Are you still selling IT products? I don't mean pulling them through in your projects; I mean actively promoting certain products to your customers. If so, you may already be finding yourself in the minority.
Many MSPs have stopped actively promoting and selling products because they simply cannot make much money doing so. In fact, given the credit they may have to carry and the cost of operations to bring those products in and out, they may even lose money. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on October 14, 20220 comments
The latest changes to the relationship between Microsoft channel partners and Microsoft itself have drawn many reactions from the partners. Some have called it "a scary time to be a Microsoft channel partner." Some claim Microsoft is taking advantage of market conditions to "hit partners when they're down." Others are running petitions to get Microsoft to reverse these decisions. None of this is new.
In 2000, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP), which was widely greeted as something long-needed. Naturally, it had the same challenges as any new program, but everyone negotiated and broadly agreed to move forward together happily. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on March 29, 20220 comments
What do you love better than when a plan comes together? When two plans come together, together.
We've been reviewing the RCP 350 list of the top U.S. Microsoft partners over the past several months, and we've also been focusing on what ISVs, CSPs and other partners are doing to help their customers be better prepared for a hybrid future in which some people continue to work from home, some work in the office, and some go back and forth. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on February 03, 20220 comments
The "New Year predictions" article has always been my favorite to write because it's totally forward-looking and filled with enthusiasm for the future. Traditionally, on RCP, it has been titled "Marching Orders." I'm glad we're changing it this year because I have always felt the old title reflected a very Microsoft-like attitude toward partners, basically telling them what they need to be doing at any time.
The most successful partners have traditionally ignored that attitude and determined their own futures. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on December 29, 20210 comments
In 1998, the emergence of desktop publishing, digital printing and the Internet created an unprecedented opportunity for authors: self-publishing. Author Solutions was at the forefront of this pivotal change in the publishing industry and continues to be a global leader in self-publishing. Its imprints have helped more than 225,000 authors realize their dreams of publishing and have brought more than 310,000 new titles to market.
Thanks to Its Partner, It Was Ready When COVID Hit
When COVID-19 hit and everyone was sent to work from home, Author Solutions was able to move all of its domestic U.S. employees home and have them fully operational very quickly. CIO Joe Steinbach credits that to important work Author Solutions had already done with its partner, Advantage Communications Group. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on November 15, 20210 comments
In their next round of decisions, your customers are going to determine who gets to continue working from home, who returns to the office, and who gets to switch back and forth. No matter what they decide, you need to be ready to help them achieve their goals.
This presents a whole new potential path of evolution for MSPs, one that wasn't really anticipated when we first launched this blog, but now may become the preferred go-to model for many. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on October 01, 20210 comments
"Agile" is a poor little word. We've batted it around mercilessly these past several years. It's good to see it coming into its own now that we realize how agile methodology delivers more agility.
Those who've been around long enough will remember the early days of Cisco and its few competitors. You needed to run software to manage these new-fangled routers, but then you kind of became a sysadmin so it was cool. Then the genius idea came: Put that programming into firmware built right into the box. Much more efficient and tighter management, right? Yeah, no so much. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on September 08, 20210 comments
Among our top 350 Microsoft partners in the United States is an awardee that was also among the first members of the original Microsoft Certified Solution Provider program in the early 1990s. Its pioneering nature continued as it adopted Azure when it was still code-named "Red Dog." It also lists the development of its own cloud adoption framework before Microsoft's as further evidence of its leadership.
Applied Information Sciences (AIS) clients range from startups to Fortune 100 companies and include state and local governments, as well as defense and national security agencies. It approximates a sales mix of 50 percent government and 50 percent commercial. It also estimates that 95 percent of the services it delivers are centered around Microsoft technologies with a focus on building solutions that impact its customers' mission. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on August 20, 20210 comments
This is not the first "exit interview" I've ever done with a senior Microsoft official; in fact it's one of quite a few recently. But it feels very different than the others, so I'm going to write about it somewhat differently.
For one, I'm writing it in first person which I seldom do, but this issue is very personal to me so I feel it warrants it. I've been in the channel for quite some time -- in fact, since it was first referred to as a "channel" back in 1981. In that time I've had the honor of knowing and working with many people who held Gavriella Schuster's position as Microsoft channel chief, which was, generally speaking, a corporate vice president of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group/One Commercial Partner, etc. That includes Phil Sorgen, Jon Roskill, Allison Watson and Sam Jadallah. In fact, it goes all the way back to Jon Shirley, who was the closest thing there was to a channel chief from 1983 to 1990 when he was president and COO of Microsoft. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on August 19, 20210 comments
For RCP 350 partner AvePoint, the company's level of co-sell achievement with Microsoft is a point of pride.
"AvePoint is one of the leading co-sell partners globally, and we're shooting for number one," says Christian Buckley, AvePoint's Microsoft go-to-market director. AvePoint is on the RCP 350, a qualitative list compiled by Redmond Channel Partner of the strongest Microsoft partner companies in the United States. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on June 01, 20210 comments
Visitors to the Queue Associates Web site are immediately greeted with the declaration that it is "a global Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and leading Microsoft Dynamics 365 consultancy, in business for three decades."
No mistaking its commitment to Microsoft technologies. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on May 20, 20210 comments
The Henson Group is fully onboard with Microsoft's pledge to become carbon negative by 2030.
Microsoft made the commitment as a company in January 2020, setting a 10-year deadline to capture more planet-heating carbon dioxide than it emits. The company also pledged that by 2050 it would remove the equivalent of all the carbon dioxide it's released since 1975 when the company began. More
Posted by Howard M. Cohen on April 22, 20210 comments