In less than six weeks, Steve Ballmer and Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Partner Group will kick off the Monday morning of WPC at L.A.’s famous Staples Center. In a venue that has played home to the 17-time champion Los Angeles Lakers since 1999, Jon and Steve plan to share their vision for winning together in the new year, as well as pause to celebrate the impact and success of our great partners.

Following these two vision keynotes, you’ll be exiting the Staples Center and heading off to the Los Angeles Convention Center to attend value keynotes, sessions and visit the Solution Innovation Center (a/k/a the Expo). I have no doubt that you’ll likely be looking to quiet a hungry stomach around 1130a.

And, what better a treat to satisfy your hunger?

Tacos!

That’s right. I said it.

TACOS!

But, like all things when you get to experience a Microsoft event, these are no ordinary tacos.

Heck no!

These are the world-famous Korean-Mexican fusion tacos hand-crafted by the equally famous Kogi Truck!

During your two city-block walk from the Staples Center to the Convention Center, look out for this “traveling Los Angeles landmark” that will be parked (and stationary for your convenience) between these two venues.

With industry accolades from the likes of Bon Appétit and Food & Wine Magazine and with nearly 90,000 Twitter followers, the Kogi Truck serves up Korean-Mexican fusion with items like short rib tacos.

Here’s the deal: typically this local food truck favorite will beckon throngs of people during lunch hours. Luckily, the Exchange, Lync and SharePoint teams have snagged one of the trucks just for WPC attendees. And, we’ll be serving up those aforementioned short rib tacos as well as chicken or vegetarian tacos.

So look for a large food truck on your walk over to the Convention Center on Monday following the vision keynotes, and stop by to grab some delicious tacos before you head into an afternoon of sessions, networking, and, er, expo’ing.

But wait, there’s more!

Last week, I told you about the fast and easy way to grab a registration pass to this year’s “THE PARTY” of WPC. Well, when you stop by the Kogi Truck, make sure you pick up an Exchange or Lync button along with your tacos. If you’re spotted wearing one of these buttons in the Convention Center, you could be eligible to win a VIP Pass to “THE PARTY” and cruise past the lines and through the velvet rope at The Avalon.

Awesome, right?

Now, if you aren’t already salivating at the chance to sample some of the Kogi goodness, take a look at their Flickr photostream for even more inspiration to swing by their truck and say “hello” with a taco (or two) in tow.  Man, I am starving now!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

A few months ago, I read a great article by Wired magazine’s editor-in-chief, Chris Anderson, about how video is the next (or, perhaps, the current) big engine to share ideas and fuel innovation versus other mediums like the written word. This article really resonated with me, including the examples Anderson cited from past TED events. With video being king (i.e., “show me, just don’t tell me”), we certainly had a great motivator behind our Exchange partner video series launched back in March.

With all of that, I’m excited to share links to the newest editions to this series featuring great Exchange partners telling their story behind their Exchange practices.

First up, is Matt McGillen of PointBridge.  He heads up the Unified Communications practice for this Chicago-based systems integrator.  Matt’s also--like your humble blogger--a fan of the MLS where he follows the Chicago Fire.  Okay, back to the important stuff (at least as it pertains to Exchange), and hear from Matt about how PointBridge is “expanding into cloud services with Exchange Online, and how they’re beating Google bids with the power of customer choice across on-premises, online, and hybrid deployments”: http://meme.ms/n41r16

Our second new video features two heavy hitters from the South African-based Dimension Data, Anne Greenwald and Brian Walshe. Here you’ll have the chance to hear them “describe the opportunities in migrating customers from GroupWise and Notes, delivering Exchange advanced workloads—including archiving and voicemail—and selling the broader suite of Microsoft productivity solutions”: http://meme.ms/n4hapq

And, as an added bonus, these videos are currently in heavy rotation on the Microsoft Partner Network homepage at http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/

Following this “premiere” on the big stage, we’ll be adding them into the normal rotation on our Exchange page on the MPN portal.

As always, feel free to let us know your thoughts and stay tune for more great stuff in the coming weeks!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Believe it or not, this month I celebrated my one year anniversary in my role leading the Exchange partner marketing team.

Man, a year can go fast when you’re having fun!

While I’ve been working in the Exchange product management group for nearly 4 years, these last 12 months have afforded me some amazing opportunities to really get to know how we go to market through our fantastic Exchange partner ecosystem. And, along the way, I have had the chance to meet with many of you and learn what we can do to help make building your business on Exchange even more successful.

One of the most vocal pieces of feedback I received at WPC, through advisory councils, 1:1 discussions, etc. is you felt that the Unified Communications competency wasn’t arming you with the best branding or tools to help you differentiate your offerings to customers.

I took this feedback to heart and worked with many key stakeholders within the Exchange and Lync business groups, as well as our Worldwide Partner Group, to see what we could do to address this feedback. I cannot be more excited that I can announce that in response to your feedback, the Microsoft Partner Network (a/k/a MPN) is evolving the Unified Communications (UC) competency.

More specifically, in October 2011, the UC competency will split into two separate, new competencies: the Messaging competency, focused on Microsoft Exchange, and the Communications competency, focused on Microsoft Lync.

Without a doubt, the key motivator to this important evolution of a MPN competency was the ability for you to further differentiate your Exchange and Lync expertise in market and compete more effectively.

Sounds simple, but the reality is we know how much you invest in developing solutions practices on Exchange and Lync. And, that the introduction of these two new competencies will give you the chance to demonstrate these investments through the power of the Microsoft Partner Network.

But, we didn’t stop with a creating two new competencies!

We are also investing in expanding the scope of these competencies to reflect the investments you are making in the advanced capabilities of both Exchange (e.g., archiving and voicemail) and Lync (e.g., voice and video), as well as your commitment to helping customers with their journey to the cloud with Office 365. These investments include new training and assessments to help you demonstrate your capacity to help customers realize even more value out of the investments they are making in the Microsoft business productivity platform.

Here’s the scoop on the two newest competencies:

Messaging competency
For partners who want to broaden their business portfolio to sell, deploy, and support Microsoft Exchange and solutions built on the Exchange platform, the Messaging competency will enable you to grow your business by strengthening your Exchange practice, differentiating your expertise through distinguished branding, and expanding customer opportunities.

The Messaging competency recognizes your expertise in implementation design, deployment, and support of Microsoft Exchange Server. In addition, the Gold Messaging competency highlights your additional investment and specialization in archiving, security, and voicemail, as well as your ability to help customers with their journey to the cloud to Exchange Online.

Communications competency
For partners who want to broaden their business portfolio to sell, deploy, and support Microsoft Lync or build products and solutions on or interoperable with the Lync platform, the Communications competency will enable you to grow your business by strengthening your Lync practice, differentiating your expertise through distinguished branding, and expanding customer opportunities.

The Communications competency recognizes your expertise in implementation design, deployment, and support of Microsoft Lync. The Silver Communications competency enables you to highlight your investment and capabilities around IM/Presence and Conferencing workloads and the Gold Communications competency demonstrates further expertise in enterprise voice and video, PBX integration and Lync Online.

We’ve got a lot more to tell you about these significant changes planned for this year and next, and I personally invite you to stay tuned between now and WPC11 to learn more.

In the meantime, I encourage you to visit the recently updated MPN portal pages dedicated to the current UC competency, and download the Evolution of the UC Competency Guide. This document is designed to walk you through the transition to the new Messaging competency and Communications competency.

I’d also like to take this time to recognize several individuals who were instrumental in making this change happen, including Kristin Murray (Exchange), Isabell Sheng (Lync), Dan Truax (WPG) and Katie Larson (WPG). Without their tireless efforts, this simple notion of splitting the competency would still just be that, a notion. THANK YOU!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Let’s be honest.

WPC doesn’t end when the sun sets after a full day of keynotes, sessions and meetings.

Much like the action-packed agenda during the day, our evening schedules will be filled with receptions and parties to attend.  And, there is no shortage of shindigs to choose from.  Heck, you’ll feel more like a A-lister celebrity this year, thanks to the backdrop of the city of angels (not the city of the Angels, of which I keep being reminded are actually located in Anaheim, not Los Angeles).

Inarguably, one of the most popular evening events is “THE PARTY”. You know the one. That gig that requires the special wristband, and the one you're often off hunting for the prized VIP wristband.  Quick fast fact about “THE PARTY”: it’ll celebrate its 10th anniversary this year! 

This year’s “THE PARTY” is scheduled for July 13th at The Avalon, one of the Hollywood’s most historic landmarks, including being the very venue that hosted The Beatles first West Coast performance in 1964. Other famous acts and/or frequent visitors include: The Rolling Stones, Merv Griffin’s talk show, Jerry Lewis, The Beastie Boys, and (of course) Oingo Boingo (whose membership roll features Danny Elfman, most famous for penning “The Simpsons” theme song and just about every soundtrack in Tim Burton’s filmography).

It’s widely known that a ticket to “THE PARTY“ is hard to come by. With access to Microsoft executives and other partners, libations and live music, it is guaranteed to be the hottest (and most coveted) party ticket at WPC.

Fret not, our Exchange and Lync partners, for we have a way for you to bypass the frenzy of calling in favors and last minute scouting for a ticket.

How?

Exchange and Lync are among the sponsors of this year’s event, which means we’ll have our hands on a bunch of “THE PARTY” invites. Woo-hoo!

And, we’ll be giving away passes to “THE PARTY”! Double Woo-hoo!!

That’s right!

“So, how can I be eligible for one of these coveted passes?” you may be asking yourself as you re-read the above sentences, and perhaps even belting out a few “Woo-hoo’s” in the process.

It’s easy: between now and Friday, June 24th, you just need to tell us what you’re most excited to learn about Exchange and/or Lync at this year’s WPC.

And, you need to be specific (in a 140 characters or less).

“Okay, I got that part down, but how do you want me to tell you all of this?”, you ask next.

Again, it’s easy!  And, you’ve got two choices:

1. Tweet your “most excited to learn” tidbit with the #WPC11 and #ExchangePartner or #LyncPartner hastags, or
2. Post to the WPC’s Facebook wall or post a status on your profile with the “@Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference” tag wall and include keywords Exchange or Lync

It’s important to include these Twitter hashtags or Facebook tag/keywords, so we can find you!

On Thursday, June 30th we will randomly select the lucky recipients from all of the partners who posted and they will receive an exclusive registration code for Exchange and Lync partners. We will contact you via Facebook and Twitter to provide you with the code you’ll need to skip the waitlist to attend “THE PARTY” of the year.

Good luck and I am personally excited to see what you’ll be excited about hearing from us at WPC11. Now, I think I’ll spin up some Elfman soundtracks from the Zune Marketplace as I watch Twitter and Facebook for your entries!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

With just about eight weeks left until WPC, we hope you are as excited about our time in Los Angeles as we are!

Okay, technically, there are 4,665,600 seconds between today and Sunday, July 10th (the official kickoff of our yearly partner confab).

BTW, aren’t those date calculators a ton of fun?

On to the good stuff: with four full days of keynotes, 26 tracks spanning up to 600 sessions, side meetings and evening parties (yes, lots of parties!), your schedule can fill up fast. And, it’s easy to feel like Lucy in the chocolate factory, with too many chocolates to wrap (or sessions to attend). [NOTE: This reference was suggested by the Millennial on my team, and I really dug it and it proves that classic T.V. is truly timeless!]

To help navigate the bevy of sessions available to you, what follows is your “I’m an Exchange Partner” cheat sheet for the most important stuff to attend.

Here are the “make sure to attend” keynotes and sessions slotted for the afternoon of Tuesday, July 12th:

• 12:00 – 1:00PM

The Future of Productivity, a value keynote with Kirk Koenigsbauer, Corporate Vice President of the MODPMG [also known as the head honcho of the IW marketing world and known already the hollowed halls of Redmond as “KirkK”]. We strongly suggest you attend the first delivery so you can make the following sessions.

• 1:30 – 2:30PM

Dollars, Euros, or Yen: How Exchange brings you growth opportunities from on-premises to the cloud, a breakout session with Julia White, Senior Director of the Exchange PMG (also known as my boss, so please do attend! And, as an extra bonus, you’ll get an opportunity to meet me and my team, including Kristin who’s leading our Exchange presence at and efforts for WPC11.)

• 3:00 – 4:00PM

Exchange vs. Google and Zimbra – How to beat the competition, An interactive session with subject matter experts, Alym Rayani and Gary Danoys. You might remember me from partnering with Gary at WPC10 to deliver a similar session.  Well, this time, we’ve brought in a heavy hitter, as Alym is THE compete expert from the Exchange PMG. He’s also a huge Vancouver Canucks fan, and is anxiously awaiting the conclusion of their series with the Sharks, so his lads can make it to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1994 (and maybe win it all this time!).

• 4:30 – 5:30PM

So You Want To Host Exchange? an Interactive session with subject matter expert, Michael van Dijken.  You’ve already met Michael in an earlier blog posting, so I’ll let that one stand on its own. Nevertheless, VanD (as we call him around here) will help those partners looking to deliver private cloud versions of our industry leading productivity stack, and much more about the opportunity for hosters in the new world of Office 365.

You can use the Session Scheduler to create your own customer WPC 2011 itinerary as well as read the full abstracts for the sessions above. Be sure to include these sessions in your Tuesday afternoon schedule; with details like really cool stuff we’re doing around the UC competency, how to win against VMware Zimbra and hosting Exchange, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to get the scoop directly from senior leaders and subject matter experts.

And, if that doesn’t sell you, we will be rolling even out more details about our Exchange activities at WPC over the next several weeks. So, stay tuned for weekly updates on expo activities, parties, and taco trucks! (yes, I said taco trucks).

Ian Hameroff
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing