Man, a year can go fast when you’re having fun!

While I’ve been working in the Exchange product management group for nearly 4 years, these last 12 months have afforded me some amazing opportunities to really get to know how we go to market through our fantastic Exchange partner ecosystem. And, along the way, I have had the chance to meet with many of you and learn what we can do to help make building your business on Exchange even more successful.

One of the most vocal pieces of feedback I received at WPC, through advisory councils, 1:1 discussions, etc. is you felt that the Unified Communications competency wasn’t arming you with the best branding or tools to help you differentiate your offerings to customers.

I took this feedback to heart and worked with many key stakeholders within the Exchange and Lync business groups, as well as our Worldwide Partner Group, to see what we could do to address this feedback. I cannot be more excited that I can announce that in response to your feedback, the Microsoft Partner Network (a/k/a MPN) is evolving the Unified Communications (UC) competency.

More specifically, in October 2011, the UC competency will split into two separate, new competencies: the Messaging competency, focused on Microsoft Exchange, and the Communications competency, focused on Microsoft Lync.

Without a doubt, the key motivator to this important evolution of a MPN competency was the ability for you to further differentiate your Exchange and Lync expertise in market and compete more effectively.

Sounds simple, but the reality is we know how much you invest in developing solutions practices on Exchange and Lync. And, that the introduction of these two new competencies will give you the chance to demonstrate these investments through the power of the Microsoft Partner Network.

But, we didn’t stop with a creating two new competencies!

We are also investing in expanding the scope of these competencies to reflect the investments you are making in the advanced capabilities of both Exchange (e.g., archiving and voicemail) and Lync (e.g., voice and video), as well as your commitment to helping customers with their journey to the cloud with Office 365. These investments include new training and assessments to help you demonstrate your capacity to help customers realize even more value out of the investments they are making in the Microsoft business productivity platform.

Here’s the scoop on the two newest competencies:

Messaging competency
For partners who want to broaden their business portfolio to sell, deploy, and support Microsoft Exchange and solutions built on the Exchange platform, the Messaging competency will enable you to grow your business by strengthening your Exchange practice, differentiating your expertise through distinguished branding, and expanding customer opportunities.

The Messaging competency recognizes your expertise in implementation design, deployment, and support of Microsoft Exchange Server. In addition, the Gold Messaging competency highlights your additional investment and specialization in archiving, security, and voicemail, as well as your ability to help customers with their journey to the cloud to Exchange Online.

Communications competency
For partners who want to broaden their business portfolio to sell, deploy, and support Microsoft Lync or build products and solutions on or interoperable with the Lync platform, the Communications competency will enable you to grow your business by strengthening your Lync practice, differentiating your expertise through distinguished branding, and expanding customer opportunities.

The Communications competency recognizes your expertise in implementation design, deployment, and support of Microsoft Lync. The Silver Communications competency enables you to highlight your investment and capabilities around IM/Presence and Conferencing workloads and the Gold Communications competency demonstrates further expertise in enterprise voice and video, PBX integration and Lync Online.

We’ve got a lot more to tell you about these significant changes planned for this year and next, and I personally invite you to stay tuned between now and WPC11 to learn more.

In the meantime, I encourage you to visit the recently updated MPN portal pages dedicated to the current UC competency, and download the Evolution of the UC Competency Guide. This document is designed to walk you through the transition to the new Messaging competency and Communications competency.

I’d also like to take this time to recognize several individuals who were instrumental in making this change happen, including Kristin Murray (Exchange), Isabell Sheng (Lync), Dan Truax (WPG) and Katie Larson (WPG). Without their tireless efforts, this simple notion of splitting the competency would still just be that, a notion. THANK YOU!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

WPC doesn’t end when the sun sets after a full day of keynotes, sessions and meetings.

Much like the action-packed agenda during the day, our evening schedules will be filled with receptions and parties to attend.  And, there is no shortage of shindigs to choose from.  Heck, you’ll feel more like a A-lister celebrity this year, thanks to the backdrop of the city of angels (not the city of the Angels, of which I keep being reminded are actually located in Anaheim, not Los Angeles).

Inarguably, one of the most popular evening events is “THE PARTY”. You know the one. That gig that requires the special wristband, and the one you're often off hunting for the prized VIP wristband.  Quick fast fact about “THE PARTY”: it’ll celebrate its 10th anniversary this year! 

This year’s “THE PARTY” is scheduled for July 13th at The Avalon, one of the Hollywood’s most historic landmarks, including being the very venue that hosted The Beatles first West Coast performance in 1964. Other famous acts and/or frequent visitors include: The Rolling Stones, Merv Griffin’s talk show, Jerry Lewis, The Beastie Boys, and (of course) Oingo Boingo (whose membership roll features Danny Elfman, most famous for penning “The Simpsons” theme song and just about every soundtrack in Tim Burton’s filmography).

It’s widely known that a ticket to “THE PARTY“ is hard to come by. With access to Microsoft executives and other partners, libations and live music, it is guaranteed to be the hottest (and most coveted) party ticket at WPC.

Fret not, our Exchange and Lync partners, for we have a way for you to bypass the frenzy of calling in favors and last minute scouting for a ticket.

How?

Exchange and Lync are among the sponsors of this year’s event, which means we’ll have our hands on a bunch of “THE PARTY” invites. Woo-hoo!

And, we’ll be giving away passes to “THE PARTY”! Double Woo-hoo!!

That’s right!

“So, how can I be eligible for one of these coveted passes?” you may be asking yourself as you re-read the above sentences, and perhaps even belting out a few “Woo-hoo’s” in the process.

It’s easy: between now and Friday, June 24th, you just need to tell us what you’re most excited to learn about Exchange and/or Lync at this year’s WPC.

And, you need to be specific (in a 140 characters or less).

“Okay, I got that part down, but how do you want me to tell you all of this?”, you ask next.

Again, it’s easy!  And, you’ve got two choices:

1. Tweet your “most excited to learn” tidbit with the #WPC11 and #ExchangePartner or #LyncPartner hastags, or
2. Post to the WPC’s Facebook wall or post a status on your profile with the “@Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference” tag wall and include keywords Exchange or Lync

It’s important to include these Twitter hashtags or Facebook tag/keywords, so we can find you!

On Thursday, June 30th we will randomly select the lucky recipients from all of the partners who posted and they will receive an exclusive registration code for Exchange and Lync partners. We will contact you via Facebook and Twitter to provide you with the code you’ll need to skip the waitlist to attend “THE PARTY” of the year.

Good luck and I am personally excited to see what you’ll be excited about hearing from us at WPC11. Now, I think I’ll spin up some Elfman soundtracks from the Zune Marketplace as I watch Twitter and Facebook for your entries!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

With all of that, I’m excited to share links to the newest editions to this series featuring great Exchange partners telling their story behind their Exchange practices.

First up, is Matt McGillen of PointBridge.  He heads up the Unified Communications practice for this Chicago-based systems integrator.  Matt’s also--like your humble blogger--a fan of the MLS where he follows the Chicago Fire.  Okay, back to the important stuff (at least as it pertains to Exchange), and hear from Matt about how PointBridge is “expanding into cloud services with Exchange Online, and how they’re beating Google bids with the power of customer choice across on-premises, online, and hybrid deployments”: https://meme.ms/n41r16

Our second new video features two heavy hitters from the South African-based Dimension Data, Anne Greenwald and Brian Walshe. Here you’ll have the chance to hear them “describe the opportunities in migrating customers from GroupWise and Notes, delivering Exchange advanced workloads—including archiving and voicemail—and selling the broader suite of Microsoft productivity solutions”: https://meme.ms/n4hapq

And, as an added bonus, these videos are currently in heavy rotation on the Microsoft Partner Network homepage at https://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/

Following this “premiere” on the big stage, we’ll be adding them into the normal rotation on our Exchange page on the MPN portal.

As always, feel free to let us know your thoughts and stay tune for more great stuff in the coming weeks!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Okay, technically, there are 4,665,600 seconds between today and Sunday, July 10th (the official kickoff of our yearly partner confab).

BTW, aren’t those date calculators a ton of fun?

On to the good stuff: with four full days of keynotes, 26 tracks spanning up to 600 sessions, side meetings and evening parties (yes, lots of parties!), your schedule can fill up fast. And, it’s easy to feel like Lucy in the chocolate factory, with too many chocolates to wrap (or sessions to attend). [NOTE: This reference was suggested by the Millennial on my team, and I really dug it and it proves that classic T.V. is truly timeless!]

To help navigate the bevy of sessions available to you, what follows is your “I’m an Exchange Partner” cheat sheet for the most important stuff to attend.

Here are the “make sure to attend” keynotes and sessions slotted for the afternoon of Tuesday, July 12th:

• 12:00 – 1:00PM

The Future of Productivity, a value keynote with Kirk Koenigsbauer, Corporate Vice President of the MODPMG [also known as the head honcho of the IW marketing world and known already the hollowed halls of Redmond as “KirkK”]. We strongly suggest you attend the first delivery so you can make the following sessions.

• 1:30 – 2:30PM

Dollars, Euros, or Yen: How Exchange brings you growth opportunities from on-premises to the cloud, a breakout session with Julia White, Senior Director of the Exchange PMG (also known as my boss, so please do attend! And, as an extra bonus, you’ll get an opportunity to meet me and my team, including Kristin who’s leading our Exchange presence at and efforts for WPC11.)

• 3:00 – 4:00PM

Exchange vs. Google and Zimbra – How to beat the competition, An interactive session with subject matter experts, Alym Rayani and Gary Danoys. You might remember me from partnering with Gary at WPC10 to deliver a similar session.  Well, this time, we’ve brought in a heavy hitter, as Alym is THE compete expert from the Exchange PMG. He’s also a huge Vancouver Canucks fan, and is anxiously awaiting the conclusion of their series with the Sharks, so his lads can make it to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1994 (and maybe win it all this time!).

• 4:30 – 5:30PM

So You Want To Host Exchange? an Interactive session with subject matter expert, Michael van Dijken.  You’ve already met Michael in an earlier blog posting, so I’ll let that one stand on its own. Nevertheless, VanD (as we call him around here) will help those partners looking to deliver private cloud versions of our industry leading productivity stack, and much more about the opportunity for hosters in the new world of Office 365.

You can use the Session Scheduler to create your own customer WPC 2011 itinerary as well as read the full abstracts for the sessions above. Be sure to include these sessions in your Tuesday afternoon schedule; with details like really cool stuff we’re doing around the UC competency, how to win against VMware Zimbra and hosting Exchange, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to get the scoop directly from senior leaders and subject matter experts.

And, if that doesn’t sell you, we will be rolling even out more details about our Exchange activities at WPC over the next several weeks. So, stay tuned for weekly updates on expo activities, parties, and taco trucks! (yes, I said taco trucks).

Ian Hameroff
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Dubbed the Exchange ActiveSync Logo Program, this new program will enable you to drive an even richer mobility discussion with your customers as they seek to get a better handle on the increasing number of devices that users are purchasing, bringing to the office, and expecting to have access to their email, calendar and contacts from Exchange. No doubt you’ve got customers who are asking you how to best safeguard their corporate data, manage these additional end-points, and ensure these devices will not generate endless helpdesk calls because relied upon functionality is not supported or doesn’t work as expected.

“So, how does this program actually work?” you might ask.

In exchange (no pun intended) for developing a mobile email client that meets a set of requirements (specifically 14 of them, which is just a coincidence that Exchange 2010 was codenamed Exchange “14”), which is tested and validated by a third-party firm, these handset manufacturers receive a nifty logo they can incorporate into their device’s UI and use in their marketing of the qualified device. 

These requirements include important security functionality such as remote wipe and password enforcement, as well as user features that streamline setup (i.e., support for Autodiscover) and boost user productivity (e.g., HTML formatted email and the ability to look up contacts in the company’s GAL).  Ultimately, we feel this will elevate the feature set provided by the various Exchange ActiveSync licenses (like Apple and Nokia), adding even more benefit to the “de facto standard” status EAS has garnered since being included in Exchange 2003.

You can learn a bunch more about which devices are qualified as of today from the various links I’ve shared above, but know that we have a very healthy pipeline of name brand partners (both handset OEMs and mobile operators) that are rapidly developing offerings to send through the validation process. So, stay tuned for additional partner announcements down the road.

In the meantime, here’s what I suggest you do as partners:

• Familiarize yourself with the specifics of the program, especially which Exchange ActiveSync capabilities are in the 14 requirements.
• Use this announcement (particularly the blog posting that Julia White did on our UC blog) as an opportunity to start (or continue) a conversation with your customers about mobile email. It’s very likely your customers’ users are pining for mobile access, but these organizations may fear the risks and costs are not outweighed by the business benefits. You can use the Exchange ActiveSync Logo Program as a way to demonstrate they have a great built-in Exchange mobility story that delivers the safeguards necessary to satisfy both users and IT.
• Help customers understand how they can teach their users to use the logo to find these qualified devices.  In some cases, like if they already have a Windows Phone 7, Apple iOS 4.x, or even a Nokia phone with the latest release of “Mail for Exchange”, they already meet these requirements for connecting with Exchange 2010.
• Develop and implement mobile device policies with/for your customers that, for example, use the Allow-Block-Quarantine polices of Exchange 2010 to limit access to their Exchange servers to only Exchange ActiveSync Logo barring  devices.
• Stay informed of the updates to the program requirements and new devices that achieve qualification.

There’s certainly many more things having this program in your back pocket can unlock vis-à-vis your customer engagements.  To help support you, we’ll be providing more details and some supportive content up on the Exchange page of the MPN Portal.  Watch for more info and tools there over the coming weeks, and (as always) let us know what more we can do to help support you in delivering this message to our mutual customers.

Ian Hameroff
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

https://blogs.technet.com/hameroff

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Best Buy, Halo, and film! I’ve just always been happy to wait for the crowds to die down.  And, considering I am still trying to finish the original “The Godfather” game for Xbox (circa 2006), you can get a sense of my pace for taking on new titles.

That all change yesterday morning, where you would have found me with mouse pointer hovering over the IE9 refresh icon, counting down the minutes to 10:00a PST.

“What changed?” you may ask.

Well, we officially opened registration for WPC2011 on DigitalWPC.com!

When 10:00a finally arrived, I swore I heard the voice of T.V. and movie legend Carl Weathers say “Here we go!” much like he does in a recent advertising campaign for a pretty well known brand of American beer.  And, when the guy who played Apollo Creed suddenly haunts your inner monologue, you know it’s game time!

July 11th is rapidly approaching, and our Exchange partner marketing team has already been working for the past several months to plot our plans for the Unified Communications (a/k/a Exchange and Lync) presence (as part of the Business Productivity track) at the Los Angeles edition of one of my most favorite Microsoft events. 

We’re locking things down like which sessions we’ll be landing, how our Unified Communications Symposium (a/k/a the pre-day) will be shaped, strategizing on side meeting schedules, and (of course) figuring out which of the zillion parties are the ones we’ll make sure to let you guys know are “the ones” you must be at (like the famous DPE party that ranks among the best bets when attending a WPC).

I’ll share our progress on this front, as things continue to lock and settle in for the event. So, stay tuned to this space (and DigitalWPC.com) for more details every day.

In the meantime, I encourage you to register soon, as the early bird savings only last until April 25th and you certainly don’t want to miss out staying in your preferred hotel! Looking at the ticker on WPC2011 page, as of 12:56p PST, they’ve already hit 1109 attendees!

Just 108 days left until the big show, and I am very much looking forward to seeing all of you there!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing

Following up to my post from last week that provided an overview of this year’s WPC Awards, the window for self-nominations is now open.

This year, we are focusing on the following two Unified Communications awards:

• Unified Communications Market Acceleration Partner of the Year
• Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year

Visit digitalwpc.com/Awards/2011-Awards to learn more about the special recognition and exclusive WPC access benefits for awards winners and finalists this year.

It’s officially open season, and we are eager to showcase your incredible work over the past year. What’s next?

• Review the awards categories, descriptions and requirements here.
• Visit digitalwpc.com/Awards/2011-Awards to launch the Awards tool and begin developing your entries.
• Submit entries before 11:59pm PT on April 15.

There is a comprehensive FAQ page within the Awards tool. If you have additional questions, please post a comment.

Off to the races!

Cheers,
Kristin Murray
Product Manager

Hi partners -

I work on the Exchange Partner Marketing team, looking after our breadth partner programs. I will be driving WPC planning and execution this year for our team, and I look forward to seeing you at our marquee partner event this upcoming July 10-14 in Los Angeles. In Ian’s earlier post, he wrote about a series of Exchange partner videos I’ve been developing, and the WPC awards are yet another opportunity to highlight the great work you all do. WPC 2011 Awards categories were announced last week, and this post will provide more detail on the specific awards related to Exchange.

What’s new this year?

This year, the awards program includes special recognition and exclusive WPC access benefits for awards winners and finalists. Visit DigitalWPC.com to learn more.

Also, there are changes to the awards categories this year. We are looking to showcase how your business is helping to drive acceleration of Microsoft products in the marketplace as well as looking for examples of the innovative solutions built on Microsoft technologies your company is developing and delivering. This year, we are focusing on the following two Unified Communications awards:

Unified Communications Market Acceleration Partner of the Year

This award recognizes partners with proven expertise in planning, deployment, and management of Microsoft Exchange while helping their customers lower IT costs, boost user productivity and better manage risk. Successful entries will discuss how partners are driving upgrades from legacy Exchange or migrations from competitive platforms to Exchange Server 2010 or Exchange Online supported with quantifiable results and customer anecdotes. Entries specifically highlighting deployments of advanced Exchange workloads (archiving, security and voicemail) are encouraged.

Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year

This award recognizes partners that are building on the extensible Microsoft Unified Communication platform offered by Lync/OCS and Exchange and are delivering innovative solutions that integrate communications within business applications and processes (CEBP). Successful entries will highlight how the partner’s solutions around CEBP have a significant impact on how people communicate and collaborate by enhancing the end-user experience, increasing efficiency or by extending the existing products with unique add-ons. Partners should showcase the unique and positive effects their innovative solutions have had on their customers’ business.

I encourage you to submit entries and nominate your organization for these awards (1 entry per award max). We are eager to read about and recognize your success!

Interested in showcasing your incredible work over the past year?

• Review the document outlining the awards categories, descriptions and requirements and start preparing your entry today.
• Revisit and begin submitting your entries on March 18 at DigitalWPC.com. All entries must be submitted by April 15.

Any questions? Post a comment, and I’ll be happy to answer.

Cheers,
Kristin Murray
Product Manager

One only needs to take a look at the stats from comScore’s recent online video rankings to confirm this as fact. They shared that “171 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in January for an average of 14.5 hours per viewer.”  Dang, that’s a lot of small-screened viewing, and that’s just in the United States!

Late last year, Kristin from my team was brainstorming about how to best show off the great things you do as Exchange partners. Around the same time, Janalent, our 2010 Unified Communications Solutions Messaging Partner of the Year, happen to be heading into town from their H.Q. in Las Vegas.  As you likely recall, Janalent’s COO Joe Honan spoke during Julia White’s Exchange session at WPC2010, sharing how his company is driving their business with Exchange opportunities (both on-premises and with Exchange Online).

We thought, “hey, wouldn’t it be great to shoot a video of Joe and Anne telling this story?”

Well, Kristin took that idea, expanded it, and came up with this really creative video series called “an Exchange partner mini series” which went live just a week ago on our Exchange MPN portal page.

As you can see in the screenshot above, we’re featuring an array of Exchange partners – like Lars Riehn, CEO of Munich-based infoWAN Datenkommunikation GmbH – answering the question “how are you growing your business with Microsoft Exchange?”

We had a few goals in mind when this project was conceived.

First, we’re always looking for ways to breathe new life into our Exchange page on the MPN Portal. 

Why? 

Because we recognize that you most often visit this site when we are close to launching a new version.  If we can do a little more to keep this site fresh and updated with new content, news and information (like highlighting yesterday’s general availability of the HP E5000) we expect you’ll visit more often.

Second, it’s sometimes easy to forget how awesome of an opportunity Exchange presents for your business. As Kristin noted in the intro paragraph right above the video’s “Brady Bunch-like” grid:

Watch as partners share how they are taking advantage of new business opportunities with Microsoft Exchange. Hear from solutions partners and independent software vendors (ISVs) as they discuss migrating customers from competitive messaging platforms, upgrading legacy Exchange customers, displacing legacy voicemail systems, expanding into cloud services and developing tools to move customers to the cloud.

It is great to see partners that have been with us since Exchange 5.5 as well as new partners that have just began their Exchange practices within the past twelve months.

Lastly, we believe one of the best ways my team can help you is by creatively sharing the best practices you develop and highlighting your fantastic results to further strengthen our overall Exchange ecosystem. 

So, check out the current batch of videos and keep visiting back as we have many more partners in the queue to share their stories.

Also, let me know what you think.  Use this blog as a way to provide the feedback we can use to serve you even better. 

And, if you had a story you’d like to share with your fellow ecosystem partners, just say the word by clicking on the Email Blog Author link in the top-right corner of this page.

Enjoy!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing