Michael Haines, General Manager of US Partner and Channel Strategy, recently sat down for a Q&A session with Amazon Consulting's President & CEO, Diane Krakora on the topic of Partner-to-Partner Networking...below is the transcription of the session.

DK: Why is Microsoft interested in developing a P2P network?

MH: First and foremost, because we want to enable our partners to build the solutions necessary to address the requirements of the customer. Secondly, we realize that partners are trying to achieve a growth objective and capture new business opportunities and don’t always have all the “pieces & parts.” Partners can address this in multiple ways. They can build what the customer needs- which is expensive, or partner. Also, partners want to increase their reach into new verticals, market segments and geographies and understanding the “power of partnering” and getting good at collaborating with other partners is the way to do that. In the end we are trying to help partners grow their capabilities and grow their business as part of their overall growth strategy.

DK: What do you see as Microsoft’s role in the network?

MH: I think all of us struggle with this. At the end of the day we realize its all about the partner so we see our role as an enabler. The fact is we have the resources to help provide tools, programs and examples of best practices in terms of frameworks and models that they can use to collaborate more effectively along the solution lifecycle. So I think our role is to work with our partners to define what they need from us, how we best help to enable them more effectively and then get out of the way and let them go do business.

DK: What P2P initiatives and activities is Microsoft engaged in?

MH: That could take up a call in itself so I’ll shoot for brevity. First at the broader programmatic level, we have some online tools that enable a number of different things like Channel Builder and Solution Finder. Channel Builder is an online model where partners can identify each other, search for partners in other regions with other capabilities and link to them. Solution Finder is a tool that is used with customers and partners where partners can document their solutions so that other partners or customers can find them. We also leverage a lot of our meetings, worldwide and regionally, to have sessions around relationship building and collaboration. We are also doing a lot of locally based activities so that partners can build relationships and get to know each others competencies and cultures and build a true partnership, not just alliance around a deal. We’re building new programs all the time so that those activities are consistent across geographies.

DK: What success have you seen and what challenges have you experienced?

MH: In our partner portal there are a lot of examples of key ISV partners and key SI partners creating vertical solutions. Another area is our Dynamics Partners, those focused on areas like ERP, CRM and Finance, with our more classic infrastructure and implementation partners work together to develop really unique solutions and go after worldwide markets. We often highlight these in our WW Partner Conference as well. The success stories go on. As far as challenges, the biggest is trying to make sure you’re not trying to boil the ocean. You can’t be all things to all partners so you have to focus your efforts and identify which partners are really interested in collaboration, from a culture and business strategy perspective, and make sure you invest your efforts there.

DK: If you had it do over again, what would you do differently?

MH: I would say start sooner. The truth is that P2P collaboration is an idea that has been on the radar for a long time. I remember talking about this 4-5 years ago when I was at Gartner. And a lot of vendors have had partner locators and solution builders for a long time. But a more robust solution lifecycle approach to the issue has only recently come about. If vendors could have come to that point faster we would be even further down the road then we are. So starting sooner, moving faster would have been the main thing I would change- not our approach or our focus. At Microsoft our research tells us we are focused on the right things but we need to move fast because our partner community is moving fast.

To view the replay of this Q&A session, click here.