Inside the Microsoft Idea Factory

In Microsoft's channel group, the commitment to work long and hard is especially true now that the software giant has begun preparing for its annual worldwide partner summit in July. Take Allison Watson, vice president of Microsoft's worldwide partner sales and marketing group. Just days after returning from a week in Tokyo in April, she headed out again to meet with partners in Boston and Washington, D.C.

Fortunately, she has a new chief of staff in Naseem Tuffaha to keep things moving forward when she's away. A former partner himself--Tuffaha founded electronic-payments provider Fidesic.com in 2000--he brings to the job a distinct perspective to Microsoft's already diverse partner-management team, which includes longtime corporate insiders, entrepreneurs and several former partners, such as former ISV and distributor Vlad Martynov, who has been instrumental in helping put a face on Microsoft's partnering efforts in emerging markets such as China and Russia. Then there's newcomer Christian Finn, whose mission is to help improve the company's technical connection to partners in the field.

Other team members include English-born Liam Foley, a math wizard and four-year Microsoft veteran who brings almost a giddy enthusiasm to the job. Margo Day, vice president of U.S. channel efforts, does, too. Day has spent 20 years inside the channel. She meets with more domestic partners than virtually any member of the Microsoft senior-management team and helps Watson with long-term partner strategy and execution.

With more budget and head count than in past years, Watson says attracting talent has never been easier. Female Microsoft managers on the rise, for example, have reached out to see if she has openings on her team. And technical up-and-comers have been sent over by the likes of corporate senior vice presidents Paul Flessner and Eric Rudder.

Several reasons explain why. For starters, channels is part of Orlando Ayala's large empire with the company. The senior vice president of small and midmarket solutions and partners is among Microsoft's most powerful executives. Ayala oversees one of the fastest-growing parts of Microsoft's business. And he has given his blessing to building out the partner group at a time when Microsoft is otherwise holding down head-count growth.

Unlike Cisco, which has centralized partner management, Microsoft has decentralized responsibility. Although Watson represents the face of partners here at home, she and Day report to different managers and through different business units. Furthermore, Watson does not have responsibility for ISVs and software developers. They are aligned with vice president Sanjay Parthasarathy.

This matrix of responsibility contributes to an extremely flexible environment in which managers are essentially interchangeable parts, Watson says. Having Kevin Wueste, general manager of Microsoft's worldwide partner marketing effort, help manage Microsoft's transition to a new program architecture has freed her to focus on long-term objectives. Like her counterparts in product development, she believes that a version one of anything is never a means to an end, but a beginning of something that Microsoft will back with a very big check and commitment.