Small Business+ has been seen as something that might be scary for a few partners - is Microsoft trying to take away the very business that most partners are searching for?  This is interesting as I was talking to one partner last week who said that the types of questions that SB+ sought to answer were the ones that when they charged the customer for the support, customer got upset.  The reason for this was that when a customer phones up and asks a question that takes just 5 minutes to resolve, how do you bill them - per the 5 minutes, by the quarter of an hour.  If you try to track all of these, you end up in a admin mess and often a costly one at that.

Since the original concern, not much in the way of bad press has aired, so I can only assume this was not the killer many had assumed.  Also add to the fact that we are working on how to give a pre-selected partner contact details to the customer means that this can become a support service for both the partner and customer rather than a burden to the partner.

Now, looking on SB+ this weekend I saw a HUGE array of training available, which can be used to brush up on your skills as a partner, or for your customer directly.  For example, I noticed that the following business training is available (as an example of some of the training).  Completing the training will enhance your skills, and also enable your customer to further appreciate the benefits of the IT you are providing, so use it, value it and perhaps need more sooner rather than later.  All this and more can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/uk/businesscentral/small-business-plus/default.aspx?xid=sbp_bc_lnk

And the following Software training is available to match: