Customers perceive the cloud as a way to increase time to value. They’re looking to roll out the solution faster, often through proof-of-concept deployments to quickly ascertain the impact it can have on their business and then expand the footprint over time. This session covers selling strategies that enable you to deliver on that promise by employing selling tips and tricks as well as Microsoft resources such as the Business Value Planning Services (BVPS) program to drive prospects from trial to subscription in 30 days or less. The net result for you is a lower cost of sale and a more productive sales team.

There has never been a better time to be a Microsoft distributor. Never has Microsoft had such a compelling set of products and services to meet market demand. This keynote highlights the investments, strategies and business priorities that Microsoft is pursuing in FY12 to elevate the effectiveness of distributors to meet this demand.

Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner recapped the collective progress of Microsoft and its partners over the past fiscal year, and set the strategic priorities for the current one. “It’s great to have made more than a year’s worth of progress in a year’s time,” he said, “and we’re going to double down and do it again.” Turner highlighted specific competitive dynamics and the huge potential in getting customers to the newest versions of the company’s software and services, preparing them for the cloud. “Our future is a unified ecosystem, enhanced by Microsoft Cloud Services.”

If you have a development practice or you are an ISV and you create complex solutions for customers, you need a number of middleware capabilities at your disposal. BizTalk Server has been at the center of Microsoft’s Middleware platform for a number of years, to provide many of these capabilities. AppFabric, both on-premise and on Windows Azure provides additional capabilities as well as some overlapping ones. So what is the strategy here, what is Microsoft up to long term and short term? How will this affect solutions you create and what opportunities will it create for your company? In this session, you will get the answers to these questions.

The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference announced, during the July 13 Vision keynotes at WPC 2011, that the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference will hold it’s 2012 event in Toronto, Canada.

What is a cloud platform anyway? What’s the real difference between Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS)? And how does the Windows Azure stack up against alternatives such as Amazon Web Services, Google AppEngine and the rest? In this presentation, David Chappell will examine these questions and then lead a discussion on these important topics, with the goal of providing a useful and accurate perspective on cloud platforms today.

This video montage offers snippets of the many spectacular sights and sounds of WPC 2011, as well as highlights of the major keynotes. See why this annual event helps Microsoft and its partners to better collaborate and succeed, and why this year’s attendees left Los Angeles inspired to win. 3:01

Windows Phone 7 application developers go head-to-head.

Each year’s WPC begins with the ‘Day of Giving’ event—a chance for Microsoft and its partners to join together to celebrate community and the spirit of giving. 2011 was no different, as volunteers hosted carnival-style festivities in Los Angeles’ Gilbert Lindsay Park, and raised money for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Magic Johnson Foundation. 1:11

This inspiring video offers a look at some of the South African partners who—as a result of the Microsoft Equity Equivalent program—are growing, positively impacting their troubled local economy, and striving for global success. 3:22

This brief video offers a concise answer to the question, ‘Why partner with Microsoft?’, in the words of partners themselves. 1:34

Microsoft partner Dynavox is doing exciting and important work, creating technology-based solutions which enable the speech-impaired to communicate and connect with the world. 2:47

NewsGator Technologies is partnering with Microsoft—and leveraging key offerings such as Office 365 and Azure—to provide leading-edge enterprise social computing solutions. Watch this video to find out why they’re committed to the cloud, and how partnership with Microsoft ensures their advantage over the competition. 2:18

In the debut of MPN Live—a streaming roundtable talk show broadcast live from WPC 2011 in Los Angeles—a group of partners gathered to discuss the shift toward cloud solutions, the importance of mobile applications, and other hot topics from the Day 1 keynote speeches.

Wrapping up an exciting and successful conference, the final installment of MPN Live focuses on key takeaways for partners. Check out this video for an in-depth discussion—including insightful comparisons to WPC 2010, and why partners are leaving L.A. feeling optimistic about their Microsoft business.

In the Day 3 discussion on MPN Live, partners reacted to the day’s keynotes, and offered predictions for what these announcements will mean for partner business in the coming year. Subjects covered include the move to the cloud, plans to invest more in partners, new competency changes, and Microsoft’s strategy for beating the competition.

This session will discuss the growth opportunity for partners to deploy Microsoft Office 365 for customers worldwide, and highlight the important role partners will play in achieving our planned aggressive growth objectives. We will discuss Microsoft Premier Deployment (MPD), and highlight the investments MPD is making to enable partners to deploy Microsoft Office 365 including deployment guidance, training, and support. Learn how to engage MPD support during your engagements and how to become a recommended deployment partner. We will also provide an update on the channel incentives for different partner programs for Microsoft Office 365.

Learn the latest Software Asset Management (SAM) engagement type from Microsoft: SAM Deployment Planning. Listen to other Gold SAM-competency partners about how they used the new engagement to make the business case for deploying Microsoft technologies, such as System Center, MDOP AIS, MAP and Windows Intune. Come hear about how they navigated each stage of the engagement and avoided costly pitfalls while supporting key SAM objectives, including metering, inventory and control. Learn about the SAM Incentive program launching in October 2011, and how to take full advantage of engagements that enable you to deliver real value to your customers year after year.