This morning while I was browsing my RSS feeds, I noticed that Graham was talking about about his free training paid for by IBM and the fact that there is more to IBM partnership than just software margins. You get training, referrals, higher margins and a real business relationship.
This brings me to another blogger’s post about not being able to generate enough revenue from IBM SMB software licenses, when compared to Microsoft SMB licenses. My question to him would be that has he looked into all of his SMB options from IBM? At Lotus Foundations, our pricing is less expensive, more affordable than the competition with lower cost of ownership – and we do offer a better partnership program for our VARs. (I can’t go specific into the details, you would need to contact the Business Development Managers yourself! *hint*)
So, in the end, you end up making more as a VAR and your customer is happier because the total solution is ‘better’ and more cost efficient. And yes, we don’t believe in Patch Tuesdays either. More time for you to focus on the business and your customer to not worry about his IT network being down again and again.