Microsoft WPC 2012 Kick-Off

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (right) kicks off WPC on July 9 in Toronto by welcoming partners to “a new era.”

Tami Reller, corporate vice president and CFO, Windows and Windows Live, highlighted new partner scenarios within the Windows 8 experience.

Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group, helps start the festivities on the opening day of WPC 2012.

Microsoft announced its plans to acquire Perceptive Pixel, a maker of large-scale, multi-touch displays. Perceptive Pixel founder Jeff Han appears onstage at WPC 2012.

Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Office Division, announces significant investments in Office 365 partners.

Microsoft announced that Windows 8 will release to manufacturers during the first week of August and will be generally available by the end of October. This timeline confirms that Microsoft and its PC and other hardware partners intend to make a big push during this year’s holiday shopping season.

Microsoft announced that one billion people worldwide use Microsoft Office. Fueling that growth has been Office 2010, the most popular version of Office ever. Worldwide, someone buys a copy of Office 2010 every second, Microsoft said.

Microsoft announced Office 365 Open at WPC 2012. Office 365 Open is a new way for partners to sell Office 365. It establishes a traditional reseller model, enabling partners to realize more revenue, deliver packaged services with a single invoice, and own the customer relationship. Office 365 includes the Microsoft Office suite of desktop applications and hosted versions of Microsoft’s Server products—including Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and Lync Server—delivered and accessed over the Internet.

Microsoft announced Office 365 Advisors Program updates at WPC 2012. The updates enable the most active partners to earn more upfront with Office 365. Starting July 9, partners who sell more than 150 seats are eligible to earn more revenue.

In his WPC 2012 keynote, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer noted that, beyond any one product, the big trends the company is focused on include machine learning, form factors and UI, cloud, core platform, and new scenarios—communications, productivity and entertainment.

The enhancements to the Microsoft Dynamics program include the expansion of pay-for-performance incentives to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, similar to what was introduced for the Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions last year. The program has been very successful in helping partners focused on growth maximize their compensation potentials.

Microsoft is adding Microsoft Dynamics AX to Enterprise Agreements for Microsoft Volume Licensing customers. Microsoft introduced Volume Licensing to Dynamics CRM partners two years ago, and partners have seen tremendous growth as a result.

For the small and midsize business (SMB) sector, Microsoft continues to invest in business training and tools designed to enable partners to deliver a total Microsoft business solution to their clients, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics ERP. The launch of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 and Microsoft Dynamics GP 2013 bring simplified pricing and packaging that can be utilized on the customer’s premises or in the cloud on Windows Azure.