Microsoft Pinpoint rival PartnerPulse stops beating

Partner directory unable to attract enough users or financial backing

A directory of Microsoft channel partners set up as an alternative to the vendor's Pinpoint has folded.

PartnerPulse, which aimed to offer a more digital and social media-driven environment for Microsoft VARs, was set up last October ahead of its formal launch to partners at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) event in Houston.

Following its summer launch, site founder Chris Wright told CRN that WPC had been a success and that it had managed to more than double its partner numbers to 5,000 – half of which were active users.

But today the company announced that it would close with immediate effect due to lack of funding and too few of Microsoft's partners signing up to the project. Globally, Microsoft has more than 650,000 partners, many of which have created profiles for themselves on the vendor's Pinpoint directory.

However, Pinpoint has not been embraced by all in the channel, after some VARs claimed companies were uploading incorrect or misleading information about themselves in order to boost their rankings on the site.

PartnerPulse had planned to introduce more social elements to its online listing, including Twitter, Facebook and Yammer integration, but on a company blog post today, it said that a lack of engagement from the channel had driven its decision to close.

"A community site of this nature relies upon a certain tipping point of members to create a useful destination, and to encourage further growth," it said. "Sadly, despite the best efforts of the team we were not able to get the numbers we needed. Simply, the site has not been able to attract the number of sign-ups that it needed to fulfil its early promise.

"Whilst our existing members found much to love about what we did, at the end of the day, there were simply not enough of them."

The company added that it had failed to secure the right funding which could have given it a vital boost.

ParterPulse operated a freemium business model in which extra, chargeable services were expected to be introduced in the future.

All current members have been informed of the immediate closure and no new sign-ups are being accepted. Current user profiles will be available to view for a few more days ahead of the final termination of the site in the coming week.