Bob's Update from the WPC

Day 3 – WPC Final Day

Well, as we complete a very busy Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference the 10,000 delegates are beginning to show the impact of walking miles of convention floors and late nights on the town … including your humble reporter.

WPC is a very different conference than what many of us experienced at the Microsoft Management Summit in that the focus is on business issues as opposed to technology. However, I wanted to move from event reporting to an observation on bridging the gap between the Microsoft Partner and Technology communities.  Per Werngren, the President of the International Association of the Certified Partners (www.iamcp.org) and also CEO Sweden based IDE (www.idenent.com) offered his thoughts. Since I am not the best note taker, I will paraphrase Per’s comments:

“The traditional roles of the partner and technical community are different. The basic role of the IAMCP is to encourage business growth among partners, whereas technical community is about training, certification and making things work. However, we do have common goals. At IAMCP we help partners make the connections necessary to make sure growth is achieved and projects go forward.  By stimulating the amount of Microsoft related work available the IAMCP makes it possible for the technical community to put their skills, training and certifications to rapid use. IAMCP is particularly interested in helping partners with staffing of qualified members of the technology community. We provide additional resources and connectivity. I believe we that the gap between business issues and technology issues will to continue to come closer. We at IAMCP look forward to working with other communities.”

In the time I have spent with Per in preparation for WPC I am convinced that IAMCP is committed to the technology community through its partner member support. For myITforum.com readers that work for Microsoft partners, I would encourage you to look at IAMCP as an extension of their business activities.

On the Enterprise Management side, our friendly Microsoft program manager Vlad Joanovic confirmed to me last night about the increased partner interest in the System Center product line … especial SCOM and the forthcoming remote interface. Great news as it should equate to some new opportunities for myITForum.com readers.

As the rest of today’s events, the keynotes were primarily business focused with the exception of Allison Watson’s discussion of the top hot technologies. Again, for those interested, the keynotes and many breakout sessions are available for download at www.partner.microsoft.com/digitalWPC .  Also, winners of the various partner awards can be found on the WPC site.

BTW, for those readers that complained about my positive reference yesterday to the Denver Broncos football and Colorado Rockies baseball teams, all I can say is oh well … comes with being the hosts.

Off to the Coors Field final party … so cheers for now … Bob

Robert Williams, MVP – Enterprise Certified Corp – Request your demo copy of the ECC eSCOP for SCOM2007 ACS and Data Warehouse

Read the rest:

Day 2 Report from Bob at WPC