05.31.09
Microsoft Goes Milking Its Partners
Summary: Microsoft turns up the heat on VARs
WHEN TIMES are rough, Microsoft reaches out for more debt. Whenever times are tough, Microsoft looks for every extra penny it can squeeze out of others. Some hours ago we wrote about Microsoft working harder to end counterfeiting, thereby betraying popular distributors of Microsoft software. Now we find a betrayal of authentic partners too:
i. Partners Shocked By New Microsoft Financing Terms
Solution providers who’ve long raved about the convenience of Microsoft’s financing program say they’re stunned by a new Microsoft mandate that requires them to include a larger amount of Microsoft products in deals.
ii. Financing Terms Worry Microsoft Partners
Microsoft Corp. is tightening the requirements on financing partner sales – a move some partners say will be hard to swallow, especially in the sour economic environment.
The software company is requiring that all deals it finances for its indirect sales partners include a minimum of 35 percent of Microsoft’s software or services. Previously, financed deals only needed to include a single Microsoft product to qualify.
That’s what Microsoft partners are for. Ask Cisco. When partners are no longer useful (for Microsoft to exploit) they get mistreated, neglected, and sometimes sued. █
“It’s like you’re going out with a girl; forgive me, it goes the other way also. You’re going out with a girl, what you really want to do is have a deep, close and intimate relationship, at least for one night. And, you know, you just can’t let her feel like that, because if you do, it ain’t going to happen, right. So you have to talk long term and white picket fence and all these other wonderful things, or else you’re never going to get what you’re really looking for.”
–James Plamondon, Lead Microsoft Evangelist
twitter said,
May 31, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Let’s not forget the squeeze they put on Australian charities earlier. Taking debt, firing employees and resorting to counter productive penny pinching, are these the kind of things a company that’s flush witch cash does, or are these the kinds of things dying company does? M$ is imploding faster than I thought it would.