Partnerships to the fore in Bangkok

By James Smith | 22 August 2008 | Permanent link | 1 comment

I’m just back from Bangkok where I and J2* have spent three days with Microsoft’s public sector team as they showcased the value of its partner ecosystem at their regional public sector sales kick-off meeting in Bangkok.

I was surprised that this was the first of its kind in the region - a gathering together of Microsoft’s product and public sector experts from Asia Pacific and Worldwide to update and engage with regional partners. I say that simply because the company’s sales are made almost entirely through its partner ecosystem - I seem to recall them saying 97 per cent.

But you’ve got to start somewhere - and it was a pretty good first attempt, with over 180 public sector-focused partners registering. I bumped into a number of friendly faces there, including James Wong from Motorola, CrimsonLogic’s Himmat Singh, and Philip Barr from Civica.

Happily I managed to have some great conversations with Dr Arvind Shukla from India-based iBilt, Nurul Kabir of Spinnovation in Bangladesh, and Cecily O’Neil from Australia’s Change Corporation - all of whom were new to me, and to one another.

Like many of the partners present, Arvind, Nurul and Cecily were looking for opportunities to grow across their business in the region. This points to a key message that Microsoft might want to make more explicit next time around in order to build on the 180 participants - “Microsoft has a lot of friends, let us introduce you to them”.

For its partners, the software giant is more than a platform provider - it is also a ‘social network’ for companies to reach out to one another, and to prospective customers looking to build upon their existing Microsoft infrastructure. Looking ahead, this marketplace of ideas, applications and business models holds real value - a goose that can lay golden eggs into multiple baskets.

When I started this post I wanted to talk about Microsoft’s plans for local and regional governments in Asia - but this will have to keep until next week as I’m feeling pretty knackered right now!

*J2 = James Hosking, FutureGov’s (Cornish) Sales Director.

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