New Microsoft Channel Chief: Devices, Services Push Requires Partners
New Microsoft (MSFT) Channel Chief Phil Sorgen will officially become corporate VP, Worldwide Partner Group, on September 1. What are Sorgen's top priorities as Microsoft continues to push its devices and services strategy? The VAR Guy posed some questions and received some answers from Sorgen over email. Here's a sampling of the conversation.
The VAR Guy: What are your top priorities as Microsoft's new channel chief?
Sorgen: At WPC last month, Steve Ballmer and Kevin Turner presented a bold and attainable vision for Microsoft as a devices and services company –- and with the company realignment announced a few weeks ago, this vision is quickly becoming a reality.
We are entering a new era of devices and services at Microsoft; A fundamental shift is underway in our business that will impact how we build and bring our products to market. It is a change that will be transformative in the coming year and throughout the next decade – for us, for our customers and for the channel.
For our partner ecosystem, this means that there will be significant opportunities created across devices and services –- from the new Surface program for partners starting to roll out in the US and internationally to partners seeing profits from selling cloud solutions. My top priority as Channel Chief will be to help partners harness these opportunities and build successful business models around devices and services.
The VAR Guy: Do you have the right executives at the table with you? That is, are all the key channel leadership positions filled appropriately?
Sorgen: The progress the channel leadership team has made during the past year -– from the availability of Office 365 Open and surpassing 150,000 partners signed up to sell cloud, to the announcement of our Surface commercial distribution strategy and TouchWins program – indicates that we’ve already made significant progress toward enabling our partners to take advantage of the devices and services opportunity. I have nothing further to share at this time regarding other leaders within WPG.
The VAR Guy: What's the key message to partners amid Steve Ballmer's pending CEO transition and now the channel chief change?
Sorgen: I would want every partner to know that we cannot fulfill our vision of being a devices and services company without the help of our broad partner base. Our partner ecosystem is one of our greatest differentiators in the market, and as a company, we are committed to working closely with our channel to bring the next wave of devices and services to market. I’m a strong believer that we deliver the greatest value to our customers when we combine our collective innovation and solution portfolio.
Next Moves
The VAR Guy will watch Sorgen closely in the weeks and months ahead. And our resident blogger might even have a few surprises in store. One example: Some resellers are now stepping forward to say Surface has become their de facto tablet, and the mobile device is starting to find a home in customer settings…
The anecdotal wins don't wipe away Microsoft's $900 million Surface RT write off. But if you look hard enough there are signs of mobile progress. More on that soon…
