MS to integrate OEM & volume licensing div

Microsoft is said to be in the process of integrating its OEM and volume
licensing division under an initiative called 'Symphony', where sales executives
of the company and partners, who were selling either OEM or volume licensing,
would be able to deal with both.

The announcement is expected to be made by Microsoft soon . The company has
already started conveying the information to its sales executives in both the
divisions and among major distributors.

Earlier, there was much confusion within the channels as executives from both
divisions used to market their product, whereas the channels were lacking a
clarity on who should deal with which product. It often led to a series of
problems and in some cases the legality of the licenses was also brought under
scrutiny. With this integration process, Microsoft's sales executives are
expected to deal with both OEM as well as the volume licensing products, and
this accounts for few distributive partners also, who were distributing or
dealing exclusively for OEM or volume licensing.

The channels feel that this integration would bring an end to the internal
competition within both the teams of Microsoft. “In one way, this is a major
advantage for the channels, as they would be interacting with a single sales
team and the confusions will be limited,” opined S Karthikeyan, CEO, Bloom
Computers, Coimbatore.

However, he expressed that it was not clear whether any dealer or distributor
would be allowed to deal with both the OEM as well as paper licenses; he claimed
that it will take sometime for the company to communicate more information to
partners.

Even Devesh Agarwal, President, Infotech Software Dealers Association (ISODA)
said that the association is awaiting more clarity from Microsoft. “I am aware
about the integration only in my capacity as the President of ISODA.However, as
a software dealer, I am still awaiting for some proper communication. I feel
that combining both the divisions would bring in more confusion to the channels,
as each one is dealing with different products and they need more training from
Microsoft to deal with both licenses,” Agarwal claimed.

Pointing out that there is no legal presence of Microsoft in India, Alok
Gupta, CEO, Softmart, Delhi said that the integration is more of a cosmetic
change for Microsoft, which doesn't make any change in the way business is
carried out by the channels.

He further said that it could be in a way detrimental to the business. “When
there were two businesses, there was competition that existed between the two
divisions to sell, which was healthy for channel partners. Now with the
integration, it would again become a situation which would be beneficial for the
vendor but not for the channel,” Gupta said.

On the other hand, PN Prasad, President, Confed-ITA said that the integration
would reduce the number of conflicts between the channel and the sales team of
Microsoft. “There used to be lots of conflicts between the two divisions of
Microsoft and the channels team, and their sales strategies have always been
unclear. However, after this integration there will be one point of contact in
Microsoft, which should reduce the conflicts to a greater extent,” said Prasad.

A comment from Microsoft on the integration process was awaited at the time
of going to press.