I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Was delighted to present at the Microsoft ConnectioNZ conference this morning.
I’ve been working with Microsoft now for 16 years (started when I was 10 alright) and it was the first opportunity I’ve had to actually talk about how that partnership has helped me throughout my career and to thank Microsoft.
Looking back it’s scary to think how many new jobs we’ve created through that relationship. It’s easily over 300.
Love or hate Microsoft you have to acknowledge how good they are at partnering.
Hopefully something useful from my discussion was how to partner effectively with Microsoft. Here are some tips.
- Understand what the Microsoft individuals you are working with are goaled on. If you’re synced up with that your in good shape.
- Normally the individuals goals are in sync with the MS corporate goals. Ask what they are. Then you can line up your messaging and themes and the magic starts to happen.
- You need to build a relationship. Get to know the people you are working with.
- Look for ways that you can add value
Simple stuff I know but someone at MS today pointed out that many of the relationships they have feel more like the traditional vendor/customer relationship than a partnership.
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Excellent post, Rod. I find the demonising of MS very hypocritical and this reminds us that they can be good guys too. Like any good relationship, it needs two-way commitment, sacrifice and understanding.
Rod, you delivered a very good presentation and even though I have been partnering with MS for a long time it is always good to hear other peoples take. Points you mentioned that I took out of it were -
1. From MS you get credability and trust from your potential customers.
2. When MS comes up the stack into the applications space (i.e. CRM) look for other opportunities and strategies. I would add here that they actually make the CRM space more credible if you have your own CRM software.
3. Enterprise SaaS style applications plays to many of our strengths.
Rod said…
Love or hate Microsoft you have to acknowledge how good they are.
I applaud Microsoft for being a very successful business even though I do my development in Java and occasionally in J# for some projects. I just don’t understand why people are so anti-Microsoft, it is completely irrational. Most people just hate Microsoft for no reason other than they are a very successful business. So, before anyone (Dave Lane and the likes) from the anti-Microsoft camp jumps in here to strangle me, I am inviting you to go to the following link and join the debate over there, regarding the EU stupid ruling on Microsoft (a few days ago).
Punishing success: It’s not un-European
As a Microsoftie you develop thick skin to the unbalanced critisisim pretty quickly. At Microsoft we have an acronym for this type of person … ABM’ers (Anybody But Microsoft). You learn to deal with the snide remarks and soon you just realise most are just to try to get you to bite back. People just hate it when you dont. This might sound strange, but one reason I like Microsoft is because we generally dont lower ourselves to the petty name calling that you often see. We just try to keep focus and rarely give up.
Sorry about the appalling spelling of criticism in that last post.