I just flew in from Denver and boy are my arms tired… Seriously though, I enjoyed attending the 2007 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference last week. I was even quoted in the Denver Post about being a Microsoft partner. It is always interesting to get an inside look at Microsoft as I have been consulting with this organization for the past 8 years. It has been intriging to watch the transformation from a decentralized, maverick organization to one that is applying more traditional business controls such as a focus around procurement, to their ability to quickly adapt in an ever-changing marketplace.
What really impressed me is the partner ecosystem that Microsoft has been able to develop. With 10,000+ attendees at this conference representing 120 countries it is no wonder that 96% of it’s $44 billion in revenue 2006 came from Partners. With their ability to not only provide outstanding software products, Microsoft really focuses on establishing platforms that can be extended, defining industry standards and ensuring interoperability with their offerings. This makes it very easy for organizations to partner with them.
It was very evident that many start-up organizations can benefit from niche offerings around Microsoft products as they are very open to partnering with early adopters. The focus on partners is a key element to their continued success. As I stated before in Software + Services there will always be the customer segment that lives in the now and is focused on the best solution that meets their needs today vs. the trendy offering of tomorrow.
Here at Telligent we have deep roots with Microsoft from Rob Howards time with the ASP.NET team, to 2 Regional Directors, multiple MVP’s and a focus on Microsoft technologies in our products such as Community Server. We look forward to continuing to build out our own partner ecosystem. We focus on providing software platforms that can be extended vs. single applications as well. So why wouldn’t we follow in the footsteps of Microsoft. $44 billion can’t be wrong.
I’ve always found it strange how different Microsoft is perceived in the business world versus the consumer world. The statistic of 96% of the revenue coming from partners definitely explains a lot.
Prior to my working a lot with Microsoft platforms in office environments, I had a very distasteful opinion of MS and saw them as a monopolistic, evil corporation representing “the man”.
What I only recently realized is that this is viewpoint is more based on the consumer face of Microsoft. The business face of MS is quite different. When interacting with Businesses, MS is very open and bends over backwards to accommodate their business partners with everything from free software to information sessions to enterprise level support. This is a stark contrast to what most consumers face if they deal with Microsoft support.
In some sense, it’s almost like two different companies altogether. This is changing, however, and I hope that Microsoft starts bringing a lot of its great business culture down to the consumer level to help build a better reputation with end users.