Partners- a conduit to the real world.

One of the great things about our model is we work with a large number of partners day in, day out. These are typically ISVs who are using us to manage their infrastructure and have a number of individual mini platforms (I say mini. Some are pretty bloody huge but you know what I mean). We get a real insight into the sectors of the economy in which they work which we would never have if we were working in a vertical niche ourselves.

The same is true (more so?) of our Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners. We’ve created a network of some really first class and really rather interesting MS CRM partners over the last year or so. One of the things I always find illuminating is what their drivers are and how they tackle the marketplace. Like our ISVs it varies, sometimes fundamentally, from partner to partner and indeed geography to geography.

Take the financial crisis. Not the best place to go looking for new business- or so you’d think. Some of our partners who are targeting this sector (Mayfair, admittedly, rather than the City) are getting a lot of traction with the hosted message. The opex versus capex attraction weaving its magic. Because, ultimately, people need software- it’s just paying for it, and the infrastructure to deliver it, that becomes a bit tricky. One to watch I think.