Entering the ring

CRN: Many of the channel partners right now are seeing IT talent shortages, particularly around VoIP. Is there anything underway that Microsoft is doing to help partners find the talent they’re going to need to be successful here?

Gates: I’d expect there are some things in that area, and we have seen partners see more opportunity with what we offer because of the flexibility and because of the openness. We have partners such as Gold Systems, which was a top Avaya reseller a couple of years ago, now doing more business already even before this release on the Microsoft platform. Because it’s a software-driven platform, your ability to connect in your own software extensions or very industry-specific software extensions you find from other people, it’s just a lot more flexible. You can pick what kind of handset makes sense because we’re open at that level, you can pick the applications software because we’re open at that level. It really is the PC approach, where it’s open at all the different layers, and for the channel, that makes a huge difference because they’re the ones that pick how the pieces go together. The more flexibility they get, the more customer-focused they can be.

CRN: What do you think is the biggest challenge Microsoft will face as it enters this market?

Gates: Well, customers all have different requirements, and I think that channel capacity to really assess those customer requirements and match not just our software piece but also the applications and the hardware to what that customer needs, I think that will probably be one of the limiting factors in how quickly this rolls out. I think it’s going to roll out very quickly, but I think that will be one of the governing factors. I completely agree that the channel capacity in the U.S. is limited because it’s an explosive area, so, of course, there weren’t a bunch of people sitting around who were VoIP experts ... I’m not personally an expert, but we may have to get creative about the training opportunities and learning opportunities that there are.

CRN: What would your advice be then to channel partners that are following you into this market?

Gates: They should assess how they can get customers to think about the productivity benefits or the cost savings here. This change allows both productivity benefits and cost savings. If you leave the PBX in place and put the software on the side, then you’re driving the productivity benefits. You could get some savings by having more calls over the Internet and get some savings by connecting to mobile phones. There are some plans where, over time, the desktop phone is modernised and others where the desktop phone basically disappears because, between your mobile phone and the big screen on your Windows PC, if you’re doing collaboration or customer interfacing, you want the big screen. If you want the mobility, then obviously your mobile phone comes in. So they have
to assess for their customer base – are they seeing these opportunities?

The reason things are exploding now is that there’s this phenomenon that when some customers start to do it and talk to other customers, then the willingness just jumps up dramatically. To be frank, the reliability of VoIP phone calls has been very high for some time, but the richness of the software in terms of the release we’re doing now, and the sense that, boy, everybody’s moving to do this wasn’t there. Now, it’s pretty clear, and this way you can evolve into it.

Partners will always be driven by the customers that they know, the industries, the area. For some partners, this will be a chance to go out and get new customers because the number of people who really understand how to help customers do these things will be quite small for the next couple of years relative to the opportunity.

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