Small Business Competency on Tap for the MPN

Microsoft plans to add a Small Business Competency to the Microsoft Partner Network in the spring.

"One of the big pieces of news that's been a large discussion on a number of these forums for awhile is we are planning on launching a Small Business Competency in the spring," said Julie Bennani, general manager of the Microsoft Partner Network, during the online MPN Interactive Leadership Forum for partners this week.

"We will keep the Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) in market, but based on your feedback and your request that we elevate that space to the equivalent level of the other competencies, we are planning on doing that this spring," Bennani said.

The Small Business Competency had a place in the lineup of nearly 30 competencies just ahead of the MPN rollout in 2010. But Microsoft executives had second thoughts when it was time to make the new MPN competencies live and decided to leave the extra-competency structure of the SBSC alone for awhile.

The decision was always conditional. As Bennani told Redmond Channel Partner magazine last year, "What we decided to do -- as opposed to being too dramatic in that area -- both for the partners and for customers, was to just raise the requirements in that community and see how partners respond and [see] what it does for the customer."

Posted by Scott Bekker on December 07, 2011 at 11:58 AM