The Rationale for Services

Datacenter Services (DCS) are offered through Microsoft’s professional services and support organizations (not to be confused with its online services unit). These organizations have always been a hot button for the company’s partners, since partners make relatively little direct revenue from software sales. Most of their revenue comes from planning, deployment, operation, and maintenance services, and they have watched with alarm over the years as Microsoft periodically took bold steps to increase its services business, sometimes at partners’ expense. At other times, often as a result of feedback from partners, the company has backed away from expanding its services business.

Microsoft has had several reasons to remain in the services business, such as the following:

• Increasing sales to customers who want a high level of technical support from their vendor
• Ensuring that its sales teams have access to technical and solution design skills that can convince customers that a Microsoft