CRN Interview: Jeff Raikes

I saw Jeff's speech on Monday in Toronto, and it was, as Steve Ballmer later suggested, lots of 'blah blah blah' (admittedly with some fun videos and nice demos!). To some degree, a better summary of what he meant is in the CRN Interview posted on Wednesday.

My key takeaway from the partner conference, and this interview, is that the partner model has totally changed big time. And this means lots of change for the partners. The focus is now on points and competencies where Partners earn points based on doing things as described on the Partner Points Page. Competencies become a key way to earn the points needed for Gold status. As a supplier of training, we look to train both MS customers and MS partners in many of the competency areas.

To some degree, the interview clarified the issue over his call for all partners to sign up for IW competencies. Jeff makes the point that the new partner programme is just getting going. We'll have to see where we are in 6 months. We certainly live in interesting times.