ISV Competency Partners left behind for Office 12 Beta

As I was renewing our partnership with Microsoft, I took a look at the "Benefits" provided to various Microsoft Competencies. To my surprise, I found that only the Information Worker Competency will be privileged enough to recieve the Office 12 Beta.

Frankly I am surprised, most ISV's develop solutions to leverage Microsoft's products. Product development of line of business applications certainly comes before implementation skills - which are the requirements for the Information Worker Competency.

Is there some reason that ISVs, who certainly need time to develop and test application extensions for Microsoft Office 12 products do not qualify for the Office 12 Beta

Is there any way that the ISV group/buddies, MS representatives, or anyone ( ) can obtain permission for ISV Group to be included in the Office 12 Beta

If you can't do it for the ISV Group - can you assist our company personally to participate in the Office 12 Beta

Thank you. KristiLM

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ISV Competency Partners left behind for Office 12 Beta

Mike Piska
Hi Kristi,

I have some additional information from you from the product team.

All partners will get access to Beta 2 around March. As the criteria for receiving Beta 1 was published at the world wide partner conference several months ago and has been featured in many of the newsletters and portals, we cannot change that criteria to allow other partners to join Beta 1.

You will still be able to access the beta code with time before we launch the product as well as many new resources designed for ISVs.

-brenda (ISV Buddy Team)
pwu123
Hi Kristi,

I spoke with the team that manages the Office12 Beta program and learned the following:

The current allocation for partners in beta one is limited and as such we have gone out to our most engaged partners offering IW competent partners the first bite at the apple. Having said that, competency is not the only way an ISV can get into beta 1, we are also including partners with active solutions in the Office System Solutions Directory as our second source.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

So in summary, if you would like to be involved, you can gain access via one of these options:
1. Become IW competent - you can do this via MSPP (http://partner.microsoft.com) and visit the IW competency, we just extended the Office 12 challenge through December 31.
2. Profile your solution at http://www.iwsolve.com
If you work with a local Microsoft field office, they might also be able to nominate you, but they have their own guidelines that they need to follow. That said, it still might be worth asking if you already have a relationship with a field office.

I hope that you'll be able to take advantage of one of these options.
-brenda (ISV Buddy Team)

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nelusan
Brenda,

Thank you for the response, we are looking at the possiblity of becoming IW competent, and I did look at your other alternative - profiling our solution at http://www.iwsolve.com.

Unfortunately you can't profile a solution unless you have the IW competency. So the options are basically the same.

I am researching options at the local MS field office as well.

My disappointment still is that ISVs need to develop to upcoming releases and are, for whatever reason, not included in the Beta. Can the ISV group request this for future beta programs Or is this something ISVs are not interested. I guess I'm wondering if we did our MS qualification with the wrong group...

Kristi
sybakc
Kristi, someone here was interested to know which company you're with. If you'd like to share that information with them, just email me directly at budsup@microsoft.com.

thanks,
-brenda (ISV Buddy Team)
ISV Competency Partners left behind for Office 12 Beta

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