Selective Partnership Amnesia

I am not going to defend Microsoft for what they have done today. But I am not going to fault them either, you rarely get a partner that gives you years worth of lead notice of the business model changing gears.

So it seems today’s Microsoft WPC keynote left a lot of partners with a really sour taste in their mouth and a soft jaw. It has been an interesting day at the office as I had a bunch of calls with my “long time readers” who all of a sudden realized their world had changed today. Really? Today? What gets me the most is the feeling of betrayal, the feeling that the product is somehow devalued, that the Microsoft partnership is over, that the bottom has fallen out of the business solutions Microsoft offers.. again, really? This is a surprise? Where have you been? I have been writing about this non-stop for over a year now as the commoditization of this industry became apparent and you just got the news today because I gave you a visual representation of your future role? Please, give me a break.

Microsoft has been leading up to this for years and many of us that have gone to WPC and work closely with Microsoft have been talking about it for years. Let’s review the message:

2004 – Move up the solution stack and look beyond infrastructure

2005 – Become a trusted advisor partner

2006 – Vista & Office for better online experience

2007 – Software + Services is the future of our business

2008 – Turnkey Exchange + Sharepoint worth exactly $3/month.

This is something that has been years in the making, and if you’ve been following this blog you know that it only picked up steam as a result of Google and Apple building a more popular and buzzworthy solution.

Ever since Hailstorm in 2001, Redmond has had a consistent strategy and change in model – going more direct. Microsoft is not a charity, it is not their duty to sustain your business model that exists as a pain killer for infrastructure problems.

Technology business is about two things – relationships and expertise. Which one do you have?

The part of being a grownup and a business leader is being aware of your surroundings and opportunities and leading your business towards greater success (however you define it) – if you fail at that, you fail at business. It’s not Vlad’s fault, it’s not Microsoft’s fault, it’s not Dell’s fault. It’s your fault.

P.S. To be honest, I’m a little offended that so many of you have turned to me for a comment about the 6% commissions and the “going hosted” insults you perceived today. I have deleted all the questions from my vlad@vladville.com mailbox today and will be the only time you don’t get a response from me about this blog. Why? I have been writing about this so extensively for the past year, down right to changing our business model in the space of 8 months on this very blog, and you have the decency to try and blame me for your inability to see this coming at you like a freight train? I’m sorry that not everyone can put a picture of a pr0n star taking it in the butt to show you the new relevance infrastructure partners have in the “cloud services” and I hope that if you learn anything today is that most of these blog posts are written to help you and guide you on what I feel is relevant, sorry you’ve skipped through them because they didn’t have enough pictures.