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• News: Microsoft Explores Options for Partners to Handle BPOS Billing
• Redmond Channel Partner Update by Lee Pender
  • Executive Changes at Microsoft
  • Non-Existent Microsoft Tablet Already Drawing Criticism
  • F5 Offers Cloud Storage
  • A Great Big Patch Tuesday
• More News
  • Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 SP1 Released
  • Microsoft Battling Google on ITA Search Acquisition
  • Windows Small Business Server 2011 Hits Metal
• REMINDER: December 2010 Issue of Redmond Channel Partner Now Live!

News: Microsoft Explores Options for Partners to Handle BPOS Billing

By Scott Bekker

Microsoft is reviewing the direct billing model it uses for cloud computing customers, the company's channel chief Jon Roskill told partners this week in a town hall meeting.

When partners resell the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and other Microsoft Online Services products, the customers are billed directly by Microsoft. A partner of record is named, and that partner gets margins on the sale from Microsoft separately. But most partners currently have no way to integrate BPOS into their own billing to customers.

Some partners have said they won't consider Microsoft's cloud solutions until they can bill customers themselves, while others have said BPOS billing creates business-model problems for them. A question from Jamison West, of Seattle-based managed services provider JWCS and one of a few dozen partners at the town hall meeting at the new Microsoft Store in Bellevue, Wash., prompted Roskill's comment about the direct billing review.

After saying that Microsoft "gets" the partner channel more than any other vendor he works with, West said, "I understand I'm going to make money selling [BPOS] and all of those things, but having my clients go direct to Microsoft is a struggle for me."

Roskill, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, made a pitch for the flexibility of Microsoft's current billing options, but also acknowledged West's concerns.

"Let me start by saying, we are very serious when we say we are dedicated to taking the cloud to customers through the channel," Roskill said. "Ideally, you want to be able to put things like BPOS seats in with your total offering, provide a single bill to the customer and we hear that and we recognize and respect that."

After listing existing features like a quoting tool, systems for putting partner branding on Microsoft's billing and hyperlinks that automatically register a partner when customers do a BPOS service trial, Roskill said Microsoft is working on the issue... Continue reading.

Executive Changes at Microsoft
Hello, dear readers. I'm working on a story for Redmond magazine about recent executive moves at Microsoft (think Ray Ozzie, Jeff Raikes and Stephen Elop all leaving) and how those changes might affect Microsoft's product strategy as well as your business and purchasing choices. If you have any thoughts on this matter, I'd be much obliged if you sent them to lpender@rcpmag.com. Thanks. Comment.

Still, though, it's not easy being...whatever color Microsoft is. Maybe electric blue like its executives' dress shirts, as opposed to that navy IBM blue. But we digress. This week, rumors leaked that Microsoft will be introducing a tablet computer, a competitor to the iPad, at the Consumer Electronics Show next week.

Now, these are rumors. Microsoft has confirmed nothing. Only The New York Times is talking about this device in definite terms, and even its details are sketchy. Officially, this tablet doesn't exist. Nevertheless, everybody hates it.

Well, maybe not everybody -- but some critics already do, based on sketchy details and what might or might not be an image of the device (made, in this case, by Samsung). Now, we're not saying that the Windows tablet is going to set the world on fire. It might be awful. It might be mediocre. It might be brilliant.

What it won't be, though, is the iPad, and it seems as though that's what critics want it to be. But Microsoft doesn't need to try to reinvent the iPad. In fact, that would be an embarrassment and a market disaster (hello, Zune). No, there are things Microsoft can do with tablet computers that could actually bring value to the space... Read the rest.

• Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 SP1 Released
• Microsoft Battling Google on ITA Search Acquisition
• Windows Small Business Server 2011 Hits Metal

REMINDER: December 2010 Issue of Redmond Channel Partner Now Live!

• Cover Story: http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082409:20812237 http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=4936185:20812237" target="_blank">Microsoft Execs: Who's Who?
  It's been a year of change and turnover among partner-facing Microsoft executives. Here's an org chart for partners. By Scott Bekker

• http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082409:20812237 http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=4936185:20812237" target="_blank">BPOS Gets a New Brand with Microsoft Office 365
  When Microsoft overhauls the Online Suite as Office 365 next year, it will include Office desktop products in the subscription. An analyst calls the change a "mixed bag" for the channel. By John K. Waters

• Forging a Lync in the Unified Communications Chain
  Microsoft has a tradition of making a market breakthrough with the third release of a product. For that pattern to hold true in unified communications and collaboration, the channel will have to play a critical role. By Alison Diana

• http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082412:20812237 http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=4936188:20812237" target="_blank">Windows 7 at a Year
• http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082413:20812237 http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=4936189:20812237" target="_blank">Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse Hits Metal This Month
• http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082414:20812237 http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=4936190:20812237" target="_blank">SMBs Brace for a Cloudy Future
• Next SQL Server Reaches CTP Stage

• Channel Watch: http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082416:20812237 http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=4936192:20812237" target="_blank">Some Partners Get the White-Glove Treatment
• Channel Call: http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082417:20812237 http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=4936193:20812237" target="_blank">It's Not All Wreckage in the 2010 Rearview
• Directions: http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082418:20812237 http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=4936194:20812237" target="_blank">Microsoft Partners and the Language of Incentive

http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082419:20812237 http://rcpmag.com/Issues/2010/05/May-2010.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=5082419:20812237 http://rcpmag.com/Issues/2010/05/May-2010.aspx">Read the rest of the December 2010 issuehttp://rcpmag.com/Issues/2010/05/May-2010.aspx">.