Microsoft will delay one of the major changes to the Microsoft Partner Network gold competency, the company announced this week.
The MPN introduced a revenue bar for gold competencies. For the first year of the program, partners seeking gold only had to make a commitment to achieve a certain minimum level of revenue, referred to as an "acknowledgement." Those commitments, which vary by geography and by competency, range from about $100,000 to $200,000 in the United States.
In the second year, starting with re-enrollments in October 2012, partners would have had to show that they'd actually reached that revenue commitment through internal systems that Microsoft was putting in place. Now, come October 2012, partners will once again be making commitments only and the actual measured revenue requirements won't take effect until October 2013.
In a newly published document on gold competency revenue guidelines, Microsoft wrote, "To ensure that we have the most accurate revenue measurement systems in place, we are delaying measuring gold competency revenue until October 2012 (as opposed to beginning in October 2011)."
The delay probably reflects the challenges of getting a measurement system in place rather than a concern that not enough partners were going for gold. In an interview with RCP earlier this month for our July issue, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for the Worldwide Partner Group Jon Roskill said Microsoft was on plan in terms of partners achieving gold competencies. Where the company is seeing shortfalls in enrollment is in the silver competencies, which only have revenue requirements for CRM and ERP.
Instead, Microsoft is having an ongoing challenge with rolling out a universal system for essentially measuring "influence" revenue -- a way to track the sales that solution provider partners are influencing even though large account resellers or distributors handle the license transactions, which are business-critical for Microsoft. The MPN gold competency requirement is Microsoft's most ambitious attempt yet to get an influence system, known as Partner Sales Exchange (PSX), implemented worldwide, and it seems to be proving difficult.
In a blog post Monday, Eric Ligman, director of Worldwide Partner Experience, listed a side benefit of the change. "This delay will also give you more time to prepare to meet the gold competency revenue requirement," he wrote.
The delay in measuring gold competency revenues is the second major change to the MPN announced in a month. In late May, Microsoft announced plans to evolve the Unified Communications competency into two competencies: a Messaging competency and a Communications competency. That change takes effect in October.
* * *
At the same time that it announced the delay in revenue tracking, Microsoft updated the revenue requirements by competency with a few slight changes. For example, the Desktop competency requirement went from 1,000 seats deployed to a straight $150,000 for U.S. partners.
Below are the new revenue requirement amounts in U.S. dollars by competency for partners in Group A countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States). Required amounts are lower in Group B countries and lower still in Group C countries.
| Competency | Amount |
| Application Integration | $100,000 |
| Application Lifecycle Management | $100,000 |
| Business Intelligence | $180,000 |
| Content Management | $130,000 |
| CRM | $200,000 or 300 seats |
| Data Platform | $130,000 |
| Desktop | $150,000 |
| ERP | $100,000 |
| Hosting | $100,000 |
| Identity & Security | $100,000 |
| Midmarket Solution Provider | $100,000 |
| Portals & Collaboration | $180,000 |
| Project & Portfolio Management | $130,000 |
| Search | $130,000 |
| Server Platform | $180,000 |
| Software Development | $100,000 |
| Systems Management | $180,000 |
| Unified Communications * | $180,000 |
| Virtualization | $130,000 |
| Volume Licensing | $100,000 |
| Web Development | $100,000 |
* The revenue targets for the Messaging competency and the Communications competency will each be $180,000 when the Unified Communications competency is split in two in October.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 21, 20112 comments
It's one thing for Microsoft's Andy Lees to say Nokia is coming out with a handset for Windows Phone "Mango" in the fall. We're sure the statement was vetted and all, but Lees works for Microsoft. Now we're getting confirmation, and context, from Nokia.
In a speech at a technology tradeshow in Singapore today, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop reaffirmed the Finnish company's direction -- an open question given the stock's recent hammering: "Our primary smartphone strategy is to focus on the Windows phone."
Then Elop went on to describe the Mango launch strategy. "I have increased confidence that we will launch our first device based on the Windows platform later this year and we will ship our product in volume in 2012," said Elop, according to an account of the speech reported by The Associated Press.
It's a step up from Elop's earlier assertion that he had a prototype Windows phone in his pocket. Not having devices in production for the Mango launch in the fall could dampen the possibility for a huge Mango launch, though.
Related:
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 21, 20110 comments
Windows 8 may have a good tablet story, but one of Microsoft's tightest OEM partners isn't waiting around for the new OS's probable release in the second half of 2012.
At the InfoComm show in Orlando, Fla. this week, Panasonic is showing off a Google Android-based Toughbook that will ship in the fourth quarter of this year.
The core operating system of the Panasonic Toughbook line for years has been Windows. The Panasonic Toughbook home page even sports the Windows 7 Professional logo and the tagline: "Windows®. Life Without Walls™. Panasonic recommends Windows 7."
Panasonic has even been one of the OEMs to develop and market the purpose-built, Windows-based tablets, such as the C1, the H1 Field and the H1 Health. Those are exactly the types of devices Microsoft often pointed to when critics accused Redmond of lacking a response to the Apple iPad or to Google Android-based tablets.
In a statement, Panasonic Solutions President Rance Poehler, echoed some of the reasons that Microsoft's defenders use to argue that current slates or media tablets aren't ready for enterprise use, but Poehler contended that the Toughbook will remediate those problems.
"Enterprise customers are very interested in the tablet market, but have been frustrated by the lack of appropriate solutions," Poehler said. "The vast majority of tablet devices -- regardless of the OS -- are engineered for consumers and don't offer appropriate levels of security and durability or the functionality needed for business use."
To address what Panasonic describes as the "current gap" in the media tablet market, the company plans to deliver a Toughbook "enterprise-grade Android tablet" with a high-brightness, daylight-viewable screen; an active stylus in addition to the multi-touch display; security embedded at the hardware level; and standard Toughbook ruggedization.
[Click on image for larger view.]
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A Panasonic spokesperson confirmed Friday that the Android tablet is the only non-Windows Toughbook that Panasonic has offered, although some partners have loaded Linux on devices like the Toughbook 19.
Does this mean Panasonic won't be standing by to release a Windows-based tablet when Windows 8 is ready? That's not likely. But it's just a reminder that OEMs will go where they see the market heading. Once upon a time, Windows was that market, and what Microsoft said would happen is what would actually happen. Now, Microsoft is one player among many. Windows 8 may come out well before the tablet market gets set in concrete as far as market share. Then again, it may not.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 17, 20110 comments
I probably shouldn't be admitting this, but I played a little Dungeons & Dragons in junior high and high school.
Working with a smartphone app called Shazam to capture the name of a song off the car radio reminded me rather vividly of that geeky pastime last night.
In D&D, you had this concept of a spellbook. The idea was that your character had to choose a spell that might be useful in some future crisis. You'd copy it into a spellbook and study it a bit so you'd be ready to unleash it later.
The process is not at all dissimilar to the way we accumulate apps now. You have to hear about it from a friend or just wonder if an app exists for something you're thinking about doing. You search for it, download it, then familiarize yourself with the interface.
In the case of Shazam, if you've run the app a few times, you're ready when some mysterious song is playing and you have only a few seconds to capture it. If everything comes together, you've got the name of the song.
What's more is that with the portability of the phone, this, shall we say, magical power, is with you any time you've got battery power and a good enough signal.
That's as far as I'll stretch that metaphor other than to reveal another geeky side of myself by quoting one of Arthur C. Clarke's laws: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Shazam.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 17, 20110 comments
Don't blink or you'll miss another critical step as Microsoft converges all of its interfaces.
In a 25-day span, Microsoft has unveiled UIs for Windows Phone "Mango" and a tablet-ready "Windows 8," and now has extended the Kinect motion-sensing technology from its Xbox origins to Windows.
Microsoft on Thursday released a downloadable beta of a Kinect software development kit (SDK) that makes it possible for developers to create applications for Windows 7 that recognize user input from Kinect sensor devices.
While a partner's first instinct might be to dismiss the Kinect stuff as a gaming novelty (I'll admit that was my first read on Kinect), some more alert observers see it as the logical next step in Microsoft's interface manipulation.
After looking at the Windows 8 UI two weeks ago, Evolve Technologies CEO Dave Sobel noted that the Xbox Kinect motion sensor technology would make an interesting companion to the new Windows 8 gesture interface.
"What if I use the Kinect to make those motions? The interface on Xbox is not all that different from what we're seeing in [Windows] Phone 7, Mango and now Windows 8. Microsoft is actually quietly standardizing on interface," Sobel said at the time.
Now, a Windows SDK for Kinect is available; for now the SDK is strictly for prototype and enthusiast work. Next will come a commercial version of the SDK, and Microsoft also demonstrated a Kinect speech engine, providing yet another potential way for users to interact with their Microsoft-based systems and applications.
After what's seemed like a long fallow period at Microsoft, when there was more public talk about innovation than tangible evidence of it, things have started moving very, very fast.
Related:
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 16, 20110 comments
When the Microsoft Partner Info mobile app launched three weeks ago, support for the Apple iPhone platform was conspicuously absent.
Whatever the reasons that Microsoft originally wrote the app only for Windows Phone and Google Android, the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group is now trying to get it into Apple's App Store. And Apple is saying, "Forget it."
Eric Ligman, director of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Experience and guiding spirit behind the partner app, opened the kimono on his frustration with the App Store in a blog post Monday.
"I'm not the one that said, 'No,' to having the Microsoft Partner info app available on iPhone, Apple is," Ligman wrote.
Ligman submitted a version of the app to Apple a little over a week ago and received his rejection e-mail on Friday.
"We found that the experience your app provides is not sufficiently different from a web browsing experience, as it would be by incorporating native iOS functionality," the e-mail snippet that Ligman posted read. "While your app content may differ from your web site or other existing sites, the experience it provides does not differ significantly from the general experience of using Safari, as required by the App Store Review Guidelines."
While most of us try desperately to keep our rejections private, Ligman has good reasons for talking openly about his here. First, he's trying to forestall complaints from partners who have been asking since the May 23 release of the partner app for an iPhone version. Second, Ligman wants partners to help themselves by voicing their displeasure to Apple.
In fact, he's encouraging partners to both Tweet their displeasure and to blog about it. "If you are a blogger, and if you have the desire to do so, it would be great to see even a short post stating why you would like to have the Microsoft Partner info app available on iPhone," Ligman wrote.
OK, I have a blog and I'm game. I use an iPhone (our family is benefiting from the synergy of iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. I like the looks of the Windows Phone 7 platform and the tablet potential in Windows 8, but, hey, that stack wasn't even publicly previewed when I was ready to buy.)
I like the looks of the Microsoft Partner Info app -- and frankly I don't care if it is or isn't similar to the browser. I don't use Safari unless I absolutely have to; the way I interact with the Internet through the iPhone is through apps. Plus, the screenshots I've seen of the Microsoft Partner Info App look nothing like any Safari browser pages I've seen.
Come on Apple, let the Microsoft Partner info app into your store.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 13, 20111 comments
- Keep updated with the latest WPC news at RCP's WPC 2011 page here.
Founder and president of Virgin Group Richard Branson will give the guest keynote at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference next month in Los Angeles.
In announcing Branson as the guest keynoter, Jon Roskill, corporate vice president for the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, noted Branson's 1999 knighting for his "services to entrepreneurship" and said Branson fits with the WPC 2011 theme of "Winning Together."
"I think Richard Branson embodies the true spirit of 'Winning Together' in every area he touches. As founder and president of Virgin Group, Branson expanded the Virgin brand into air and rail travel, hospitality and leisure, telecommunications, health and wellness, and clean energy through more than 300 companies in 30 countries," Roskill wrote in a blog entry.
Roskill said the choice of Branson was partly driven by a partner survey in which partners said they would prefer to hear from an entrepreneur rather than one of the many Hollywood celebrities available for an L.A.-based conference.
Most of the keynotes at WPC are delivered by Microsoft executives, but the company usually ends the conference with a high-profile guest speaker. Previous speakers included former President Bill Clinton in 2010, former GE Chairman and CEO Jack Welch, who cancelled in 2009 due to a back injury, and Nobel Peace Prize winner and microcredit pioneer Dr. Muhammad Yunus in 2008.
Branson is scheduled to speak on Wednesday, July 13.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 09, 20110 comments
Back when Microsoft had a reputation as the Evil Empire, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen was the poster child for someone who had been oppressed by Redmond. Which is why it's remarkable to hear Andreessen expressing what sounds like some sympathy for Microsoft right now.
In a recap of the attitude toward a tech bubble among the tech glitterati at last week's All Things Digital Conference, Mark Veverka on SmartMoney wrote:
"Indeed, Andreessen went on a tirade about how low the price/earnings ratios for the tech behemoths are. Microsoft has a forward-looking P/E of 8.63 times. Cisco Systems' P/E is 9.25. 'P/Es in single-digits are what steel mills trade at before they go out of business,' Andreessen quipped. 'What these things tell me is the public market hates tech. It's tremendously scarred by 10 years ago.'"
None of which is to say that, in his heart of hearts, Andreessen wouldn't love to see Microsoft continue to suffer for its efforts at "cutting off Netscape's air supply."
Meanwhile, another SmartMoney post listed the top six cash piles among publicly traded U.S. companies. Microsoft is still on top, although once the $8.5 billion Skype purchase is completed, Microsoft's total may drop below both Google and Apple. The net cash totals are Microsoft $38 billion, Google $36.7 billion, Apple $29 billion and Cisco Systems $27 billion.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 08, 20110 comments
A few months ago we noted, approvingly, a Vanity Fair article that referred to the Stuxnet worm as "something new under the sun." Author Michael Joseph Gross argued that something previously theoretical had been unleashed and was changing future geo-political calculations.
Evidence supporting Gross' view comes this week in a Washington Post article that asserts that cyber-technologies have been integrated into the formal structure of approved capabilities at the Pentagon in the last few months.
"So whether it's a tank, an M-16 or a computer virus, it's going to follow the same rules so that we can understand how to employ it, when you can use it, when you can't, what you can and can't use," the Post quoted an unnamed senior military official as saying.
According to the Post, the framework covers penetrating foreign computer networks and leaving a cyber-virus that can be activated later (think Stuxnet), studying the cyber-capabilities of adversaries, examining how power plants or other networks operate and leaving beacons for later targeting by viruses, among other things. Some methods require presidential approval, others don't. The framework also apparently makes clear that the Pentagon can respond to cyber-attacks with bullets and bombs, according to the Post.
Take it as one more sign of the maturing status of cyber-tools in the arsenal of the modern nation state.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 02, 20110 comments
There's a great in-depth profile today in Bloomberg Businessweek on Stephen Elop and the tightrope he's walking as the CEO of Nokia.
While the most newsworthy element is his adamant denial that there are any merger talks going on with Microsoft, the deeper story is the fundamental challenges Nokia faces in nearly all aspects of its business.
You thought Steve Ballmer's killing of the Kin and Courier were internally disruptive decisions that sent mixed signals to the market? Elop's move to ditch both Symbian and MeeGo in favor of Microsoft's unproven Windows Phone 7/Mango platform is a move that cost thousands of jobs and took a huge toll on company morale.
It was a bold move and Businessweek quotes Elop extensively to give him a chance to make a pretty strong case for the decision. (The article also disabused me of the notion I had that Elop left Microsoft for Nokia with a plan in the back of his mind to make the Windows Phone 7 deal.) The question is whether board members, shareholders and employees will stick by him, and let Nokia continue on the course that Elop has set.
The smartphone market is critically important to Microsoft's future, and no partner is more important to Microsoft's fortunes in that market right now than Nokia. For anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the company that Microsoft is pinning its hopes on, the Businessweek article is well worth a read.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 02, 20110 comments
- Keep updated with the latest WPC news at RCP's WPC 2011 page here.
Office 365 and cloud computing, Windows Phone, a Windows slate and sales pitches for the now-seven-month-old Microsoft Partner Network are emerging as major themes for the 2011 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.
In the last week, Microsoft released the list of the 10 executives who will fill the main keynote slots between July 11 and 13 in Los Angeles. The speakers and topics provide a fairly strong indication of Microsoft's major themes for the conference.
Jon Roskill, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, will serve the usual master of ceremonies role for the keynotes. On Monday, July 11, he'll open the conference with a "Celebrating Partners" keynote and on Wednesday, he'll start the last day of keynotes with a speech on "The Value of MPN." The second keynote is an interesting choice, given that partners at WPC tend to be among the most committed, but it points to the work Microsoft still faces in proving the value of the major overhaul to the former Microsoft Partner Program. The MPN keynote is also likely to produce a number of minor headlines on new partner readiness programs, incentives and competency changes.
Although Roskill played a major public role at WPC in 2010, he had just stepped into the job, previously held for many years by Allison Watson. The 2011 WPC will be Roskill's first at the helm for both the planning and execution of the conference.
Much of the news out of the show will come from CEO Steve Ballmer's opening keynote on Monday after Roskill opens the show. For now, Microsoft is coy about what Ballmer will talk about.
"Who better to deliver Microsoft's vision and commitment to partners than CEO Steve Ballmer! His keynote will highlight Microsoft innovation and business opportunities for partners," Microsoft's WPC site says. Fair enough. Tami Reller, corporate vice president and CFO of Windows & Windows Live, will join Ballmer to talk about Microsoft services and devices. Last year, Reller introduced Windows Intune during her WPC keynote.
Typically at WPC, Ballmer makes some announcements on themes that are fleshed out in Day 2. The Day 2 themes are Office 365, cloud computing, the Windows Phone platform and Windows devices, including slates.
The first Tuesday keynote is called "Winning with the Cloud." Three senior executives will present: Satya Nadella, president of the Servers and Tools Business, Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Office Division, and Kirill Tatarinov, corporate vice president for Microsoft Business Solutions. Microsoft is telling attendees that they'll come away with a sense of Microsoft's cloud vision along with details of key cloud products, such as Azure, Windows Server, Office 365, Lync, Microsoft Dynamics and Windows Intune. With the Office 365 launch expected sometime this summer, WPC seems like the most logical scheduled venue. We'll see if the conference timing and the engineering cycle align.
The next Tuesday keynote is "A World of Smart Devices" with Andy Lees, president of the Mobile Communications Business, and Steven Guggenheimer, corporate vice president, OEM Division. Lees just finished previewing Windows Phone "Mango" in late May and is likely to recap some of the major advances coming in the fall update along with some previously unannounced elements among the 500 new features of the phone OS. Look for Guggenheimer to offer a guided tour through dozens of Windows-based smart devices from PCs to slates to TVs "and everything in between," according to the speech description. The big question is how much Guggenheimer will be able to say about slates and Microsoft's answer, if it has one, to the Apple iPad.
After Roskill's MPN keynote on Wednesday, Orlando Ayala, corporate vice president, chairman for Emerging Markets and chief advisor to the COO, will take the stage to talk about "National Priorities: Partnering to Strengthen the Local Economy."
Finally, COO Kevin Turner will give his usual closing keynote "Winning Together," in which he roasts the competition, exhorts partners to grab market share and provides new talking points about the benefits of Microsoft's products.
Microsoft is projecting that the 2011 WPC will be the company's biggest yet, with an expected 13,000 partner attendees, 2,000 press, industry analysts and Microsoft team members, including about 250 Microsoft executives.
UPDATE (6/2): I was worried I was going a little too far out on a limb to say Microsoft might talk about slates at WPC. In fact, I was way too conservative. Late on June 1 and early June 2, Microsoft unveiled its first public look at the super-secret "Windows 8" interface with its heavy slate focus. (We've already got some partner reactions here.) So, ahh, look for lots of Windows 8 discussions at WPC, too.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 01, 20110 comments
Microsoft is trying to raise the profile of the distributors who are available to help other Microsoft partners close Microsoft Online Services deals.
In a blog posting this week, Woody Walton of Microsoft's TS2 team noted that Microsoft is investing millions in the distribution channel annually, in part to help hire and train employees at distributors' call centers.
"That means that there are several folks across the Microsoft Distributor continuum just waiting to help you close BPOS (soon Office 365) deals. They receive calls and assist partners like yourself daily," Walton wrote.
He noted that while BPOS deals tend to have a shorter sales cycle, they also tend to involve more technical questions from customers than other types of engagements.
"It does not matter whether you choose D&H, Ingram Micro, Synnex, or Tech Data; They can all back you up!" wrote Walton, adding that in the rare instances when the distributors are stumped, they have direct access to the Microsoft experts who can answer curveball questions from customers.
The catch for partners, apparently, is not much of one. According to Walton, Microsoft is trying to get partners to associate with distributors. It's not clear what the financial arrangements are -- is Microsoft compensating distributors who are helping other partners close deals or is it simply a way to justify the investments Microsoft has already made in those distribution partners? It doesn't appear that association with a distributor has any effect on Partner of Record fees and margins for the partners who call in for help. (Let me know at [email protected] if you've had a different experience.)
When trying to reach what it calls breadth partners (Microsoft speak for the non-managed partners that influence a lot of Microsoft product sales but aren't individually on Microsoft's radar), Microsoft often works through distributors.
It's always interesting to see how Microsoft's resources trickle through the tiers of Redmond's necessarily complex channel.
Posted by Scott Bekker on June 01, 20110 comments