Pakistan partner newsletter - Maison Consulting & Solutions news

 

Partners in motion | October 08

Kamal Ahmed's Message Pakistan's economy has slowed down after a period of massive growth. In the next two years, businesses will focus on cost cutting and removing inefficiencies from their operations. Investments in capacity expansion will slow down and businesses will consolidate their IT infrastructures. Microsoft, in collaboration with its partners, is driving initiatives to promote infrastructure optimization efforts so that businesses can be more efficient in their systems and processes. This slowdown will give businesses an ideal opportunity to gain a competitive edge over their competitors by investing in a reliable and scalable IT infrastructure which will be well in place by the time the economy gets back on track again. The local IT sector has come a long way from being an outsourcing destination for big IT industries for low value added jobs. Pakistan's IT sector can now deliver bigger projects in a more reliable and efficient manner in the international market. In the next few years, more and more international projects should come our way, enabling us to earn valuable foreign exchange for the country. The overall economy is under strain and this compels the businesses to cut down their costs. Pakistan's IT sector can bring in the much needed realization that an effective and dependable IT infrastructure can help control costs and provide a much needed competitive advantage to the local companies. Pakistan's IT sector should focus on attracting international businesses to adopt Pakistan's IT companies for their IT requirements. This will enable our IT sector to stay abreast with the latest IT technologies and practices and bring in the much needed foreign exchange for the country. Kamal Ahmed Country General Manager Microsoft Pakistan

Through Partner Marketing Dear Valued Partner, Through Partner Marketing (TPM) is a concept for our valued partners to generate revenue and active pipeline of customers for achieving their revenue targets. The main objectives of the TPM's are to: ·         Generate PQPs (Partner Qualified Prospect) from the Target Market. ·         Enable Partners to educate prospects about Microsoft Solutions and Products (based on customer campaigns). ·         Enable Partners to identify and interact with potential new customers. ·         Show that Microsoft Pakistan supports its partners and the Industry by being present in such events. ·         Introduce Microsoft Solutions to customers through our managed Partners in Pakistan. ·         Activate the Microsoft Partner Marketing Center which includes all the Microsoft Customer Campaigns for partners to use in their marketing efforts. To easily and cost-effectively execute the campaigns, Microsoft has created customizable marketing templates such as, emails, business letters, flyers and postcards for direct marketing and event and online resources for generating leads through event and online marketing activities. ·         Revenue opportunities approximately can be USD7000 per deal with approx 40% success ratio. What do you need to run a Through Partner Marketing (TPM) Campaign: ·         TPM is a small event of 10 - 15 customers, you can invite them at your premises or if required this can be accommodated at Microsoft Pakistan office in Karachi and Islamabad. ·         It should be an event of 2 - 3 hours with the following agenda; Customer Promotion - Explain which customer promotions are active and how a customer can get the benefit out of it, or we can highlight any other specific Microsoft product which needs to be focused on specific customer accounts Product Presentation - Arrange a technical resource from your organization to present on the MS Products which are being offered. ·         You can access Partner Marketing Center through MSPP portal to run customer campaigns. All partner levels can get the customizable marketing templates such as, emails, business letters, flyers and postcards for direct marketing and events such as TPMs. ·         You will require to invite 30 potential customers to get the attendance of 15 customers per TPM. ·         Kindly follow-up with all your customers after sending the invitation with the final agenda. Every partner needs to ensure that the customers have confirmed their availability and will be punctual for the events. Prompt follow-ups are key to success on such events. ·         Quality Criteria - 85% of our customer audience should be converted into PQPs. Every partner should call potential customers who are easy to convert into PQPs and will help in closing the deals accordingly. ·         Every partner needs to draft a feedback form for generating PQPs and share the excel sheet with the relevant Partner Account Manager (PAM) in Microsoft Pakistan. What does Microsoft Pakistan Expect from a Partner: ·         Each managed partner is required to do one TPM every quarter. Partners who have presence in other cities will also do one TPM every quarter in each of the other major cities. ·         Each managed partner will generate PQPs for Microsoft Pakistan. ·         Minimum 40% success ratio of the PQPs generated through TPMs. ·         Average deal size should be US$7,000   Certified Partners for Learning Solutions (CPLS) in Pakistan KalSoft Academy http://www.ekalsoft.com Farhan Usman +9221 5393291-3 +92 322 2703208 academy@ekalsoft.com CTTC (Pvt) Ltd http://www.cttc.net.pk Farrukh Nizami +9221 4310956-58 +92 300 8219943 enrollment@cttc.net.pk New Horizons Pakistan http://www.nhpakistan.com.pk Muhammad Enam Ur Rehman +9221 4382352-4 +92 300 3374553 enam.rehman@nhpakistan.com Expert Academy http://www.expertacademy.pk Mubbashir Ahmad +92 321 5173655 info@expertacademy.pk For more information on Certified Partners for Learning Solutions (CPLS) in Pakistan, contact Taimur Mughal at i-tamm@microsoft.com Microsoft Consulting Services In order to facilitate our partners to help position Microsoft Solutions with a proven and tested delivery team, MCS (Microsoft Consulting Services) brings the valued Microsoft based business intelligence solution packaged as MEC (Microsoft Enterprise Cube) offering to customers/partners in PK. This offering is primarily owned by MCS but Microsoft partner can help sell this effective service to customers and help leverage a great revenue and sales opportunity both from licenses and services. More details as follows: Success in the highly competitive telecommunications industry can be determined by a service provider's ability to measure its business performance. Most service providers have vast amounts of subscriber data stored in enterprise resource planning systems, customer relationship management systems, database warehouses, and similar systems. However, these systems frequently operate in isolation, and integrating them is expensive, complex, and time consuming. This disconnected infrastructure causes service providers to spend a significant amount of time analyzing data to identify: ·         Subscribers who spend the most on services. ·         Subscribers who dilute profits. ·         Services that improve subscriber loyalty. ·         Services which are underused. Service providers need a simple, cost-effective solution that overlays existing systems and aggregates disparate information into a single viewpoint. This would allow every analyst in the organization to understand who is using which services, and how, when, and where these services are being used. Microsoft® Enterprise Cube (MEC) is a solution that helps service providers bring their disparate information together. This flexible, easy-to-use business performance management solution provides deep insight into existing processes and subscriber behaviors, and helps service providers reduce overhead while improving customer management. Built on familiar Microsoft technology, the solution also supports a low total cost of ownership (TCO), provides data models that help service providers comply with corporate standards, and addresses the long-term needs of the telecommunications industry.   For more information refer to the datasheet on Microsoft Enterprise Cube or contact Fareed Mohammed Khan on fareedmk@microsoft.com Maison Consulting & Solutions Makes it to Microsoft Dynamics President Club MAISON CONSULTING & SOLUTIONS has been named to the 2008 Microsoft Dynamics President's Club, receiving recognition from Microsoft Corp. for its dedicated commitment to customers. This honor reflects Maison's success in extending the Microsoft Dynamics platform to drive business advantages in companies across Pakistan. This recognition came during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 in Houston. The elite club recognizes the top 5 percent of Microsoft Business Solutions partners worldwide and their constant dedication to delivering solutions that meet their customers' unique needs, active pursuit of product and technological advancement, and impressive sales performance. "Microsoft is Pakistan proud to congratulate Maison Consulting & Solutions on being named to this year's Microsoft Dynamics President's Club," the only partner to receive this honor from Pakistan. Maison not only has demonstrated a high level of product expertise, but also has provided a superior level of service and commitment to our Microsoft Dynamics customers, ultimately contributing to the overall success of Microsoft Dynamics and companies worldwide." Maison Consulting & Solutions (http://www.m-consultants.com) is a leading Business Solutions company involved in the implementation of Dynamics ERP and CRM solutions offering a wide array of cost-effective, personalized services to help your organization meet its business goals. About Microsoft Dynamics Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and a supply chain management solution that helps businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.   Virtualization from Desktop to the Datacenter For a fact, computing has become more ubiquitous, more powerful and more portable and has dramatically improved businesses' ability to provide employees with the capabilities needed to capitalize on new opportunities. At the same time, however, the cost and complexity of managing all of this has never been higher. For IT departments, the result is a growing number of contradictory requirements: agility and ease of access vs. security and compliance; performance vs. cost; innovation vs. reliability and continuity. In many ways, the biggest challenge that IT professionals face today is resolving the tension inherent in trying to create an information infrastructure that provides both flexibility and control. This is where the concept of 'virtualization' settles in. Virtualization is the act of isolating or unbinding one computing resource from others. It is to be applied to all layers of a computing stack, from the data center to the desktop. Rather than locking the various layers together - the operating system (OS) to the hardware, the application to the OS, and the user interface to the local machine. This concept of virtualization, however, is not as new as some people may think: virtual machine technology for time-sharing on mainframes dates back to the 1960s. It's the confluence of challenging business demands and the emergence of virtualization technologies that span the entire stack and has paved way for virtualization to emerge as an essential for today's organizations. The benefits; Virtualization is a transformational technology that, if effectively employed, can help companies create IT systems that are not only highly efficient and cost effective, but that have the self-awareness to adapt automatically and instantly to deliver the capabilities needed as business conditions change. Virtual Machine technology is one of the most exciting and transformative technologies to change the cost of IT infrastructure. Enhanced administrative productivity and responsiveness- Virtualization enables IT organizations to enhance their administrative productivity and rapidly deploy new servers to address changing business needs. Efficient use of hardware resources- Virtual machine isolation and resource management enable multiple workloads to coexist on fewer servers, allowing organizations to make more efficient use of their hardware resources. Increasing operational agility- Virtual Machine Manager provides a mechanism to enable functionality such as rapid server provisioning, rapid recovery, and scalable migration capability to make the overall virtual infrastructure robust and easy to manage. Intelligent Placement: Virtual Machine Manager brings a deep and holistic approach to placement and combines the knowledge from historical performance data of the virtual workload and the intelligence about the virtual host system. Self-service provisioning: Virtual infrastructure is commonly used in test and development environments where there is consistent provisioning and teardown of virtual machines for testing purposes. With Virtual Machine Manager, administrators can selectively extend self-provisioning capabilities to user groups and be able to define quotas. Microsoft's Strategy for Virtualization The Microsoft datacenter-to-desktop virtualization strategy enables businesses to leverage virtualization benefits throughout the organization. Hyper-V is an integral part of the overall Microsoft virtualization strategy. Microsoft's virtualization strategy includes five key components: ·         Server virtualization, enabling multiple servers to run on the same physical server   ·         Presentation virtualization, enabling remote users to access their office desktops or server-based applications   ·         Desktop virtualization, enabling desktop operating systems to be consolidated into the datacenter   ·         Application virtualization, helping to prevent conflicts between applications on the same PC   ·         Comprehensive management, tying virtual components into the same management tools used to monitor and control physical components   Server Virtualization Microsoft has two server virtualization offerings: Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008, and Virtual Server 2005 R2. Hyper-V extends virtualization capability to manage 32-bit Virtual machines alongside 64-bit Virtual machines, enable Virtual machines to access larger amounts of memory, and enable Virtual machines to leverage multiple processors. Virtualization is a key feature of the operating system and helps customers get complete isolation of the different virtual machines and still benefit from server consolidation. Presentation Virtualization Presentation virtualization is a technology that enables applications to execute on a remote server, yet display its user interface locally. Microsoft's presentation virtualization technology, Microsoft Terminal Services, enables remote users to connect to their office desktops from anywhere in the world, taking full advantage of applications, resources, and familiar interfaces even from computers with different operating systems or system capabilities. Administrators can access system management tools from remote locations, for example, or applications can be run on a server and accessed by remote users. Presentation virtualization enables customers to centralize and secure data, reduce cost of managing applications, reduce test costs for compatibility between the OS and applications, and potentially improve the performance of systems overall. Desktop Virtualization When server virtualization is used host client OSes for remote access, this approach is often called desktop virtualization. While the principles of desktop virtualization are similar to server virtualization, this approach can be useful in a variety of situations. One of the most common is to deal with incompatibility between applications and desktop operating systems. For example, suppose a user running Windows Vista needs to use an application that runs only on Windows XP with Service Pack 2. By creating a VM that runs this older operating system, then installing the application in that VM, this problem can be solved. Microsoft VirtualPC is an example of a solution in this space to help address the scenario for hosting VMs in a desktop environment for application compatibility. Application Virtualization Application virtualization helps isolate the application running environment from the operating system install requirements by creating application-specific copies of all shared resources and helps reduce application to application incompatibility and testing needs. With Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) a.k.a SoftGrid, desktop and network users can also reduce application installation time and eliminate potential conflicts between applications by giving each application a virtual environment that's not quite as extensive as an entire virtual machine. By providing an abstracted view of key parts of the system, application virtualization reduces the time and expense required to deploy and update applications.   Microsoft's Products for Virtualization Microsoft offers a comprehensive set of technologies to virtualize servers, applications, and desktop PCs. Equally as important; Microsoft provides a powerful toolset for managing both the virtual and physical resources in a unified environment, reducing system complexity and streamlining management tasks. Resources: For more information please check: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization Or Contact: zafaru@microsoft.com OEM rewards distribution night OEM recently held to 2 partner events in Karachi & Lahore. These events were a little different from the routine events OEM has been holding. The idea of this event was for the partners to mingle with each other in a relaxed environment. The event that was held in Karachi and Lahore had three components: Award distribution, Lucky draws and musical function. This event also provided excellent opportunity for Networking. The winners were given awards for their sales efforts in Q4. This gave partners encouragement and recognition. The event was kicked off by Faysal Kiyani PAM OEM which was followed by keynote address of Mr. Shahzad Khan, Lead OEM. The awards were announced category wise in four categories. The first prize being a 4 day paid vacation to Egypt. Lucky draws were also held from time to time and kept the audience at the edge of their seats. The partners thoroughly enjoyed the musical and comedy show that was put up by the local talented artists. All the activities were followed by dinner. 80 people attended the event in Karachi and over 300 people were present in Lahore. In his closing remarks Shahzad Khan thanked the partners for attending the event and assured them that the OEM business will be even more rewarding in the future.   Microsoft Innovation Center Microsoft Innovation Centers provide customers and partners with a comprehensive set of Programs and services. The goal of these centers is to foster innovation and growth in local Software Economies. In Pakistan, Microsoft Innovation Center provides access to world-class resources for students, software developers, IT professionals, academic researchers and Entrepreneurs. Primary areas of focus include: 1.    Building skills and intellectual capital through training courses, employment programs and mentoring experiences.   2.    Fostering industry partnerships through programs on how to work successfully with Microsoft, as well as through the cultivation of local and regional industry alliances.   3.    Increasing innovation at the local through hands-on engagements, such as labs geared towards the interests of ISVs, startups, partners, students and entrepreneurs. Microsoft Innovation Center - Pakistan is operated by Microsoft in alliance with National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (FAST-NU). We partner with local government, academic institutions, industry organizations and software vendors with the ultimate goal of fueling long-term economic growth in the IT industry.