Ultimate Partner and the Channel Strategy That Never Goes Out of Style: The Evolvers Series

When former Microsoft executive Vince Menzione left to create his own company, he named it Ultimate Partner. Here's why that's such a perfect choice.

Dawn of the Reseller Channel
Aug. 31, will mark the 44th anniversary of the introduction of the IBM PC, Model 5150. It was a magical time in what IBM had just dubbed "the reseller channel." Their policy was that nobody but IBM could sell IBM so we who were going to take the IBM PC to market were permitted to resell them, providing IBM with a channel to customers. Thus, the "reseller channel" was born and we all became "resellers."

By 1983, IBM released the IBM XT, which offered "eXtended Technology," and along with it came a cavalcade of monochrome and color displays, monochrome and color display adapters, and other components to expand the capabilities of the new machines.

IBM could not keep up with the demand for any of these products, and the flow of products became uneven. Color displays would become available, but no color adapters. Same for monochrome, and other components. Shortages of some products or others were constant, and we resellers found ourselves jammed with in-store inventory of some products but not the products to enable them. Incomplete orders piled up, creating serious cash-flow issues for many of the dentists, lawyers, former IBM-ers and others who had invested in these new computer stores and franchises.

Yes, these products could be sold at list price in those earliest days -- margins north of 41 percent. But those margins couldn't be realized unless we actually delivered the orders.

Partnering to the Rescue
At that time, I was working at a ComputerLand franchise in New York. All the franchisees were connected via TeleNet, an early text-only messaging platform. Short of adapters for several orders, I sent a message to all franchisees on TeleNet to see if anybody had any they could sell to me. We filled those orders almost immediately.

Such "horsetrading" instantly became constant. Every franchisee started posting messages seeking missing products to complete orders. Other franchisees shifted unmoving inventory out of their stockrooms to help their colleagues. Everybody working together solved cash-flow problems for everybody, and satisfied customers faster on the way.

In 2005 I was running The Computer Factory store in the Wall Street district of New York, certainly the most competitive market of all time for PC resellers. There were probably a few dozen of us within a two-mile radius of each other. And, yes, we were still running out of enabling adapters or displays, disk drives, memory cards and any of dozens of products. Compaq and Apple were inflicting the same shortages on us constantly.

As a former ComputerLand franchisee executive, I had a magic trick up my sleeve: I called a friend who ran another computer store nearby and asked if he had any of the adapters I was short of. He did. And he was glad to sell them to me at cost to get them off his balance sheet.

Soon, we and all our local competitors were partnering to keep products flowing no matter who and where we were sourcing them from originally. That partnership saved many of our companies from going out of business back in those early days.

The Next Generation of Partnering
Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) in 2010, replacing the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP). Microsoft moved then-CVP of the Worldwide Partner Group Allison Watson to be Chief Marketing Officer of the U.S. Subsidiary, and then moved Jon Roskill, then CVP of U.S. Marketing, to become CVP of the Worldwide Partner Group. In other words, Microsoft gave them each other's jobs, then told both of them they had received a promotion.

One of the elements Roskill introduced with the new MPN was "the uniqueness rule." Previously, in the MSPP, any Microsoft partner could have any four of their employees take any test necessary to qualify for any Gold Competency. As a result, I found myself working for a company of 17 people that held more competencies than any other partner. No. 1 on the partner finder list.

The uniqueness rule changed the game. Now, anyone who took a test could not take any other certification tests. In other words, you needed four exclusive people for each Gold Competency you wanted. Since there were 30 competencies available at that time, the company I worked at would have had to go from 17 employees to over 120 people to continue to qualify for all the competencies we currently held. That wasn't about to happen.

As a board member of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) at that time, I was hurriedly called into a meeting with Jon Roskill, at which we discussed the damaging impact this uniqueness rule would have. Roskill explained that Microsoft wanted to assure customers that partners who delivered services to them were truly qualified to provide those services. They wanted us to each declare what we were best at and just focus on that.

We explained to him that those projects never consisted of just one service; we had to be able to provide many services for each project we undertook. Roskill's response was prophetic: "We want you to focus on what you're best at, and partner for the rest."

We convinced Roskill to give us a year to adjust to the uniqueness rule. During that year, the wisdom of Microsoft's guidance started becoming very obvious.

Roskill met with the IAMCP because we were seen as the core of P2P, partner-to-partner partnering, and he hoped we could guide the Microsoft partner ecosystem to adopt Microsoft's desired philosophy of focusing and partnering. I'm not about to tell you that we did what Microsoft wanted, but the ecosystem did figure it out for itself. We all began to promote ourselves as specialists in various segments of the services customers required, and we started to partner more and more enthusiastically with each other.

Soon, proactive partnering became the ultimate strategy we all employed to remain successful in satisfying customers and growing our respective businesses.

For me, the penultimate partnering project had come back in 1991 when Microsoft failed to adapt to the upcoming change in the commencement of daylight savings time (DST) on time. Late to realize that every Windows system in operation would have to be remediated to properly adapt to the change, Microsoft put us all into emergency mode trying to get every customer fully remediated.

At that time, I was working for a small Microsoft partner who had successfully attracted a customer base that was far too large for us to manage to remediate them all in time. I had recently joined and brought my belief in partnering with me. The company owner, however, held the very common view that inviting a competitor into their customers' premises was a potentially fatal error.

So, when I reached out to friends around the channel to send me people to help get my customers remediated, I simply didn't tell him. By the time he realized what I had done, we had all customers remediated and got out of the month intact.

When he called me to his office, I knew what I was in for, and he didn't disappoint. He yelled at the top of his lungs. How dare I use outsiders to remediate our customers? How dare I threaten our account control? How dare I overspend so terribly? When he stopped to take a breath, I was already smiling. I presented him with a long list of thank you notes from our customers for saving them from serious disruption, and with our income report for the previous month.

"Congratulations," I said. "You just enjoyed the most profitable month your company has ever had."

Ultimate Partner
If you find yourself to still be a nonbeliever in partnering now in 2025, you really need to meet Vince Menzione, watch his podcast, read his blogposts, and prepare to read his upcoming book, "The Ultimate Guide to Partnering."

The Microsoft ecosystem represents enormous opportunity, yet even today few Microsoft partners feel confident navigating it. Programs shift, competencies change, and hyperscaler politics make it difficult for MSPs to position themselves effectively, much less win executive attention. Partnerships often stall not because of lack of ambition, but because leaders can't align strategy, investment and access to the right relationships.

Menzione built Ultimate Partner to solve this problem. After a decade running a $4.6 billion U.S. public sector partner business for Microsoft, Menzione saw the same pattern repeat: organizations talking about partnerships without executing them at the leadership level. The result was wasted resources, missed opportunities and stalled growth. Ultimate Partnering turns that challenge into a business advantage for MSPs.

Menzione's model is straightforward. Ultimate Partnering brings Microsoft executives, hyperscaler leaders, ISVs, distributors and MSPs together in curated, high-value gatherings. These aren't large conferences where partners hope for chance hallway conversations. Ultimate Partnering events are designed so leaders have meaningful access to the people who matter. With two to three hundred participants, attendees regularly find themselves in real conversations with senior Microsoft decision-makers, hyperscaler strategists and alliance executives.

The outcomes speak for themselves. Partners report creating valuable new alliances, accelerating pending deals, and expanded pipelines as direct results of introductions made at Ultimate Partner. Sponsors emphasize that the audience consistently matches their ideal customer profile -- executives with decision-making authority. Companies like Crayon and AppPoint have built new strategic relationships through these events, creating measurable business impact.

For MSPs, the value is threefold: faster alignment with Microsoft strategy, direct engagement with executives who shape ecosystem priorities, and access to peers and ISVs who can extend their solution portfolios. The result is acceleration -- shorter sales cycles, stronger alliances and earlier insight into where the industry is moving.

Menzione is scaling the platform quickly. Ultimate Partnering will expand from two major events a year to three regional conferences across the United States, along with invitation-only pre-day sessions tied to Microsoft's flagship events. While Microsoft remains central, AWS and Google are increasingly included, reflecting the multicloud reality most MSPs now face.

For MSP leaders, the message is clear: Ultimate Partnering isn't another industry event. It's a business platform designed to put the right people in the room, generate measurable outcomes, and help partners scale. Those who engage gain influence, visibility and opportunity that would be nearly impossible to achieve alone. In a market where speed and relationships drive growth, Ultimate Partner gives MSPs the immediate advantages of being able to focus on their strengths while partnering for everything else -- the formula for success since the dawn of the reseller channel.

Posted by Howard M. Cohen on August 25, 2025