Microsoft's Customer Taxonomy

Microsoft segments its customers by size and importance and assigns different types and levels of field coverage to customers. This chart shows how the company categorizes its customer accounts, how many field staff it assigns per customer, the approximate number of customers that Microsoft engages this way in each category, and the criteria that determine how customers are segmented. In general, global, multinational, and major customers are managed by the Enterprise and Partner Group, while the Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners group manages smaller customers. In gray areas, such as the boundary between Major and Corporate customers, two customers may be the same size, but one may get more field coverage because it uses more Microsoft technology, plays a critical role in its industry, or is expanding more rapidly.