In an attempt to entice the channel community on upcoming Windows 7, Microsoft India is investing on several channel programmes.
Commenting on the new channel initiatives, Ramesh G, Director (Windows Client), Microsoft, said, "We are spending quality time and resources to educate our channel partners on our end-to-end forthcoming products, including Windows 7, Windows Server and Exchange 2010. We would intend to popularize the Windows 7 through word of mouth, extensive demos, and specializing our partners on new operating system."
"To begin with we have rolled out a 16-city road show on August 11. Starting from Cochin, it will be covering tier-I and tier-II cities till September 18 with Coimbatore. Additionally, we will be educating more than 1,800 new and existing channel partners in a month's time. Secondly, we will kick-start another 14-city technical training programme in September," added he.
Sharing partners' response to the overall development, Ramesh said, "We have been witnessing a positive response from our partners. The new OS runs smoothly on existing hardware, and customers do not need to replace its existing hardware. The required specification for Windows 7 is only 1 GB RAM. However, to run applications like virtualizations and power saving, there's a need to have a new hardware. Hence for partners, Windows 7 will be a push product."
In the next one year, more than 8.5 million new PCs will be shipping in India, which is equivalent to $500 million market. "Thus, this move will boost the partners' opportunities in near future. Moreover, usage of legalized software will create $2 billion market for partners. Hence, partners should start looking for value added products and end-to-end capabilities, he added.
Microsoft has extended the limit of its ongoing promotional activity/scheme - 7 ka dum - from August to September-end. "We had rolled out this scheme two weeks ago, and was limited to our top gold partners. However, now all our interested partners can participate in it."
As per the scheme, partner has to install Windows 7 in five PCs of any mid/large size organization. The vendor is looking at 500 customers, and in reward the partner will get cash vouchers and bonuses.
Besides Channel partners, Microsoft India is also targeting SMBs and end customers. For SMBs, it has started Tap Programme for the first time.
Windows 7 will be available in all the six skews including: Starter, Home Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. Microsoft will be positioning Home Premium for consumer market, and professional skew for large enterprises. "Moreover, the migration from one skew to other is every easy, and can be done without machine formatting. Each lower version comes with bits of all the features of higher versions, hence, customers have to get a key from online or nearest dealers," explained Ramesh.
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8/13/2009
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