Vertical Sales Teams Consolidated, Expanded

To improve its ability to meet the needs of larger customers, Microsoft is sharpening its focus on specific industries. The company is consolidating responsibility for vertical markets under one manager, adding staff with industry-specific expertise, and giving a high profile to partners who can sell and deploy specialized, large-scale solutions. Targeting the needs of specific industries and markets is not entirely new for Microsoft, but a more focused approach to vertical markets is critical if the company is to grow sales in large accounts. Although Microsoft’s desktop products might be well established in such accounts, competing products are more widely used for mission-critical and specialized line-of-business applications.

Vertical Markets a Path to Data Centers

Microsoft’s increased focus on specific industries springs largely from its desire to sell more server products into corporate data centers. Its product line has evolved from the business desktop, and it has achieved considerable success with general, “horizontal” server applications that are used in virtually every business, such as databases, Web servers, and e-mail servers. But success in the corporate data center or in enterprise lines of businesses requires industry specific solutions and a high degree of customization and consultation: commodity solutions offer no edge to a company, because competitors can easily employ the same solutions. And data center customers will not bet on a vendor which, for all its technological expertise, appears ignorant of the customer’s business priorities.