Woody Walton
Two days ago in a blog post entitled “Office 365: The Next Bold Step”, Steve Ballmer announced to the world the availability of Office 365 Home Premium, and foremost in my mind, he gave everyone a solid date when the new Office 365 Commercial Services will be available.
These are some of the reasons we’re seeing such strong momentum with our business customers. In fact, since we launched Office 365 for businesses only 18 months ago, 1 in 5 of our enterprise customers now has the service, up from 1 in 7 a year ago. Smaller businesses are also choosing Office 365 at a rapid pace, with a 150 percent increase in the number of small and medium-sized businesses using the service over the past 12 months. These businesses will get to enjoy the new Office 365 service for businesses beginning Feb. 27.
If you are already selling Office 365, you have likely kept up with the improvements and updates to the service offerings and perhaps have explored the new business models (Office 365 Open & FPP). If you haven’t or if you one of the many partners who has yet to transact Office 365…
What is Your Next Bold Step?
You Have 27 days to get up to speed, where do you begin? What key resources can distill for you the new offerings, business models, and details needed to effectively go to market?
My first recommendation is to get the latest body of content that explains the New Office 365 Service. I believe the most succinct material you can download is the recently refreshed…
Distributor Bootcamp content
The name is confusing as one would assume this content is exclusively for Microsoft’s distribution partners. The content was originally presented to distributors and then was subsequently releases more broadly. It was also leveraged by our distribution partners to conduct their on boot camps for partners like you. Make no mistake, this content is valuable to every partner that sells Microsoft solutions in a traditional sense, sells our online services offerings like Office 365, or anyone who is considering doing so. Get this content by clicking the heading above.
What I like about the content is that is thorough and all zipped up nice for one download that covers all the bases. See the ZIP file screenshot below:
All of these resources have been updated between late November and late last week, so the content is quite accurate and timely. In addition to content modules there is comparison calculator for the business models (Advisor & Open) and a blended end date calculator (see the Office 365 Open and FPP FAQ for description). The reseller starter kit is particularly good in my opinion!
To bolster this updated content and to prepare you for the eminent release of the New Office 365 Services and business models, Microsoft is also hosting 4 virtual
Partner Refresher Virtual Disti Bootcamps
Make sure you attend one prior to the February 27th release. The time and links are below.
Abstract:
Parts of the new Office Disti Bootcamp core content (1.0) have been updated since it was originally published in late September. We are also publishing new Open and FPP partner readiness content.
The objective of the virtual Disti Bootcamp partner refresher events is to ensure partners understand the Disti Bootcamp content 2.0. We will take partners through the updates to the existing core DBC content and introduce the new Open and FPP readiness content.
Office 365 is one of Microsoft’s fasting growing solutions and we are aligning it with new ways to transact and making the licensing more congruent with the evolving market (Cloud, Device proliferation, Subscription offerings, etc.) It would be a shame if you missed out on the bandwagon here.
Cheers,
Woody