Since Chris Rue is now done speaking and I can attribute quotes to him without fear that he’ll be gunned down for his low “Microsoft opinion / revenue” ratio, last week he really called the Microsoft/Partner relationship:
It’s kinda the equivalent of an abusive relationship
Like…MS keeps beating the fuck out of us
And yet….we all still think “We can change him”
I should wear a t-shirt with that poster from the X-Files
I Want to Believe
That really sums up the business relationship with Microsoft, one that the company becomes less and less sensitive to the more competitive it gets with the impersonal foes in organizations that hide behind fake taglines and misleading ads.
To steal a line from Microsoft: It’s a people business. (Or “People Ready”); You’d hope that as an organization they’d understand that there are people that also support and distribute that software and that it doesn’t “Just work” like Apple does(n’t).
In the past, Microsoft was able to bridge the gap by having some phenomenal field people that were interested in their community if for no other reason than to further their career and professional agenda: we all had to find the common ground.
Today, this is no longer the case. And I can tell you from touching base with many people at Microsoft that I consider friends, who have long moved up, that the spirit that helped Microsoft excel with it’s partners is just no longer there.
And the sad thing is, when business is just about business (which I’ve cautioned many of you reading this blog, that perpetually bitch about how your community resources are going away but you refuse to participate or show support in any freebie events we all do) the decision making is done only on what’s black and white and there is always a cheaper, more effective, more reliable or more suitable widget you can find from somewhere else.
The mass migration of long time Microsoft supporters that you can still see at this conference to Apple, Blackberry, Linux, Google and more ought to be an indicator to Microsoft what they ought to find important.
So I’m with Chris: I want to believe, but I just don’t. Sorry.
Kevin Turner
I always watch these live, from start to finish. Why? You can never underestimate the power of the sales guy to sell you the crap that won’t be available for sale for 2 years. Kevin, for all intends and purposes, runs the business of Microsoft. That business, in case you haven’t noticed, is no different from anything else: selling s***. CEO’s of the world evangelize, promote and motivate their companies forward. People signing the checks, making tough decisions and figuring out where to put money and where to cut it from, typically aren’t the ones that are always being begged for an interview, stuck apologizing for the company dropping the ball, so on and so forth. In case you doubt that, there is a reason I write this blog and none of you know my COO.
But back to Kevin. Kevin was the first guy to tell us that S+S was Microsoft’s new thing and that the era of selling software and solutions through partners was over. In 2006. He is the #1 reason I changed my business model in 2006. And to an extent, I probably owe him some carbon fiber from my Ferrari.
Today, Kevin talked about retail. Kevin talked about the consumer. Kevin talked about data centers.
Notice a pattern there? This is a company that is no longer going to be famous for having a beautifully landscaped campus in Redmond with geeks packed into big rooms where they can be comfortable to work all hours of the day and night. This is no longer a company that is going to have a logo and a web site and thousands of partners in order to reach every business and be a part of the solution.
This is a company that is going to go after it alone.
My take from the presentation: Get on the bus or get ran over by it.
SMB Vision
I’m a huge fan of the SMB Vision presentation.
Seriously.
Whoever came up with it deserves a friggin award. Let me know where to send it.
Brilliant.
Pay no attention to the lack of applause, your partners mumbling in the audience while you announced it, the lack of any excitement in the room. The people were just floored and awed by the opportunity. Really? Really!
The first few slides were awesome too. I love seeing a new person running the SMB business at every WPC and it was very exciting to see the slide with 4 people that preceded the current boss.
Ok, that’s as far as I can push my insincerity. There is no chain of profanities I can use to effectively portray my disbelief in what Microsoft showcased today. So please, feel free to use your own:
Are you _____ ____ insane? Who the ____ thought that was a good idea?
When you’ve got your own people shaking their head walking out of your presentation it tells me you didn’t even run this by your sales force. My god. I guess we’ll be meeting the SMB boss #6 at next WPC because if that was your vision for this market there may not even be a vision next year. It will be called the “SMB Tombstone: Lessons learned by not understanding our market.”
Final Day
Packing right now, looking forward to the final day at WPC. You can smell the cost cutting in the air in New Orleans and for the second year in a row Microsoft managed to deflate it’s audience (hint: It’s channel sales force).
Microsoft’s missed steps make a terrific opportunity for it’s partner base to further establish itself as a solid business void of Microsoft’s control and market dominance, all of which favors that business and the client, not Microsoft or any other vendor for that matter.
As I blogged recently, the Economics and Business 101 blog posts of last year are gone, as are the previous eras in this blog. It’s time to get serious, spot the opportunity and go after it. The time to just roll with the punches and see what happens is over, and this is a golden opportunity to think, act and succeed like Microsoft. No, not the Microsoft you are seeing today (hubmled, vulnerable, emotionally and competitively insecure) but the one that in the past had fantastic people doing their best to push fantastic technology and solutions and find a way for them to work for business.
Google, Apple and Microsoft have made an invisible pact, one that is unavoidable, that all technology will become an unavoidable necessity of life and be sold and provided as a common consumer good and service from a brick and mortar. But so long as there is business out there… there will be a solution opportunity. It’s just that pricing, scalability and solution will not involve the “trusted advisor” but a much more competent hybrid of a few things out there. I don’t think we’ll see the SPF resurgence…
Bring it on WPC….
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