Why Microsoft Dynamics Partners Begin with Big Advantages Over Competitors

THE WORLD IS FLAT.....a very famous book by Thomas Friedman on globalization and next wave of business excellently sums up the scheme of things to come. Organizations are looking for collaborators anywhere in the world to create a new economic order--Partnership.

I am tempted to refer to the famous saying - "Before You Can Multiply, You Must First Learn to Divide" If you dissect, simply share your profits, reduce your costs and increase your sales. Effectively for the equation Profit (P) = Sale price (S) minus (-) Costs (C), you are increasing the pie and sharing costs over multiple entities. It means true financial sense for partnerships and the most effective ‘shared risk' model.

If we compare the partner programs of various ERP players, the new channel program from Microsoft (Microsoft Partner Network) clearly supports the essence of partnership. It allows partners to innovate and create business models on Microsoft user-friendly platforms supported by billions of dollars of R&D investments. Further, Microsoft would promote the vertical solutions from partners.

Simple questions -
Can any other company, including SAP, pay out equal to Microsoft in R&D? In short can they spend around $9 billion on R&D investments? The answer is NO...and the result is quite evident - SAP/Oracle can't come close.

Do SAP partners enjoy flexibility to create vertical solutions and own them?
Again NO - SAP/Oracle wants the whole share of Pie and leave only implementation to the partners. Plainly, the model is archaic and needs to evolve.

The Microsoft partnership model aims at creating large ...