Who doesn’t like videos?

One only needs to take a look at the stats from comScore’s recent online video rankings to confirm this as fact. They shared that “171 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in January for an average of 14.5 hours per viewer.”  Dang, that’s a lot of small-screened viewing, and that’s just in the United States!

Late last year, Kristin from my team was brainstorming about how to best show off the great things you do as Exchange partners. Around the same time, Janalent, our 2010 Unified Communications Solutions Messaging Partner of the Year, happen to be heading into town from their H.Q. in Las Vegas.  As you likely recall, Janalent’s COO Joe Honan spoke during Julia White’s Exchange session at WPC2010, sharing how his company is driving their business with Exchange opportunities (both on-premises and with Exchange Online).

We thought, “hey, wouldn’t it be great to shoot a video of Joe and Anne telling this story?”

Well, Kristin took that idea, expanded it, and came up with this really creative video series called “an Exchange partner mini series” which went live just a week ago on our Exchange MPN portal page.

As you can see in the screenshot above, we’re featuring an array of Exchange partners – like Lars Riehn, CEO of Munich-based infoWAN Datenkommunikation GmbH – answering the question “how are you growing your business with Microsoft Exchange?”

We had a few goals in mind when this project was conceived.

First, we’re always looking for ways to breathe new life into our Exchange page on the MPN Portal. 

Why? 

Because we recognize that you most often visit this site when we are close to launching a new version.  If we can do a little more to keep this site fresh and updated with new content, news and information (like highlighting yesterday’s general availability of the HP E5000) we expect you’ll visit more often.

Second, it’s sometimes easy to forget how awesome of an opportunity Exchange presents for your business. As Kristin noted in the intro paragraph right above the video’s “Brady Bunch-like” grid:

Watch as partners share how they are taking advantage of new business opportunities with Microsoft Exchange. Hear from solutions partners and independent software vendors (ISVs) as they discuss migrating customers from competitive messaging platforms, upgrading legacy Exchange customers, displacing legacy voicemail systems, expanding into cloud services and developing tools to move customers to the cloud.

It is great to see partners that have been with us since Exchange 5.5 as well as new partners that have just began their Exchange practices within the past twelve months.

Lastly, we believe one of the best ways my team can help you is by creatively sharing the best practices you develop and highlighting your fantastic results to further strengthen our overall Exchange ecosystem. 

So, check out the current batch of videos and keep visiting back as we have many more partners in the queue to share their stories.

Also, let me know what you think.  Use this blog as a way to provide the feedback we can use to serve you even better. 

And, if you had a story you’d like to share with your fellow ecosystem partners, just say the word by clicking on the Email Blog Author link in the top-right corner of this page.

Enjoy!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Believe it or not, WPC2011 is just around the corner and the “Partner of the Year” awards are a big part the road to L.A.  Kristin, who is my breadth partner program lead (which includes driving our Unified Communications presence at WPC), has written a guest post to get you prepped for submitting your award nomination:

Hi partners -

I work on the Exchange Partner Marketing team, looking after our breadth partner programs. I will be driving WPC planning and execution this year for our team, and I look forward to seeing you at our marquee partner event this upcoming July 10-14 in Los Angeles. In Ian’s earlier post, he wrote about a series of Exchange partner videos I’ve been developing, and the WPC awards are yet another opportunity to highlight the great work you all do. WPC 2011 Awards categories were announced last week, and this post will provide more detail on the specific awards related to Exchange.

What’s new this year?

This year, the awards program includes special recognition and exclusive WPC access benefits for awards winners and finalists. Visit DigitalWPC.com to learn more.

Also, there are changes to the awards categories this year. We are looking to showcase how your business is helping to drive acceleration of Microsoft products in the marketplace as well as looking for examples of the innovative solutions built on Microsoft technologies your company is developing and delivering. This year, we are focusing on the following two Unified Communications awards:

Unified Communications Market Acceleration Partner of the Year

This award recognizes partners with proven expertise in planning, deployment, and management of Microsoft Exchange while helping their customers lower IT costs, boost user productivity and better manage risk. Successful entries will discuss how partners are driving upgrades from legacy Exchange or migrations from competitive platforms to Exchange Server 2010 or Exchange Online supported with quantifiable results and customer anecdotes. Entries specifically highlighting deployments of advanced Exchange workloads (archiving, security and voicemail) are encouraged.

Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year

This award recognizes partners that are building on the extensible Microsoft Unified Communication platform offered by Lync/OCS and Exchange and are delivering innovative solutions that integrate communications within business applications and processes (CEBP). Successful entries will highlight how the partner’s solutions around CEBP have a significant impact on how people communicate and collaborate by enhancing the end-user experience, increasing efficiency or by extending the existing products with unique add-ons. Partners should showcase the unique and positive effects their innovative solutions have had on their customers’ business.

I encourage you to submit entries and nominate your organization for these awards (1 entry per award max). We are eager to read about and recognize your success!

Interested in showcasing your incredible work over the past year?

• Review the document outlining the awards categories, descriptions and requirements and start preparing your entry today.
• Revisit and begin submitting your entries on March 18 at DigitalWPC.com. All entries must be submitted by April 15.

Any questions? Post a comment, and I’ll be happy to answer.

Cheers,
Kristin Murray
Product Manager

I must admit, I am not one of those people who you’ll find lined up at Best Buy (or even our own company store) at midnight to be amongst the first to grab a copy of the newest release of Halo or waiting outside an IMAX box office to hit the very first showing of the summer’s big blockbuster, action flick.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Best Buy, Halo, and film! I’ve just always been happy to wait for the crowds to die down.  And, considering I am still trying to finish the original “The Godfather” game for Xbox (circa 2006), you can get a sense of my pace for taking on new titles.

That all change yesterday morning, where you would have found me with mouse pointer hovering over the IE9 refresh icon, counting down the minutes to 10:00a PST.

“What changed?” you may ask.

Well, we officially opened registration for WPC2011 on DigitalWPC.com!

When 10:00a finally arrived, I swore I heard the voice of T.V. and movie legend Carl Weathers say “Here we go!” much like he does in a recent advertising campaign for a pretty well known brand of American beer.  And, when the guy who played Apollo Creed suddenly haunts your inner monologue, you know it’s game time!

July 11th is rapidly approaching, and our Exchange partner marketing team has already been working for the past several months to plot our plans for the Unified Communications (a/k/a Exchange and Lync) presence (as part of the Business Productivity track) at the Los Angeles edition of one of my most favorite Microsoft events. 

We’re locking things down like which sessions we’ll be landing, how our Unified Communications Symposium (a/k/a the pre-day) will be shaped, strategizing on side meeting schedules, and (of course) figuring out which of the zillion parties are the ones we’ll make sure to let you guys know are “the ones” you must be at (like the famous DPE party that ranks among the best bets when attending a WPC).

I’ll share our progress on this front, as things continue to lock and settle in for the event. So, stay tuned to this space (and DigitalWPC.com) for more details every day.

In the meantime, I encourage you to register soon, as the early bird savings only last until April 25th and you certainly don’t want to miss out staying in your preferred hotel! Looking at the ticker on WPC2011 page, as of 12:56p PST, they’ve already hit 1109 attendees!

Just 108 days left until the big show, and I am very much looking forward to seeing all of you there!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Great news! As of Friday, March 18th you can start submitting your WPC award nominations.  Here’s Kristin again to share some more details:

Following up to my post from last week that provided an overview of this year’s WPC Awards, the window for self-nominations is now open.

This year, we are focusing on the following two Unified Communications awards:

• Unified Communications Market Acceleration Partner of the Year
• Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year

Visit digitalwpc.com/Awards/2011-Awards to learn more about the special recognition and exclusive WPC access benefits for awards winners and finalists this year.

It’s officially open season, and we are eager to showcase your incredible work over the past year. What’s next?

• Review the awards categories, descriptions and requirements here.
• Visit digitalwpc.com/Awards/2011-Awards to launch the Awards tool and begin developing your entries.
• Submit entries before 11:59pm PT on April 15.

There is a comprehensive FAQ page within the Awards tool. If you have additional questions, please post a comment.

Off to the races!

Cheers,
Kristin Murray
Product Manager