Without Gates, Microsoft`s Channel Changes Little - Opportunities in the Post-Gates Era
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Speyer
says that while fervor for Microsoft's products such as Vista
and Office 2007 has cooled, there are still great revenue opportunities, though
VARs will have to work much harder to get it.
"There are ways
to grow business and make money with Microsoft, though it may not be just lying
out there waiting for the channel to go pick up anymore. They are going to have to work hard for it,
but it is there," Speyer says.
Speyer
says the key opportunities lie around Microsoft's Dynamics CRM
offerings, business offerings such as ERP and server software, and continued
opportunities around hosted Exchange and even Vista.
Cherry advises
partners not to count out continued opportunities with servers and the server
ecosystem, which VARs already have a great handle on. But partners also need to
look in some underserved areas such as the desktop, where sales can be more challenging.
"VARs
shouldn't rule out solutions targeted toward helping people reduce the total
cost of ownership around desktops -- and I know that sounds like I'm telling
them something that's really easy, when in fact it's an incredibly difficult
prescription. It's scary how expensive
it is to maintain all these desktops." Cherry says.
In the wake of
Gates' departure, one thing partners can do to ensure their future success is
partner not just with Microsoft, but with each other, to ensure they're
reaching the widest possible audience.
"I like to
call it 'coop-etition,'" Bahl says.
"Partners are realizing that they have to partner with each other
and not just with vendors against one another," he says. Microsoft has
been instrumental in pushing the concept of partnering to build on each other
strengths rather than adding entirely new competency areas within single VARs.
"Microsoft
has done a lot toward forging connections between different VARs, which helps
us, and it also helps them," Bahl says, "Together we sell and manage
many more products."
For now, at least,
it seems the titanic Microsoft channel will continue to chug along, whether or
not Gates is at the helm. And while a
ship as massive as Microsoft doesn't turn on a dime, the channel will be
waiting with bated breath to see what, if any changes are ushered in once the Bill
Gates era comes to a close, and, of course, to see what the IT superstar plans
to do next.
Microsoft Partner 
