Resellers can differentiate themselves by creating intellectual property (IP), especially since cloud is “tearing out” labour, Prentice says.
“You have to get into your own service-delivery model which has highly scalable, global-class delivery predicated on your own IP.
“You can tie into these ecosystems and connect to iOS, Android or Google App Engine but it’s going to be really tough to read tea leaves, invest in competency of staff and hope the market is stagnant enough that you can bank that.”
Against the uncertainty stands Microsoft and its unparalleled channel clout. The US software, hardware and cloud vendor has 14,000 channel partners across the spectrum including mum-and-dad computer shops, systems integrators, cloud resellers, device makers and general solutions providers.
“Microsoft has been deliberate over the past couple of years reframing ourselves as a devices and services company,” says Microsoft Australia’s channel manager Dean Swan.
“We thought bringing a Surface device to the market would drive Windows and open the market for OEMs as well as Microsoft.”
Swan says that after a couple of years of “slim pickings” of Surface devices, the platform now has a “vibrant ecosystem” including its own devices and those from third parties such as Acer and Dell.
Microsoft has also navigated reseller concerns over its cloud services, Swan says.
“The initial response from cloud integrators when we released Office 365 was that they felt we were competing with them. They had built a model around deploying software as system integrators and now as a cloud service we were taking that over. But we have educated the market and shown that as they transform the business, they will be more profitable.”
Swan shrugs off Apple’s dominance in mobile and education sectors. “We’re starting to see the preferences move strongly towards Microsoft and the Windows ecosystem – a no-compromise experience of notebooks using a digitised pen and coupled with cloud services to drive education outcomes.”
Microsoft has just run seminars for schools to introduce its solutions to influential educators. Swan says the message is sinking in that Microsoft is “more open than Apple... and when they use One Note, it runs on Apple, Android as well as multiple devices. When you look at Office 365, it runs across devices.”
Microsoft also offers incentives for resellers to promote its products, including up to 50 free Surface tablets if the customer was willing to be a case study, a reseller told CRN.
“We’ve got incentives and programs to allow [resellers] to procure hardware at a significantly discounted price,” Swan says.
“From a services perspective, we provide internal use rights to partners, and then depending on their level, they can leverage those services to demonstrate to customers.”
Microsoft also offers an “immersion experience”, where it demonstrates hardware, software and cloud services at a customer site, he says.
And against Google, Microsoft is pushing back with a story about privacy: “Google at its core is still a company driven around advertising revenue and they scan the student emails to drive targeted advertising and most parents are concerned about those practices”.
A resurgent Microsoft is a relief to Downs Microsystems partner and business development manager, Ian Hurley. The Toowoomba reseller recently reapplied for its Apple dealership following a merger, which included a hefty re-registration bill and passing a bill of health.
Hurley credits Apple with great marketing to consumers, who then sought the same experience when they entered the workforce. “Apple did a very good job of making [the experience] wanted and that’s what brought it into the business market.”
But Hurley rails against Apple’s poor margins: “It’s hard to say pick the Apple product over Windows Lumia, Android or Sony Xperia where you make $200 or $300 margin over 20 bucks. They almost push you out of the market so they can go direct.”
But he says he “happily” advises customers to buy Apple if that’s the right platform for them. “If you’re using an iPhone and want a tablet device, I say use a single OS rather than mix your flavours; you’ll have a better experience. I’ve certainly moved a lot of people away from Apple, and even recently we have companies that are asking us for iPads but when we drill down, the technology is best delivered on Windows,” says Hurley.
“When they’re trying to deliver up-to-date, live Excel spreadsheets to 1,000 coaches or people in the field and they can deliver that on SharePoint, then why would you cross-platform and support a second operating system instead of a native Windows 8 platform?”
Internally, Downs Microsystems has largely transitioned from Apple to Microsoft, which enables roaming staff to access SharePoint repositories, phone directories and communications through Lync from their mobile devices, Hurley says.
Microsoft’s tight integration is a factor in why IT operations staff like Windows, says LogicalTech’s head of Microsoft integration, Peter Linton.
“If you talk to C-level people, they love their iPads,” Linton says. “The good thing about the Surface Pro is there’s no reworking of the software to run it and that’s where you win the operations staff.
“The messaging for us is very straightforward: you run Word, Exchange and Excel; do you want to bring in a product that is a bit hit and miss or bring in something that is out of the box and fits into your ecosystem?”
But he acknowledges that where Apple has a wide and deep selection of mobile apps, Microsoft has a “problem with take-up and they don’t have the ecosystem in the apps”.
“Once the ecosystem is there you will see some very large changes in the percentage ownership.”
Linton says Microsoft is poised to blast past Apple in the area of business intelligence and providing critical, real-time data to workers in the field.
“It’s absolutely the big one for mobility because it’s a situation where people have the information in their hand and can walk into the meeting and take it with them,” says Linton.
READ MORE
-1.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
