Microsoft (MSFT) plans to enter into new partnerships this year as it continues to build on successful relationships with companies like Salesforce (CRM) and Uber.

    Why should businesses care about what millennials want from their employers? Millennials, the generation of 18-35-year-olds, are projected to make up approximately 75 percent of the workforce within the next 15 years (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Whether working for a small to medium-size business (SMB) or in a larger enterprise, millennials typically don’t stay in the same job for long. The majority of these young workers leave a position within three years; and research indicates it costs between $15,000 and $25,000 to replace each worker. With that much on the line, a company’s … Continued The post Millennials: Keeping the New Workforce Engaged with Unified Communications appeared first on Inside the Asterisk.

Mark Bartels took over the reins of StumbleUpon after it spun itself off from eBay.

Virtually all leaders believe that to stay competitive, their enterprises must learn and improve every day. But even companies revered for their dedication to continuous learning find it difficult to always practice what they preach.

If an entrepreneur can't build a culture of excitement and commitment at a startup, the chances of long-term success are negligible.

Business and mobile applications are now crucial to seamless collaboration

Microsoft today announced several security-oriented improvements for Azure SQL Database, a managed relational database available on the Azure public cloud. By the end of October, Microsoft will start public previews of a feature for Always Encrypted, which provides encryption of data in transit, at rest, and in use for its Azure SQL Database service. Always […]

Microsoft today announced several security-oriented improvements for Azure SQL Database, a managed relational database available on the Azure public cloud. By the end of October, Microsoft will start public previews of a feature for Always Encrypted, which provides encryption of data in transit, at rest, and in use for its Azure SQL Database service. Always […]

Big Data applications present great opportunities for business people to streamline and grow their businesses. Here are 4 ways you should be leveraging them.read more

Microsoft has several cloud products available for resellers from Office 365 to Azure and Intune, but what are the revenue opportunities and how can you get started? Brent Combest, Microsoft’s worldwide director of sales excellent and strategy for cloud in SMB, gives Dominic Sacco an overview of Microsoft’s cloud. Plus, check out our video interview below... Could you give us a rundown of Microsoft’s cloud services and their benefits to resellers? We have a number of different products available in the cloud. We’ve got Office 365; Microsoft Azure – a fantastic platform for partners whether they want to use that as infrastructure as a service to do many things such as hosting business apps, virtual machines, backup and storage, website hosting, there’s a myriad of opportunities for partners; Microsoft Intune – a product where partners can manage devices on behalf of customers and enable them to protect the devices whether that’s a PC, tablet or a phone. And we have Dynamic CRM Online as well – a leading product in the industry to help customers manage relationships with their end customers. How are your cloud services performing overall today? Are you seeing growth in UK B2B sales? Growth has been tremendous. It’s far exceeded even our expectations. If you look at what leading analyst firms like IDC predict, they’re looking at a compound annual growth rate in the range of 23 or 24 per cent. You’ve got some other providers out there that are seeing growth rates in the mid 30s. We’re seeing well above that – nearly five times what many of our competitors are seeing. So it’s actually a fantastic opportunity not only for Microsoft but also our partners. What kind of margins can UK resellers expect to make selling Microsoft cloud services, specifically smaller independents? We have a number of programmes partners can leverage, whether that’s the Open licensing platform we’ve had for many years, or the Advisor platform that enables them to earn channel incentives. Depending on their performance they will be able to earn more as they sell more. Beyond that, there are tremendous monetisation opportunities. The channel incentives are just the beginning for our partners, whether they want to do time and material services to help a customer get their business into the cloud, and stand up Office 365, or they want a customised Sharepoint, or help a customer find their way into Microsoft Azure by migrating a line of business apps from point A to point B. There’s all kind of revenue opportunities in that regard. We’re also seeing a lot of partners really start to drive deeply into managed services and becoming that outsourced IT provider. They’re doing a number of things – they’re becoming the delegated administrator for Office 365, they’re managing the devices and the network for customers using things like Microsoft Intune. Is Windows 10 going to affect Microsoft’s cloud strategy? It won’t have any impact on how Office 365 is sold. Those things act independently – Office 365 is a separate entity as far as that point is concerned and it will have no impact on it at all. What kind of reaction have you seen from your partners following the various cloud changes announced at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference this year? So far it’s been overwhelmingly positive. We’re working towards simplifying the benefit structure that’s available to partners to make it easier for them, but at the same time providing focused value around cloud. Things like internal use rights benefits, having the ability for an elevated premier support type offering so that they can find what they need and also use the products that they’re going to sell. You made some other changes in October this year. Can you tell us about those? We’ve made some adjustments to our SKU line-up. We’ve taken away some of the SKUs we previously had and we’ve replaced them with some that are easier for partners to understand and leverage. We’ve also taken away some of the barriers around user account limitations and transition limitations that we’ve had in the past, so that partners can sell with more confidence to their end customer and know that they’re selling them solutions they need today, but as they grow over time, it’s going to be easier to adapt – either the SKU mix or the transition to a bigger SKU – when they need to worry about it. What’s next for Microsoft, the cloud and that market? How will things evolve in the future? I think things will continue to accelerate. If you look at the adoption beyond Office 365, you’ve got Microsoft Azure now on Open, and as you start to peel the data back and look at what customers are wanting in the cloud as the primary workload you think about backup, disaster recovery, virtual machines to support line of business applications… those things will continue to grow and represent a new opportunity for partners. So as they build the Office 365 business, the one thing I try to suggest is they need to think of it as the starting point and ask how can they attach Microsoft Azure and the other products to that, which will spur another evolution of growth for our partners beyond what has just taken shape over the last three or four years with Office 365.   HOW IS MICROSOFT SUPPORTING RESELLERS? 1. Partner changes Microsoft has launched new cloud competencies, allowing resellers to sell Office 365 to 10 new customers over the next 12 months. The silver competency is currently free and gives partners access for internal usage rights and unlimited cloud support. On October 1st Microsoft also made available a set of Office 365 plans tailored to meet the needs of SMBs ranging in size from one person to around 250 employees. 2. Distributor investments Microsoft is investing in people and activities in its distributors (Westcoast, Ingram Micro and Tech Data) and Microsoft UK. It has a team dedicated to bringing new partners on board Office 365 and Azure and transitioning them to an authorised distributor. Each distie has its own specialists, resources and promotions. Email cloud@ingrammicro.co.uk, microsoft.annuity@techdata.co.uk or hosting@westcoast.co.uk for more information. 3. Online resources There’s a host of materials, articles and resources online which Microsoft regularly updates to help resellers get started in selling cloud, and keep track of the latest changes. It has a SureStep programme for new partners, with resources on the Microsoft Partner Network UK Blog.  4. Cloud roadshows Microsoft is running a roadshow across 16 locations, from London to Liverpool. It started in September and will run until December 9th. Each roadshow session will cover Office 365, Azure, CRM Online and Windows 8.1, with Cloud Development Managers and guest speakers covering various topics. 5. Future Decoded This is a series of new events taking place in ExCel London. November 10th will have speakers including Satya Nadella and Sir Bob Geldof, and will be focused around Microsoft’s enterprise technologies. November 11th is dedicated to partners, with different tracks on marketing, sales, products and licensing. November 12th is for IT professionals and developers, and will be more technically focused. Brent Combest also took part in our cloud roundtable, where other resellers joined PCR and Microsoft to dicsuss the benefits of cloud. 

Gross margins for Microsoft's business cloud services will reach 44% in the year ending in June, up from 15% a year earlier.

AppRiver and partners discuss advantages, disadvantages of Microsoft Office 365 two-tier distribution model

Channel partners seek to take advantage of Microsoft Windows 10 opportunities in upgrades, project services and managed services

A top Dynamics CRM Online partner has spun out a new business, which aims to enable other partners with a CRM deployment methodology.

After debuting a controversial program to provide free email migration services last July, Microsoft is now upping the ante by expanding that to include its cloud mobility suite.

New service aims to address profitability awareness

Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference focused on the ongoing transition of its channel allies to the Redmond Company's mobile and cloud offerings.

I began my ninth day as Channel Chief at Intel Security by connecting with many partners for the first time in our quarterly global partner webcast. These partner discussions and my meetings with Intel leadership this past week underline a perfect storm of opportunity for our partners: a brutal modern threat environment, customer requirements for […] The post The Perfect Storm of Opportunity appeared first on McAfee.

For the past 30 years, most B2B channel professionals have thought of their channel as a sales channel. Indeed, in the "good old days," the standard operating procedure equated to the B2B manufacturer/vendor doing the marketing, the channel partner the selling. But times have changed. The 5-person "box-pusher" channel partner model of the past has, for the most part, gone the way of the dinosaurs. Today's successful channel companies are diverse, vibrant business engines, firing on many cylinders, including innovative value-added services, managed services, business consulting, eCommerce, billing aggregation, and marketing. Today's channel is much more than a sales channel; it's a marketing, sales, delivery, and support channel. The majority of channel partners now employ their own professional marketers and marketing programs - which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Left unchecked, channel partners' marketing efforts can ignore, dilute, confuse, or (worse!) damage a tech vendor's brand. Leveraged, channel partners' relatively newfound marketing prowess represents a powerful amplifier for tech vendors to extend their marketing reach. At Cisco's Marketing Velocity event this spring, many Cisco channel partners evidenced a marketing aptitude for digital customer engagement that rivals that of many tech vendors.Read more

This IDC study looks at many interesting topics about the tremendous success of SADA Systems. At the June 3, 2015, IDC Software Channel Leadership Council in San Mateo, California, Program Vice President, IDC's Channels and Alliances Research, Darren Bibby, interviewed Tony Safoian, CEO of 120-employee solution provider SADA Systems. SADA is a highly successful business partner of both Microsoft and Google. This interview delves into the differences between working with the two companies, as well as many of SADA's biggest changes it has had to make in moving to the cloud, plus some highly insightful ideas as to how to best run a growing and successful IT solution provider."Tony Safoian has built SADA Systems into an award-winning partner of both an old guard software vendor in Microsoft and a new guard vendor in Google. But somehow, he has made it work out on all fronts. He has a great story," says Darren Bibby, program vice president, IDC's Channels and Alliances Research.