re: 'teaming' with uSoft
'teaming' is one of those wonderful industry euphemisms that is supposed to make a vendor-supplier relationship sound so much more glamorous :). I believe that there is a program out there somewhere that automatically takes dry text and makes it 'press release ready'. You know, something that takes a text like:
"XYZ company signed a contract to purchase dweezles from ABC company for $.32/dweezle with a minimum purchase amount of 30,000 dweezles per year for two years, with a rolling 90 day forecast, 10% penalty re-stocking charge, and negotiable extensions on an annual basis beginning in the third quarter of the second year. Both companies have agreed to submit to arbitration settlement in face of disputes, 60 day termination with cause conditions, and 24 hour level 1 technical service escalation, with 1 week guaranteed fix, workaround, or substition of all product quality issues."
to something like:
"XYZ Company and ABC Company today entered a strategic partnership to save the world from all sins and sicknesses. "We are thrilled to be working with the most powerful, dominant company in the world in addressing this problem", said President Bob of XYZ Company, "It will help us to leverage our far superior technical thinking into a more global set of solutions." President Bill of ABC Company remarked, "The opportunity to add another small but focused player into our repertoire of bit players is very exciting for us. Their experience is very complementary to our strategy of continued global domination!"
On a serious note, the 'teaming' is essentially a contractual agreement to use Microsoft technology, (Windows/CE and the Hydra connectivity code, being called 'RDP', now, I believe), to build a network device dedicated to remote access of Windows/NT application servers. In addition to the actual contractual agreement we have an informal relationship with Microsoft development in which we exchange ideas, express needs, and review potential plans. 'Teaming' with Microsoft is really no different than any other relationship - a great majority of it is based on personal relations, and careful management of what can become divergent or convergent business desires. To be successful it is critical that you have both a strong formal relationship and a strong informal relationship. Without one the other is always in danger, for a wide variety of reasons.
Hopefully this all makes sense. I think it is important that you understand that there is no 'secret deal' going on here, but at the same time is important that you realize that we do believe we have been quite successful at building our relationship to the point that we believe we can be quite successful in the WBT business. |
