Security titan Symantec is opening up its deal-registration program, appropriately
dubbed the Opportunity Registration program. (We just love when the name of
something describes what the thing is.) Primarily, the re-tooling of the program
gives Silver Partners the opportunity to receive a discount on approved registrations;
that perk was previously limited to partners at a higher level in the program.
"We realized these are partners that are really key to our mid-market,
and some of the deal sizes are large enough that they should qualify,"
said Julie Parrish, vice president of Symantec's Global Channel Office.
Parrish noted that, in some cases, Silver Partners who initiated deals weren't
getting the same compensation that some of their larger counterparts were enjoying
from the same deals later on.
"We should reward the partner that's in there first," she told RCPU.
"They got there first. They opened the door." Parrish said that Symantec
has between 18,000 and 20,000 Silver Partners.
Symantec has also increased the program's payment cap from $250,000 to $1 million,
although Parrish said that even deals that reach the quarter-million-dollar
cap are rare.
"It's a little bit more of an emotional issue than a realistic one. It's
possible that these deals would have been going to the competition," she
said, noting that deals partners bailed on because they feared not getting enough
compensation from Symantec were "very few" in number. "We want
to make sure partners feel confident they can participate and are going to get
what they deserve."
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/05/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Of course,
this
is only really important for those of you who don't already use Firefox.
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/05/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Steve Ballmer's talking retirement...but don't hold your breath. Ballmer's
days of daytime television and cross-country RV trips are still
a
decade or so away.
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/05/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
It's like the humidity that hangs in the air on a summer afternoon. Kind of
annoying but mostly non-threatening, and it's surely nothing that would actually
produce a rain cloud and ruin a cookout or a picnic. Right?
And then those clouds start to roll in, heavy and gray, slowly eating blue
from the sky. A few warning drops fall and then BAM! Cloudburst, rainstorm,
and you're scrambling to get your burgers and baked beans into the house before
everything gets all soggy.
Microsoft opened
an online store this week. Two, actually -- one in the U.K. and one in Germany.
Customers can buy Microsoft basics -- Office, Works, Vista (as if anybody would
want it) -- directly from Redmond through the new stores. There's no word yet
on when a U.S. store might open.
The new stores are just another small example of Microsoft bypassing its partners
and getting into the direct-sales business. Some of those examples, actually,
arguably aren't so small. For instance, Redmond is setting up its own shop to
host popular technologies such as Exchange and SharePoint, as well as Dynamics
CRM -- initiatives that effectively make the software titan a competitor with
certain members of its own channel.
But all of that's no big deal, right? After all, the old-fashioned, pure-play
reseller is about to become a thing of the past, and Microsoft doesn't really
have that many hosting partners, anyway. Besides, partners who want to succeed
in working with the new Microsoft need to focus on business process development
and customization and need to go vertical, like, yesterday.
That last sentence, at least, is what Microsoft keeps telling us, along with
repeating the mantra that the company is as committed as ever to its channel.
Mostly, we have little reason to doubt Redmond on those points. Microsoft's
600,000 partners are still the company's sales force and arguably its most valuable
asset. And Microsoft and partners alike seem to be doing pretty well right now,
despite a flagging economy. So, it's nothing to worry about, right? This humidity
hanging in the summer air?
Probably not. But...we hear rumblings from partners about how Microsoft is
distancing itself from them, setting up structures in the partner program that
make contact with key people the company harder, not easier. The direct contact
with product groups in Redmond that many partners used to enjoy is dwindling
(or has disappeared), we hear, in part, surely, because Microsoft's partner
base is bigger and ostensibly harder to manage than ever before, and maybe also
because Microsoft -- 80,000 employees strong -- is more of a battleship than
it has ever been before. One partner even characterized the partner program
itself as a buffer between Microsoft and its channel rather than a conduit for
communication.
Plus, Microsoft doesn't seem to have entirely figured out how to work partners
into its Software-as-a-Service plans, which will clearly be critical to the
company going forward. Customize, Redmond says, and build off what we're doing.
Again, that makes sense...but check out what one partner (to be fair, the same
one we quoted indirectly above) told RCPU last week about Microsoft's announcement
that it would host Exchange and SharePoint:
"Microsoft was incredibly quick at going to market and painting a
vision of how they are going to host these products on behalf of customers,
and they have yet to deliver a model on how their existing hosting partners
will be able to tie into that vision. They failed to create that marketing
message that really weaves the partners in. You see those partners gearing
up to go head to head with Microsoft, and that was unnecessary."
We've seen the same confusion, the same concern from partners over the last
couple of years over Microsoft's hosted CRM plans. The good news for partners
is that Microsoft remains probably the most channel-friendly company in the
industry. The other news -- we won't call it bad yet -- is that in its rush
to adopt SaaS, compete with the likes of Google and SAP, and pretty much be
everything to everybody, Microsoft has started to alienate part of its partner
base. And opening an online store, while probably totally innocuous for most
partners, isn't exactly a vote of confidence from Microsoft in the channel.
In fact, at least symbolically, it's just the opposite.
We're not sounding the tornado sirens here. We're not trying to cause a panic.
We're only saying that partners should keep an eye on what Microsoft's doing
with and without the channel and how it's going to affect them, and voice their
concerns to Redmond (if possible -- or, even better, tell us about them) if
they see things they don't like. The radar might be clear, but there's definitely
a little humidity in the air. You might just want to bring an umbrella to that
big summer cookout.
Are you concerned by Microsoft's moves to sell directly to enterprises and
consumers? Are you happy with the level of contact you have with Microsoft?
With how Microsoft treats the channel? Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/05/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
At some point back in the late '90s -- we're thinking 1998 or so -- Quark put
out an acquisition bid for competitor Adobe. Adobe was struggling a bit at the
time, and although Quark's bid ultimately (and obviously) failed, there were
rumors that Adobe might be ripe for the picking.
Your editor covered the story for a different publication (again, obviously,
as RCP didn't exist back then) and wrote some snappy prose, we'd like
to say. But one competitor -- we honestly don't remember who, but please step
forward if you're out there -- won the battle for best lede (first sentence)
in an online story about the whole Quark-Adobe matter. He wrote: "When
blood is in the water, sharks will gather."
Adobe avoided the Quark shark and went on to (more) great things. But the shark
metaphor struck us today when we read about new
competition for Microsoft Office from IBM and...well, Adobe, actually.
Supposedly, Office is bleeding a bit. We keep reading suggestions around the
Web that Office's money-making parade is about
to get rained on by the cloud-based applications coming out of Google and
now IBM and Adobe. Microsoft, meanwhile, still doesn't have a true hosted version
of Office on offer, although Redmond seems to be working on something
kind of, sort of similar-ish.
As we've said here before, we're not so convinced that Office is bleeding or
that it'll be all that easy to give up, even if the competition offers applications
for free. A lot of companies have a lot of investment in Office both in terms
of development and basic user familiarity, and anybody who thinks it's easy
to get users to change their everyday habits should hear some of the more harrowing
tales of enterprise resource planning implementations. People like what they
know. Plus, hosted anything is still a proposition rife with potential pitfalls
in the enterprise.
Still, we're always fans of lighter, cheaper software here, and if Google,
IBM and Adobe can push Microsoft to create a true hosted version of Office or
at least something a bit less expensive and not so cumbersome, great. We're
just not convinced that the would-be sharks are smelling any blood yet, much
less sinking their teeth into the Office franchise.
Is the future of Microsoft Office -- and all software -- something that's online
for free? Answer at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/04/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Somebody at Microsoft -- namely honcho grande Kevin Johnson -- finally realized
that the company's "Live" branding means...well, nothing, really,
and is just a little bit confusing.
So, Johnson and Microsoft's marketers are out to fix
the company's online branding, and he's left us with a mildly funny quote
to boot (from this
PC World story):
"'When we made the bid for Yahoo, the full combination of those companies
would have created a whole different set of brand opportunities for our marketing
teams to solve,' he said. 'Since we've moved forward in not pursing a full
combination at this time, our marketing teams are liberated to go solve that
brand problem.'"
Liberated! What? Are they casting off chains? Are they burning their bras?
What on earth has Microsoft been doing to these people so that they needed to
be "liberated" before coming up with something better than "Live"
for everything that involved the Internet?
Really, we wonder what's going on in that big Redmond compound sometimes.
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/04/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
It's not those nasty hackers from outside the company CIOs worry about, but
instead
those
disgruntled employees inside, a new survey reveals.
So, whatever you do, try to keep your employees, um, gruntled.
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/04/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
A couple of months ago, RCPU brought you
the
tale of Avistar, a maker of video-conferencing software that was facing
potentially fatal challenges of 29 of its U.S. patents from none other than
Redmond itself.
Back then, we held -- as we do now -- that Microsoft was just trying to put
a struggling company out of business and snake its stuff in order to bolster
Redmond's own growing unified communications capabilities. Of course, not
everybody shared our take, but we've stuck with it.
So, it was with a bit of a non-objective sideways grin that we received word
today (as did everybody else; it came out in
a press release) that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has rejected,
thus far, 14 of the 29 challenges to Avistar's patents put forth by Microsoft.
To this point, the press release said, the USPTO has agreed to reexamine nine
of the patents, so Avistar is still in danger of losing a few battles.
While we don't know the details of all 29 patents and can't comment on which
ones might or might not be legitimate (and while we'll allow that some are probably
stronger than others), we were never comfortable with the fact that Microsoft
threw all 29 -- pretty much Avistar's entire U.S. patent lot -- up for reexamination.
So, yeah, we're kind of pleased by today's news, honestly. It sort of feels
like justice, and there's not always a lot of that in today's tech industry,
with its domination by a few giant vendors.
Again, we're not anti-Microsoft; we defend Redmond all the time here. We're
just glad to see that a smaller competitor is fighting in the face of a wealthier
(and ill-behaving, in this case, we believe) monster and is actually winning
a battle or two. If nothing else, it makes for an interesting story to follow.
Have any more comments on Avistar or on how Microsoft sometimes does business?
Shoot them to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/03/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Along with pretty much everybody else in the world, your editor got a live
demo last week of Microsoft AX 2009, one of Redmond's Dynamics Enterprise Resource
Planning suites, which is
generally
available this week.
Other bloggers and commentators have mentioned how the latest version of AX
looks like a showcase for the Microsoft technology stack (which it
does indeed, Mary Jo Foley) and how AX might be moving Dynamics closer
to SAP's market territory -- something we've suspected and written about
for a while now.
But, if you'll allow us to gush for a minute, what struck us was how pretty
AX's interface is. OK, so it's based on the Office 2007 "ribbon" look,
which isn't actually our favorite. But it's still the simplest-looking, most
easily navigable ERP interface we've ever seen. And, as we've said before, that's
a major selling point for Dynamics partners.
After all, why do you think SAP was so interested in getting an Office front-end
in the Duet product? Because Microsoft still does user interfaces better than
most vendors and much better than most ERP vendors. And that might help users
actually use AX rather than try to avoid it.
"You don't want to spend the IT budget in user training," Kees Hertogh,
director of Dynamics AX product management at Microsoft, told RCPU during the
demo. "The value of ERP is having all the departments connected to each
other. The more people who use it, the higher the value."
It's the Microsoft party line, of course, but it makes sense; complexity is
the enemy of ERP adoption, and Microsoft has made its interface simple and attractive.
Now, maybe other vendors have something comparable, but they don't often come
by and give us demos. So, SAP, Oracle and the others: If you think your products'
look and feel can compare to that of AX 2009, bring it on. You know where to
find us.
For a look at an AX 2009 demo, check out this
link -- but be forewarned: It'll launch Windows Media Player.
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/03/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
RCP Editor in Chief Scott Bekker says that Dell's latest earnings release
shows that the one-time direct-sales stalwart is still approaching the channel
with hat in hand.
Posted by Lee Pender on 06/03/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments
OK, so we restrained ourselves from giving this entry the "Sounders get
a kick out of Microsoft sponsorship" headline. But
the Wall Street Journal didn't.
Between NASCAR
and soccer, we figure Microsoft has covered the American demographic spread
pretty well. And, yes, this is the second entry with a soccer reference in as
many days. We're fans here at RCPU -- get used to it.
Posted by Lee Pender on 05/29/2008 at 1:22 PM0 comments