The Sikh Geek

Yesterday evening I went to Movement Research down in London to give my views to an independent research organisation regarding how Small Businesses view Microsoft and how Partners view Microsoft. What came out from both my views and some of the sampling that Movement have been doing is indicating that Small Businesses aren’t actively chosing Microsoft and are resentful as to what they see as being locked in to expensive upgrades and features they’ll never use. Whilst discussing this, I realised Microsoft Small Business Partners feel the same way, so the views of end customers and partners is about the same. The recent news shows that Google has overtaken Microsoft as the most successful brand as viewed by consumers. I separated this out from the Microsoft Small Business Programme in the UK, which had given us a lot of support and benefits.

I ended by saying that what I wanted Microsoft to do was stay engaged, even if we don’t hit their sales targets and we don’t turn up to their events, stay in it for the long hard slog! My sense is that they really do want to do that and obviously with any relationship, it is reciprocal!