Microsoft Extends Competitive Sales Tool

The offering extends Microsoft's Competitive Sales Assistance hotline, which enables partners to close hotly contested sales against Novell Linux and IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino.

Announced at Microsoft's annual Worldwide Partner Conference, in Minneapolis, the telephone-based support gives partners access to internal Microsoft experts to help troubleshoot deployments, provide configuration guidance and review product features.

In addition, Microsoft said it will open its Competitive Sales Assistance hotline to Registered partners. Currently Gold and Certified partners can make use of the hotline.

"We're already getting about 1,000 calls a month, where partners get the knowledge they need about the competitive products and how Microsoft's are better," Allison Watson, vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Sales and Marketing Group, told CRN before the show. "In May we had 300 wins where the customer may have considered something else. Now we're providing Registered partners with the content and the value proposition they need to go up against competitive products."