the three tiers in the program. The lowest tier is three BPOS deals, the second tier is eight deals and the top tier is 20 deals.
One other data point: We recently completed our annual RCP Reader Survey (keep an eye out for the April issue for details). As we do every year, we asked how many partners were actively reselling Microsoft's cloud offerings. The number remains relatively low at about 18 percent, consistent with our previous survey.
While there's some comfort in all the numbers above, partners thinking about building online practices shouldn't get too complacent. We contacted one partner on the list above, and he said the numbers seemed consistent with results at the end of calendar 2010. Deal velocity is increasing, he said: "The race is this year."
Posted by Scott Bekker on March 22, 20111 comments