MBS Partner Transition

Although the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP) is a significant change that will require partners to make some adjustments, few have had as much adjusting to do as Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) partners.

MBS incorporates resellers, ISVs, and integrators who specialize in the Axapta, Great Plains, Navision, and Solomon product lines that Microsoft has acquired since 2001. A major reason that Microsoft acquired these products is that all of them were distinguished by strong, loyal sales and services partner channels, whose expertise with these complex business products gave them more cachet-and less fear of commoditization-than other types of Microsoft partners.

Incorporating these partners, who number less than 10,000, into a program for 500,000 partners requires a delicate touch: if they feel that Microsoft is opening up the MBS product lines to the mass volume channel, Microsoft could lose much of the partner goodwill that it acquired along with the MBS product lines.