Introducing you new SBSC Partner Area Leads for 2009/2010

It is with great pleasure that I can announce the two *new* SBSC Partner Area Leads (PALs) for the UK - Andy Trish of NCI Technologies and Steve Wright of BMS Digital Solutions Ltd. The usual PAL term is 12 months and with this in mind, Andy and Steve's roles will commence in July 2009 (at WPC) and will conclude in June 2010. I am sure neither of these two individuals are complete strangers to the majority of you as they have been active participants in the SBSC, but without further ado, please let me officially introduce them to you...

Andy Trish

Andy is the founding director of NCI Technologies, a Microsoft Gold Partner and SBSC Partner based in Cornwall, UK.  Starting the company with a credit card, NCI has grown rapidly in just 5 years to 22 staff basing itself around supporting and maintaining SMEs’ on Small Business Server.  He is passionate not only about improving the skills of the SBSC Community as a whole but also developing the product range to ensure SME’s can make the most out of it.

Awarded SBS MVP for 2009 Andy is continually discussing technical and business development issues with the SBS product teams and is keen to hear of any problems or suggestions members of the community may have.

Steve Wright

Many of you may know Steve from the Midlands SBS User Group, which he took over the leadership for last year. In Steve's own words, here's a little bit about himself:

"For the past 16 years I have run an IT Managed Services consultancy in the East Midlands. We specialise in Microsoft Small Business Server & the technologies required that enable us to offer professional, repeatable solutions to the SME market. We are a Microsoft Small Business Specialist as well as a Certified Partner and a member of the Midlands SBS User Group. I hold an HNC in Electro-mechanical Engineering, am a Microsoft MCP and the author of Instant HTML - A Programmer’s Reference published by Wrox Press. When I’m not messing around with computers you can find me on my narrowboat travelling the English canals."

Microsoft is really looking forward to working with Andy and Steve to service the small business specialist community in our new financial year. For more information on the PAL role, see the PAL Nomination Process blog post.

With the appointment of our new PALs, this is also an opportune moment to thank our current PALs,Vijay Riyait and Gareth Brown, for all the hard work and efforts they have put into their roles as a PAL's for the UK over the past 2 years. It is fair to say that both Vijay and Gareth approached the role of PAL in slightly different ways and provided feedback to Microsoft on an ongoing basis regarding all matters SBSC. Microsoft has valued their input tremendously and we hope that the wider community has felt the benefits of their engagement too.

Finally, now is also a good opportunity to thank all of the partners who put themselves forward for the new SBSC PAL roles for the UK. The caliber of nominees was extremely high and this made the decision very hard indeed. I hope you will all find Andy and Steve worthy PALs and I am confident that they will bring great value to the community, as well as be good representatives of the UK SBSC partner channel when engaging with the SBSC programme leads at Corporate in their quarterly conference calls. Following their visit to WPC in July, we will to sit down with Andy and Steve to understand what they want to do for the UK SBSC channel in their role as PAL and we will then aim to share their plans with the wider community as appropriate... so stay tuned!