Hi Gang!
It seems like every two days I get asked for the basic information on how to begin partnering with Microsoft. I know many of you have long since figured all this basic stuff out; however, since I keep getting the questions, I know that some have not.
There are many benefits to partnering with Microsoft. While I will not fully enumerate them here, the benefits primarily fall under 3 categories:• Technical Enablement• Marketing Support• Software License Grants
In order to provide a consistent means to deliver benefits to all our partners, Microsoft has established the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP). For any ISV, large or small, the MSPP represents a huge suite of offerings that are sure to help you develop your application and grow your business.
For ISVs the program has 3 and one half levels… Perhaps I should explain…
The basic levels of the partner program are Registered, Certified and Gold Certified. ISVs get what could be considered one extra level between Registered and Certified. This ‘pseudo level’ is the ‘Empower Program’.
While I will not go into the benefits and perks associated with each of these levels, suffice it to say that as an ISV moves from level to level, typically their commitment to the Microsoft platform increases, and the benefits that Microsoft provides the ISV increases significantly. It would serve little purpose to step through all the details in this posting. The partner website does a great job explaining all this. To get the full program details click here.
Now for the ABC’s
Apply
to the program. Getting started is really simple. Click here and simply authenticate with a passport account and fill in a simple form. Congratulations! You are in the Microsoft Partner Program.
Become
an Empower program participant. In my opinion the Empower Program is the best deal available in software development today. Joining the program does cost $375 for a one year membership, but the benefits are huge. They include a Premium MSDN subscription with five licenses; software license grants access a limited amount of advisory service hours and much more. To find out more, click here.
Certify!
Once you have joined the MSPP and become a member of the Empower Program, it is time to work on becoming a ‘Certified Partner'. If you followed the links above, you know that the benefits for the certified level are significantly increased above ‘Registered’ and even ‘Empower’. There is a common misconception that the certification process is difficult. For ISVs I can assure you it is actually quite easy. Basically you have to get one of you applications to pass the ‘Platform Test’. The test is really quite straight forward. Production ready applications typically do not have difficulty passing. Once you have a product that passes the test, you will need three customer references for that product. The platform test combined with the references qualifies your organization for the ‘ISV Competency’. The combination of the competency and the platform test give you more than the points required to become a ‘Certified Partner’.
I realize that this posting does not give all the details. It is truly intended as a primer. If you follow the embedded links, you can get to all the details.
Hope this helps!
W^3