Alvin Gendrano's WebLog

In Bangalore This Week

I am in Bangalore this week to visit our lnternational-English delivery site. It is an impressive operation with over 150 specialists, and partner technical consultants serving thousands of partners world-wide.

 

This week caps a very busy and productive travel month with trips to Denver for the Partner Conference, to Orlando for the MS Global Exchange, and now in Bangalore.

Yet Another New Blogger on the team!

We have another member of the ISV Advisory Services team blogging about technology.

http://blogs.msdn.com/amitava/default.aspx

 

Amitava leads a team of our engineers in providing services to help partners attain Windows Vista Logo certification. With the increased logo-certification focus in FY08 and additional logos related to server products, Amitava should have a lot of cool things to talk about in the next year.

Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 in Denver, CO

We're at the Worldwide Partner conference this week in Denver, marking the third consecutive year our group has participated. For me, it's always great to interact with our ISV partners on what they find most important and to share with them the benefits of partnership with Microsoft. 

 

This year has been extra special for ISV-Advisory Services, as we are getting more and more recognized as a valued resource for ISVs. In fact, Naseem Tuffaha delivered the ISV-Super-Session yesterday, and called a partner on stage who called out the technical enablement support we provide as a key benefit to their success. I guess after three years of delivering 160,000 hours of developer advisory services to more than 5000 unique ISV contacts, it was bound to happen.

 

Also we made the front-page of the global partner portal during WPC week!

In conversations with partners yesterday, one thing that struck me  was how our global delivery model is truly becoming an asset, and not just for low-cost and flexibility. A partner from Latam approached the ISV booth and proceeded to give us feedback on how they would like to see more content and resources localized in Spanish. I excitedly told him that we had teams in Brazil and Argentina that can deliver 1:1 workshops with his developers in both Spanish and Portuguese. This is further proof that we are fulfilling a key need and filling some of the gaps that would otherwise go unfilled without a global delivery model.

 

Next year, we are in talks to expand beyond our core ISV developer base to begin helping web developers, designers, and value-added-providers (VAPs).

New Office-Technologies Blogger on the Team

I am always excited to get e-mail like this:

The Office TFA Team has its first blogger. Congratulations Pranab and Happy blogging!!! J

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/pranab/

 

Thanks and have a great day.

 

Kind regards,

Vinod Venugopal | Technical Lead |Microsoft Global Partner Support Delivery

 

Posted by AlvinG | 0 Comments

June 12 is Philippine Independence Day

Hoisting the Philippine Flag up on the blog site to commemorate Philippine Independence.

 

Flag image courtesy of Anton Diaz (http://www.anton.blogs.com/)

On Friday (June 15), the MS Filipino Diversity Action commitee will hold an Independence Day social at the Redmond campus.

Townhall Meeting Today

 

Today marks an important milestone in my career at Microsoft. I finally get to attend one of Steve Ballmer's Townhall meetings in person. In prior years, I have religiously attended these important meetings remotely through webcasts. Having spent the last 8 years of my Microsoft career in Charlotte, NC I've not had all the opportunities to attend Redmond-campus events. One big exception to that was the Company Meeting in 2002 when I and a few other Microsoft employees decided to take vacation days and fly out to Seattle on our own dime to attend. Since townhall meetings are relatively shorter, it didn't make economical sense to fly out here just to attend one.

Now that I'm here, I'm just excited! I can't quite say what will be covered, only to mention that it is usually very relevant, timely, and important. It also helps guide us in our mission to help the world achieve its full potential.

Now in Seattle

After 8+ years at Microsoft, we are finally at Corporate Headquarters (eg. The Mothership). Interestingly, we have moved here to do the same jobs. It's been a productive 4 weeks, but admittedly, the first two weeks were very dreary because of the rain. After living in Charlotte the last 8 years, and Tucson for 3 years before that I've been quite used to sunny weather. I'll need to somehow channel my inner Filipino to get used to rainy weather once again. As you might know, the Philippines is a tropical country, near the equator, with only two seasons, rainy and sunny.

We've already made an offer on a house after getting through our initial sticker shock. It's almost 4 times more expensive than our old house in Charlotte and the check we will need to make will have one too many zeroes for my comfort. The house is on the Sammamish plateau east of Seattle, about fifteen minutes from Redmond which helps with all the campus meetings I've had and will continue to participate in.

In terms of meetings, I've already met with feature PMs, managers, marketing, directors, GMs, dev leads, test leads, etc. Groups include the midmarket solutions/partners, communications sector/hosting, SMS&P, D&PE, XBox, IW, Vista-Client, etc. So, I'm staying true to my intention of reaching out across groups to coordinate technical services and support opportunities for ISVs. It's also useful for me and our team to stay current on marketing campaigns, legal/licensing developments, evangelism rhythms, and go-to-markets targeted for the ISV audience. When we engage with ISV's, we like to paint as much of a bigger-picture perspective as possible (with information available).

Adrian, our 2.6 year old, is here and wants to type:

gg         asqqqqqqqqq  wwwww                                                                                                                                           

The community participation here is more active and very diverse. In the span of 2 weeks, I've met the Microsoft-Philippines country manager and the general manager of China-DPE through events organized by the Filipino and Chinese communities here.

The next two weeks, I am off to China(Shanghai) and India (Kolkata and Bangalore). I'm looking forward to discussing strategy with our leadership team in China and to meeting our ISV teams in China and India where we have close to 45+ developer engineers delivering ISV-Advisory-Services.

Offsite Location

In case you were wondering where we were having our offsite (Victoria, BC):

Global Partner Support Offsite

I'm 30,000 feet above the Midwestern United States traveling to Seattle for a leadership offsite with my Global Partner Support colleagues. Together, we deliver support and services benefits for partners through the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP) which include Tele-Presales Tech Support, Technical Service Coordination, Managed Newsgroups, Forum support, and of course, ISV Advisory Services. One way to look at it is that we provide services for almost every stage of the partner lifecycle.

It's been a while since we last had an offsite like this and I'm frankly quite excited. Last time was just after the 2005 Worldwide Partner Conference in Minneapolis, but that was almost two years ago. Since then, we've seen steady growth, increased maturity, and aligned into the Customer Service organization. The relationship we have with our key client (Worldwide Partner Group) has been as strong as it has ever been and we are exploring many opportunities to provide an even greater difference for our partners.

One thing I am excited about is the creativity and brainstorming session scheduled for Thursday. For one day out of the 365 days this year, we get to shed our respective service delivery hats (and my ISV thinking cap) to strategize on the bigger picture beyond our individual businesses.

Back!!!

I've been wanting to jump back into the community scene for quite a while, and it might as well be tonight. It has been crazy busy lately with normal ISV-Advisory-Services operations and the neat collaborative projects we have in the works. In the last year, we've made it a point to meet with as many internal groups that work with ISVs in one way or another. These teams include Vista SWLogo, Office Integrated Innovation, SaaS, SPLA, ISV competency, Worldwide Partner Group, Developer Evangelism, Ascend/Touchdown and a host of others. It's also great to see regional ISV initiatives and projects bolstering the local software ecosystem around the world.

 

We are just scratching the surface and it is already apparent that Microsoft is investing a *lot* to help ISVs succeed in areas such as the mid-market, on hosted software services, innovation in the Information-Worker (IW) space, Vista application compatibility, Business-Intelligence, and many more. I'm not sure if I will ever get to meet everyone at Microsoft that actively works with ISVs, but it won't be due to a lack of trying.

 

Lastly (but not least), let me shout out to some of our ISV-Advisory-Services developers and alums who have blogs:

• http://rahulgangwar.spaces.live.com
• http://blogs.msdn.com/ashish/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/wriju/
• http://blogs.msdn.com/sanchan/
• http://roadhouseblues99.blogspot.com

Hats-off to you!

Potential Application Compatibility Gotchas in Windows Vista

With the imminent (Release to Manufacturing) RTM of Windows Vista at the end of 2006, it is prudent for software vendors and enthusiasts to start testing their applications for compatibility with the new OS. Microsoft has released a whitepaper highlighting a cookbook of steps to help guide software developers through the process of ensuring that their applications continue to flawlessly work on Vista:

The Windows Vista Developer Story: Application Compatibility Cookbook

Though the effort to retain backward compatibility for most applications is evident, the cookbook mentions potential gotcha's in the following areas:

• Operating System Versioning
• User Account Control
• Windows Resource Protection
• IE Protected Mode
• Windows Vista 64-Bit
• Microsoft GINA
• TCP/IP Stack and Network Filtering
• IPv6 Networking
• Windows Vista Display Driver Model (VDDM)
• Outlook Express Renaming
• Fast User Switching

Also in the whitepaper are mitigation steps to help reduce or eliminate any potential impact. It's better to address these potential app-compatibility issues now before end-users complain that their favorite can't-do-without apps no longer work with the new OS.

Great time to be a Microsoft ISV Partner

I'm amazed every time I think about the great benefits and programs now available to Microsoft Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partners and I believe that now's the best time to be a breadth ISV on the Microsoft platform. These benefits and programs reflect Microsoft's increasing focus around helping ISVs grow their businesses and sell more products. Of course, it is self-serving for Microsoft too in the sense that more ISV solutions sold mean that eventual end-customers see more potential value from the platform. So, it's a win-win proposition for Microsoft and ISVs to help maintain a healthy ecosystem of compelling ISV solutions.

Here's a sampling of the programs and partner benefits specifically tailored for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs):

• Marketing
  • SQL2005 Frontrunner Initiative -- This is such an exciting new program run by one of the nicest people on the US-ISV team. It provides ISVs with the technical help they need to upgrade their products to use SQLServer2005, some great marketing benefits, including an opportunity to receive $5,000 of funding. An excellent press article on this initiative and FrontRunner site.

   

  • Channel Builder -- We've heard many great things about this benefit and how it allows ISVs of all sizes to break past regional barriers by leveraging Microsoft's global channel of partners and resellers to sell more software. This article shows how Ten Digits was able to succesfully leverage this benefit to grow their customer base.

  
  

  • ISV Royalty Licensing -- This program allows ISVs to license products like SQLServer 2005 as part of their packaged solutions sold to end-customers. Since the royalty fees are less than even volume-pricing, it either allows the ISV to make money from the price difference or provide better value to the end customer by lowering the total solution cost. More information about this program here.

  
  

  • Competitive Sales Assistance -- This is truly exciting stuff and allows certified partners to help sell their products in competitive situations. Whether the ISV is competing against other platform vendors or maybe older versions of the Microsoft platform, they can leverage this unlimited service on as many deals they see fit to pursue. More info here.

 

• Technical Enablement
  • ISV Empower -- Hands-down the best value package for smaller ISV's to technically enable them to get started on the Microsoft platform. For a $375 fee, program participants receive 10 hours of ISV advisory services, an MSDN subscription, and software licenses all worth upwards of $2,000. Yeah, the last statement sounds like it came from a TV infomercial, so I might as well add... "You have to try it to believe it!"
    
    Here's a great 3rd-party description of this program from the Gurock's.

   

  • ISV Advisory Services -- Nice 1:1 technology enablement service benefit for thousands of Certified ISV's and ISV-Empower members. For ISV's, it complements the static webcasts and developer content on MSDN with interactive 1:1 voice discussions and livemeeting workshops with our ISV Advisory Services engineers worldwide. Link.

   

  • ISV Touchdown Briefings and Community Days -- These sessions are held several times a year in various worldwide locations and allows ISVs to meet with our worldwide team of Developer Evangelist. Link.

 

I'll stop here for now with the thought that there are other programs and benefits to help Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) succeed in the marketplace. I'll blog about other ISV programs and benefits as they are announced and as I remember them <G>.

If you've gotten this far, you're probably an ISV, and I would like to hear your comments about other types of benefits or services that you think would be valuable to you. You never know, one of these days we might just implement your suggestion.

About Me

I manage the global delivery of a Microsoft Partner Program benefit for Independent Software Vendors (ISV) called ISV Advisory Services. It is a very exciting technical enablement benefit that was launched in 2005 (press release). At its core, the benefit is designed to help software vendors create compelling solutions on the Microsoft platform by providing ISV's with 10 to 20 hours of advisory services per year. To serve thousands of ISVs worldwide, we have hired a talented and growing group of 50 developer advisors in the US, India, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, China, Korea, Spain, Argentina, and, Italy to provide proactive services such as:

• Customized 1:1 Technology Workshops on the latest Microsoft developer technologies like:
  • SQL2005
  • Visual Studio 2005
  • Visual Studio Team System
  • ASP.NET 2.0
  • etc.
• Provision of Code Samples
• Legacy to .NET Migration Best Practices
• SQL2005 Migration Guidance
• Application Certification Guidance
• Architecture/Design Guidance Sessions

To-date, our global team has served over 3,000 ISVs and has delivered over 35,000 hours of developer guidance. To learn more about the benefit, send an e-mail to isvhelp@microsoft.com.

Hello World!

Well, I finally jumped into the blogosphere despite years of succesfully convincing myself that I did not have the time for this. Fortunately, or not, blogging has caught up with me thanks to two events in January that were just too much of a coincidence to ignore:

• One of my team members (Joe Scalone) highlighted how other managers at Microsoft were blogging, and asked me to do the same
• My Management Strategy MBA class had a semester-long requirement to maintain a blog

And so, as the saying goes, I decided to hit two birds with the same blog.