In the spirit of Todd Weatherby’s comments about opening a dialog regarding the Microsoft Partner Program Web Site, here are five technical things Microsoft could do to improve interactions with partners and customers.  I (and other partners) have put forward some more radical ideas for redesign of partner program policies and tools, but let’s start with things that could be done relatively quickly, without major surgery:
1. Enable better search tools on all parts of partners.microsoft.com.
Microsoft Live Search is actually getting pretty good. The quality of search results is usually (not always) on par with Google. The UI is simple, the search engine is fast, it’s reasonably comprehensive, and it’s relatively good at ranking results. Now step into partnerland, and you’d never know you were dealing with the same company. Try to search for a Microsoft partner interested in teaming with us to market and sell to hedge funds — go ahead, I’ll wait. The search tools are limited by the fields imagined by the designers of each application lurking behind partner.microsoft.com. The way the rest of the world (including large chunks of Microsoft) addressed this years ago was with better free text search tools (like Live Search). More recently, much of the rest of the world has discovered the value of tagging, which allows users to decide on the importance of words and phrases to help others find their content. (And yes, this example is from Channel Builder, but similar restrictions limit the value of other applications as well.)

2. Improve the compatibility of partner.microsoft.com with all major browsers, especially Firefox.
OK, I know, we’re all Microsoft partners and we’re all just delighted to use IE because it’s great, and because we’re all part of the great Microsoft dogfooding process. Mostly, I’m OK with that. But processes like obtaining customer references drive customers into parts of the partner site, and neither Microsoft nor its partners should be imposing IE on our customers. (One of my customers gave up on the reference process over this issue last month — thank you to the fine person on Todd’s team who approved the reference manually, but that hardly seems like the smoothest approach.)  Digipede is unusually highly focussed on the Microsoft platform — our software is written exclusively Windows — yet over 25% of visitors to www.digipede.net use Firefox.  Microsoft simply can’t assume partner customers use IE.
3. Speaking of dogfooding — Windows Live ID: All or Nothing.
After years of preaching to partners and customers about the value of Windows Live ID (formerly Passport) — why do so many Microsoft properties still not use it? Yes, I log into partner.microsoft.com using my Live ID — but when we go to the Worldwide Partner Conference, CommNet uses something else, and Structured Networking (now WPC Connect) uses something else else, and when we participate in the ISV Royalty Program we use something else else else, and so on. This is just login — how hard could it be to standardize?

4. Clear, useful, accurate, and complete partner status reporting
How was the number of points from our “Microsoft Tested Products” calculated?  How can my points associated with our only location be different from our total number of points?  Where did these 2 points I see in “Other Activities” come from, and when do they expire?

A long-standing request from partners far and wide is for a way to track the source and expiration dates of ALL partner points through partners.microsoft.com.  The Partner team showed a beta of this functionality at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver last July, and promised it “in the Fall.”  This functionality alone would be a great help to those of us who administer our firms’ participation in the Microsoft Partner Program.  Is this still in the works?
5. More human review of the partners.microsoft.com experience.
I hear Todd when he says:

We continue to invest in our on-line resources for our partners and customers worldwide. During 2007 we made several enhancements including a major release on November 30th. In early January, we realized we had some serious performance problems in some very specific steps in the enrollment process (eg. customer reference processing).

Since detecting the problem, we’ve been running 24×7 triage/test/fix cycles. We also added call center staff and extended hours of service to help partners work through enrollment and maintain their access to their benefits. We’ve made some fixes that have yielded improvement. We have more to do.

While parts of the enrollment process have been rough for some, partners have been using resources on the Microsoft Partner Portal in record numbers without problems, including online training, marketing and sales resources.

We continue to monitor system performance closely 24×7 worldwide. Status messages are being kept up to date on the site. Our Regional Support Centers are standing by to help partners.

OK — Granted. I realize that running a Web site for the largest partner program in the IT industry is complex, and I’m sure that somebody is monitoring system performance 24×7 — but let’s have a look at what I see today when I log in.

The first message, the VERY TOP item that Microsoft wants to bring to my attention today is:

Re-Enroll! It’s time to re-enroll the DIGIPEDE TECHNOLOGIES LLC in the Microsoft Partner Program. Read More

OK, no, it’s actually not time to re-enroll. I re-enrolled over two weeks ago. Let’s expand this message:

Re-Enroll! It’s time to re-enroll the DIGIPEDE TECHNOLOGIES LLC in the Microsoft Partner Program. Read More
Your Gold Certified Membership is scheduled to expire on Saturday, January 31, 2009. Continue your Partnership with Microsoft and retain member benefits by Re-enrolling Here.

OK, no, it’s really not important for me to rush out and re-enroll to avoid an expiration date more than one year in the future. As far as I can tell, there’s no reason for this message.

Let’s move to the second message Microsoft has for me today:

Attention! You must submit payment to complete your re-enrollment. Read More

OK, no, I submitted payment for my re-enrollment over two weeks ago, through Microsoft’s own interface, and received confirmation at that time.

Let’s expand this message too:

Attention! You must submit payment to complete your re-enrollment. Read More
The Microsoft Partner Program shows that you have not submitted payment for your Gold Certified Partner Membership. You may pay your Invoice now in the Payment Center.

OK, no, that’s wrong, I’m positive I paid, let’s dig around some more — sure enough, there in my Payment History (https://partners.microsoft.com/PartnerProgram/PaymentHistory.aspx) is the record of my payment, on 1/11/2008.  Now to double-check, let’s have a look over at the American Express site — yes, sure enough, I have a charge from Microsoft Programs two business days later for the exact amount I paid at the Payment Center.  So why is partners.microsoft.com still yelping at me for money?
By the way, this is not a trivial point. I’m not the only one at Digipede who can log into the Microsoft Partner site. I’ve promised my partners that I’ve taken care of our Gold Certified Partner status, and that we’re all set. Yet when they log in, they see Microsoft’s top two messages, and are led to believe that I’ve forgotten to pay and that our status is in jeopardy despite their herculean efforts to get our products tested and certified in time. This makes me look stupid (and I get enough chances to do that without Microsoft’s help).

That’s it for messages, so let’s hop over to the Partner Dashboard to make sure everything’s OK there:

Partner Dashboard is not available right now or does not have data for the organization you are mapped to. Please see your PAM for more information.

You get the idea.

There’s lots and lots of wonderful information at partners.microsoft.com, and I’d love to use it more consistently — but my experience with the site is that information specific to our company’s program participation is often problematic.  To me, this feels like a testing issue; some part of the 24×7 monitoring process could still use improvement (as Todd’s message clearly states).

So there’s my list — what do other partners think?  Todd has stepped up, and is ready to join the conversation — who else has ideas that can help improve this community?

Tags: Digipede, Microsoft, MSPP, Partner-Program, Todd-Weatherby

OK, it’s mildly annoying that iTunes and Quicktime want me to install 60-MB updates pretty much weekly these days, but no big deal, I can ignore their nagging messages. But I actually wanted to upgrade today — and here’s what I got when I hit “Install 1 item:”

My Martian is a little rusty, so I did not “accept” this particular upgrade.

Maybe next week’s upgrade will be more intelligible.

Tags: Apple, iTunes, license-agreement

I got an email from the VSIP program last night, requesting that I fill out a satisfaction survey.  I did so happily — there’s nothing like a quick dose of VSIP to wash away the taste of a bad MSPP experience.

(OK, too much jargon — sorry. Let me explain.)

The Visual Studio Industry Partners (VSIP) program is, pound for pound, the best partner program run by Microsoft, period. The VSIP program is personal, effective, and responsive. True, it’s a LOT smaller than the enormous Microsoft Partner Program, and that makes it less prone to operational headaches than the giant MSPP, but it’s a great program. What have they done for us?

• Put our bits in front of 50,000 folks (directly in our target market) at TechEd and other conferences through the VSIP Partner DVD!
• Put our announcements in MSDN Flash!
• Helped arrange our participation in MSDN Webcasts!
• Subsidized our advertising! (Yup, we got cash — which as Yogi says is just as good as money — to spend on advertising our VS-related product.)
• Supported our press releases with timely quotes without a lot of Microsoftian fuss!

So — if you make software for the Windows platform, and it can be tied in any way to Visual Studio, RUN, do not walk, to the VSIP program. You’ll be glad you did!
And — if you run a partner program at Microsoft, and you want to see Redmond Best Practices in Action, RUN, do not walk, to the VSIP program. We’ll all be glad you did!

Tags: Digipede, Microsoft, Visual-Studio, VSIP

For the folks following our Adventures in Partnerland, here’s an update.

About two weeks ago, I wrote a post here about how the persistent technical difficulties with the Microsoft Partner Program Web site (partners.microsoft.com) had spilled over from every-day inconvenience to genuine negative impact on our relations with our customers. I howled, because I think Microsoft (and the Partner Program in particular) can do better — the people in that group are really great (I know dozens of them, and can’t think of one that hasn’t left a positive impression), yet the systems have been substandard for years.

My post apparently set off a frenzy of activity. I called out executives by name, and judging by the little traffic tracer I use (Statcounter rocks by the way) that got somebody’s attention in Redmond, and that somebody sent around a very-widely-read email, and Powersunfiltered had its all-time highest traffic day — almost all from Microsoft (and it’s PR agency — hello Waggener Edstrom readers and welcome!).

And then comments came in from other partners who were having the same (or similar) experiences — but not a word from Microsoft. After four days I got a two-line email (entirely unofficial, from outside the Partner group) from a friend at Microsoft who said that my post “got some attention here,” and he had heard that “a fix” for the Partner Web site was in the works — that was the extent of Microsoft’s response.

Not long thereafter, something was indeed fixed, our references were approved, and I renewed our Gold Certified Partner status without further incident. (And — thank you, sincerely, to those who fixed whatever was broken.)

Microsoft’s public reaction, as far as I can tell, was none whatsoever.  No comments here, no comments on other blogs reporting the same problem (like this one), no postings of their own that I could find.  The Partner group’s silence on persistent problems  faced by multiple partners seems like a missed opportunity, and callers from within Microsoft have told me the same. They (and I) can’t tell what the Partner group is thinking:

• a. Some malcontent overreacted, but to quiet things down we stayed up late, made a patch, and rebooted some servers, so now everything is ok; or
• b. There’s good reason to look at how the Partner Program systems and processes are supporting the needs of Microsoft and its partners, and to put some brainpower into reworking those systems; or
• c. Something else entirely.

As for what’s next, well, if the Partner Program wants to engage, I’m game — but in the meantime, I’m moving on.  Our problem is fixed (thank you again), an opportunity for constructive public dialog appears to have passed (if I misplayed this, so be it), and I have work to do — and more positive things to write about.

Tags: Digipede, Microsoft, partner, statcounter

All my regular readers know I use the Microsoft partner Web sites fairly often, and that I experience frustrating time-sucking issues almost as often. Believe me, I spare my readership the great majority of my experiences with the unending nightmare that is the Microsoft partner online world, and when I do raise these issues I’m trying to be constructive — I really want to see Microsoft improve the online experience for its partners and customers. So I sometimes do a lot of self-editing and softening of language and hedging . . .
But I’m done caring who I offend — this is just ridiculous. The emperor has no clothes.

One thing I get to do every year is renew our status as a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Fine. The program requirements are difficult enough without technical hassles. Previous years have been a joy — one time, partners.microsoft.com was sufficiently screwed up that I managed to pay our $1500+ fee twice (yes, I eventually got a refund) — and this year appears to be worse.

So far, using the forms on the Microsoft Partner Program Web site, following absolutely basic and routine steps that are completely necessary to renew our status, I’ve encountered timeouts a few dozen times in the past two weeks. Fine. If Microsoft wants to provide a poor online experience for its partners, we can assess for ourselves whether the value is worth the pain.

But those few dozen timeouts don’t even include the repeated timeouts encountered by Digipede’s best customers, who have agreed to serve as references for us.

That’s right — my best customers get to sit in front of multiple timeouts waiting for the Microsoft Partner Program Web site, following Microsoft’s own instructions in an autogenerated email, just so they can provide Microsoft verification that we’ve done work for them. And yes, I get to explain to my best customers that they should be patient with Microsoft in order to do Digipede a favor. And yes, this conversation is every bit as delightful as it sounds.

My experience is not “bad luck,” nor is it unique. I’ve tried to submit information at different times of day, and on different days of the week; my customers have tried the same. And yes, I have talked to technical support, and reproduced the problem for them (”yeah, we’ve been having some of those problems lately…”). Is this just viewed as an acceptable cost of doing business by other Microsoft partners? By the rest of Microsoft?
Hey Debra Chrapaty — do you really expect to deliver online “cloud computing” services to hundreds of millions of customers when you can’t serve 640,000 partners any better than this? Do you want the help of those 640,000 partners in delivering online services to your customers? What level of confidence do you think your best partners and best customers have in your ability to deliver responsive online applications when our primary online experience with Microsoft goes through partners.microsoft.com?

Hey Kevin Turner — is this the “operational excellence” we keep hearing so much about?

Hey Allison Watson — how can your team be so great in person (and they are) while your systems are so consistently flawed (and they are)? Never in all my interactions with Microsoft do I encounter as much eye-rolling and well-practiced apologies as when I talk with your team about your systems.

(Woohoo! Invoking Allison’s name must have been the key — I just hit “OK” for the 8th or 9th time on the dialog box that’s been sitting there mocking me as I type this — these are LONG timeouts –, and FINALLY I’ve assigned ONE additional customer reference successfully. Hang on — gotta go tell another of my best customers to hit retry while the site may (briefly) be working!)

And these minor trials and frustrations are NOTHING compared to the slog we’ve been going through to get Certified for Server 2008 — but that’s another story for another day.

UPDATE:  In the past two hours, I’ve had about 70 hits on this post from within Microsoft.  In the past two hours, I’ve had one of my customers give up trying to provide a reference through the Microsoft Partner Program Web site because he does not run Internet Explorer (not sure what he uses, but I just tested with Firefox 2, and sure enough, there are some features that apparently do not work).  In the past two hours, a different one of my customers tried again to approve his reference; he received timeouts again, and now wants to know how to fax in his reference instead.

Tags: Allison-Watson, Debra-Chrapaty, Digipede, Kevin-Turner, Microsoft, Partner-Program, timeout

Functional programming and grid computing are a good match for some types of computing problems. 

Digipede Director of Products Dan Ciruli has been experimenting with F# and the Digipede Network.  He has posted a code sample showing how to distribute F# calculations across a grid using the Digipede Framework SDK, along with some comments describing his experiences.  He’s looking for comments — check it out!

Tags: code-sample, Dan-Ciruli, Digipede, F#, functional-programming, grid-computing