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Welcome to Your New Messaging Competency!

imageWhile it may seem more prevalent than I’ll make it out to be, it’s not everyday you get to launch something. So, when you get to start off your Monday morning with the fantastic news that something you and your team has been working on for a better part of a year is now live and launched, you feel a little extra special.

As I mentioned in one of my posts last week, we were moments away from the upcoming launch of your new Messaging competency.

This fine Monday morning, I am thrilled to announce it is finally here!

Welcome to your New Messaging Competency!

This week the Microsoft Partner Network celebrates its one year anniversary since launching broad programmatic changes to bring more value to partners like you. In an ever-evolving industry, we recognize it’s necessary to evolve programs to meet new marketplace trends and business needs. Responding to your feedback, last May we announced we were evolving the Unified Communications (UC) competency to better enable your organization to differentiate expertise in the marketplace and compete more effectively.

Today, the UC competency has been officially retired and we officially launch the Messaging and Communications competencies.

Earning the Microsoft Messaging competency helps give your organization a competitive advantage to increase your revenue opportunities with Microsoft Exchange. As I mentioned last week, we are extremely bullish that the new Messaging competency will give you a competitive advantage through such benefits as access to Exchange training resources, even more Internal Use Rights for Exchange Server 2010, exclusive access to compete resources, the distinguished Messaging competency logo, and much more. Unlocking these benefits can expand your customer opportunities and strengthen your Exchange expertise that can lead to shorter sales cycles.

imageThe Silver Messaging competency recognizes your expertise in implementation, design, deployment, and support of Microsoft Exchange Server.

And, the Gold Messaging competency highlights your deeper investment in archiving, security, and voicemail, along with your ability to help customers with their journeys to the cloud with Microsoft Exchange Online.

If your organization was enrolled in the UC competency and meets the new requirements of Messaging and/or Communications competencies, you will be migrated automatically as appropriate. For other UC competency partners, migrations will be complete by November 11. Thank you for your patience as we complete these migrations. Also, I encourage you to check out the “Evolution of the UC Competency” guide for a comprehensive FAQ section.

It is fantastic to offer you the opportunity to ENROLL in the Messaging competency.

Grab more details on the value and benefits of the Messaging competency here.

Then check out the requirements to enroll in the competency here.

Again, welcome to your new competency!

Before I close, I wanted to recognize all the hard work that Kristin Murray (Exchange) and Caroline Chung (Lync), as well as our partners (no pun intended) over in the Worldwide Partner Group (like Dan Truax and Katie Larson) for making today possible.  Thanks for all you have done to help make our partners even more successful!

Ian
Group Product Manager
Exchange Partner Marketing