Microsoft to reallocate channel budget

Software giant unveils Next Generation Partner Programme

Microsoft was poised to unveil its Next Generation Partner Programme at its partner conference in New Orleans as CRN went to press.

The software giant is believed to be changing the way it calculates how much of its $1.5bn partnership budget goes to each of its 800,000 resellers, so that SMEs get a larger share.

To date, the allocation was done on a purely quantitative basis: the more product VARs shifted, the more Microsoft money they received for training, leads, technical support and marketing.

Now the vendor will take other factors into account, such as how knowledgeable the partners are in areas such as security and business intelligence.

Additional compensation for specialisation is tied to Microsoft's desire to grow its Great Plains and Navision reseller base by half between now and the end of next year.

Des Lekerman, managing director of Eurodata Systems, said: "Microsoft has been gearing up to interact with more specialised partners, rather than the ones that are spreading themselves too thin by doing Microsoft, Linux and Oracle."

Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, said: "We're focusing on better alignment between our partners, us, our customers and products."