Microsoft's partner relations brought into question

Roger Lawrence, general manager evangelism at Microsoft, wrote a blog mentioning one of his Gold Partners, Readify and that company’s involvement at Tech.ED.

One of Lawrence’s readers, named Nick, then accused Readify of having too many volunteers and consultants at the event.

This reader went on to say that behaviour such as this is “what is so wrong with Microsoft’s community initiatives in Australia”.

“Just talk to someone who does not work for Readify, does not attend user groups (because it is the same set of people all the time), and get a fair view,” he complained.

“I was there at Tech.Ed and I heard comments like and I am paraphrasing here “...this event should be called ReadifyEd...”.

According to Nick, by giving so much exposure to one company and by making its employees heroes, the software giant was missing out on a large pool of talent.

“Microsoft is a big global company and it seems like I scratch your back and you scratch mine-type of bonding between Microsoft and Readify,” he claimed.

CRN readers were quick to respond to Nick. Some comments agreed with the reader and others felt he was negative towards an Australian-owned reseller that had gotten to where it was through hard work.

“As soon as someone builds their company into a leader we must shoot them down. And no I do not work for Readify, I do know them and they do great work within the industry,” he said.

Although some readers saw both sides of the coin and felt that while vendors had their favourites, it was just part and parcel with the industry they were in.

“So there were too many Readify people at Tech.Ed, go to the Indian Tech.Ed and see how many Infosys folks attend, or go to America and see how many Infosys folks attend,” wrote an anonymous reader.

He pointed out that the vendor has a lot of people who want to attend Tech.Ed and happen to work at the company.

“What is Microsoft meant to do, limit attendance from companies that hire lots of people from their core audience base?”

However the reader was quick to point out that on the other side of the coin, he believed Microsoft Australia is rife with cronyism.

He believed it was the vendor’s duty to the customers to act impartially and in the fair interest of all partners and customers.

“By giving friends favours or requesting support from a closed group, such as asking Readify staff to fill presentation slots, before opening that invite up in a public or partner forum, they essentially cheat other partners, and the attendees.”

Graeme Strange, Readify’s CEO, was unjustly targeted with criticism.
“We paid for 40 of our consultants to attend the event.

This blogger has disregarded the fact that we spent $100,000 to attend the conference.”

Strange claimed its IT consultants were at the “elite end” of the industry and were already heavily involved in giving presentations.

One reader felt it was precisely Strange’s attitude that has caused
these types of criticisms.

“Look at the stupid comments the CEO makes, the arrogance of the man, the point Nick was trying to make was that Microsoft first looks at Readify to fill the gaps, as if their Gold Partnership was ‘golder’ than the dozen other gold partners that were at the event,” wrote a reader.

The reader questioned how much paid time the Readify guys put into keeping or obtaining their MVP status and what their financial reward was for each employee to keep their MVP status.

“No doubt you’ve seen the job ads that say that Readify will help you with your MVP ambitions.

Microsoft should exclude any Readify employee from becoming an MVP,” he wrote.
“You bet resellers are pissed off.”

It was interesting as a channel journalist to read these comments,
as we rarely get a chance to hear from channel partners disenfranchised with their vendor partner.

More comments can be found at at www.techpartner.news.

If you have an opinion and want your voice heard email
lguan@techpartner.news

brought into microsofts partner question relations software