Partners Finding Business Models Online
There was a session at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference last week on "Upselling and Cross Selling Windows Intune and Office 365." While I found time to write about the tweaks in billing on Office 365, the increase in the Internal Use Rights available to partners for Intune, and about the beta of the next rev of Intune, I missed this session (along with several hundred other great-sounding WPC sessions).
Looks like this was an interesting one. Steve Deming of Microsoft's TS2 team blogged about it late last week, especially the roundtable segment when partners talked about how they're selling the products.
Highlights of the roundtable, according to Deming's blog [emphasis his]:
- One partner gives the [Partner of Record] fees right back to the customer to show a lower acquisition cost. This partner has a 90%+ close rate and currently 80+ Intune customers.
- One partner LOVES the Intune/Office 365 pay-as-you-go model. No upfront costs -- immediate dollars toward services.
- One partner talked about using Intune as the prep step for Office 365. Helps identify marginal Office 365 machines and shows IMMEDIATE value of central management with Intune.
- One partner talked about Intune with MDOP wasn't even an option - it was how they started the conversation. They found App-V to be VERY popular with their small business customers.
RCP will be tracking down some of these partners in the coming weeks for more details and insights on their business models.
Posted by Scott Bekker on July 20, 2011