Microsoft hasn't been subtle about its designs on small and midsize companies. In a little more than two years, the software giant bought $2.3 billion in technology and market share by acquiring SMB application vendors Great Plains Software and Navision.
But the real jewel of those acquisitions may be the 6,000 worldwide partners that came with them,solution providers with deep knowledge of their customers' businesses. Therein also lies the challenge for Microsoft.
Those partners tend to be solution providers in the fullest sense of the term, spending lots of time and energy working with customers to help them solve business problems and get the most from their vertical applications. That's a far cry from the sales model that lifted Microsoft to the top of the heap in desktop applications and operating systems, where volume is paramount.
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