Taming the tempest

Yesterday here at CRMchump, faithful readers were promised a manageable byte-sized harnessing of the squall of news emitted from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. And so, here we are.

On the sales win side, the Microsofties announced that Securitas Systems USA Inc., the US division of international security systems and services provider Stockholm, Sweden-centered Securitas Systems will be deploying Microsoft Dynamics GP business-management software to replace its Sage MAS 200 system.

Securitas operates in seventeen countries and maintains fifty locations in the United States, and will be installing Microsoft Dynamics GP along with Microsoft Dynamics CRM to create a common operating platform for US operations.

The Microsoft software seeks to coordinate management of Securitas’ 500 US field technicians. The folks from Exact Target were able to introduce the company’s wide-ranging partnership network, involving twenty of the largest worldwide Microsoft value-added resellers, including Inetium, Customer Effective, Sonoma Partners, and K3.

Exact Target launched its integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM in March, and the newly-announced partnerships announced, hope Exact Target, will expand its customer base by offering mutual referral agreements, co-marketing and sales support.

Exact Target is a specialist in on-demand email software solutions for permission-based (Does that mean “non-spam”?) email marketing. Exact Target solutions are employed at 5,500 organizations worldwide, including Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, The Home Depot, Scotts Miracle- Gro Company, Delta Faucet, CareerBuilder.com and Cold Stone Creamery. Privately owned and headquartered in Indianapolis, the company has 31 offices in North America, Europe and Australia.

K2, a division of SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc., has declared August 6 as the release date for K2 blackpearl, billed as the centerpiece of its new software platform. K2 blackpearl is being demonstrated at the ‘Conference this week, and a beta 2 version is available to all existing K2 customers.

Meanwhile, from the big company itself, much verbiage has been disseminated and windows with which to peer into Microsoft’s near future opened.

High in industry news dispatches was the Tuesday unveiling of the OBA OnRamp program, where “OBA” stands for “Office Business Applications” and the program seeks to “help partners add functionality to the suite by creating OBAs.”

Microsoft will reportedly invest some $10 million into OBA OnRamp, a figure that includes technical resources, training and sales and marketing assistance to partners, said Microsoft platform strategy group program co-manager Daz Wilkin.

The program was unveiled as part of a keynote from Chris Capossela, a corporate vice president in the Microsoft Business Division. Capossela and co. even distributed the “OBA Quickstart Kit” to attendees.

Speaking of multi-million dollar investments, Microsoft will be plunked down $42 million south of the border in its Latin American partner program before the June 30, 2008 close of the fiscal year.

This news came courtesy of Charles Arizmendi, Microsoft director for channel development, marketing and programs in Latin America. The amount represents nearly as much as that invested in the area over the previous two fiscal years combined – a total of $48 million came into Latin America in fiscal years 2006 and 2007.

Arizmendi is predicting an eighteen percent growth in revenues in the enterprise segment and 32 percent in the SME segment.

According to company statistics, approximately 54,000 of Microsoft’s 600,000 partners are based in Latin America; of this, about 22,000 deal almost exclusively in Microsoft products. In terms of releases, the large ones (‘cause i know you’re tired of reading B-I-G) are Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008, which will be released on February 27, 2008.

“The ongoing momentum of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office software licence sales, combined with new server products due to ship next year, creates a wealth of opportunity for Microsoft partners in 2007 and 2008,” threw the gauntlet Allison Watson, corporate vice president of the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft.

Partners can currently evaluate Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, as well as check out the beta of the new MCSE Upgrade exam. More than 60 ISV partners, including Alcatel-Lucent, Aras Software and BEA Systems, have already joined the Certified for Windows Server 2008 early access programme.

More news to come? The final day of the conference is today.