Susanne Dansey’s Blog

What a great day!

160 partners (including lots of new faces) attended a jam packed day which after speaking to lots of you seems to have been a success!

Firstly, a big thank you to Robbie, Aileen, and Dave, as well as everyone else from the MotherShip who helped organise the day. After talking to Aileen today about the logistics involved, I was very appreciative of the effort put in.

After a quick coffee and catch up, Robbie started the day with Aileen to give an update to the SBSC programme and outlined the benefits of the SBSC accreditation. The benefits include an entry in the bCentral Partner directory, managed newsgroups, a dedicated partner site, and the Activate series which provides information and ideas about sales and marketing.

Next up was Steve Haddock who was pretty honest about why Microsoft are involved with the community and that their aim is to increase the sales of their software by encouraging the ‘attach rate’ level. I’ve known Steve for a while now, and whilst some of his presentation was a little hard to swallow by members of the audience, this guy has changed his perception of the value of the SBSC programme and the proof was in the time he took to talk to partners both in and out of the sessions. This was one of the key things I noticed; the likes of Scott Dodds, Karl Noakes, and Steve took the time to have honest debate with partners. Other people from Microsoft including Chris Parkes (DemoShowcase), Nicola Young (Partner Programme), Stevie Neilson (MS Scotland), and Sinead O’Grade (MS Ireland) popped in to talk to partners.

Things that I noted (using the power of OneNote 2007 in case you had any doubt as to what I used):

• Office is a ‘hot button’ for Microsoft
• The attach rate for Office to a machine is between 30-40%
• Within three months of a purchase of a machine, 80% of users will have installed a copy of Office
• There is a huge amount of online licensing but the ‘value’ of the software is not translated; hence why partners are key
• Their targeted growth is 15% per annum and the challenge for them is to understand how to drive ‘vision’, ‘frequency’, and ‘growth’ (MS terminology!)

Steve’s observation of UK partners is that we are “far too polite”. So guys, he has welcomed the rotten tomatoes so feel free to throw!

Next up was Microsoft’s General Manager for Small & Medium Business, Scott Dodds who shared some statistics with us:

• There has been an increase in IT spend in the UK which is currently at 3.4% GDP and expected to rise to 3.6% by 2008
• Overall growth in the UK PC Market is 10.5%
• A significant shift from desktop PCs to Notebook PCs
• 11.5m new PCs will be shipped into the UK Market; 10.5m will be genuinely licensed with Microsoft software
• There is a great disconnect within businesses - what they want to achieve is not often what they get around to doing
• 92% of people questioned for a YouGov survey (just under 800 surveyed) consider IT important
• 82% have an online presence
• 85% use IT for communication
• 33% waste 10+ days on IT inefficiency
• Security is the biggest time drain on small businesses
• 50% don’t back up daily (eeek)
• 40% don’t have a firewall (what’s going on?!)
• Breaches cost up to £10,000 as well as time

The opportunity for small businesses are mobility, sales & marketing, productivity, security - yes guys, these are your buzz words okay?

Aileen, Scott, Steve, and Karl then took Executive Panel Q&A which was very interactive but it was a shame that it was stopped just as the topic of why Microsoft doesn’t promote it’s legal activities dealing with piracy to customers…

David Overton then presented on Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System and then we had updates on the new products that Microsoft are excited about; OfficeLive and AdCentre.

After lunch, the partner-to-partner sessions were on and covered subjects including Legal, Licensing, Marketing your business, using local RDAs and organisations to help your group/business; SPLA, and ‘Partner Power’! It was interesting to hear how, in most of the presentations, our community was recognised as a real opportunity to improve existing business practices.

Westcoast, HP, and Symantec sponsored the day and made themselves available to partners and it seems that it was a very positive day for everyone involved.

I know that most completed the feedback forms, but if you in the next week or so realise that something you picked up from the event has helped you in some way then I’m sure Robbie and the team would love to hear about it. All feedback helps mould future events and help ensure SBSC stays firmly on the map.

Thank you to everyone who made the ‘catch up’ the night before too. I know that many of you appreciated the informal networking in a relaxed atmosphere. Thank you also to Steve from Toshiba who came along to network and bought a few rounds as well as Robbie who helped out too. More importantly, thank you to whoever covered the dinner!

I’ve popped some pictures online for you to check out if you are interested!

p.s. looks like a new group may be in the first stages of forming. A few partners are thinking of forming the Surrey SBS Group so if you are interested in joining, then let me know and I’ll put you in touch.

p.p.s. Emma Richardson from the Microsoft Partner Team has answered some of the common questions raised at the SBSC Symposium at TVP. Check them out here.

Next stop: Edinburgh! Wrap up warm