Partners Sought for Small Business Manager

In an effort to attract more small partners to resell and recommend its Small Business Manager (SBM) accounting software, Microsoft Great Plains has created a new incentive program and enlisted Ingram Micro as a distributor. SBM is a suite of server applications that provide core accounting and business management functions. It also contains links to optional bCentral online services, such as ListBuilder for conducting e-mail marketing campaigns. (For more background on SBM, see “The Role of Great Plains at Microsoft” on page 10 of the Sept. 2001 Update.)

Introduced in Nov. 2001, SBM retails for about US$1,500, and is designed for businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Before July 2001, there was only one way for Microsoft partners to make money from SBM: they had to pay US$500 and pass certain tests to join the SBM Reseller Partner Program, purchase copies of SBM directly from Microsoft Great Plains, and then resell it for a profit.

There were two problems with this model. First, some small firms (such as accounting firms) only offer consulting services and are not interested in reselling software. These consultants are very influential with small businesses, and Microsoft wanted them to recommend SBM but offered them no incentive to do so. Second, many of the participants in the SBM Reseller Partner Program were small firms, and they ordered only a few copies of SBM at a time. Unaccustomed to dealing with such a large number of small orders, Microsoft Great Plains had trouble fulfilling them. (Most Great Plains product lines are more complex to install; as a result, fewer partners qualify to resell these product lines, and these partners tend to order more copies of the software.)