The Microsoft Partner Network - making more sense for YOU
This month, the Microsoft Partner Network (formerly known as the Microsoft Partner Program) makes a move that will hopefully de-mystify a few things for purchasers of Microsoft business technology.
The structure of the Microsoft Partnership Network is changing, so that words like Gold & Silver will now be directly related with each of a Partner's individual
competency areas– no longer to the Partner's organisation (inclusive of their achieved competencies) in its entirety.
Given the breadth of organisation types (yes, just within New Zealand) that distinguish their partnership with Microsoft the same way - as a “Microsoft Gold Partner” (IT Resellers, Software Developers, Accounting Firms, Computer Repair Companies, Hardware Producers, mobile solution/hardware developers, 10-50 employee and 5000+ employee organisations..etc…) it’s bound to be a breath of fresh air for anyone trying to glean some kind of meaning as to why a particular partner is worth working with.
Olympic Software has been a Microsoft Partner ever since the Program’s inception, and was the first Gold Certified Partner in Australasia back in 2001. So for us, the proliferation of the “Gold Certified” club was a huge downer – we’re pretty chuffed we have the chance to again distinguish ourselves as a market leader.
The naming isn’t all that’s changing. The vast and varied world of IT through the eyes of Microsoft has been re-organised to fit into a relatively minute 30 individual competencies – all 30 of which are named using market-friendly terms (yip, acronyms have been largely ditched, phew!).
So “Gold” and “Silver” apparently means something now – what?
Partners will achieve "Gold" against the competencies in which they are most specialised, if and only if they pass rigorous metric/assessment requirements (including having the right number of certified professionals on-board, and happy customers (on-going and new)) that prove them market leaders in the space. "Silver" is achievable if you’re nipping at the heels of the market-leading Partners.
What does this all mean for YOU though, in short?
- A Microsoft Partner’s status will now show exactly how good the given Partner is, in each of the areas they choose to sell products or services.
- You can now easily, strategically plan who you will work with, according to your current IT needs, and your planned future needs.
- If you prefer to take an ad-hoc approach to IT implementations (we don’t encourage this, but nonetheless), you can pick and choose the best Partners with complete, transparent ease.
- Any paid-up Microsoft Partner is relatively free to ‘subscribe’ to which competencies they choose – it’s when they have the ‘Silver’ or ‘Gold’ status against that competency that you know you’re dealing with the market leaders (therefore, you will also know who may be willing to do a good deal as per their lack of competency achievement!)
There’s a lot more to get excited about as a customer of the Microsoft Partner Network, like how the movement of solutions to the cloud will make software from all corners of the world easily available anywhere – but that’s for next time.
For those interested, as per the new conditions of the Microsoft Partner Network, Olympic has so far attained Silver competency status for:
- Enterprise Resource Planning (Dynamics GP & AX),
- Application Integration,
- Independent Software Vendor,
- Software Development and
- Web Development
…but of course we’re well on target to achieving ‘Gold’ in all of these areas, as we get more organised around the new metric/assessment requirements. We intend to add notches-to-the-belt around Customer Relationship Management, and Online Services (cloud stuff), moving into 2011.
What do you think, will seeing the “Microsoft Partner Network” logo on a supplier’s website mean something to you now?