2 ms·

To maintain partner status you need to sell a minimum quantity of products, with a tiered system that grants better discounts and more benefits for hitting high

To maintain partner status you need to sell a minimum quantity of products, with a tiered system that grants better discounts and more benefits for hitting higher tiers. This has the flow on effect of managed service providers recommending Microsoft branded solutions instead of far more suitable competitors for the customers use case. For example selling a customer a Windows server licence with SQL 2017 installed to run as a backend for a simple website that 10 people a day are going to visit when a centos box with postgres would be far more cost effective (and reliable) for the customer. Now this isn't unique to Microsoft, literally all the big vendors do this (eg Cisco, VMware, every single antivirus company, etc) so not sure what makes Microsofts one particularly toxic, other than the fact that the free stuff they provide is genuinely valuable to the partners which is not always true for the other vendors.

matwood 7y ago
> For example selling a customer a Windows server licence with SQL 2017 installed to run as a backend for a simple website that 10 people a day are going to visit when a centos box with postgres would be far more cost effective (and reliable) for the customer. I get the point you're trying to make, but this isn't really a good example. If a customer is already a Windows user, introducing linux and Postgres may not be the best solution. A basic windows license, sql server express, and iis should work fine though.
- zerkten 7y ago
  > A basic windows license, sql server express, and iis should work fine though. The point is that the partner was incentivized to not do something simple like this. I think many would, but many did not especially in the mid- and enterprise spaces where this stuff eventually caught up.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  Yeah a centos and postgres admin is going to be more expensive then someone who can administer Windows/Sql Server Express/IIS.

matwood 7y ago

> For example selling a customer a Windows server licence with SQL 2017 installed to run as a backend for a simple website that 10 people a day are going to visit when a centos box with postgres would be far more cost effective (and reliable) for the customer. I get the point you're trying to make, but this isn't really a good example. If a customer is already a Windows user, introducing linux and Postgres may not be the best solution. A basic windows license, sql server express, and iis should work fine though.

zerkten 7y ago
> A basic windows license, sql server express, and iis should work fine though. The point is that the partner was incentivized to not do something simple like this. I think many would, but many did not especially in the mid- and enterprise spaces where this stuff eventually caught up.
JamesBarney 7y ago
Yeah a centos and postgres admin is going to be more expensive then someone who can administer Windows/Sql Server Express/IIS.