The 15 Minute Guide to:

Microsoft Online Services

 Contents Foreword
2| Dear Partner
Cloud computing
goes mainstream The industry buzz around concepts like cloud computing continues to
grow. Indeed, analysts predict that UK spending on cloud computing
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services will double within the next two years, to over £1.2 billion. This
Microsoft Online Services:
prediction is easily understandable, as amongst its many compelling
The opportunity
customer benefits, cloud computing can lower upfront and ongoing
4| software costs, as well as streamline deployment and management.
Making more with
Microsoft Online Services Given the impressive growth projections, Microsoft® is focused on
delivering solutions for our partners that maximise the cloud
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computing opportunity.
Dynamic Edge:
Ready for the Future For Microsoft partners that have built a business around selling hardware
7| and on-premises software solutions, we now offer an opportunity
the support store: to continue to serve clients with the traditional model, while also
Leading with the cloud beginning to take advantage of additional revenue streams available
via hosted services.
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Useful urls
Flexible delivery options
Microsoft offers three models for delivering solutions – on-premises,
partner-hosted, and Microsoft-hosted – ensuring exceptional choice
and flexibility. Microsoft-hosted solutions are referred to as Microsoft
Online Services, including Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite
(BPOS).

In summary, the three delivery models are:

• On-premises: Software is installed at the customer location and

licensed to the customer in a traditional manner.
• Partner-hosted: The infrastructure and software is owned and
licensed by a Microsoft partner, purchased through a Service
Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA).
• Microsoft-hosted: Microsoft owns the infrastructure and
provisioning of the software, which is delivered as a service to
customers via the Internet.

Within this introductory guide, which is suitable for transactional

partners operating in the small and medium-sized business (SMB)
market, you’ll find explanations of key concepts and advice on how
to get started. Now’s the time to consider your cloud computing
future – and as always, we’re here to help you succeed and thrive.

Simon Gautrey
Cloud Computing Lead
SMS&P, Microsoft UK
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Microsoft Online Services:

The opportunity
Find out how Microsoft Online Services can help your customers
grow revenues while at the same time reducing costs
Businesses face all sorts of external
pressures, caused by changes in
the political, economic, competitive
and technological environment.
Globalisation brings with it the need
for worldwide communication and
collaboration, along with new
competitive and regulatory
challenges. Niche businesses are
competing with established brands,
and as more and more business is
conducted online, security issues
develop from users accessing
company applications and data from
a variety of locations and devices.
While businesses still need to cut
costs wherever possible, there is
a corresponding need to be well
positioned to take advantage of
the future economic upturn.
Remaining competitive and
ready for re-growth demands an
intelligent and agile response to
the current financial pressures.
Opportunities are often created
during periods of hardship or change
– and Microsoft Online Services are
a case in point. Microsoft Online
Services can help your customers
grow revenues and reduce costs.
Help customers grow
revenues and reduce costs
Microsoft Online Services provide
businesses with subscription-
based Microsoft-hosted online
services that offer access to rich
communication, collaboration,
and productivity applications from
anywhere. As well as helping your
customers to reduce costs, these
services help free resources and
enable staff to focus on initiatives
that deliver competitive advantage.
Microsoft Business Productivity
Online Suite (BPOS) provides
reliable, cost-effective, readily
scalable online IT services to
support your customers.
These services include:
• Microsoft Exchange Online
for enterprise messaging.
• Microsoft SharePoint® Online
for intranets and document sharing.
• Microsoft Office
Communications Online
for real-time communication and
presence (instant messaging
and related capabilities).
• Microsoft Office Live™ Meeting
for interactive web conferencing.
Microsoft brings years of
experience and industry-leading
expertise to bear on each
component involved in Microsoft
Online Service delivery: the data
centre, the services infrastructure,
the network, and mobile and
desktop applications. Microsoft
Online Services are designed,
deployed, and operated from the
ground up with efficiency, security,
availability and privacy in mind.

The benefits of Microsoft Online Services

The benefits of Microsoft Online Services for customers include:

• Better control of IT technology investments: customers can buy what they need now
– and partners can generate additional revenue from their value-added services and solutions.

• Simplified software subscription: license management for attractive pricing and a predictable
cost ensures better cash flow management for customers.

• A Microsoft commitment to deliver secure, available, and private online software services, financially
backed by a 99.9 per cent availability service-level agreement (SLA) and certified by third-party audit.

• Increased productivity: robust integration among Microsoft Online Services and with existing
on-premises software, empowers your customers with rich communication and collaboration.

• Access to the latest business productivity software services: as new versions of the software are
released by Microsoft, your customers can start using them immediately with no deployment delay.

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 Making more with Microsoft
Online Services
As the cloud computing market is predicted to explode, how can you increase your
profitability with Microsoft Online Services?
Cloud computing services have
already started to transform the
world – impacting the lives of
individual consumers right through
to the workings of the largest
enterprise organisations and
government entities. Furthermore,
as Yankee Group predicts that
software-as-a-service global sales
will outpace those of traditional
software by 2012, significant
business opportunities exist
for Microsoft partners to utilise
our solutions within a cloud
computing model.
This growth opportunity is expected
to be very significant for partners that
focus on selling hardware, software,
and services to customers with fewer
than 500 seats. In fact, based on
the results of a recent cloud-services
study, it is estimated that partners
that offer total solutions and sell
into the small and medium-sized
business (SMB) customer segment
are expected to account for the
largest portion of channel revenues
in the office-infrastructure, online-
services category through 2012.
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Partners that resell hardware and
software have traditionally realised
one-time revenues for selling these
products. With Microsoft Business
Productivity Online Suite (BPOS),
the potential rewards are attractive.
Attractive rewards
The Microsoft partner that
drives a sale and is designated
by the customer as the ‘partner
of record’ will receive an initial
payment for the customer’s BPOS
subscription. Additionally, the
partner will receive a recurring
revenue stream for supporting
the customer for as long as the
subscription is maintained.
The partner of record will
receive an initial payment that
equates to 12 per cent of the
net purchase price (after any
discounts or promotions are
factored in), plus 6 per cent of
the ongoing subscription fees
paid by the customer.
Incremental services revenue
For partners that already have a
substantial services business, BPOS
also provides an excellent opportunity
to generate incremental revenues,
by offering a variety of value-added,
high-profit services such as:
• Technical consulting:
Partners can now separate the
infrastructure side of managing
collaboration and offer consulting
services to show immediate
business value to the customer.
• Data migration: Nearly all
customers have legacy data
that they want migrated to
the online environment.
Partners can provide project
management and
implementation of this activity.
• Integration services:
Integration of Microsoft and
third-party applications
represents another opportunity
for partners to generate
services revenues.
 CLOUD COMPUTING

• Customisation services: Once you become a Microsoft

 Partners can design applications, How to get started: Online Services Authorised Reseller,
automate services, and you will have access to a huge
customise experiences to help The first step you need to take to range of sales and marketing
customers utilise BPOS to its start building a Microsoft Online materials to help you create and
best advantage. For example, Services business practice, is to become close deals. There is also a range of
you might consider designing a Microsoft Online Services Authorised training options for your technical
automated business processes Reseller, by logging onto: www. and sales staff as well as support
for customers by quickly quickstartonlineservices.com. to help establish your Microsoft
leveraging built-in SharePoint Online Services business practice.
workflows and templates. Long-term success in selling
Alternatively, you could design The benefits of becoming Microsoft Online Services solutions
and implement document-
a Microsoft Online Services and related services will be driven
management systems by utilising by your ability to create ongoing
built-in SharePoint content-
Authorised Reseller
relationships with your customers.
management capabilities, To become a Microsoft Online At stake is the opportunity for you
customising them to the unique Services Authorised Reseller, you to secure continuous, repeatable
needs of your customers. must study for and pass the annuity revenue, and to achieve
• Managed Services: For partners Online Services Advisor Assessment. this your customer relationships
that offer managed services, You also need to review and sign an will need to be effectively managed.
BPOS creates opportunities to Online Services Partner Agreement. Ongoing customer communications,
provide services such as first-tier And that’s it – then once you education, reporting, and business
support, remote desktop start to sell BPOS, you just need reviews are all part of this, and for
management, and even remote to submit some documentation every step of your cloud computing
monitoring and administration (i.e. invoice and bank details) to journey, Microsoft is here to help you.
through third-party platforms. start to receive fees.

Top five characteristics of best-in-class partners offering Microsoft Online Services solutions

1 Trusted-advisor
relationship
By successfully marketing Microsoft Online Services to your customers, you can
further develop your reputation as a trusted advisor. By investing in long-term
customer relationships, you can focus on providing insight and support that
promotes the overall health of their business, including issues such as total cost
of ownership and return on investment. You can also work to ensure that each
deployment is supported and appropriately customised to the customer’s needs.

2 Vendor’s brand
reputation
With Microsoft Online Services, you can leverage the Microsoft brand in
conjunction with your own, boosting customer confidence.

3 Exception
technical
support
While Microsoft includes technical support for IT professionals, best-in-class
partners make support an important part of their business as well. Maintaining
a long-term relationship means ensuring that your customer has the deployment,
integration, customisation, and tiered support they need. If you can’t provide
all of these services directly, you can help your customers acquire them from
other reliable partners.

4 Fast turn around

and delivery
Best-in-class partners focus on the value they can provide in efficiently
delivering BPOS through a combination of shorter implementation cycles
and increased productivity.

5 Unique vertical
knowledge
By understanding the unique issues that customers in a particular vertical
industry face, best-in-class partners are able to advise customers on the best
implementation to help them achieve their business goals.

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 Ready for the Future
Dynamic Edge is a pure cloud computing services consultancy and
explains how it leads with the cloud in all customer conversations.
Established in 2009 in Aberdeen,
Dynamic Edge is a Microsoft
Gold Certified and Small Business
Specialist partner, which positions
itself as a pure cloud computing
services consultancy. Employing
five staff and focused on the
small and medium-sized business
(SMB) market, over 90 per cent
of its clients are benefitting from
Microsoft Business Productivity
Online Suite (BPOS).
“Customers are very receptive
to a cloud computing message”
Managing Director and founder,
Robert Hamilton recalls the
exact moment when the concept
for his consultancy crystallised:
“Back in 2008, it was clear that there
was a fundamental step change
occurring in the IT industry that
made plain to me the opportunity
that the cloud could offer.
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Starting any business requires
bravery but we were confident
that our cloud focus would not only
future-proof our offerings but
provide an early differentiator.”
Dynamic Edge immediately
aligned itself with Microsoft
and became a Microsoft Online
Services Authorised Reseller. The
resources and training provided
by Microsoft enabled Dynamic
Edge to execute its business plan
quickly and helped Hamilton
create the portfolio of services
that the company offers, on top
of selling BPOS.
“We make our money from the
value-added services we provide,
particularly those relating to
migration, support, development
and desktop management.
Our sweet spot in terms of
prospects and customers are
those with 10-150 users. We
always lead with the cloud in
our customer conversations.”
Hamilton reports that customers
are very receptive to a cloud
computing message – particularly
in terms of the cost savings, increased
productivity, security and reliability
benefits. But he also advises that
partners must become trusted
advisors for their customers.
“Microsoft Online Services is
the seed from which you can
grow other opportunities for
your business. When you deliver
cost savings for your customers,
it will build trust – and trust
opens doors. You can capitalise
on that relationship by helping
solve other business challenges
for your customer. For example,
we are doing a lot of SharePoint
development work, which has
greatly boosted our bottom-line
and delivered significant benefits
for our customers.”
“Plan for your future today”
Looking towards the future,
Hamilton is confident, and
bearing in mind the growing
momentum surrounding cloud
computing, is doubly reassured
that the focus of his young
consultancy is apt. For others
considering what their cloud
computing future might be,
Hamilton is unequivocal.
“Don’t get left behind. Cloud
computing is an industry game
changer. At the very least, try to
understand what the opportunity
is and how it might be applied
to your existing business model.
I can guarantee that this will be
time well invested – plan for your
future today,” he concluded.

Leading with the cloud
the support store advises how other Microsoft partners
can develop their cloud computing futures.
Specialising in delivering cost-
effective technical support solutions
to small and medium-sized businesses
(SMBs) based in London and the
South East, the support store is a
Microsoft Gold Certified and Small
Business Specialist partner. Founded
in 2000, it is a Microsoft Online
Services Authorised Reseller and
provides a complete portfolio of
IT operations, security, applications
and maintenance services.
“Cloud computing is
transforming our industry”
A long-term advocate of shared
services, the transition to developing
a cloud computing practice has
been smooth according to
Managing Director, Rod Reed.
“We’re always keen to leverage
any new opportunities and it’s
been very clear for quite a
while that cloud computing is
transforming our industry. We
became a Microsoft Online Services
Authorised Reseller to understand
what we could offer to our
customers and it’s subsequently
changed our operating model.”
That operating model is now firmly
focused on selling Microsoft
Business Productivity Online
Suite (BPOS) as well as a range of
complementary services. By the
end of this year, 50 per cent of
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the support store’s customers
will be using BPOS. For Reed, a
hugely positive spin-off of the
move towards cloud computing
has been the take-up for the
additional services the support
store provides.
“The traditional break-fix model of
the past has always had its limitations
but a move away from it has been
one of the most positive benefits
of our transition to cloud. As a “Use the resources and training
result, the consultancy experience Microsoft provides”
can be much more positive and
Authorised Reseller and encourages
proactive, which ultimately leads
partners to deploy BPOS in their
to stronger customer relationships.”
businesses. Then use the resources
and training Microsoft provides to
For any IT organisation that hasn’t
help you establish your own cloud
yet considered its position on cloud
computing practice. Finally, spend
computing, Reed’s warning is stark.
time developing the value-added
“If you don’t already offer some services you can offer.
type of cloud computing service,
then someone else does – and “Since we’ve moved to the cloud,
you’ll lose out. With BPOS, we’ve been able to pitch for bigger
you can create new customer contracts – and where those
relationships and keep the ones customers required services we
you have. Customers are asking don’t provide, we’ve buddied up
about cloud so you need to be with other partners to secure
able to offer them choice. If you that business. My advice is don’t
don’t, they’ll go somewhere else.” be afraid to network with other
partners so that together you
Reed’s advice for those about can offer a comprehensive set
to embark on their own cloud of services. We’ve done so very
computing journey is concise. successfully with a SharePoint
He firstly advises becoming a expert and it’s working out very
Microsoft Online Services well for both of us,” Reed concludes.
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Check out these resources
to help you decide your
cloud computing future:
www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/cloudandyou
Find out more about cloud computing and the opportunities it presents to your business.

www.quickstartonlineservices.com
Become a Microsoft Online Services Authorised Reseller today.

www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/askpartner
Do you have any product or licensing questions relating to Microsoft Online Services?
If so, you can get help from Ask Partner.
Tel: 0844 800 6006 or e-mail: askpartner@microsoft-contact.co.uk.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed
as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted
to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented
after the date of publication. This guide is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS,
IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.

© 2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.