More draft MPN changes released
Posted by: guygregory on: February 6, 2010
Microsoft have just published a document outlining some of the proposed changes to the Microsoft Partner Programme (now call the Microsoft Partner Network). The document, entitled “The Value of Earning a Microsoft Competency - Summary” gives Partners an hint at the future of the SBSC designation, as well as new information on the Advanced Competencies.
Many of the requirements and benefits of the new MPN are similar to the previous Partner Programme, and most of the details have aleady been published in one form or another. However, there are some new changes which are likely to affect Partners of all sizes; I’ve summarised some of these changes below.
As the document clearly states, the information is subject to change.
Advanced Competency
“Four Microsoft Certified Professionals with advanced credencials”
This description is under Microsoft’s ‘General Requirements’ for the Advanced Competency, the requirements for the (standard) Competency remains at 2 MCPs. It’s important to note that this is the ‘General Requirement’, implying there could be some variation between Competencies. This change is going to hit smaller, specialist Microsoft Partners hardest, as they may not even employ four members of staff, let alone four MCPs.
While it’ll be harder for them to differenciate themselves as experts in their field, it does have benefits for other groups of people. Firstly, customers are going to have an easier job identifying companies with focus in a certain area – mainly as it’ll only be Partners who have deep knowledge in a given area that can achieve the highest recognition. Secondly, this adds significant value to MCPs within an organisation, especially those with new MCTS and MCITP designations; the new generation exams are likely to be the requirements for the revised competencies moving forward.
“Your employees or contractors who pass the applicable advanced competency exams are only eligible toward one advanced competency”
Again, this is going to hit smaller partners hardest, especially those boutique partners who have deep knowledge in multiple areas. The document implies that the Partners achieving multiple Advanced Competenies will be generally employing 8+ MCPs. It also reinforces the requirement of certification within Partner organisations, and pushes the bar higher than before.
“Advanced Membership Fee”
I’m not sure how much to read into this one, but the document clearly differenciates between a standard “Membership Fee” and an “Advanced Membership Fee”. Will there be a higher cost associated with the Advanced Compentency designation? I’d be interested to hear Microsoft’s answer to this question.
Small Business Specialist Community
“The Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) designation will continue to be a Microsoft partnership opportunity in addition to the new Small Business and Medium Business Solution Provider competency offerings”
Perhaps the biggest news for AMITPRO members, will be the possible continuation of the SBSC designation in addition to the new ‘Small Business’ Competency. I’m sure many people will be delighted with this news, as there’s clearly a lot of support for the SBSC brand. It’ll be interesting to see whether the much-loved “blue-badge” will survive the transition.
It’s surprising that Microsoft have again made the SBSC an ‘exception’ to the general Partner Programme, especially as many of these changes were designed to bring the designation back in line with the other Competencies. As mentioned before, it’s important to note that the above information is subject to change, but it’s good to have an early view of the changes, and hopefully Microsoft are still listening to Partner feedback before finalising these details.
How will these changes affect your business? Will you benefit or lose from the above changes? Please share your thoughts below.
MXSweep, TMC @ AMITPRO
Posted by: guygregory on: January 14, 2010
Despite some fairly sketchy roads, we had a great turnout at the January AMITPRO meeting. The evening was somewhat of a security doubleheader, and it was great to see a few new faces turning out.
The first presentation was given by Paul Maloney from Technology Management and Consultancy (TMC). Paul discussed the importance of compliance, even in smaller organisations, and went on to compare some well known standards such as ISO27001 and ISO9001 as well as introducing PCI-DSS for companies taking card payments.
The talk then moved onto the topics of Asset Management and Patch Management, with suggestions for policies and processes for keeping track of IT equipment and how to help clients through stressful audits.
Throughout the session there was a lively dialogue between the speaker and the rest of the room, with Paul drawing on his experiences to answer questions posed by members. We’ve already had feedback from attendees saying how impressed they were at Paul’s security knowledge, so I’m sure TMC’s services will be called upon by members in future.
We’d like to thank Paul and Claire from TMC for coming to the group, and for David Ogden for recommending TMC.
Paul’s full slide deck is available for download HERE
Next up was Lee Clark from MXSweep, a relative newcomer in the increasingly competitive world of hosted e-mail security. The product is taking on the likes of MessageLabs (Symantec) directly, and hopes to win by offering a better service to both customers and partners. The pricing of the service is favourable compared to the competition, and is well aligned to the SME market.
Lee delivered an extremely slick presentation which was well received by the group, especially by the SoftScan resellers in the room, some of whom have been disillusioned by the recent Symantec acquisition and subsequent pricing hikes.
The presentation covered the features of MXSweep, the Sales opportunity, reporting and auditing features, and touched on the development roadmap for 2010.
Thanks to Lee for making the journey up to speak to the group, we appreciate the time and effort he put into the presentation.
You can download the slides from Lee’s presentation HERE
AMITPRO Christmas Meal
Posted by: guygregory on: December 22, 2009
Fun, frolics and festivities aplenty at the AMITPRO Christmas meal last Friday! Hosted by the Chung Ying Garden in the centre of Birmingham, members, partners and friends descended on the restaurant from near and far.
After finishing the three course meal and exhausting our supply of balloons, the remaining few partygoers proceeded out into the cold West Midlands night for a few more drinks before heading off.
See more photos from the event on Richard Tubb’s Facebook album HERE. Big thanks to Veretech for organising the event, especially Jane.
Trend Micro, DBAM @ AMITPRO
Posted by: guygregory on: December 11, 2009
Arriving in force on their way north this week were Tracey, Mark and James from Trend Micro. An initial straw-poll revealed that the AMITPRO audience comprised roughly a 40/40/20 mixture of existing Trend resellers, Sophos Parntners and ‘other’ AV vendors respectively. James began by discussing the new ‘threat landscape’ and showing how Trend are adapting to the constant changes in the industry, while Tracey followed with an overview of the partner opportunities and promotions currently available to new and existing resellers. For those who missed out, a full slide deck can be downloaded HERE.
Two of the most notable differences between Trend and the competition are the reseller-friendly Remote Management and the all-inclusive nature of the ‘Worry-free’ package which includes e-mail and web reputation filtering and URL filtering on top of the usual features. Both of these were demoed by Mark, who also explained some of the technical intricacies of the cloud-based ‘Smart Protection Network’.
Next up, we had Lorna Riddle from DBAM Systems introducing their EP range of WAN optimisation appliances. DBAM are a relative newcomer into the market, but are building up momentum in the channel by working through distributors like Bell Micro and Tekdata. While it was clear that the range is primarily aimed at the enterprise, they do offer a small business sized appliance (EP60), which retails for £995.
After introducing the full range of products (including a virtual appliance), Lorna ran through a few real-world scenarios. Calling upon previous experience, she explained the various acceleration and traffic-shaping features in the appliances, and related the features to common examples often found in multi-site networks.
Thanks to all of our speakers for making the journey up to Birmingham, and watch this space for slides from the DBAM Presentation!
** UPDATE 21/12/2009 ** The full DBAM Presentation can be downloaded from HERE.
Free Red Hot Sales Training in Birmingham, 10th Dec
Posted by: guygregory on: November 11, 2009
We’ve just found out that Julie Simpson (Resource iT) will be running some free Microsoft sales workshops thoughout the country in the next month. One of the venues is The Studio in Birmingham, which makes it ideal for many AMITPRO members. Make sure you book now, as spaces are limited. More information from Julie about the event is included below:
Microsoft is running a new Sales Programme called “On Track”.
The programme works on three levels:
- Senior Managers/Directors
- Field Sales people
- Internal Sales people
And there are a variety of sessions and resources available.
The launch event, which me and my colleague Tony Robinson (no, not the guy from Black Adder) … are delivering is at Microsoft TVP on 24th November – for Senior Managers/Director. We are running through the whole sales engagement process (using the Microsoft solutions sales model) from 0% (planning and prospecting) through to 100% (closing and effective post sales behaviour) and not only will we be sharing our best practice advice and guidance with the audience, but we will also run through what the OnTrack programme is and how partners can get involved in some of the other areas of the programme.
As always, this will be a highly interactive one day session, Tony is bringing his experience to the table having not only helped me to learn a lot about professional presentations over the years, but has also presented at many, many corporate events all over the globe including events for O2, HSBC and the BBC.
Here is the link to register:
Thanks to Andy Trish for bringing this to our attention.
ZHR Marketing, StorageCraft @ AMITPRO
Posted by: Andy Parkes on: October 28, 2009
I’ve been meaning to post about the changes at AMITPRO for a little while but I’ve been a bit on the busy side recently. I’ve started the post about three times and never finished it!
So the changes…if you’re a regular attendee to AMITPRO you’ll already know that Steve Wright has decided to stand down as group leader
He’s done a great job over the last twelve months and will still have input into the group via his Partner Area Lead role
As of this month the new leader of the group is Guy Gregory of Peak Support and me!
Both Guy and I had shown an interest in taking on the group lead role and decided a joint effort would bring more to the group and sharing the responsibilities can only be a good thing
Since I’ve been involved with AMITPRO there has always been a great spirit of collaboration so it makes perfect sense from my perspective to take this on with someone else
If Guy and myself can keep up the great work from Steve and Vijay before him AMITPRO will continue to be a great resource for IT Professionals in the Midlands area
Tonight’s meeting was our first as joint leaders. Steve had already organised the speakers so we were able to hit the ground running!
Our first speaker was Zoe Russell of ZHR Marketing
She gave a great presentation about marketing specifically for the small business. It took a while for the group to warm up but once they did there were lots of questions and ideas about different marketing ideas. Hopefully it will have given everyone some new ideas!
Next up was Cécile Cathala and Richard Zinner from StorageCraft Europe
While StorageCraft isn’t a new name over in the States they are only just branching out into the UK.
StorageCraft is a backup imaging product for grabbing snapshots of servers and PC (competing products are Backup Exec System Recovery and Acronis TrueImage) that can also restored to dissimilar hardware or even a virtual environment
They have editions for Desktop PCs, Servers and Small Business Server
There is also a managed service provider licensing model if you would like to provide backup and recovery as a service
One of their unique features is their IT Edition. This is a technician license that allows you to create images of as many servers as you need. You can also run this directly from a CD or USB Drive while the system is running
There are trial versions of the products available so it’s definitely worth a look
Just a quick overview of both speakers. They both did a great job
Afterwards we retired to the bar and continued with our usual mix of chat about business, life the universe and everything!
Next month we’ll be organising speakers of our own…that’s when it gets really serious! 
Microsoft @ AMITPRO
Posted by: guygregory on: September 9, 2009
This month’s meeting was a Microsoft take-over, with Jamie Burgess, Dell Quinn and Gareth Hall providing insights into Windows 7 and the forthcoming Microsoft Partner Network.
Jamie kicked off the evening with a high-level overview of key Windows 7 features, particularly focussing on business technologies like DirectAccess, BranchCache and AppLocker. The presentation was rounded off by an explanation of MDOP benefits, including App-V and MED-V with a brief demonstration of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT).
After the break, we were introduced to Dell Quinn, recently appointed SBSC lead for the UK. Her discussion focussed on the Microsoft Partner Network, due to replace the Microsoft Partner Programme in 2010. Advice was given around transitioning from the familiar Cert/Gold Cert/Blue Badge brands to the new competency-focussed levels, followed by a projection of support for SBSC partners in FY10. While it was clear that there are still a few kinks to be ironed out with the new Partner structure, Dell provided useful and fair responses to the ‘barrage’ of questions levelled at her.
Many of the members will now be looking forward to the Microsoft Partner Network 2009 event at Wembley stadium next month. I’ll be there representing Peak Support – hope to see you there!
Security IP @ AMITPRO
Posted by: guygregory on: August 12, 2009
Last night’s AMITPRO meeting saw a presentation from James Cole and Andy Dreier from Security IP. The Oxford-based company provides niche security solutions to IT resellers in the UK. Although they resell a wide range of security products, their focus last night was on Interguard suite and DataGuard.
Interguard is a collection of three complimentary products, designed as answer to internal security threats and includes the following:
- Sonar – monitoring and reporting of all employee computer activity on or off the corporate network
- Datalock – provides protection for IP, trade secrets and confidential data
- Laptop Cop – track and recover stolen laptops (or data)
The second part of the presentation featured DataGuard. This is an encryption solution aimed at home and small business users. Essentially a stripped down version of apSec’s fideAS file Enterprise product, the product handles full volume encryption as well as folder/USB memory stick protection. More information on both products can be found at Security IP’s web site: http://www.securityip.com
Thanks to both James and Andy for bringing these excellent products and solutions to the attention of the group.
Vitis PR, CentraStage @ AMITPRO
Posted by: guygregory on: July 15, 2009
First up last night were Ranbir and Jas from Vitis PR. Vitis is a Solihull-based PR agency where each consultant has a minimum of 10 years’ industry experience. They have a number of clients in the technology sector, and work with businesses of all sizes.
Ranbir gave an insightful presentation how to use PR as a tool to attract more customers and grow business through targeted efforts. The presentation included some great advice on how to improve the effectiveness of PR, such as:
- Utilise the Internet as well as Traditional Media, especially if you’re a smaller IT company
- Read what your customer reads, target industry-specific magazines and newspapers
- Think like a publisher – try to solve your readers’ problems
- What’s the news? Be topical – Create a ‘News Pipeline’ to plan your releases
- Spread your story – Use newswires to syndicate content globally
- Avoid jargon – Especially words like: ‘ground-breaking’, ‘cutting-edge’, ‘flexible’, and ’solutions’
- Don’t expect Techcrunch to uphold an embargo!
The full presentation can be downloaded from here
To find out more about Vitis’ special offer to AMITPRO members, call Ranbir on 0121 2428048 or e-mail ranbir@vitispr.com
** UPDATE – Download Vitis PR’s Special Offer for AMITPRO members from here **
The second speaker was Christian Nagele, MD of CentraStage. CentraStage was founded in 2006 with the aim of breaking the mould when it comes to IT support technology – to offer attractive, feature-rich technology at a price that their customers can afford.
Their core offering is an interesting take on the MSP model, and while doesn’t have some of the more advanced features found in platforms like Kaseya or N-able, their low-cost, community-focussed approach makes them an interesting alternative.
The pricing model is a simple £1/month/device, and covers PCs, Laptops and Servers. The services is limited to Windows PCs at the moment, with plans to add functionality to other operating systems and network devices in future. The backend is managed on central, co-located LAMP server managed by CentraStage, with the option to host your own management server on-premise for an extra £500/year.
Despite the low cost, the software includes many features commonly found in the more expensive MSP offerings, including:
- Auditing
- Monitoring
- Remote Support
- Management
- Reporting
For those who would like to kick the tyres with the system, it’s available free of charge for trial/home use at the following address:
https://centrastage.net/csm/register
Thanks to both companies for presenting to the group – especially as numbers were a little light on the ground this month! Can’t think why that might be…
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