Microsoft has made a major change to its partner programme and the criteria by which partners are ranked. On Friday, the 29th October 2010, the new Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) accreditations came into effect, as well as a new partner logo.

The two main changes that took place were that:

• Partners can now earn Gold or Silver Competency accreditation in specific areas of expertise. The previous Gold Partner status simply reflected an overall capability whereas the new approach enables Microsoft partners to more clearly differentiate their business capabilities and areas of specialisation.
• The criteria that need to be met in order to obtain accreditation in the competencies are much more stringent than previously. Microsoft anticipates that only the larger, more skilled and more successful partners will reach the Gold Status in a competency.

Although Microsoft Partners have up to 12 months to meet the new criteria Crimsonwing set itself the challenging objective of achieving Gold Competency status in two competencies by the start of the new programme. Crimsonwing has met this objective by achieving the Gold Competency for Enterprise Resource Planning in both Dynamics NAV and Dynamics AX and also the Gold Competency for Software Development.

The new MPN programme aims to better differentiate the larger, more skilled Microsoft partners and Crimsonwing’s early success in achieving the new, tougher accreditation is testament to its position as a leading Microsoft partner (also see Core Competencies).

Microsoft will be strongly featuring the new Microsoft Partner Network and the competencies in its marketing and communications over the coming months. While the old Microsoft Gold Partner designation will continue to be seen for the next 12 months the new MPN programme represents the leading edge of Microsoft’s relationship with its partners. Crimsonwing is proud to be at the forefront of these changes and that it is able to display the new MPN Logo and Gold Competency status as recognition of its commitment and investment in new Microsoft technologies.

Derek Linney, Solutions Director at Crimsonwing, said "This is the biggest change in Microsoft's partner programme in the last 6 years and represents a major challenge as Microsoft has significantly raised the bar for its partners. We could have waited until the dust settled on the changes and gradually adapted to the new demands of the programme. Instead we decided to commit the resources to meet the demanding, new accreditation criteria from day one. Achieving the Gold Competencies required extra effort from our technical staff, our project managers, our sales people and our administrators. I am very proud of the way everyone worked as a team to achieve the top accreditations."

At Crimsonwing we are also proud to have attained the new Silver Competency accreditations for Web Development, Portals & Collaboration, Data Platform and Learning.

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 Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Info (586.32 kB)