Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Published: April 2014

Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

ContentsTHE ISV SUCCESS JOURNEY …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 3

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT ….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 4

Architectural Design Assistance….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 4

Microsoft Partner Network Membership …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 4

Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 4

Microsoft Platform Ready ….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 5

Technical Support .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 5

Microsoft BizSpark for Startups ….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 6

BUSINESS PLANNING …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 7

Business Design Resources …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 7

Channel Development…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 7

MARKETING & COMMUNITY .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 8

Microsoft Go-To-Market Services …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 8

Sales Accelerator Toolkit …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 8

Market Awareness: Search, Social Media, PR and More …….…….…….…… 9

Credibility: Microsoft Azure Brand and Co-Branded Marketing ……. Materials ….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 9

Selling with Microsoft: Marketplaces, Stores and Sellers …….…….…….…10

Community: Microsoft Partner Network and ISV Community …….…10

CONCLUSION ….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….… 11

RESOURCES .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…12

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Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Picking a cloud platform starts with choosing the right technology for your application. But good technology isn’t enough to succeed. You should expect much more from your cloud platform provider.

With Microsoft Azure, Microsoft provides a wide range of cloud technology, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Mobile Services, relational and NoSQL data stores, integration technology, and other services… Along with this solid technical foundation, Microsoft offers programs that support you in every aspect of designing and developing your application, planning your business, and marketing your offering… No other company offers this unique combination of technology, business, and market support, making your choice of cloud platform partner easy…

How should an ISV choose a cloud platform ?

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Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

The ISV Success Journey To create a successful application, your organization must do three things well:

• Design & Development: building the right technology on the right schedule…

• Business Planning: making choices about the structure and execution of your business model…

• Marketing & Community: getting the result of your development process and business planning in front of as many potential buyers as possible, then closing the sales…

Your cloud platform provider should be a partner in this journey, assisting you with all three aspects… Microsoft offers strong, proven programs in these three areas to help you succeed… (For a more detailed look at Microsoft-provided resources for the ISV Success Journey, visit the Microsoft Go-To-Market Services online resource at www…MicrosoftGoToMarket…com…)

MARKETING & COMMUNITY

Figure 1: The ISV Success Journey describes the path to a successful application.

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT

BUSINESS PLANNING

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Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Design and DevelopmentWhether you’re creating a consumer or business application, a game or a mission-critical enterprise solution, you need to build high-quality software…

Architectural Design Assistance

Building an application on a new platform can raise challenges for your development team… Microsoft provides a variety of guidance for design and development, along with free assistance from Microsoft Azure experts for qualified ISVs.

Microsoft Partner Network

Joining the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) can help your business succeed by giving you access to application development resources and tools. The Microsoft Partner Network provides benefits for all kinds of Microsoft partners… For Microsoft Azure ISVs, membership includes $100 in Microsoft Azure credit each month for using Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines, Web Sites, SQL Database, or other cloud resources… Microsoft Action Pack subscriptions (including the Microsoft Action Pack Development and Design subscription) provide cost-effective access to software licenses, technical communities, training, and marketing tools, all helping you build your application using the latest Microsoft technologies…

Microsoft Partner Network competencies show customers and business partners you have proven capabilities and set your company apart from the competition… The Application Development Competency is for ISVs that develop applications leveraging the Microsoft development platform…

Microsoft Developer Network

Whatever programming language you’re using and whatever tools you choose, a Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscription is a great way to get the software, technical support, and self-service online training that you need… (In fact, if you’re using Visual Studio, you most likely have this benefit already.)

Figure 2: Microsoft offers design assistance, tech support, and more to help you create your software.

Architectual Design Assistance Microsoft Partner Network MSDN

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Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Your MSDN subscription also gives you credits for using Microsoft Azure virtual machines and other cloud resources… Along with this, you get the ability to deploy SQL Server and other Microsoft software on Microsoft Azure for development and test… Even better, Microsoft has special pricing for using Microsoft Azure VMs as your development and test environment, making it significantly less expensive to do your development in the cloud…

Microsoft Platform Ready

Microsoft Platform Ready (MPR) is designed to give you what you need to plan, build, and test your solution… It brings a range of platform development tools together in one place, including training, support, testing, and marketing resources to help you take your solution to market…

Microsoft Platform Ready helps you develop your applications on Microsoft platform technologies with exclusive access to developer resources and test your application’s compatibility with Microsoft testing tools and resources… Once you’ve registered for MPR and added an application, you can download and run the MPR test tool and submit your successful results… You’ll instantly receive credit toward the appropriate Microsoft Partner Network Competency…

Technical Support

When you choose a cloud platform, you expect it to provide the technical services that you need… But you also need good support… Without this, it’s easy to get stuck and waste days searching for solutions… To make sure that doesn’t happen, Microsoft Azure offers a variety of support options…

If you can get by with an eight-hour guaranteed response time, the Developer plan is only $29/month… If you need one-hour response time, Professional Direct support is $1,000/month… Premier support gets you a guaranteed response within 15 minutes… Whether you’re a small startup or a big commercial ISV with an offering used by hundreds of customers, Microsoft has a support option that fits your needs…

Microsoft Platform Ready Technical Support

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Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Microsoft BizSpark for Startups

Today’s startups are the acorns from which tomorrow’s oak trees grow. To help your firm grow, Microsoft provides the BizSpark program… If you’re a privately held software company that’s less than five years old and makes less than US $1 million annually, you can qualify for BizSpark…

As a BizSpark member, you get free software, credits for Microsoft Azure usage, and more… You also get connected with a network of other BizSpark participants in your area and around the world… Microsoft knows that the success of Microsoft Azure depends on successful Microsoft Azure applications, and it wants yours to be one of them… If you’re a startup, BizSpark is a great example of why choosing your cloud platform is more than a technology decision…

We joined BizSpark over two years ago and the evangelists we worked with were amazingly helpful and available—never a bad time to reach out, always quick to respond, and they really helped us to push forward with our business at low cost. Microsoft is doing a LOT for startups that most people just don’t realize yet.

Al Bsharah,

CEO of start-up Embarke

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Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Business PlanningDesigning great software is important, but it’s only part of what you need… You also need to plan for a great business… Figure 3 summarizes how Microsoft helps you do this for Microsoft Azure applications…

Business Design Resources

Creating the right business model for your cloud offering is essential… If you’re an existing software vendor creating a Software as a Service (SaaS) application, Microsoft has sponsored a video series and whitepaper on how SaaS changes traditional software business models, along with a series of webinars that provide more guidance in this area… You also have access to on-site business design sessions from Mural Consulting, Tellus International, and other specialists in building a cloud business…

Channel Development

Selling through channel partners can broaden your reach and increase your profits. But cloud computing changes how an ISV works with partners… To help you understand these changes, Microsoft provides an online Channel Development Toolkit for building channels in a cloud world… For an on-site look at this same topic, you also have access to the York Group’s Channel Development Workshops… These in-person and virtual executive workshops will help you understand how channels work with cloud applications, find and recruit the right partners, then effectively work with your partner network once it’s in place…

If you are contemplating developing your channels to represent and/or implement your software and

services, you owe it to yourself to participate in The York Group’s Channel Development Workshop.

Louis Lalonde, CEO of Q4bis

Figure 3: Microsoft helps you with business model design, channel development, and other business issues.

Business Design Resources Channel Development

Figure 3: Microsoft helps you with business model design, channel development, and other business issues.

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Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Marketing & CommunityOnce your software is ready and your plans are in place, it’s time to go to market… Microsoft has many ways to help you do this…

Microsoft Go-To-Market Services

Microsoft Go-To-Market (GTM) Services help ISVs increase the success of their Microsoft Azure applications… It gives eligible partners exclusive GTM resources to boost exposure among new customers, build better cloud businesses, and improve app performance…

The Microsoft Go-To-Market Online Resource makes viewing, choosing, and using the go-to-market offers easy. You’ll find a variety of offers to help you create and market successful apps on Microsoft Azure. The offers are classified into four categories, helping you build a great app, create a successful business model to bring your app to market, generate greater demand for your solution, and stay connected and up-to-date with community resources and programs to deepen your relationship with Microsoft…

Contact the Microsoft Go-To-Market Concierge Desk for help getting started… The dedicated Go-To-Market specialists are available to review the GTM Resources with you, answer questions and help you to create a plan that makes the most of the GTM Resources based on your marketing objectives…

Sales Accelerator Toolkit

How do you define your value proposition? And once you’ve done this, how do you create demand for your offering? To help do these things for Microsoft Azure solutions, Microsoft provides the Sales Accelerator Toolkit… This downloadable package includes two guides: one to help you define your value proposition and a second to help generate demand for your offering… The package also include templates that give you a concrete path to hitting these targets… The goal is to help you create a more effective plan for positioning and marketing your Microsoft Azure-based software…

Figure 4: Microsoft helps you create market awareness, build credibility, and sell your offering.

Microsoft Go-To-Market Services Sales Accelerator Toolkit

Figure 4: Microsoft helps you create market awareness, build credibility, and sell your offering.

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Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Market Awareness: Search, Social Media, PR and More

Customers need to know about your product before they can buy it… To help you with this, Microsoft has partnered with SiteWit, a firm that provides automated search engine marketing (SEM) services… SiteWit supports both Google and Bing, and it also provides search engine optimization (SEO) and analytics to measure the result of your ad campaign…

Another way for customers to learn about what you’re selling is through social media and PR… To help you, Microsoft regularly highlights Microsoft Azure ISVs on Microsoft technical and business blogs… Microsoft Azure ISVs are featured in an App of the Day campaign on Microsoft’s @WindowsAzure Twitter feed, which has more than 125,000 followers… Eligible ISVs will also receive assistance gaining approval on press releases and quotes from Microsoft about applications powered by Microsoft Azure…

You can also be exposed to potential customers through Microsoft conferences, where Microsoft Azure ISVs frequently appear in conference keynotes and sessions… You might also be invited to participate in roundtables and other events, all of which put you directly in touch with potential customers…

Credibility: Powered by Microsoft Azure Logo and Co-Branded Marketing Materials

Asking your customers to use your cloud-based application is asking them to trust the public cloud… If they know that your application runs on Microsoft Azure, doing this gets easier… To help communicate this, Microsoft Azure ISVs can post the Powered by Microsoft Azure logo on their website and marketing materials to help build credibility in the minds of potential customers…

Another way to gain credibility is to work with Microsoft to create co-branded marketing materials showcasing your solution… Eligible ISVs can ask Microsoft to write and produce a Mini-Case Study and Datasheet or customize the Mini-Case Study and Datasheet templates on their own and send them to Microsoft for approval…

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Market Awareness Credibility

Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Selling with Microsoft: Marketplaces, Stores and Sellers

Why shouldn’t your cloud platform partner help you sell your offering? After all, their continued success and yours are perfectly aligned…

To do this, Microsoft provides the Microsoft Azure Marketplace… Putting your application in this online platform can make it available for viewing or purchase to customers around the world… And if your Microsoft Azure application works on Windows Phone or Windows 8 or if it integrates with Microsoft Office, it can appear in Microsoft’s online stores for those offerings…

Microsoft doesn’t just have online stores; there are many physical Microsoft Stores in the United States and Canada… As a Microsoft Azure ISV, you can use these stores to showcase your application or to hold events… For enterprise-oriented products, it’s also possible to use Microsoft Technology Centers (MTCs) for customer events…

These online and physical stores aren’t the only way to sell with Microsoft. If you can make clear to Microsoft’s own field sellers why your application helps them sell Microsoft Azure, they will put you in front of many more potential customers… This is yet another example of how choosing the right cloud platform provider helps you in ways that go well beyond technology…

Community: PartnerLink and ISV Community

Microsoft provides PartnerLink, a partner-to-partner program that helps ISVs connect with other partners, such as systems integrators… Even in a SaaS world, partnering with the right SIs can help you better support your customers and earn more money… All Microsoft Azure ISVs may register for a monthly newsletter (English, Korean, Russian, Spanish) and regular community calls featuring content designed to help you grow your business…

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Selling with Microsoft Community

Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

ConclusionWhy build on Microsoft Azure? One reason is that it provides a strong technology foundation for your application… But you should expect more than this, because choosing a platform partner for your cloud offering isn’t just a technology decision… To succeed, you need to design and develop your software, plan your business, and market your offering… Microsoft’s support across all three parts of the ISV Success Journey gives you compelling reasons to choose Microsoft Azure for your next cloud solution…

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Microsoft’s support across all three parts of the ISV Success Journey gives you compelling reasons to choose Microsoft Azure for your next cloud solution…

Design/Illustration: Julie Notarianni

Choosing a Cloud Platform Partner: It’s Not Just a Technology Decision

Resources Design & Development

MicrosoftAzure…com

Architectural design assistance

Microsoft Developer Network

MSDN subscription

Microsoft Action Pack

Microsoft Action Pack Development and Design

Application Development Competency

Microsoft Platform Ready

Microsoft Azure technical support

Microsoft BizSpark program

Business PlanningHow SaaS Changes an ISV’s Business video series

How SaaS Changes an ISV’s Business whitepaper

Succeeding with SaaS Webinar Series

Channel Development Toolkit

Marketing & CommunityMicrosoft Go-To-Market Online Resource

Microsoft Go-To-Market Concierge Desk

Sales Accelerator Toolkit

SiteWit

@WindowsAzure Twitter

Powered by Microsoft Azure Logo Program

Mini-Case Study and Datasheet templates

Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Microsoft Partner Network

Microsoft PartnerLink

Microsoft Go-To-Market Partner Communiqué Registration (English, Korean, Russian, Spanish)

Microsoft Go-To-Market Partner Community Call Registration

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