Microsoft is making huge strides in the enterprise with its "land-and-expand" strategy for Office 365, according to a new study by cloud services security vendor Skyhigh Networks.
Partners have been encountering that land-and-expand, or consumption-based, strategy in recent incentives and other Microsoft campaigns designed to drive additional usage by customers who are already subscribed to Office 365. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 25, 20160 comments
Being the first in the door to sign a customer is proving to be as important in the cloud as it is anywhere else in business.
"Despite the inherent flexibility of the cloud model, we're seeing very high vendor loyalty rates," said Aziz Benmalek, vice president of Worldwide Cloud and Hosting Services Providers for Microsoft. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 19, 20160 comments
The unwinding of the blockbuster Nokia deal entered a new phase Wednesday as Microsoft sold its feature phone unit for $350 million to a subsidiary of Hon/Hai Foxconn Technology Group and a newly formed close partner of Nokia Corp. called HMD Global Oy.
The feature phone business was never a strategic play for Microsoft, which bought Nokia's phone business mainly for the Lumia smartphone line as part of a plan to drive adoption of Windows Phone. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 18, 20160 comments
BitTitan took another step this month in its ongoing effort to expand its cloud migration tools into a platform that Microsoft partners can run their businesses on.
Previous milestones in the effort included the launch of the MSPComplete and CSPComplete packages in October. Those bundles packaged BitTitan's existing tools in an "onboard" pillar and added a "sell" pillar and a "service" pillar. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 12, 20160 comments
Microsoft is moving some senior partner executives around as it comes into the home stretch of its fiscal year, which ends next month.
After a nearly three-year stint as corporate vice president of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, Phil Sorgen will become corporate vice president of the U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group (EPG), a Microsoft spokesperson said in an e-mail Tuesday. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on May 11, 20160 comments
In a merger of high-profile Microsoft partners, U.S.-based New Signature bought U.K.-based Dot Net Solutions in a deal announced Tuesday.
New Signature is the 2014 and 2015 Microsoft U.S. Partner of the Year; Dot Net is the 2014 Microsoft U.K. Partner of the Year.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on May 03, 20160 comments
More internal use rights (IURs) are now available to certain categories of Microsoft partners to allow them to broaden their experience with the new Office 365 E5 suite and to better enable them to create customer demos for Dynamics CRM Online.
Gavriella Schuster, general manager of Microsoft Worldwide Partner Programs, unveiled the new benefits this week in a blog post that also discussed the availability of the new Windows and Devices competency. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 27, 20160 comments
SkyKick added three senior leaders with Microsoft experience to its executive team as the company acts to bolster its marketing and accelerate its global expansion.
Seattle-based SkyKick, which provides tools for migrating and backing up Office 365 and managing Software as a Service (SaaS) accounts from multiple vendors, announced on Monday the hiring of Chike Farrell as vice president of marketing; Kathryn Saducas as general manager of Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Anthony Philips as general manager of business development EMEA. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 25, 20160 comments
Three months after closing the North American portion of its EVault acquisition, Carbonite this week began rolling out a new partner program to accommodate its broader product portfolio.
Carbonite announced the $14 million cash acquisition of the EVault assets from Seagate Technology in December. Founded in 1997, EVault had been part of Seagate since 2007. The North American portion of the acquisition closed in mid-January, although the European Union part of the deal stretched further into the year. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 20, 20160 comments
Three major providers of managed service provider-focused platforms revealed substantial expansions or integrations of their platforms in the last week, highlighting the arms race among top-tier vendors to provide a one-stop toolset for an MSP's business.
Autotask on Monday announced the unification of its professional services automation (PSA) and remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools. Newly dubbed the Autotask PSA and Endpoint Management platform, the unification is supposed to make technicians at MSP companies more efficient by eliminating the need for them to toggle between systems, while also leading to new insights as they see previously disparate information in the same user interface. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 20, 20160 comments
Microsoft on Monday launched a new Windows and Devices Competency, designed to highlight Microsoft partners with expertise in Windows 10 and mobility, with a fee waiver for partners who sign up for the silver level in the next two months.
The competency becomes the 29th competency in the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN). However, Microsoft announced plans last week to retire a dozen competencies over the next 18 months, including a Devices and Deployment competency that the Windows and Devices competency partially replaces. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 18, 20160 comments
Microsoft is breathing down Salesforce.com's neck in the enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) market, according to a new research report.
Synergy Research Group, which specializes in quarterly tracking and segmentation of IT and cloud markets, on Monday released a report showing Microsoft barely behind market leader Salesforce.com in the competitive enterprise SaaS market.
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Posted by Scott Bekker on April 18, 20160 comments