Microsoft To ISV Community: We're Your Buddy

Among other things, the software giant has adopted an ISV Buddy program under which certain Microsoft employees—including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer—will act as internal champions to help ISVs navigate business issues or technical questions inside the behemoth, said Mark Young, general manager of ISV strategy for the Microsoft Platform Strategy and Partner Group.

"Even if we compete, we're going to support you from a technology perspective," Young said. "We want to try to help people have as level of a playing field as possible."

Microsoft is also rejuvenating MSDN for ISVs to provide additional technical resources for developers across an increasing swath of its product line, and it plans to provide ISVs with technology that will let them build error-reporting tools into their applications, he said.

On the business side, Microsoft's ISV team will consolidate its royalty programs and reduce the dollar commitment that ISVs must make in order to include embedded editions of certain Microsoft server software—most often SQL Server—with their own products, Young said. Currently, ISVs must make a $50,000 two-year commitment. ISVs will have until December 2005 to migrate to the new program, but more details are still forthcoming.

Carl Spongberg, director and founder of MapApps, a two-year-old mapping software ISV in Gaithersburg, Md., said his ability to embed Microsoft MapPoint within his own software will enable his company to reach a much larger market. "We can sell a complete embedded solution," he said. "It's much more attractive financially." MapApps joined the Microsoft ISV program three months ago. It was previously forced to use software from several different vendors as the foundation for its offering, Spongberg said.

Stephen Chan, vice president of business development at Ziplip, a San Jose, Calif.-based ISV that works with both Microsoft and IBM, said his company already has tapped Microsoft's expanding technical tools arsenal. He has yet to take advantage of its business development offerings but will take a deeper look with the introduction of the new royalty program. "They are trying to take the right steps," Chan said.

Also this week, Microsoft plans to move forward with the worldwide rollout of Channel Builder, which links ISVs with other members of the Microsoft community in cases where they need to extend their services reach. The effort has been in pilot with about 150 ISVs for the past six months.