Читать книгу Gorillas Can Dance - Shameen Prashantham - Страница 12

Microsoft's partnership with a startup called Skelta was one of the early striking examples that I came across of a mutually beneficial partnership that took place even before there was a startup-friendly partnering program – with the emphasis on being more of a partner than a vendor.

In 2004, an early decision made by the founders' of Bangalore-based Skelta was to build its business process management (BPM) software products on Microsoft's .NET platform technology. They were thus betting on Microsoft's user base among enterprise customers that also constituted Skelta's target market. Having attracted a returnee with extensive experience in software product companies, Sanjay Shah, to be the CEO of the new venture, Skelta aggressively pursued a close working relationship with Microsoft's subsidiary in Bangalore.

During 2005, Microsoft India was highly supportive because it felt that Skelta had proved to be a valuable and loyal partner. Skelta was given significant exposure to thought leaders within Microsoft and enhanced Skelta's visibility in Microsoft beyond its India operations. Shah knew that Microsoft managers in India were pleased to have, in Skelta, a good example for internal and external audiences of its efforts to partner with Indian companies. As noted by Rajiv Sodhi, COO of Microsoft India, who was then the Microsoft manager who had been instrumental in fostering the relationship with Skelta under the auspices of the ISV program,

Skelta fostered a very strong link with Microsoft India on multiple levels. They quickly recognized that Microsoft is a big company and will have its own agenda. And so smart people like them very quickly align themselves to this [agenda] because then, they have the whole subsidiary standing behind them. What happens as a result is that it's not a very distant point in time when they start getting elevated to global levels.¹¹

In 2006, Skelta received an award from Microsoft recognizing it as an ISV “making waves.”¹² This reflected Skelta's progress, with support from Sodhi and other Microsoft managers, including one who had moved from the India subsidiary to global headquarters, in building bridges with actors in other parts of the Microsoft ecosystem, including at the corporation's global headquarters. This enabled Skelta to gain go-to-market support from Microsoft in the United States and also led to Skelta's building a partner network comprising other fellow Microsoft partners to act as their resellers in international markets around the world, including in Europe. In all, 80% of Skelta's revenues accrued through international business, with the bulk of this resulting from Skelta's engagement with the Microsoft global ecosystem.

In 2007, a Microsoft conference in Beijing showcased an example of good practice in reaching out to young firms by tailoring the existing ISV apparatus to local conditions. The person behind this, Vaqar Khamisani, was an entrepreneurial Microsoft manager in Pakistan, who had found that promising small enterprises needed rather more structured guidance than the ISV partnering program allowed for. He therefore proactively modified that program into a “journey” of sequenced activities through which small firms could develop technical and market capabilities that would ultimately make them far more effective in leveraging the Microsoft partnership.¹³

What is perhaps most impressive about the Skelta-Microsoft partnership, and the work of managers like Khamisani, is that these occurred prior to the commencement of more systematic partnering efforts that were specifically targeted at startups. When a more structured partner program for startups did emerge, many more Microsoft managers were galvanized into partnering with startups. That initiative was BizSpark, launched in 2008.