Last week, Microsoft added two new suites to its online services and announced new incentives for VARs to sell the offerings, reports CRN. The two new suites are a deskless worker suite and a business productivity suite.
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But, as ChannelWeb reports, many channel partners are not convinced that the incentives were the good deal. Nearly three quarters of respondents to a poll at the conference were either angry or disappointed, and only a fourth were happy.
Some concerns included fears that Microsoft would minimize the role of solution providers if it offered services directly to customers. Microsoft has attempted to assuage those fears to some extent but seems to be increasingly taking the stance that SaaS is a reality and there's no way to please everyone.
there is lots of confusion about what exactly Microsoft's bundles will be about. my guess is that itll be unintegrated, bare bones solutions. who will implement and set the solution up? in house IT? consultants? microsoft partners? microsoft itself?
i dont think the products are really suitable for small to mid sized businesses. Microsoft products are just too complex to set up and manage. solutions like hyperoffice offer suitable alternatives for this segment because they offer all the tools relevant to SMBs and is to simple to use and set up.