I saw this post of Vijays (» SBSC PALs Quarterly Conference Call) and thought it was worth highlighting some of it:

Michael Risse, VP of the Small and Midmarket Business Group has issued an open letter to SBSC Partners about the issues with Solution Finder.

Demo Showcase 2007 will be available to all SBSC Partners, shipping this December. I clarified that it will be the Virtual Server Images and not just the canned simulations and Andrea said it will be the full versions.

The Managed Newsgroups are now 24 hour in the UK and other selected countries from last week.

Special Edition Toolkit will ship in December provided you are a SBSC Partner before 30 November. You will get Vista anytime upgrade to Ultimate from Business, eval of Forefront for Sharepoint/Exchange, Demo Showcase 2007, Brand Tools, Viral Videos, Licensing Guidance, printable Small Business Guide.

Customer Campaigns around the following areas (hopefully call to action will be go to a SBSC Partner but depends upon how Microsoft UK implements them)

• Security and Reliability
• Business Productivity
• Customer Acquisition & Retention
• Business Solutions

Also, Microsoft are asking where we would like support from Microsoft to build business in new areas such as CRM, Sharepoint, SCE, Security and/or vertical market segments.

For all the requests, Vista Ultimate will be part of the offering to SBSC partners and the special recognition that SBSC partners continues to grow.  It is also nice to see that the managed newsgroups are now manned 24hrs, so PLEASE use them to help diagnose problems.

ttfn

David