MS focuses on partners for Office 2007

By Warwick Ashford for Microsoft

Johannesburg, 28 Feb 2006

As Microsoft prepares to go to market with the next generation of MS Office system products, it is increasing its investment in the African region to provide partners with the skills and technical support needed to enter new markets.

"Microsoft is driving a $10 million campaign in the EMEA region to recruit and train partners to become competent in one of the new businesses we want to enter," says Wolfgang Ebermann, GM for the EMEA region of Microsoft`s information worker business group.

Ebermann, who is in SA to promote the release of the upcoming 2007 Microsoft Office system products code-named Office 12, says partner participation is viewed as crucial to the success of entering new markets for enterprise collaboration products.

"Based on intensive research, Microsoft is able to give partners a good idea of what investments they will have to make to develop collaboration solutions on the Office platform and what returns they can expect," Ebermann told journalists at a briefing in Bryanston yesterday.

Ebermann says the expanded focus on unified communication in Microsoft Office 2007 is in response to research indicating the need for greater team efficiencies and more streamlined business processes to enable organisations to remain competitive in a tougher, global business market.

"These new areas of collaboration provide a phenomenal new business opportunity and we predict over the course of the next two years a $60 billion services business for our partners across the EMEA region."

According to Ebermann, partners can typically expect to recoup investments in new services and products within nine to 12 months and thereafter a return of up to seven times by engaging with Microsoft to drive new revenue opportunities presented by a changing business environment.

"There is a conscious programme in place to help partners prepare themselves for the coming release to market of the Office 2007 set of products in SA, which was the fastest growing Microsoft subsidiary in the EMEA region for 2005."