Report: NewLease First Australian Microsoft Dynamics Master VAR

NewLease, a subscription software licensing distributor, has become the first to achieve Microsoft Dynamics Master VAR status in Australia, according to an article in ARN.

Branded as the NewLease Dynamics Network, the company will offer support services for partners such as marketing, sales and operations.

NewLease CEO, Doug Tutus, told ARN that the company won't be competing with partners in any way. Tutus said he initially invested less than $500,000 into attaining the Master VAR status. He said the investment will continue to increase.

The distributor has hired John Derbogosian as its head of the Dynamics business. An IT industry veteran, Derbogosian worked for Microsoft for 10 years.

For his part, Derbogosian told ARN that he wants to find the right affiliate partners to target certain markets. Tutus said the distributor's goal is to attract about 30 partners.

"We've got a model to grow the team based on the number of partners that come on," Tutus said. "Our operations team need to be trained, our backend systems need to be able to take on the new product offerings and its a different reporting methodology, so we need to adapt our systems to that. There's a quite a large ongoing investment as we move forward as well."

Microsoft launched the Master VAR program in the US about a year ago. The program, however, was saddled with controversy at the outset. At that time partners expressed concern about what the changes in certification would mean to some smaller partners.