Microsoft's Plans To 'People-Ready' Partners Still Hazy

Backed by a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, the "people-ready business" message that Microsoft launched earlier this month stands to stick around as the company's new corporate mantra. Though executives said partners will be key to Microsoft's repositioning efforts, plans for partner training and support remain cloudy.

Several solution providers said they first heard of the “people-ready” strategy after its public launch in a speech that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered in New York two weeks ago. Microsoft followed that event with a slew of print ads and commercials that touted its ability to help businesses optimize individual employee productivity. Since then, the Redmond, Wash., company has latched onto the "people-ready" slogan with the tenacity that IBM showed when it introduced its "on demand" vision three years ago.

“People-ready” was a buzzword at Microsoft Business Solutions’ (MBS) Convergence 2006 conference this week. "They just pounded 'people-ready' into our heads at every opportunity," said Mike Snyder, principal of Sonoma Partners, a Microsoft CRM specialist based in Chicago. Still, Snyder said he likes the message. "You can see that the products have been headed that way, getting the role-based software design to the front," he said.

Microsoft's plans behind the marketing message remain unclear. Microsoft channel chief Allison Watson said the company aims to train 200,000 partners this year on delivering services that enable "people-ready business," which apparently means speaking about technology in ways that will resonate in customers’ boardrooms.

"Today, many partners may be framing our products to the IT departments, about how the products will help the IT department manage and orchestrate their assets," Watson said. "We have a major training investment to help partners speak the language of the CEO, about investment in a new wave of technology."

MBS channel partners said they're already speaking that language but are happy to have Microsoft falling in line behind them. Selling business applications like Microsoft’s Dynamics line--formerly Great Plains and Navision--has always involved focusing more on business outcomes than on technology components, said Alan Kahn, CEO of InterDyn, a New York-based MBS partner.

"Now we can have that conversation, and it fits what Microsoft is saying, too," Kahn said. "Microsoft is trying to create a strategic shift in the way they talk to businesses about specific scenarios. It's a message that I think helps make them distinct."

Microsoft's partner training plans include Web seminars and PowerPoint presentations accessible through its partner portal. Another offering Watson associated with the people-ready campaign is Microsoft's fledgling Solution Finder tool, although that's really a retrofit. Partners said Microsoft has been working with them on building Solution Finder since at least last fall, long before it began honing its people-ready message.