Small Business partners keeping Microsoft honest
There's a lively debate going on in the small business community in response to the Exchange/Vista/Office launch. Vijay and Susanne in particular have been letting Microsoft know exactly what they think and Dave Overton has stepped up to the plate to engage in the conversation. I really like to see this sort of conversation happening because I think it is a credit to everyone. Small business partners are standing up to Microsoft and letting them have it 'between the eyes'. On the other hand, it's good that someone from Microsoft is prepared to engage with us in this way to have the debate.
The reality is that small businesses don't like spending their money. I am going to a customer this afternoon that still has Windows 2000 and Office 2000 on some of their PCs and at least one of their computers is failing WGA because it's been purchased with XP Home and badly upgraded to XP Pro. This is what small businesses do, because they don;t know any better. The truth is: what they have is good enough for what they need. They will likely upgrade when the computer dies and they buy a new one loaded with all the new OEM versions. This is how small businesses evolve. I can tell them until I'm blue in the face how wonderful Office 2007 is, but until Office 2000 fails to do what they need, they'll keep using it.
The trick is to get partners involved with these customers at an earlier stage. In order to do that, Microsoft has to start telling small businesses about us - the SBSC qualified partners, from the very first opportunity when the customer buys a retail product. Instead of making gimmicky leaflets on how to install small business server in 12 clicks (I'm paraphrasing) start doing what you promised us when you set up the SBSC programme. Start telling customers about Small Business Specialists. Start putting the blue logo on business related applications, desktop and server OSes and in particular, Windows Small Business Server. Give us a special package that we can market to our customers as Small Business Specialists. Stop high-street names like PC Wold, Insight Direct and eBuyer from selling OEM and educational versions at knock down prices. Go after the eBay traders who are blatantly flaunting the license agreements. Encourage customers to come to us for advice on how to do IT the right way. That way, we can get a foot in the door much sooner, before bad habits have a chance to develop. We can get them on to volume licensing instead of letting them fall into the OEM trap. If you really want your small business partners to begin making a difference, then give us what you promised instead of recycling the same old marketing bullshit.