As promised, we wanted to take the opportunity to share with you some of the feedback we received from the SBSC WESS Launch user group tour.

We have now presented at all eleven user groups and have successfully succeeded in our aim of doubling attendance of each group. In total, through the medium of user groups, we have met with over 270 partners to introduce and demo SBS 2008 and EBS 2008, provide you with a marketing fundamentals session and remind you of the tools and resources available to you as an SBSC partner, as well as set expectations on what Microsoft can and cannot do for SBSC partners.

In summary, here are the key takeaways from the events:

• No one session stood out as more popular than the others – the product session, marketing session and the SBSC programme session all seemed to add tremendous value to the success of the events with each session scoring on average 4 or 5 out of 5.
• The “Fantastic 40” Apps went down extremely well, with partners seeing SharePoint as a new thing to talk about with their customers.
• There were some complaints about getting hold of SBS 08 now – general feedback was that Action Pack is too slow and outdated as a medium. Specifically they asked why action pack is not available as a download. This has been fed back appropriately within Microsoft.
• Partners expressed that that are pleased to see Microsoft taking a more active interest in the SBSC programme and are liking some of the initiatives they have seen to date. They request more of the same and hope this investment continues.
• Partners would like to see Microsoft to continue to do work to drive awareness of the SBSC brand.
• We asked partners to score their knowledge of marketing prior to the marketing session and then post the session. Generally they said their knowledge prior to the session was around 2 (poor) and most scored their knowledge post the session at least 2 points higher (4 or 5 – good / excellent).
• Many partners requested Microsoft provide more sessions like the marketing one at future events.
• We asked Partners how they intend to buy SBS 2008 and EBS 2008.  The majority of partners intend to buy SBS 2008 through COEM or Open licensing.  Many also expressed Pre-installed through MNA and FPP as an purchasing option.
• We asked partners how soon they plan to deploy SBS 2008 -  the majority of partners will be looking to deploy SBS 2008 either immediately or within 3-6 months.
• We asked partners how soon they plan to deploy EBS 2008 - several SBSC partners stated this product does fall within their market segment but for those who do cover the relevant segment, they would aim to deploy within 6 months+.
• We asked partners what impact the economic situations has had on their business. The majority of partners are seeing high impact, though some comment this impact has had a positive effect on their business as customers are looking for the most cost effective ways to run their business using IT.

I hope you've found this a useful summary.

Finally, we thought we'd share some photos from the events...