Make Sure Your IT Support Covers the Basics
Customers are at the center of everything we do. To give our customers the peace-of-mind of knowing they’re working with Oklahoma’s most trusted and exclusively vetted IT support firm, we’ve maintained multiple Microsoft Gold competencies since joining the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) in 1994.
In fact, we were the first Microsoft Gold Partner for Security Solutions in Oklahoma in 2003, and a Microsoft Rapid Deployment Partner trained at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA for Windows Server and Exchange installation before new releases were publicly available from 2003 – 2011. In 2015, Matrixforce won the Microsoft South Central Partner of the Year award.
Over the years, Microsoft has added and removed competencies that partners can achieve to demonstrate capabilities as technology has progressed. These competencies include new software releases and the wildly popular Microsoft Cloud services. At the end of January 2018 with ongoing MPN evolution, Microsoft will retire another 12 competencies to make room for some new ones that better fit today’s IT support landscape.
If your Microsoft Partner has any of the competencies below they will become irrelevant and unqualified next January.
| Customer Relationship Mgmt | Midmarket Solution Provider | Identity and Access |
| Digital Advertising | Software Asset Management | Learning |
| Hosting | Devices and Deployment | OEM |
| Intelligent Systems | Distributor | Volume Licensing |
Windows and Devices Competency
One of the new competencies is the Microsoft Gold Windows and Devices competency, which Matrixforce has already attained, demonstrating a “best-in-class” ability to meet our customers evolving needs in today’s world. So customers can be rest assured that we are experts in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, we earned this Gold competency by meeting the following requirements:
- Trained four engineers that passed two exams and two assessments each
- Submitted five customer references of at least 100 users each
- Maintained at least $500,000 yearly revenue in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 sales
Windows 10
Windows 10, as the most secure Microsoft OS ever, is seeing great momentum with customers from small and midsized businesses to large enterprises, and is on track to have over a billion users. One of the cornerstones of the Secure Product Enterprise, Windows 10 plays a key role in helping customers meet the security and compliance challenges they face today. Partners with the Windows and Devices competency can promote themselves to as expert in helping customers benefit from the advanced security options only available in Windows 10.
In addition, the Windows and Devices competency enables our support staff to showcase their specialization in providing advice and services to help customers make the most of their Windows 10 hardware investments. We’ve supported Windows 10 internally since available and have deployed over 2,000 seats to customers with advanced features like Bitlocker drive encryption and Azure multifactor authentication.
Windows Server 2016
The hybrid cloud offers IT organizations opportunities to flourish under a new model that delivers faster time to value and innovation. Many organizations, however, face strict compliance or business requirements. For organizations that need it all—security, efficiency, and innovation—Windows Server 2016 delivers it. Windows Server 2016 is the cloud-ready operating system that supports your current workloads while introducing new technologies that make it easy to transition to cloud computing when you are ready.
Windows Server 2016 includes built-in breach resistance to help thwart attacks on your systems and meet compliance goals. Even if someone finds a way into your environment, the layers of security built into Windows Server 2016 limit the damage they can cause and help detect suspicious activity.
Two Very Important Things to Know
One very important thing to remember is that partners without the Windows and Devices competency will not be qualified in Windows 10 on the desktop and have no internal use access to Windows Server 2016 Datacenter for Hyper-V virtualization and other advanced server features.
Second, very soon all partners will be required to become a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider to sell Microsoft software return to a partner led model due to the popularity of hybrid cloud like Office 365. Alternatively, current resellers that cannot meet the security and privacy requirements may resell software indirectly through a distributor that will own the customer relationship.
Special Offer
Whether you’re happy with your current provider or not, arm yourself with these questions to avoid expensive downtime, potential data loss, damaged reputation, and compliance penalties.
