I know how alergic you are to clickthroughs so I’ve reprinted the whole article Vijay wrote because its perhaps the finest piece of social/business reflection on what it is most of us do. If you are moved to respond please do so here.
Microsoft has a fixation for case studies which are compete based i.e. you replaced a Linux solution with Microsoft. They’ll jump all over you for this! Tell them you have stories where you deployed SBS 2003 and it transformed the way a business operated and it’s yawn city for them! The point is this, that SBSC Partners do this day in and day out – keeping small businesses operating and giving them modern IT infrastructure. The change in some of these businesses can be amazing and on the surface may seem nothing, not even worth reporting but boy do they have an impact on the way people work. Microsoft continues to be completely underwhelmed by the work we do and the range of technologies we deploy – we perform minor miracles! The greatest stories are those of ordinary people doing ordinary things or maybe I should say ordinary people being empowered to do extraordinary things. Microsoft needs to come and see what we do and you can’t do that from the comfort of Microsoft HQ.
The SBSC Programme is like the Programme that dare not mention its name, in fact some who work within Small & Medium Business never mention it! If they were to meet a SBSC Partner you feel they would be like a rabbit caught in the headlights and try and make it to the safety of a Gold Certified Partner doing Business Solutions. I guess we can be a bolshy lot and that we don’t necessarily fit into nice neat Microsoft compartmentalised silos. We’re not going to cover many PAMs in glory – bless their little target driven cotton socks! Shock horror, we work with competitive technologies and have multiple vendor relationships and we speak our mind when things at Microsoft suck. We are unpredictable and ungrateful, probably in about equal measure.
One thing each and everyone of us has done has been to take real risks in life. We’ve bet our livelihoods, the growth of our businesses and the success of our customer’s businesses on Microsoft Technology so we deserve the maximum amount of support from Microsoft and for them to step into our shoes sometime.
To each and every SBSC Partner out there, I truly respect what you all do!
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