Pinpoint rival hails rocketing numbers of VAR sign ups

PartnerPulse search engine more than doubles its partner base but has its eye on every Microsoft reseller

Microsoft VAR-directory site PartnerPulse has more than doubled the number of resellers listed on its site since April and hopes its success will spur the rest of the vendor's partner base to get on board.

PartnerPulse was established last October and had been gathering VARs steadily ahead of its wider launch at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, which took place in July.

By April, PartnerPulse had 2,000 partners on its records, with 50 using the site actively - providing feedback and input into the site's future. Four months on, the site now boasts almost 5,000 Microsoft VARs - half of which PartnerPulse claims are actively using it. The firm singed up some 300 partners alone during the four-day Microsoft conference.

Microsoft has more than 30,000 worldwide partners, and PartnerPulse's founder Chris Wright said that he has no limit to the number he wants to get involved globally. Although 70 per cent of existing partners are UK-based, he is still looking for those from other countries to join up too.

The site is similar to the vendor's Pinpoint offering - both act as a directory for end users to find Microsoft partners. Pinpoint came under fire recently after it was hit by a scam in which some VARs were accused of entering false information to boost their listing on the search engine. Microsoft said it now monitors this closely.

Wright said that while the two sites are similar, his firm is taking a new social-media based direction which clearly differentiates the pair.

"The next phase for us is we want to be a social aggregator for partners," he said. "Soon partners will be able to add Twitter, Yammer, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts onto their page - we will pull it in and it will automatically update."

In the long term, partners will be able to be ranked according to their social activity on the site, which Wright hopes will help end users make better-informed decisions based on independent advice.

"In any market, there is always room for independent rating of companies," he said. "Nobody else is rating them independently and this is useful for us in itself. It keeps Microsoft and partners on their toes."

PartnerPulse is free to use for partners, but Wright sead a freemium model in which extra services are chargable could come in soon.