I used to think the Microsoft/Cisco/HP system of certified partner networks was obtuse. Now I see the wisdom. Managing relationships at scale is not the core co

I used to think the Microsoft/Cisco/HP system of certified partner networks was obtuse. Now I see the wisdom. Managing relationships at scale is not the core competency for these companies; it's better that they delegate it to organizations that can. And it's a competitive marketplace. If you don't like your Microsoft partner, there are thousands more to choose from. Incidentally, when you work at one of these partners, you get access to private tech support phone numbers that are the real-life version of XKCD's Shibboleth [0]. [0] https://xkcd.com/806/ https://xkcd.com/806/