New Partner Competencies Rolled Out

New competencies in business intelligence (BI), hosting solutions, and unified communications have been created for Microsoft partners, expanding the areas of expertise that partners can claim and use to advance within Microsoft’s partner program, and making it easier for customers to locate partners with specific expertise. Partners who already specialize in these fields will be shifted into the new competencies automatically, but the move could affect their position in a previous competency. It could also bump them up to a new level of the partner program, since in some cases they will gain an extra competency.

Competencies and Specializations

To ensure that it meets the specific needs of a wide range of partners, Microsoft segments its large (nearly 400,000) partner community into competencies that indicate areas of expertise. By qualifying for a competency, which typically requires passing some examinations and providing Microsoft with evidence that they have satisfactorily deployed solutions in the competency area, partners can rise to the higher Certified and Gold Certified tiers of the Microsoft Partner Program. Customers can also look for partners with specific competencies, which help validate a partner’s claims of expertise in a given area.