Thanks so much to the 453 partner who attended each of the UC Pre-Days, Exchange Upgrade and Office Communications Server Sessions on Hamilton Island last week. Thanks also to the many partners who come to visit on the Microsoft Information Worker and Mobility stand.
After 3 short years, it was great to see the progress.
2005 - Unified Communications takes a stand at the Australian Partner Conference with Broadreach Services, NEC Australia and Telstra. We couldn't afford a stand in those days so we had to share the cost with 3 partners. We were considered too small to be on the agenda
2006 - Unified Communications gets one session on the agenda and 3 minutes in the key note presentation. Our demo of Outlook Voice Access gets huge cheers from the audience for a live demo. Our only session in a room of 100 seats is full and 40 people standing through the presentation. We have to re-run to the presentation the next day in the same room to another 120 people. Non-stop meetings with partners either side of the presentations.
2007 - Unified Communications gets a whole pre-day focused on Unified Communications - sell out session with 80 people on a wait list. Our sessions are moved to the convention centre as that is the only room on Hamilton Island big enough for our audience. Back to back meetings with partners and journalists, in between the demonstrations until 5:15pm on Friday night while the stands are being dismantled. The UC team at the conference driving a single message around Exchange 2007 upgrades. The first year we have Unified Communications in the partner awards dinner. Congratulations to the finalists.
Dialogic, Nortel, EMC, Cytrack and Mitel all were sponsors with their own stands this year - a big change from 3 years ago when 4 of us had to share one stand.
It's great to see the progress over 3 years. This progress is a result of the great engagement between Microsoft and our partners - for that we thank you.
Big thank you to Sandra, Jonathan, Stefan, Grace, the whole Microsoft partner team and pre-day sponsors Jabra