Partnering with Microsoft – MIX08 presentation

Today I need to complete the MIX08 presentation that I am co-presenting with Bill Vlandis (my SMSP counterpart) next week. Our topic is "Understanding Microsoft Partner Programs for Designers, Developers, and Agencies". The title is hopefully self explaining.

 

The fact is that if you start looking you will find almost a dussin "programs" for partners to join, a couple of dussins of website with resources and many many products and technologies. In fact the offerings from Microsoft are so many you don’t see the forest for all the trees. Doh!

 

Microsoft is a big company, but what makes Microsoft such an exciting company to work for is that we can often act like a smaller company with different teams having a large degree of freedom. Sometimes it is bad. In this case it is good. At present it helps me since sevaral different teams are embracing partners from one aspect or another. "All" I have to do it bring it together.

 

Presenting at MIX will be very exciting. In particular sharing our programs for web development. However at the same time I am a bit apprehensive; Microsoft is really a new player in the design area and the "design" aspect of our partner programs isn’t anywhere near as mature as our "developer" programs. We’ll get there, but we really only launched our first "designer" partner initiative 18 months ago and the learning curve is steep. Setting the right level of expectation is really important if we are to be believed and considered a valuable platform partner.

 

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