Way Too Much To Digest

It was another event, another city, another drab hotel conference room, but Margo Day was making the best of it, despite having to give up a weekend to work. Since there's no easy way to get from Seattle to Atlanta for a Sunday-afternoon presentation, Day, who oversees Microsoft's massive North American channel, was forced to fly in on a Saturday to prepare for her Sunday sermon to several-hundred VARs.

Day didn't need much time to warm up. Perilously close to the stage edge, she hammered out a nearly hour-long presentation about Microsoft's product and program goals for its coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. As I sat there listening, I began to wonder if Day is up to the challenge that Microsoft is outlining. Some of the solution providers in the audience were musing along the same lines. They whispered--albeit loudly--among themselves, asking whether the Microsoft channel is up to the task.

About two decades ago, Day was at Software City. Today she's on the vendor side of the house, and the technology market has come a long way, but Day doesn't believe things have changed all that much.

"The business challenges I faced 21 years ago are the same we face today," she told VARs at CMP's XChange Solution Provider conference last month. On one hand, she's right. On the other, there are some marked differences. The technology pouring out of Microsoft's labs is greater in scale and complexity than ever before, and I'm not sure whether Microsoft's partners should be comforted or shell-shocked by one of Day's comments: "There's more product coming out of [our] labs in the next 16 to 18 months than in our history."

The product names flashed up on the screen, mesmerizing, and it was like watching ESPN highlights on a Sunday night: Windows Server 2003 R2, Small Business Server 2003, SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, Windows Vista, Office 12. And that's just a sampling.

Microsoft and its partners understand that the real money to be made is in upgrading business customers who are using out-of-date Microsoft applications. Day can't wait another day to capitalize on those opportunities. But what will it take for customers to upgrade their servers or move to the next version of Office? What's the motivation?

In anticipation of the question, Day said Office 2007 will allow customers to "make better decisions and make them faster." In the audience, heads nodded as if on cue. Every VAR wishes those words would drive customers to their doorsteps, checkbooks in hand. But it's not just a question of solution providers negotiating upgrades via customer-site licenses. It's also about VARs translating new technology into real-life benefits for customers.

That's critical for Microsoft. As the vendor eyes $50 billion in fiscal '07, it's going to have to unleash a wave of innovation like none we've ever seen. And the company's partners will have to figure out exactly how Microsoft's collaboration software "can get the job done better and faster" for customers.

Does some of this come down to channel-readiness and the right vendor promotions? Absolutely. But if Microsoft partners are going to surf this wave, they'll need a much bigger and better surfboard than the one they have waxed up.

VARBusiness Trivia Contest Winner: Kathy Vander Meer, KV Consulting, of DeForest, Wis., who correctly identified Timothy Cook as the Apple executive who once worked for Intelligent Electronics. Nice work. Your gift is on its way.

This week's question: What was the IBM iSeries called before it got a marketing makeover, and what processor powered it? E-mail your answers to rdemarzo@cmp.com.

Robert C. Demarzo (rdemarzo@cmp.com) is vice president/publisher of VARBusiness and GovernmentVAR magazines.