re: Microsoft and Telstra strategic alliance

Rob Prideaux — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:24:25 GMT

Why doesn't Microsoft just declare war outright on all it's small business partners?

This huge duopoly, regardless of it's performance, will be able to use the public perception of a "safe" megalith to force out near everbody in the/trying to establish a SaS/Hosting business.

Being a Microsoft Partner, seems to be the ultimate form of masochism...

re: Microsoft and Telstra strategic alliance

jkruse — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:03:43 GMT

Hi Rob,

I appreciate the feedback and understand your concerns here. While the announcements between Microsoft & Telstra are large and will have an impact on the local S+S market, the effect on partners isn’t very different to the global announcements around Microsoft Online Services and how they are affecting partners overseas. My view is that there is still a large opportunity for partners to be involved and offer capabilities that are not available with Online Services.

Online Services can be combined with partner solutions, and there are huge opportunities around customisation etc that can only be provided by partners as Online Services is very much a standard offering.

If you want more information about these opportunities it might be worthwhile posting a question to Nick Mayhew who is directly involved in working with partners around this alliance – he can be contacted via his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmayhew, and he has a FAQ for partners at http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmayhew/archive/2008/11/05/microsoft-telstra-proposed-alliance-info-for-microsoft-partners.aspx

Cheers,

Johann