I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
We just completed requirements for being a Microsoft Gold Partner.
I was surprised that we were the first to be certified as a hosted solution provider in New Zealand. Cool!
I’ve spoken to a number of young companies who haven’t yet worked out the importance of partnering and formal industry partner programs.
For software companies operating on a Microsoft platform I’ve always thought it mandatory to quickly get to Gold Partner status. We did it at Glazier, AfterMail and now Xero. It is a lot of effort and of course means that you have achieved a level of certification that provides customers comfort. But there are some other major benefits.
Being a Gold Partner taps you into a global community of other Gold Partners, who may provide a first put of call if you have global expansion plans. We used this a lot at AfterMail.
Another huge benefit is access to joint marketing. It is important to work out how to partner with multinationals. Microsoft, or any large horizontal company, will have a marketing budget that you can only dream about. That spend will include case studies, thought leadership, targeted marketing, vertical events, product launches, mail drops - lots and lots of things. The secret to getting into that spend is working out what message that company has (and they may change each year), and how you can support that message. If a story helps them achieve their goals, they will pull you through so you get a direct benefit from their spend.
In Microsoft’s case the tickets to the game are Gold Partner status. Once you are a Gold Partner they will look after you. You get a much deeper level of engagement.
So if you are a software company working on Microsoft technology I urge you to make Microsoft Gold Partnership an objective this calendar year. A simple, measurable, goal. I imagine it would be similar for Oracle, Sun and other providers.
blog
It’s all about business under the new paradigm - key concepts are partnering, JV’s, community , networks etc. Sure business has always been like this to a certain extent but more so now than ever before. Old business paradigm to new business paradigm is analogous to the change from Web to Web 2.0
Well done Xero
: That spend will include case studies, thought leadership, targeted marketing, vertical events, product launches, mail drops - lots and lots of things.
You didn’t mention the best bits! Gold partnership also includes unlimited access to MicroSoft’s FUD factory, priority for buying out your competitors, access to product bundling, product placement in movies and sitcoms, and for a limited time, direct thought control for masses syndicated through the Fox television network! Why they’ve thought of everything. Thanks, Microsoft.
I guess in an ideas economy when you run out of ideas you can always outsource them, eh?
Don’t let anyone say it’s selling out to the devil. You know better!
Another advantage of gold partner status - from a purely technical and financial POV - is the 25-odd MSDN licenses, and office/XP ones as well. If you have a “small” dev team - ie, under 25 people - then it’ll save you around 250K$ NZ (MSDN == $10K / user x 25). that alone, from a dev POV, is worth the money. And then, you have literally every tool in the MS toolbox available, legally.
Rod, any rough comments (from Xero or AM pov) on what getting certified cost? If I had to guess at the cost at AM, it was maybe 10% (25K) max of that, and most of that was employee time doing some polish.
ouch!