Over the past three years, Microsoft Financing has focused on building offerings that scale to meet the needs of small, midsize and enterprise customers and their partners.

During that time, the group has partnered with the Microsoft Dynamics division, among others, with a mission to empower small and mid-sized businesses through simple, easy and affordable financing to acquire new technology solutions. Today, financing is becoming an integral part of Microsoft’s sales and marketing efforts around the world.

Microsoft Financing is unusual in the industry, in that it will take care of the entire transaction. Customers can choose to finance the software itself, or the entire technology platform including software, partner services and hardware implementations.

This allows small and midsized companies to get up and running with a new technology, while paying for it over time. For many, this means the solution can essentially pay for itself as it is being used.

The group funds transactions from US$3,000 up into the millions, with convenient online transaction processing and a variety of payment structures to meet the needs of almost any customer — such as the popular 6/50 deal structure, which allows customers to acquire a total solution and pay only US$50 a month (or relevant local currency, e.g. $50 CA, £50) for the first six months. 6/50 customers then pay off the rest of the loan balance in 36 monthly payments.

Next week at Convergence 2007, Microsoft Dynamics’ annual customer conference (being held in San Diego, March 11-14), Microsoft Financing is coming full circle, with several representatives onsite to help Microsoft Dynamics customers understand the financing options available to them.

To get an update on the group, its roots, programs and vision for the future, PressPass sat down with Brian Madison, general manager of Microsoft Financing.