Launch Central for U.S. Partners : Launch

Office 2010 Betas and U.S. Partner Resources

dianeja — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:57:04 GMT

On November 18, the availability of Office 2010 betas was announced at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC09), and soon after that, we updated the U.S. partner portal home page to provide you with links to the betas as well as to other partner resources for Office 2010.

The betas give you the opportunity to experience the Microsoft Office 2010 suites, Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010, and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for yourself, and to give us feedback about how you think we can refine the products before they are released to manufacturing. Your input helped us make Windows 7 a great product, and we hope you’ll continue to help us deliver the best possible experience to our customers (which includes you) with our Office 2010 products.

After you’ve downloaded the betas, take a moment to become a fan of the Microsoft Office 2010 Partner Challenge on Facebook. The Challenge is a fun way for you to test your knowledge of Microsoft Office 2010, take on other Microsoft partners, and get a chance to win some great giveaways. Along the way, we’ll also keep you informed about the partner resources, such as training, sales and marketing materials, and more as we move towards the launch in 2010.

Resources

2010 Partner Beta Center: https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40124112

Partner Opportunities and Information: https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40113273 (hint: like the content here or have a suggestion about what else we should include? Click the feedback link at the bottom of the page; it’s anonymous and helps us make the partner experience better!)

Office 2010 Sales Training on the Learning Plan Tool: http://www.microsoftlearningplans.com/PackageDetails.aspx?packageId=464

Enjoy the betas!

Windows 7 Loadfests Start October 2 in MA, MO, and AZ

dianeja — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:08:00 GMT

Starting next Friday, October 2, U.S. partners have the opportunity to attend the Windows 7 Loadfest In-Person Learning. The cost is just $49, and you'll walk away with:

Your own copy of Windows 7, installed on your PC
Materials that you can use to host your own Windows 7 Launch event for your company and customers

Windows 7 opens new development, sales, and services opportunities for your business. At the Loadfest, we will start by installing Windows 7 onto your PC (see minimum requirements below and when you register). We will run through some of the key improvements that have been made from the user perspective and explore the new features in Windows 7, to better manage computers in the corporate environment.

Ready to Register?

Cities Featuring Windows 7 Partner Loadfest Events

Arizona: Phoenix	Massachusetts: Waltham (Boston)
California: Irvine (Orange County)	Michigan: Southfield (Detroit)
California: Los Angeles	Minnesota: Bloomington (Minneapolis)
California: San Diego	Missouri: St. Louis
California: San Francisco	New York: New York
California: Silicon Valley (San Jose)	Ohio: Cleveland
Colorado: Denver	Oregon: Portland
District of Columbia: Washington	Pennsylvania: Malvern (Philadelphia)
Florida: Ft. Lauderdale (Miami)	Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh
Florida: Tampa	Texas: Dallas
Georgia: Alpharetta (Atlanta)	Texas: Houston
Illinois: Chicago	Washington: Bellevue
Kansas: Kansas City

System Requirements

Make sure your desktop or laptop meets these minimum requirements:

• 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor

• 1 GB of system memory

• 16 GB of available disk space

• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (to enable the Aero theme)

• DVD-R/W Drive

Windows 7 Resources for U.S. Partners

dianeja — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:38:00 GMT

In today's The Learning Curve newsletter, our training-focused communication to U.S. members of the Microsoft Partner Program, we included some tasty information about Windows 7, in preparation for the Release Candidate, which will be available on 4/30 to TechNet and MSDN subscribers and broadly available on May 5, per the Windows 7 Team Blog. Here are some other things you can do to prepare:

May 7 - Attend our Virtual Partner Readiness Day. At this free virtual event, partners will have the opportunity to learn about Windows 7 from Microsoft executives and product experts and can take advantage of the readiness and marketing tools available to help prepare them for Windows 7 business opportunities. Register to attend on the Partner Learning Center.
Windows 7 Training Opportunities

Featured Training
Partnercast: Windows 7 in 7 Minutes -- Enterprise Demo (Sales, 7 minutes)
Partnercast: Desktop Optimization and Windows Vista (Sales, 11 minutes)
The Road to Windows 7: Part 1 (Sales, 1 hour)
The Road to Windows 7: Part 2 (Sales, 1 hour)
Windows 7: Application Compatibility (Technical, 1 hour)

Find more training on Windows 7 on the U.S. Learning Plan Tool: Windows 7 Sales Training and Windows 7 Technical Training.

Ready-to-Go Campaigns Updated with Windows Essential Server Solutions (SBS & EBS) Messaging

dianeja — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:29:00 GMT

Our "First Server, Right Server" and "Security and Reliability" Ready-to-Go Campaigns now include messaging for both our Windows Essential Server Solutions family as well as for Windows Vista. With the launch of Windows Small Business Server 2008 (SBS) and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS) last month, these campaigns were refreshed and you now have a comprehensive set of materials to help you market and sell these solutions.

If you're already familiar with our Ready-to-Go Campaigns, go to http://www.mspartnerdirect.com/fsrs (First Server, Right Server) or http://www.mspartnerdirect.com/secrel (Security and Reliability) and check out what's new. You may need to Sign In with your Windows Live ID for access.

If you aren't familiar with our Ready-to-Go Campaigns, visit the Sales and Marketing tab of the Microsoft US partner portal at https://partner.microsoft.com/US/salesmarketingsection to read more about them.

Cheers,

Diane Golshan

Sr. Marketing Manager, Microsoft US Partner Group

Participate in the "Dream Server" Launch Event on November 12

dianeja — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:47:00 GMT

The Windows Essential Server Solutions launch event website is now live at www.thedreamserver.com. Comprising Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 (for mid-size customers), implementing Windows Essential Server Solutions can help you secure your position as a trusted advisor by helping your customers reduce costs and increase productivity by streamlining their IT infrastructure. Invite your customers and prospects to the Windows Essential Server Solutions launch webcast--we are offering you materials for download at https://partner.microsoft.com/40082139 (guidance) and https://partner.microsoft.com/40082316 (invitation e-mail template).

Visit our Windows Essential Server Solutions page for partners at https://partner.microsoft.com/US/salesmarketingsection/smcampaigns/40080617, and see our information about offering your customers "sneak peeks" of these solutions at https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40079924?PS=95000124.

Cheers,

Diane Golshan, Sr. Marketing Manager, Microsoft US Partner Group

Is Launch Central Everything You Thought It Would Be?

dianeja — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:44:00 GMT

At a recent team offsite, I was thrilled to see the words "Launch Central" in a slide presented to us by a partner of the resources he considered to be critical for his company's success. A colleague and I came up with the Launch Central idea almost three years ago in preparation for the launch extravaganza of Vista, Office, and Exchange. We wanted to create a memorable phrase that we could use on the partner portal and in our newsletters; I added the blog a few months ago as yet another touchpoint. Today, it's become second nature for people to ask how to add information about their launch so that partners are aware of the resources.

Lately, though, I feel like we aren't quite toeing the line in utilizing Launch Central as well as we can. Sure, we have information about Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and Windows Essential Server Solutions, both families of products launching later this year. We have retained the information about our Unified Communications Launch and our recent "Heroes Happen Here" launch of Windows Server 2008, SLQ Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. We have content in our Monday morning partner newsletters and in this blog. But it still feels like we may not be meeting your needs for staying informed, aware, and active when it comes to our product launches.

I'd like to ask your advice. If Launch Central were yours to maintain, and you just wanted to keep the information flowing through the partner portal via the home page (https://partner.microsoft.com/us), Launch Central page, newsletters, and blog, what would your game plan be? What's missing that you'd like to see? Are there other vehicles or efforts you'd leverage? You are welcome to post your comments on this blog, or you can send me e-mail through the blog. If you want to be truly anonymous, you can use our Rate This Page functionality on the Launch Central page (https://partner.microsoft.com/US/salesmarketingsection/smcampaigns/launchcentral) and tell us your thoughts there.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Diane Golshan, Sr. Marketing Manager, US Partner Group

Keeping Up with Everything Launch

dianeja — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:51:00 GMT

It's a daunting task. As Microsoft has broadened its business and our portfolio of products has proliferated, keeping up with launches, updates, service packs, and everything else has become more complex. Trust me, even from the inside, it can be a struggle, so I sympathize with our partners and also marvel sometimes at their ability to keep things straight.

That being said, I do want to point you to two resources we offer on the partner portal that can help you navigate the myriad messages, resources, and nuggets of information that will help you make the most of every launch.

Launch Central (https://partner.microsoft.com/us/launch or https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40033583). We created this US-specific page for the launch of Vista/Office/Exchange a couple of years ago, and partners told us it was a really helpful tool for getting a quick view of what was going on. Launch Central acts as a "mini-portal" and we encourage product marketers to contribute and refine launch-related content and calls to action that drive how partners learn about, market, and sell solutions recently launched or soon to be launched.

Launch Resources (https://partner.microsoft.com/US/productssolutions/launchresources). This is a slightly different pivot of launch-related resources, focusing more on the products themselves by offering information about trials, betas, toolkits, and other goodies that help you get your hands on the products and understand what's on the horizon.

Why two different pages? Well, I think these pages provide two distinct views of our launch efforts--Launch Central for the selling/marketing view and Launch Resources for the product-specific view. A lot of times at Microsoft, we take the "kitchen-sink" approach because we feel like we have so many great things to tell and offer to our partners. Two pages seems like a small price to pay to offer a little bit more clarity. If you have a different opinion, or thoughts about how we can improve these pages and their respective content, I would love to hear them...

The Server & Tools Launch events are going strong – Jump in and exhibit at one of the remaining cities or hold your own launch event!

kevinpr — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:58:00 GMT

The US Server & Tools 60 city launch tour kicked in the beginning of March and is half way done and continues to drive great momentum for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL 2008. Customer feedback has been absolutely great at these events and the partners who have been exhibitors are having a great experience. The feedback that we are getting from partners includes;

· “Great event – we loved seeing our customers in person rather than email! Microsoft knows how to throw a great event!”

· “Good show; high quality leads. We expect the leads generated to pay for our participation.”

· Thrilled to have captured over 1k leads by 10am!

· GREAT event! TONS of people and we’re really impressed with the quality and numbers. Thank you!

For additional information regarding US Launch Event sponsorship packages you can go to https://launch2008.eventpoint.com/public/partnerinfo.aspx to view sponsorship details and remaining cities.

If you are wanting to hold your own launch event, we have also developed the “Launch in a Box” to enable partners to host their own launch events and build the sales funnel by providing customers insight on the Server & Tools products. The “Launch-in-a-Box” provides everything partners need from demand generation materials to drive registration, the event presentation and a event kit with the latest software. You can access the "Launch in a Box" via www.microsoftpartnerevents.com.

Both of these approaches are a great way to ensure that you are building your pipeline and capitalizing on the Server & Tools Launch opportunity.

Kevin Price

Senior Marketing Manager - US Partner Group