Microsoft has long been a partner-centric company and has often led the industry with innovations in its partner programs. The changes to the Microsoft Partner Network effective November 1, 2010, land an evolution of the company's partner program that has been several years in the making. This brief white paper examines some of the implications of the new program |
| Dr. James F. Moor |
For nearly a decade, IDC has been charting the impact of Microsoft and the ecosystem of Microsoft partners and in-house IT professionals on the global economy and discussing what that economic impact means for partners. IDC_Whitepaper.
What Is a Business Ecosystem
Consider the world around us. Dozens of organizations collaborate across industries to bring electricity into our homes. Hundreds of organizations join forces to manufacture and distribute a single personal computer. Thousands of companies coordinate to provide the rich foundation of applications necessary to make a software operating system successful.
Many of these organizations fall outside the traditional value chain of suppliers and distributors that directly contribute to the creation and delivery of a product or service. Your own business ecosystem includes, for example, companies to which you outsource business functions, institutions that provide you with financing, firms that provide the technology needed to carry on your business, and makers of complementary products that are used in conjunction with your own. It even includes competitors and customers, when their actions and feedback affect the development of your own products or processes. The ecosystem also comprises entities like regulatory agencies and media outlets that can have a less immediate, but just as powerful, effect on your business. In March 2004 HBR published the article on business ecosystem.
