Celebrating another successful WPC!

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What an amazing week! WPC has, and remains my favorite week of the year – a chance to see so many familiar faces, meet many new ones, while also having a chance to see how our Canadian Partner landscape is evolving! It’s also a great week to hear about new partner opportunities, the impact partners are making in communities across the globe, while also sharing exciting announcements from Microsoft on the innovative technologies we’re delivering, to enable you to grow your business.

If you joined us in Orlando, I hope you had a successful, productive, and enjoyable conference, and that you left energized and ready to accelerate your business, and our partnership. Thank you to those of you who were not able to join us in person, but watched the Vision Keynotes online and joined the #WPC15 conversation on Twitter.For those that were not able to join, and have not yet viewed the Vision Keynotes, read on.

Kicking it off for Canada

For the second year, we kicked off the Canadian WPC experience with our Regional keynote on Sunday evening, with a lookback on how we performed in 2015. Dennis Cerasoli, VP of our Small and Mid-market Solutions & Partners group outlined how our focus is on Windows 10 and how it will drive our business momentum, while Janet Kennedy, President of Microsoft Canada shared the opportunity for us to Achieve More, together, in the year ahead.

The highlight of the night, was celebrating our IMPACT 2015 finalists and winners for their outstanding work and social impact they made in their community and for the great market opportunities they created in Canada. You can view the winners here View the winners here. Stay tuned for the announcement of the 2016 Award categories!

Watch Vision Keynotes and the MSNA General Session on demand
The Vision Keynotes and the Microsoft North America General Session are available for on-demand viewing by all partners.

If you’re looking for other WPC 2015 content as an attendee, sign in to Connect and go to Sessions > WPC 2015 Session Resources, where you can filter and search. At the end of July, many of the session videos and some content resources will be made publicly available.

Windows 10 and the bold ambition of more personal computing
During the Day 1 Vision Keynote, Terry Myerson talked about the partner opportunity with Windows 10, then brought out Bryan Roper, the executive demo lead for Windows Product Management. Bryan demoed the end user experience, talked about some new innovations to the platform, and explained the opportunities with the Windows universal application platform.

New profitability resources go deeper into helping you transform your business to the cloud
Over the past few years, we’ve partnered with IDC to explain why it’s critical for our channel to make investments in shifting their businesses to capitalize on the cloud. Recent research indicates that IT spend is in transition—customers spend more than half of their IT budget (55 percent) on cloud and managed services versus traditional IT (45 percent).

Partner investments and program updates
Gavriella Schuster, General Manager in the Worldwide Partner Group, announced some of the significant changes you’ll see over the next year as a Microsoft partner, as we continue to focus on addressing customer needs in this mobile-first, cloud-first world. Read Gavriella’s blog post, Investing in a mobile-first, cloud-first future, for details about these program updates:

    • Mobile-first. With the release of Windows 10, we’ll address the mobile-first opportunity by introducing two new competencies: the Enterprise Mobile Management (EMM) competency, and the Windows and Devices competency.
    • Cloud-first. Last year, we introduced cloud competencies that emphasize your ability to sell cloud solutions. This year, we want to enable you to not just sell the cloud, but encourage customer adoption and usage. For partners delivering Microsoft Azure-based solutions, we are refreshing the Cloud Platform competency to improve its value and relevance to you.

The new “What’s new” portal page is your source for regular updates about competencies, including changes to benefits and requirements, active usage, and new and retiring competencies.

Trusted Cloud and online security
Brad Smith, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Microsoft Legal and Corporate Affairs, spoke in the Day 3 Vision Keynote about putting trust at the core of technology.

Product announcements and partner investments
Throughout the Vision Keynotes, there were product announcements and information about the investments Microsoft is making in how partners enable their customers through technology. Read Phil Sorgen’s blog post on The Official Microsoft Blog for an overview, then get a deeper look from leaders of three of our global teams.

    • Read the blog post by Steve “Guggs” Guggenheimer: Disrupt or be disrupted, about the necessity for all companies to become ISVs, and how partners can and should use disruption to their advantage

Increase your market value, amplify your market impact, and grow your market influence
In addition to the competency changes and updates, Gavriella Schuster also discussed program investments that will help partner businesses grow and thrive. In her blog post, We’re committed to our partners’ success, Gavriella details how we’re approaching helping you with these three things:

    • Increase your market value. Look for a new partner training platform this year, as well as changes to certification, exams, and tracking that simplify the experience of getting your technical and sales teams skilled and knowledgeable
    • Amplify your market impact. Partners have asked us to help them more effectively market their businesses through digital marketing, and we’re responding to your requests by providing more prescriptive guidance and packaged resources
    • Grow your market. We want to enable you to find the people resources your business needs, whether that’s through temporary staffing, more easily finding new talent, building your channel, or creating new partnerships

Lastly, we couldn’t be more excited to announce that #WPC16 will be held in our very own backyard in Toronto! Toronto is one of North America’s most dynamic cities with an exciting blend of traditional and modern international flair – and of course, is Canadian! To get more information or to register today visit https://microsoftpartnernetwork.com.

We love getting your feedback. We hope you can take a few minutes to fill in our post-WPC Survey to make the next one even better! https://www.instant.ly/s/RGRDC

Continue the journey with us at the Cloud Partner Summit coming to a city near you this fall! Keep an eye open for an email invite in your inbox.

I look forward to continuing the momentum. You, our partners, are foundational to our success. Let’s make an impact together.

Jason Brommet

Channel Chief, Microsoft Canada Inc

@jbrommet