Microsoft Cloud Midsize Customer - Partner Discussion Guide
PURPOSE
This discussion guide aims to help partners engage with midsize customers (25-250 PCs) to effectively position Microsoft as
the right choice to simplify IT, save money, and support growth
through a modern server infrastructure and virtualization.
CUSTOMER TARGETS







25-250 Windows PCs and 5-50 Windows Servers
1-5 IT “generalists” running company IT
May have considerable legacy software and systems.
Processes and procedures not clearly defined.
May have some IT policies, but only at a high level.
Likely to have some budget for IT.
Many are guarded about allowing outside vendors to
access their systems due to trust and complexity.
PRODUCTS
Microsoft products for mid-size companies are Windows®
Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-VTM virtualization technology and System
Center Essentials 2010, an IT management solution.
BUSINESS BACKGROUND
Over the past five years, many mid-sized companies (25-250
PCs) were required to make do with aging systems,
infrastructure, and processes. As the economy improves,
business executives seek strategies to simplify IT, save money,
and grow the business. They also need to migrate away from old
technologies; enhance IT infrastructure; and control IT costs. Per
Microsoft study, nearly 72% of mid-sized companies run
Windows Server 2003, and some run Windows Server 2000.
SELLING TO MIDSIZE BUSINESSES
Microsoft Elevator Pitch
Microsoft and its partners make it easy for midsize companies to
simplify IT through a unified virtualization and systems
management solution built on the cost-effective and flexible
Windows® Server 2008 R2 operating system with Hyper-VTM and
System Center Essentials 2010. This combination is designed to
help you get the most out of existing resources, ensure secure
availability, and reduce the overall complexity of your virtual and
physical IT environment so that you can focus on what matters
most: growing your business.
Our Selling Proposition
 Use tools like MAP to assess customers’ environments and
recommend that they upgrade their aging servers.
 Built-in virtualization frees up budget to apply to systems
management through System Center Essentials or
investments like SQL Server, SharePoint, Dynamics, or
Windows 7 upgrades.
 With SCE 2010, customers can manage physical and virtual
systems, and configure and manage desktops.
Key Differentiators
 Lower cost of acquisition and ongoing operation
 Built-in features like virtualization and fault tolerance
 Optimize physical and virtual infrastructure
 Simplicity, ease-of-use that reduces deployment and
administrative costs
 Single integrated solution that negates the need for
multiple products and manual processes
DRIVING THE CONVERSATION
In this section, we describe a customer need, the Microsoft
answer, benefits specific to the challenge, customer evidence,
conversation starting points, and tips on handling objections.
Customer Need: Simplify IT
Make it easier for my company to simplify the way we manage
and benefit from our IT investments so we’re spending less time
keeping the lights on and more time advancing the business.
The Microsoft answer
Microsoft and its partners can provide you with products and
services that greatly simplify IT through built-in virtualization,
centralized IT management and monitoring, and high availability.
Benefits
 Built-in virtualization allows you to reduce and
consolidate the number of physical servers. Free
virtualization means more money for other business needs.
 Centralized IT management and monitoring through
System Center Essentials 2010 take the guesswork out of
ensuring that your systems are running at their best.
 Security and high availability are designed into
everything we build to ensure your systems are compliant
and your business always up and running.
 Branch office support has never been easier, through new
technologies that allow improved management and
connectivity to the branch.
System Center Essentials 2010. “Previously, someone would
come into my office and ask for new servers to support a project.
It would take us a week or two to deliver that. But with Hyper-V,
I can say, ‘Sure. Give me 20 minutes,’ ” says Josh Howell, TOTE
System Administrator.
Case Study
Conversation starters
 How many applications and servers do you own? How old
on average are they?
 Do you have remote offices or branches? How do you
support those locations?
 What are you doing with virtualization today?
Objection handling
Objection: My current solution works fine. Why would I spend
more to modernize my IT environment?
Response: Excessive and outdated IT infrastructure can be
inefficient to run and more expensive to maintain. By
modernizing and standardizing your IT infrastructure, you can
reduce operational costs and enhance efficiencies, leading to
increased business agility, scalability to accommodate business
growth, improved employee productivity, and the flexibility to
take advantage of the cloud in the future.
Objection: Why do I need virtualization? I only have a few servers
and they are meeting my needs.
Response: With virtualization, you can increase business capacity
at a lower cost, reduce energy costs, and have an IT platform
that can easily scale as business needs evolve. Virtualization and
management solutions allow you to consolidate your desktops
and servers and manage everything from a single console.
Disaster recovery features reduce time lost to routine IT
administrative functions or unanticipated outages.
Customer Need: Save Money
We’re always looking for ways to save money on IT. Help us
identify ways to reduce costs while getting more from our IT
investments.
The Microsoft answer
Microsoft focuses on helping customers reduce IT costs. With
recent product advancements and licensing options, we give you
more ways to drive down costs without sacrificing performance.
Evidence
Totem Ocean Trailer (TOTE), a freight and cargo shipping
company, deployed Windows® Server 2008 with Hyper-VTM and
PAGE 1
Microsoft Cloud Midsize Customer - Partner Discussion Guide
Benefits
 Reduce capital and operating costs through server
consolidation, energy efficient hardware, and many built-in
features that would cost extra elsewhere.
 Reduce licensing costs (compared to several competitors)
when upgrading and expanding your systems.
 Improve IT productivity so that you get the most out of
your existing resources and can scale and grow your
business without having to make big investments in IT.
Evidence
After trying server virtualization with VMware, the Liverpool
Institute for Performing Arts in the United Kingdom moved to a
Microsoft virtualization solution and increased overall IT
productivity by 100 percent. “It was clear that Microsoft and
Hyper-VTM were offering the best value for the money,” says Ben
Faulkner, LIPA’s Information Communication Technology Officer.
Case Study
Conversation starters
 How confident are you that you are currently utilizing the
full potential of your servers?
 How efficient do you think your IT environment is today?
 How many people help support IT?
 How much time do you or they spend managing and
maintaining your systems?
Objection handling
Objection: Why should I use Microsoft solutions for
virtualization?
Response: Microsoft virtualization can give you a cost-effective,
easy-to-manage solution to help drive down the cost of doing
business—offering an immediate return on a relatively small
investment and extending your current hardware investments.
Live migration and clustering are included at no cost.
Objection: Why would I choose the more expensive Windows
Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition over the Standard Edition?
Response: Purchasing the Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
Edition provides better scalability and the ability to run virtual
operating system instances. It also requires less server
management, monitoring, and patch management.
Customer Need: Grow my Business
I want IT to be the catalyst to growing our business. Show me
how we can translate our technology investments into real
business value.
The Microsoft answer
Microsoft can help you channel your energy into creating an
agile business through innovative new capabilities and an
approach designed to simplify technology.
Benefits
 Create an agile business through repeatable processes
and reusable IT assets.
 Be confident about business continuity, knowing that
Microsoft products and services are designed to scale and
are highly available.
 Grow your business without the stress of costly, ongoing
upgrades or expensive consultants needed to operate or
upgrade existing business systems.
Evidence
Latvia petroleum marketer LUKoil Baltija R had nine aging
servers. Windows Server 2008 R2 allowed the company to
reduce hardware and software licensing costs, increase system
uptime, and decrease data center administration time by 13%.
“Server virtualization would allow our existing workloads to be
consolidated onto a smaller number of machines, while leaving
room for growth,” says Jurijs Vasilevics, CIO at LUKoil Baltija R.
Case Study
Conversation starters
 What are your two biggest business priorities?
 How would you like IT to support your business needs?
 Have you thought about what the cloud may mean for your
business?
Objection handling
Objection: My company doesn’t currently see a need for these
additional management products. How will they benefit us?
Response: With System Center Essentials, you can manage all
computers and servers in your business from a single console
while also benefiting from the latest built-in tools that have been
designed to make desktop and server management easier.
Objection: We can’t just hire more IT staff to handle. How can I
grow while keeping the same resources?
Response: This is exactly Microsoft’s strategy to give you the
tools you need to allow your existing staff and resources to be
more effective – spend less time walking around fixing things
and more time supporting new business opportunities.
VMWARE COMPETITIVE POSITIONING
Strategy
The VMware division of EMC delivers management products in:
server consolidation and infrastructure optimization; business
continuity and disaster recovery; and virtual lab automation.
Strengths
 The market leader in virtualization
 High customer satisfaction
 Large installed base of 130,000 enterprise customers,
including 100% of Fortune 100 organizations
 Growing sales presence in the midmarket
 Major technology and integration partnerships
Weaknesses
 More limited range of system management products than
Dell, HP, IBM
 In practice, VMware is used mainly to virtualize Windows
server applications, not Linux or Solaris or other Unix
flavors, even though it can virtualize these environments
 VMware does not have the capability to manage physical
environments – even with EMC management products
 The cloud OS appears to be little more than a positioning
exercise, rather than a suite of new products
 Little/no integration of EMC and VMware sales forces
 VMware’s Essentials and Essentials Plus cost more than
double Microsoft’s SCE 2010 and SCE Plus 2010,
respectively.
Compete Resource
Cost Advantage Compete Site
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Microsoft Virtualization External Site
Microsoft Partner Virtualization Opportunities
Partner Windows Server Site
Partner System Center Essentials Site
PAGE 2