re: David Overton moving to a solution / revenue based role (it means I need to help partners sell)

iQubed — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:47:06 GMT

I've started adding the Open Value (Company Wide) license as a standard part of proposals now (especially with Vista and Office 2007 coming). I think I understand these options, but not sure I'm convincing prospective cusotmers as to the value of these, so perhaps some pointers on this would be useful. I like the site http://www.lessthancoffee.com but it's too American for the UK, but great idea. How do we get those "Early Adopters" to buy in to things like Vista and Office 2007?

Hosted services, this is definitely something I'd like to know a whole lot more about. I've started recommending (for businesses with less than 5 people and don't want the server h/w etc) hosted services such as Exchange Hosting and Sharepoint Services from providers such as OneAndOne. I'd like to know whether SBS can be provided as a hosted service?

One idea I have is having material that shows how a startup with 1 person can set up the essential IT services, initially with hosted services and as they grow to say 5 people transitioning to SBS 2003 onsite, then going multi-site with local Windows Servers, adding CRM, etc. It's a bit like a solution blueprint (one could be customer focused and one technically focused for partners). I think there is info like this but I really like the "Make IT Work for You" guides and customers like these as well.

Also, as partners we should be thinking what we could do together to present more solution focused events and not just relying on Microsoft all the time (back to the community thing!)

Cheers,

Vijay