Microsoft Gold Partner Status – How Much Does It Matter?
December 16, 2016 11:30 am Microsoft offers a huge range of products, from the ubiquitous Office suite through to full business management solutions and this requires a large number of Partners. There are some 10,000 and of course they vary in line with the products they are accredited to sell. There are three Partner levels- Registered Partner
- Certified Partner (Silver)
- Gold Certified Partner
Dynamics NAV Partners – the history
TVision Technology has a long involvement with Dynamics NAV that goes back to when it was the Danish solution Navision. Our expertise in Navision was recognised by our accreditation as a Navision Solution Centre. At the same time, and like many technology and IT companies, we were also a Registered Microsoft Partner. Microsoft acquired Navision in 2002, rebranded it Dynamics NAV and added it to its growing suite of business management solutions. Microsoft extended its existing Partner program to include the Dynamics area. Two legacy terms were also brought into partner terminology. ‘Classic’ Partners supplied products through licensing such as Office and Server Products. The term ‘Business’ Partner was used to differentiate companies that supply the complete range of business services based around one or more of the Dynamics products. The Navision Solution Centre accreditation became translated into Microsoft Certified Partner with Business Solutions Competency. When Microsoft first acquired Navision, being ‘only’ a Certified Partner was not seen by clients as an important factor in choosing a Partner but as time has passed being ‘Gold’ is now seen as being a ‘very good thing’ by prospects. Once a Partner company reaches a certain size, it is now damaging not to be a Gold Certified Partner due to the risk of not being considered a credible and competent supplier. To us at TVision, being a Microsoft Gold Partner means we are considered worthy of further evaluation by prospective clients. But what does the Gold Partner system of accreditation really mean to our prospective clients?Microsoft Gold Partner Accreditation – Its Limitations
Microsoft award Partners points that are gained across a range of criteria including- Competencies (such as specialism in a Dynamics product, Business Intelligence, Network design etc),
- number of Microsoft Certified Professionals
- Customer References
- Sales Performance.