Let's Hear It For The Marketing Machine zdnet.com
A little backgrounder from my favorite ilk sister.
And what Microsoft has to say is undeniably interesting. The company currently has about a dozen "enterprise partners" in its corner-ranging from Compaq, Digital and HP on the hardware side, to software and services firms like Vanstar, Ernst & Young, Unisys and Wang on the software and services side. By the end of this year, according to Ian Rogoff, general manager of enterprise partnerships with Microsoft's Enterprise Customer Unit, that number should be closer to 15 to 20.
How do you become one of this select group? You usually start out as a Microsoft Solution Provider and then go out on a limb by committing early and often to Microsoft's products du jour, such as NT, Exchange, Site Server, Microsoft Transaction Server, etc. You spend lots of money to certify and train hundreds of your people in Microsoft products and technologies. You study Microsoft-speak-concepts such as the "Digital Nervous System" and "Web Lifestyle." And then you tell other, smaller Microsoft partners and the press why Microsoft beats the pants off IBM, Netscape, Oracle, et. al., when it comes to partnering.
And you hope and pray that the new "kinder, gentler" Microsoft will let you know in advance when you've outlived your usefulness, as Alan Buckley said. You just kindly, gently inform Compaq to put the darn icon back where it belongs, or you're dead meat.
Cheers, Dan. |
