More items of CRM interest...

A busy time for Microsoft Dynamics CRM... There is a lot on which we thought we'd share.

Just got back from a great Sales presentation at Thames Valley Park. Some very interesting compete info vs Salesforce.com, too

On 9 March 7global will be speaking at the Caltech Forum in central Leeds. There will be demonstrations and exhibition stands as well as customer case studies, industry speakers and a great networking opportunity. We will be doing a slot exploding some of the myths associated with hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Not too late to book a place!

We have our on partner event on 13 May @ the UK Microsoft HQ in Reading aimed at existing and prospective partners wishing to sell hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM more effectively.

We have an inspirational keynote speaker, David Ednie (CEO of SalesChannel Europe) who is an authority on selling SaaS, overcoming the obstacles and reaping the many benefits. Microsoft will be doing a slot and there will be some great partner success stories. A well spent morning!

Dashing about

In Edinburgh yesterday for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Roadshow. A packed agenda and a small but dedicated audience. We're there looking for value added resellers who want to give their clients a hosted option without the pain of building a scalable platform themselves.

We've got Manchester today which should be different. Either way I think attendees are going to be pleased with the level of detail they get. Microsoft is obviously very adept at presenting the value and flexibility of the product. Let's hope we get the hosted message across.
We have tomorrow in Reading so that will probably be the big one in terms of audience size. We'll let you know how it goes!

7global speaking at Microsoft road shows

We'll be doing a slot at the forthcoming Microsoft Dynamics CRM road shows. These are taking place on 9 February (Edinburgh), 10 February (Manchester) and 11 February (Reading).

7global will be discussing our hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner Programme. We're very interested in talking to VAR partners who haven't yet engaged with hosting and to show how as a hosting partner we havedesigned and built some great solutions and to dispel some of the myths that hosting offers a somehow limited offering. There's a 20% discount onboarding offer for new partners so well worth coming along. Contact us if you're intertested.

More crystal ball gazing...

So it's the start of another year. Indeed, it's the start of a new decade. One thing that we've been reflecting on is how much of the SaaS hype of the noughties has been...well, hype.

This article has some nice insights that steers clear of the "is it good? Short answer yes with an if, long answer no with a but" that some analysts provide at this time of the year.

Our experience is that people are consuming SaaS apps at a rate of knots. Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a prime example with sales consistently higher month on month and retention good as well.

Thoughts on the Micosoft Worldwide Partner Conference

My view on WPC is that attendance is clearly the first chance Microsoft people have to articulate the plans that they have put in place for the next financial leave. So the timeline is: Set plans for next year, do WPC, put detail on plans.

This means that attending WPC allows partners to get in on what’s new, to remind Microsoft staff they are there and have great plans for Microsoft.

It’s clearly THE event to attend if you want to be part of the next year’s activity. In fact on two occasions it was commented that Partners that attend are seen as having the ‘right level of commitment’ so it was good to be there! My final point about attendance is who and how many, the event is vast and all the Microsoft staff are available to grab which maybe the only opportunity to do so and It presents great opportunities to find organisations that would be good to partner with.

I personally had 13 1:1 partner meetings, attended 3 extra partner events and several comms sector specific events.

Key information is as follows, I’ll bullet point it and expand on the more critical things:

• They see the last 6-9 months as an economic reset


• They will be looking to do more with less


• The focus for this year is more market share not new sales growth. So the messages were all take share from competitors such as VMWare, SFDC, Google, Oracle, IBM etc


• They intend to deepen the partner relationship


• More sales opportunities will result from deeper relationships


• To achieve the above they are revamping the Partner program now called Partner Network, qualification criteria will be much tougher and more levels will be added. They highest level for us will be Advanced Hosting Partner and we will be striving to become an Advanced Hosting partner


• As you’d expect, there’s a strong emphasis given to partners who ‘use the latest technology’ which means for us Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, System centre, Exchange 10, OCS and SQL 2008


• Microsoft CRM Live will hit the streets in Europe 15th April 2010, pricing TBD


• ffice 10 which is very impressive has a full function web version which looks great. It will be FREE to windows live subscribers; it will be FREE to enterprise licence customers. They are gunning for Google Apps!


• Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, Microsoft is expecting massive sales and that it will spark a wave of system refreshes. Windows 7 was available for pre order for the first time last week and sold more in 8 hours than Vista did in 8 weeks


• CRM has just hit 1,000,000 users worldwide and they expect strong growth this year


• Unified Communications is going to be a big push and a new Hosted Exchange program is being launched to help partners make a business out of Exchange, OCS and UC. To qualify partners must already have 3000 Exchange seats


• Azure will be released to paying customers November this year, Pricing has been announced although I haven’t seen it yet. Reselling Azure services may well be important to us

Met lots of other people and had the chance to catch up with our Dynamics partners. In short a busy but wholly worthwhile event!

Going down to New Orleans

So, the Worldwide Microsoft Partner Conference has come around and 7global will be represented by my colleague Mike Williams. As Worldwide Partner of the Year Finalists I have to admit we're looking forward more than usual to the Conference.


At the 2009 EMEA Hosting Roundtable. From left to right: Pascal Walschots (Microsoft), Mike Williams (7global), Paul Doherty i.e. me (7global).

Mike's no stranger to Microsoft events and he will be contributing to The Cloud's Silver Lining with updates on what's hot, what's not, who he's met and any titbits of news which you'll find useful. Whatever happens Mike will be ferreting out info which will benefit our customers and partners over the following week. We'll be paying particular attention to Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Azure, BPOS as well as the Software + Services marketplace and hosting in general

No doubt they'll be descriptions of Bourbon Street, jambalaya and red wine as well.

So- watch this space!

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Award Finalists Again.

Now the press embargo, to which I have slavishly adhered, has been lifted I can now say 'whooohoo' without fear of being hunted down by the Microsoft PR leopards.

To be honest, it's really good to have got this one again, as after last year's success I thought it would be difficult to repeat.

I had some great help from partners and clients in putting the entry together which always helps and, focusing as I did on our Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM Platform I had a great story to tell.

Genesis acquires Increase...and then there were two.

Interesting to read about Genesis's acquisition of Increase CRM earlier this month. The acquisition creates a very large organisation actively promoting hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This has got me thinking and crystallising what I think of the state of play in the UK marketplace.

One trigger to my thought process was pulled when I was asked recently by a partner what I thought about the deal. Was I pleased that there was one less piranha in the tank? Or was a nervous that there was an even bigger shark in the tank that had just eaten the piranha and was now devouring everything in the tank with the ferocity of a starving megaladon? Ok, he didn't phrase it quite like that but briefly that's what it sounded like.

My feelings are that this is a Good Thing. There's no doubt that having a large telco (Genesis), which has acquired what was in all but name a Microsoft Dynamics CRM boutique with a 100% dedication to the hosted market (Increase) has created a powerful competitor.

However, I think 7global's partner network really offers a strong alternative. 7global's partners are large and small, cover the whole of the UK (and a lot of Europe), have specialisms in most verticals, with staff specially trained to deal with those industries.

By acquiring Increase Genesis has definitively moved from a 'wholesale' approach to a full service approach, which will certainly compete with other Dynamics Partners which should heat up the marketplace a little more. As a telco they had a telco approach to CRM, just as 7global has a hosting provider approach. Now they have a Dynamics Partner approach. Will be interesting to see how that pans out.

One advantage of our approach is we can marry our hosting expertise to partners Dynamics CRM expertise which I think creates the more compelling solution. However, if Genesis draws attention to the value of a hosted solution I will be there applauding.

Webinar

We're doing a webinar with Microsoft and Mural entitled 'Coming Of Age with Software-plus-Services' on Thursday 11 March. The dry run is tomorrow so it will be interesting to see how that goes. It should be interesting for ISVs. There's a lot of good stuff coming out of Mural regarding the S +S Incubation Centre Program at the moment. I'm genuinely impressed.

Also, the SaaS/S + S marketplace is so different nowadays to what it was say 3 years ago. Then, it was very difficult to talk about the business benefits as you were too bogged down in the concept. These days the awareness is so much more and you don't have to argue the corner quite so vociferously as you once had to.

I think the main thing is everyone's living on the web now. They're twittering and Facebooking, buying online and booking online. Business applications such as hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or our ISV partners SaaS apps are a logical conclusion.

You can always take me to task on the 11th if you disagree. Or blog it, or twitter it, or send me an email from your hosted mail account...