The Amazing Adventures of Geek Girl : partner resources

Benefits of being a Microsoft Partner - Registered, Certified and Certified Gold

tara — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:32:39 GMT

There are numerous benefits of being a Microsoft partner, including:

Building networks within Microsoft and with other Microsoft partners
Access to Microsoft software and in-depth product information
Promote your offerings on Microsoft.com

There are 3 different levels of Microsoft partner: Registered, Certified and Certified Gold. Information about the benefits you get at these different levels and how to get to each level is described below:

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Registered partners

This is the first level of Microsoft partner. As a registered partner, you can access product training, subscribe to the Microsoft Action Pack and take advantage of product promotions and offers.

Benefits:

Run your business and provide demos to customers with the internal-use software you can receive through the Microsoft Action Pack Subscription (MAPS).
Build credibility with existing or new customers with a direct connection to Microsoft.
Develop your skills with online technical and sales training.
Provide promotions, product offers, and financing to your customers.
Increase your business efficiency with customisable sales and marketing materials exclusively focused on small and midsize business needs.
Better predict and prepare for technology advances with timely alerts through RSS feeds and the Registered Member newsletter.

How to become a registered partner:

Create a Microsoft Windows Live ID account, if you do not already have one.
Sign in to the Partner Membership Centre.
Agree to the Microsoft Partner Program terms and conditions.
Complete your individual and organization profiles.

For further information, download the Microsoft Partner Program Guide, review the Windows Live ID FAQ, or contact your local Regional Service Centre for help.

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Certified Partners

This is the second level of Microsoft partner. As a certified partner, you will have access to exclusive content and the certified partner program toolkit and you will receive the certified partner program newsletter.

Benefits:

Internal-Use Licences Free licences for Microsoft software to use within your organisation. Check this list for licence entitlement.
Partner Learning Centre
The Partner Learning Centre is your premier resource for a variety of local classes, online courses, Virtual Labs, independent study resources, and more. Develop your sales, technical, and marketing skills to hone your business efficiency and create advantages in the marketplace.
Certified Partner Logo
A key benefit for Certified Partners is the ability to use the Microsoft Certified Partner logo in partner-branded marketing materials. Display your company's strong industry experience in providing services, software, or support for Microsoft technology. And show customers that you're reliable, broadly skilled, and endorsed by Microsoft.
Partner Program Toolkits
After you enrol as a Certified Partner, you'll receive the Microsoft Partner Program Toolkit for Certified Partners.
Technical Sales Assistance
Microsoft Certified Partners have free and unlimited access to Technical Sales Assistance. Staffed by skilled Microsoft support professionals, the Technical Sales Assistance team provides technical, business, and competitive sales assistance. Direct phone and online access helps you speed sales and position Microsoft technologies as the preferred solution for your customers.

How to become a certified partner:

Complete the Registered partner steps
Assign key contact roles through the Partner Membership Centre. For help, see the “Program Enrolment and Administration” section in the Microsoft Partner Program Guide.
Employ or contract with at least two exclusive MCPs or develop at least one tested solution. Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) must enter their names in their profiles exactly as they are displayed at the MCP Member Site. The name is case sensitive.
Earn 50 qualifying Partner Points.
Associate Partner Points to your organization’s account in the Partner Membership Centre.
Earning a Microsoft Competency is the easiest way to achieve your desired level in the Microsoft Partner Program. For example, you earn 30 qualifying Partner Points, when you achieve your first Microsoft Competency. As a bonus, you receive 20 additional Partner Points when you earn your first competency.
Pay the annual Microsoft Partner Program fee.
The program membership term runs for 12 months from the date of enrolment and fee payment. For example, if you enrol in January 2008, your program term will run through January 31, 2009. The entire fee, along with applicable taxes, is due at the time of enrolment. You may pay the annual fee by credit card, check, demand draft, or wire transfer. (Payment methods may vary by country.) Contact your local Regional Service Centre to get information about the fee for your country.

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Gold Certified Partners

This is the third and highest level of Microsoft partner. As a certified gold partner, you will have a very close working relationship with Microsoft and you will have access to the Partner Knowledge Base and receive priority listing in Microsoft directories.

Benefits:

Internal-Use Licences Free licences for Microsoft software to use within your organisation. Check this list for licence entitlement.
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Announcement Kit
After you've attained Gold Certified Partner status, announcing it with a press release can help you generate new business, increase your credibility with existing customers, and distinguish yourself from your competition.
Gold Certified Partner Logo
A key benefit for Gold Certified Partners is the ability to use the Microsoft Gold Certified Partner logo in partner-branded marketing materials. Display your company's high level of industry experience providing services, software, or support for Microsoft technology. And show customers that you're reliable, thoroughly skilled, and endorsed by Microsoft.
Access to all certified partner benefits

How to become a certified gold partner:

Complete the Registered partner steps
Assign key contact roles through the Partner Membership Centre. For help, see the “Program Enrolment and Administration” section in the Program Guide.
Employ or contract with at least two exclusive MCPs or develop at least one tested solution. Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) must enter their names in their profiles exactly as they are displayed at the MCP Member Site. The name is case sensitive.
Attain at least one Microsoft Competency.
Earn 120 qualifying Partner Points.
Associate Partner Points to your organization’s account in the Partner Membership Centre.
Earning a Microsoft Competency is the easiest way to achieve your desired level in the Microsoft Partner Program. For example, you earn 30 qualifying Partner Points, when you achieve your first Microsoft Competency. As a bonus, you receive 20 additional Partner Points, when you earn your first competency.
Pay the annual Microsoft Partner Program fee.
The program membership term runs for 12 months from the date of enrolment and fee payment. For example, if you enrol in January 2008, your program term will run through January 31, 2009. The entire fee, along with applicable taxes, is due at the time of enrolment. You may pay the annual fee by credit card, check, demand draft, or wire transfer. (Payment methods may vary by country.) Contact your local Regional Service Centre to get information about the fee for your country.

The best place to find out about Partner Program benefits is in the Microsoft Partner Portal. To discuss the benefits of certified and certified gold partner levels, talk to your Microsoft Account Manager or email me.

SharePoint Training Days - London and Reading dates

tara — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:02:01 GMT

My fellow Partner Technology Specialist, Jess Meats, is hosting SharePoint training sessions for Microsoft Partners. The training sessions are intended as a broad, high-level introduction to the capabilities and value of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. At the end of the session, partners should have a better understanding of the potential value of SharePoint to their customers and their own businesses. It is a free demo-focused session aimed at increasing partner awareness of the possible scenarios where SharePoint would be a valuable part of a software solution.

The dates of upcoming training days are:

London (Microsoft Cardinal Place, Victoria): April 16th

Reading (Microsoft TVP): May 22nd and June 19th

You can register to attend any of these sessions through the Microsoft partner portal: https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/search_adv.aspx?ssid=6AB0B6B251CC45F98B0BD24B968B1F98&site=UK&lang=en-uk&isMetaTagRefreshed=true

Information and Resources for new (and established!) Partners

tara — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:11:16 GMT

We all know that there are just too many resources and too much information available from Microsoft - endless streams of websites, online and classroom training, Microsoft employees... It can be a real challenge trying to find the correct, relevant information!

To try and solve this, Jessica Meats (a fellow Partner Technology Specialist), Hayley Rixon (a Solution Channel Development Manager) and myself have sifted through the masses of information and resources available to partners, and selected what we think is the most useful. We've also defined the roles of the various Microsoft employees small and mid-market partners are likely to contact, to try and give partners a better understanding of whom in Microsoft to engage for sales, marketing or technical advice.

Originally, the information was consolidated for new SharePoint partners, looking to find SharePoint training and gain their certification; however there's plenty of information on the list which would be useful for established SharePoint partners, and even other Microsoft partners who have nothing to do with SharePoint!

I encourage you to have a quick scan through the list below, and if you spot a resource you're not familiar with, use the information available to find out more about how you could utilise it to become even more successful!

This information will also be published on the Solution Partner RSS feed- make sure you've subscribed!

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Microsoft Employee Resources

Solution Channel Development Managers

A Solution channel development manager (SCDM) focuses on working with partners to create and develop new practices or solution areas within their business as required to support the current Microsoft Growth areas. SCDM’s are focused on driving two key solution areas of Business Productivity and Core Infrastructure (BPIO and CoreIO). This includes working with both existing Microsoft partners looking to grow their business into new areas (such as Exchange Partners expanding into Security, or Sharepoint Partners moving into BI) and working with new partners (such as partners selling non Microsoft technologies who want to build a Microsoft practice).

SCDM’s co-ordinate and work very closely with the training, marketing and technical teams to help build partners’ capability as well as working with Sales and Account Management teams to ensure helping drive pipeline, close deals, grow the partner profile, helping achieving growth and share for both Microsoft and the partner.

Partner Technology Specialists

Partner Technology Specialists provide technical presales support for Microsoft partners. This support can range from email or telephone conversations, face-to-face meetings and technology demonstrations to actively working with partners to close deals. Partner Technology Specialists can provide assistance for partners adopting a new Microsoft technology, such as SharePoint, into their customer solution offering, through to partners who are already established in a particular technology area but require details on new product features or product integration information.

Speak to your Microsoft Account Manager about engaging Partner Technology Specialists.

Technical Sales Assistance (formally TPTS)

Technical Sales Assistance provides free telephone presales technical support for Certified and Gold partners as part of your Microsoft Partner Program benefits. The Technical Sales Assistance is available during normal working hours giving you direct phone access to a Microsoft Technical Presales Specialist. Technical Sales Assistance provides unlimited technical, business and competitive sales assistance.

The advice provided by the Technical Sales Assistance service can assist in accelerating your sales cycles and help you deliver the best solutions to your customer, first time.

Why should I use the Technical Sales Assistance?

· Direct access to Microsoft Technical Presales Specialists

· Receive technical support & information in competitive sales situations, including discussion guides and third party research materials, battle cards, and escalation to COMPHOT.

· Proof of concept information

· Understand product capabilities & features

· Access to configuration and compatibility guidance

· Technical licensing assistance

· TCO & ROI advice

To contact TSA, email uktsa@microsoft.com or telephone 0870 60 70 700 and select option 3.

Online Resources

Partner Portal

The Partner Portal is accessible exclusively by Microsoft partners, and contains useful information about the Microsoft partner eco-system, Microsoft products, role and product specific training, sales and marketing advice, licensing information and available support. Access the Partner Portal here http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner

Sales Demos

Demo Showcase is a collection of click-through sales demos and virtual machines that can be used to demonstrate the value of Microsoft solutions to your customers. Instead of focusing on products, these demos focus on business scenarios and show how Microsoft technology can be used to solve real problems. The Demo Showcase files can be found here: https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/salesmarketingsection/smsalesdemos

Microsoft Partner Network

The MPN is a business networking platform designed to facilitate UK partner to partner connection, knowledge and information exchange. Sign in with a Windows Live ID, complete your profile and start connecting. http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/

Training and Specialisation Resources

Partner Learning Centre

The Partner Learning Centre is accessible through the Partner Portal, and provides access to hundreds of Microsoft training courses, including classroom training, web seminars and online tutorials. Search for training offerings specific to your competency/specialisation, technology, or professional development subject focus areas: https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/home.aspx

Learning paths

The Microsoft Learning Paths provide links to training resources relevant to gaining skills in a particular Microsoft technology. Use the Learning Paths to help you select the most appropriate and useful training from the hundreds of available training courses.

The SharePoint Learning Path for sales roles is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/learningpaths/?id=microsoftsharepointsales

The SharePoint Learning Path for technical roles is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/learningpaths/?id=microsoftsharepointsolutions

Upcoming SharePoint Training

Details of upcoming SharePoint training listed in the Partner Learning Centre can be found here: https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/search.aspx?ssid=EC4392E86BA448BC92F6219528C27491&IsPLCSS=1

In particular, there are two SharePoint demo sessions taking place at Microsoft Thames Valley Park, Reading office. For exact details, visit https://training.partner.microsoft.com/plc/details.aspx?systemid=263278&EventTypeID=2&page=/plc/search.aspx

For information on general training events for all Microsoft technologies, visit https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/trainingevents

Information Worker Competency

Gaining a Microsoft competency offers benefits such as additional software licences, the opportunity to display the competency logo, as well as access to resources like industry research, valuable marketing and sales materials and more. The Information Worker competency is the specific competency associated with SharePoint. According to a 2006 IDC study, partners with the Information Worker Solutions competency out-perform other non-competent knowledge worker partners on 12 of 14 key performance indicators. Specifically, this research found that compared to the Knowledge Worker Benchmark, IW competent partners have:

· Significantly shorter sales cycles and implementation times, benefiting from Microsoft's ability to connect them with high-yield prospects and Microsoft technical resources.

· Service capacity utilisation rates that exceed the benchmark by 10 percentage points. They keep their technical resources billable more of the time and therefore are able to do more with fewer resources.

· More productive relationships with their customers. Their number of deals per customer is over 1.5 times that of the benchmark.

· Revenue growth averaging 18 per cent, significantly higher than (more than double) the growth of the benchmark companies.

For more information on this competency, review the IW Competency page on the Partner Portal https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/program/competencies/40012658

Details of how to achieve this competency can also be found on the Partner Portal https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/program/competencies/40023114

Finance Incentives for your Customers

MS Financing

Microsoft Financing provides an affordable and predictable way to acquire the IT solution that your business needs to help cut costs and increase efficiencies. Microsoft Financing can be used to finance a complete range of technology needs, including software, services, partner products, and hardware. Our solution partners work with you to define your technology-related business needs and objectives, set up a payment structure that can work with your budget, and help you maintain important cash flow.

Microsoft Financing offers qualified customers immediate access to funds, so that you can purchase and deploy the IT solution that you need. There is no down payment required, and terms range from two to five years—making it easy to match your payments to realized IT benefits immediately.

Find more information about the different financing deals available on the Microsoft Financing website: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/financing/default.mspx

For more information on many of the benefits described above, as well as additional support available to Microsoft partners at Registered, Certified and Gold partner level, refer to the support overview available on the Partner Portal: https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/supportsecurity