What is TAP?
The Technology Adoption Program (TAP) at Microsoft® is designed to provide a consistent experience for customers partnering with Microsoft in obtaining real world customer feedback on Microsoft pre-release products. Participating customers find that some of the most powerful benefits include:
§ Product team engineering
§ help in deploying their Microsoft solutions.
§ Early product education.
§ An opportunity to influence product through their feedback.
§ The strategic edge all this can give them in their line of business.
TAP (Technology Adoption Program) is a framework that has been created to rationalize, simplify and centralize the former JDP (Joint Development Program), EAP (Early Adopter Program, RDP (Rapid Deployment Program) and related programs under a single umbrella. The goal is to improve customer/partner experiences in evaluating and adopting our technologies and improve our ability to track and manage customer/partner relationships across programs. TAP is not an additional program. There are currently four different types of TAPs (Product Validation, Product Evaluation, Rapid Deployment and Solutions Implementation) in the framework.
TAP Benefits for Customers (businesses)
§ Agreement
o Single legal agreement for all programs under TAP
o Only 7 pages, clear language
o Governing law aligned with major geographical regions: e.g. Ireland, if your principal place of business is in Europe
§ Program Description
o Same format for all programs
o Flexible to accommodate your requirements
o Like MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding), no legal process necessary
§ Web Site
o Information about all programs available under TAP
o More information about all programs you are participating in
o Work with MS contact if you are interested in participation
o Easy access to pre-release software
§ Plus …
o Consistent / Clear taxonomy for Microsoft wide, cross product consistency:
the customer knows what to expect
o TAP programs part of your strategic IT planning
