WPC 2013: Sessions from the U.S. Office team

by Angus Norton, General Manager, US Microsoft Office Division

The Worldwide Partner Conference is one of my favorite partner events. In the span of a few days, my team and I get to meet with hundreds of Microsoft partners who share with us their ideas, insights, and feedback. That information is invaluable to us, and we use it to refresh our marketing and sales strategies and materials. The U.S. Office team had a really productive conference in Toronto last year as we prepared for the release of the new Office, and we’re working diligently to deliver another great experience in Houston this July.

At WPC 2013, as part of the U.S. Subsidiary track, my team is developing and leading five sessions about the new Office. Based on feedback we heard from you last year, each session will include these elements:

1. We’ll start each session by explaining how the session content fits into the Office platform vision.
2. We’ll cover the scenarios that light up when the lines between the products blur, and provide you with customer messages that help you sell more and compete more effectively.
3. We’ll discuss the market opportunity overall, then do a deep dive specifically about opportunity for the session’s topic.
4. We’ll prepare you to identify both upsell and new opportunities.

You’ll leave each session with a better understanding of the overall Office business and technology vision. We are fortunate to have a broad portfolio of products, and my team’s goal in our sessions is to help you better understand how to harness the power of the Office platform to build your Microsoft practice and close more deals.

Here is the list of sessions my team is preparing for you. You can read the session descriptions by clicking on each title below, and you can see all U.S.-specific sessions by selecting U.S. Subsidiary from the Track menu on the right hand side of the catalog. You will be able to add these sessions to your conference schedule at the end of May through WPC Connect.

• Accelerate your US customers to Office 365
• Drive revenue, create new opportunities, and increase customer satisfaction with the US MEC (Microsoft Experience Center) program
• Delivering solutions and driving revenue with enterprise social in the US
• Office 365 Education: tens of millions of US students connecting with partner apps and services
• Winning against Google in the U.S.: Exploiting Google’s weaknesses around Security, Privacy, and Compliance 

If you have not yet registered for WPC 2013, I encourage you to do so now. You’ll have the opportunity to connect with my team and me at the above-listed sessions, at the U.S. Celebration on Tuesday, July 9, and in the U.S. Lounge.

If you have feedback for my team and me about the Office platform, you can reach me on Twitter @NortonAngus. Let me know how we can help you close deals, and I’ll see you in just a few weeks at WPC!